How to Become the “Digital Mayor” of Your Town

As a real estate agent, you need to consider how you can become the “digital mayor of your town.”

The term “digital mayor of your town” was made famous by Gary Vaynerchuk, an online marketing leader, as he spoke at the Inman Connect Conference in the summer of 2016. This concept, applied to your market, can exponentially boost your online marketing results.

Whether you’re already focused on a specific neighborhood or you’re planning to target a specific area in the future, getting a vision for becoming a “digital mayor” is a necessary first step to becoming the go-to real estate agent for your area.

Every mayor has to start somewhere! Become the digital mayor of your town by creating highly-local content, distributing and promoting that content, and engaging with the online community.

What is a “digital mayor”?

In the real world, mayors are political figures who provide local leadership in resolving various administrative, legal, and civic projects. Mayors should also know a lot about their communities. From investing in the success of local businesses to following high school football rivalries to knowing where to unwind, mayors should fully understand the life of their communities.

In order to become more effective digital marketers, agents and brokers must develop this same depth of community knowledge and use it to market their listings and services.

You want potential clients to connect the dots between your knowledge of the area and their desire to buy or sell a home, so it makes sense for you to really know and understand the area. And as you establish yourself in the online space as a reputable, knowledgeable, local market authority, you increase the likelihood for buyers to contact you about moving to the area and for sellers to think of you when it’s time to sell their homes.  

Once you identify a target neighborhood or area, then you can start thinking about how you can own the area digitally. Do some research, really get to know what it’s like to live, work, and play there. And share that information online. Work to establish yourself as a digital mayor: the online, go-to, local information source for prospective home buyers and sellers.

The role of highly-local content

Content creation is part of your job as a digital real estate marketer, and as you work at becoming the digital mayor of your area, you need to create neighborhood or area specific content.

This helps to establish your credibility as a local source for community information while also showing potential buyers what it’s like to live there. The more interesting information you can provide about the area, the better. And remember, not all of your content has to be written. Incorporate video and audio into the mix.

Here are some quick tips from Gary Vaynerchuk, an Inman Connect 2016 keynote speaker:

• Create daily content about the 20-mile radius around the area where you’re selling homes
• Review the establishments in your area (restaurants, coffee shops, etc.)
• Put out a daily piece of content featuring [a local] school
• Interview the individual teachers
• Find the stories tucked away around the neighborhood, and all the iconic things that make your area what it is (and create content that tells those stories!)
• Review every single local shop
• Interview people who have lived in the neighborhood for 50 years