But what if the ticket was free?
That’s exactly how you should look at social media.
Posting on social media doesn’t guarantee you listings, but there’s a small chance it might – and it’s free.
Yes, I know, I know. Organic only reaches a fraction of your followers, but before you discount it, let’s look at it in 2026.
For a start, posting on social media is free. Yep, I already said that, but it’s worth reiterating. And unlike ads, the content you post remains on your profile. It doesn’t disappear when you stop paying.
Secondly, follower count doesn’t matter nearly as much as it used to. No one really knows exactly what’s going on inside those closely guarded algorithms, but Facebook and Instagram are actively showing your content to people who don’t follow you, trying to find people who are interested in what you’re posting.
Instagram even has Trial Reels, where you can explicitly say, “Show this to people who aren’t following me yet.”
And in real estate, you don’t need thousands of followers anyway. You work in a local market, so 500 relevant followers in your area can be worth far more than 5,000 random followers who are never going to list with you. So don’t get distracted by big follower numbers and assume you need thousands for the maths to work.
But ultimately, you have to show up, because if you don’t, the chance of someone seeing you on social media is literally zero. And I’m going to reiterate this yet again: what does it cost you to show up? Nothing.
But if you do show up, and just one person makes a phone call that ends up turning into a listing, then suddenly posting has been absurdly worthwhile.
Speaking of absurd, have you ever lingered a little too long on a dog video, or clicked on something accidentally, and all of a sudden you’re completely flooded with more dog videos?
Well, that’s exactly how the algorithm can work in your favour.
You looked at that dog video, so it decided you like dog videos. Suddenly you’re getting a whole lot more of them. And somewhat ridiculously, half of them have exactly the same plot and dialogue – just with a different dog.
If someone is looking at property in your local area and stops on another agent’s listing, guess what they’re going to start seeing? More property. More listings. More agents.
And one of them could be you. If you’re on social media. And you’re going to be. Because it’s free.
And even if someone doesn’t come across you in their feed, there’s another reason to be there.
If they’re thinking about engaging you, they’re going to check you out. That’s just what we do now. We Google people, look at their website, read their reviews and, yes, check their social profiles.
We rely enormously on social proof to validate people these days. It’s called SOCIAL proof, not advertising proof. And unlike your advertising, your social profile is still sitting there when someone decides to come looking.
And if you’re reading this and wondering whether my social media platform, TREV, might be worth a look, what are you going to do next? You’re probably going to check out our social media.
See? Social proof.
Of course, being seen, followed and checked out is only part of the equation. Ultimately, you want some of those people to make contact and end up in your CRM, where you can talk to them whenever you like.
Social is really just a modern day funnel. Get seen, get followed, get someone interested enough to make contact and get them into your database. Once they’re there, you don’t have to rely on an algorithm deciding whether or not they see you.
So let’s put some numbers around it.
- 365 organic posts × $0 media cost = $0.
- One listing × $10,000 commission = $10,000.
- $10,000 − $0 media cost = $10,000 “profit”.
Okay, your accountant may have some issues with that last equation, but for anyone who likes their marketing jargon, that’s a spectacularly low cost of acquisition.
But who the hell has the time to create and post all this content? And if you have to pay someone to do it for you, suddenly it’s not free anymore.
Well, that conveniently brings me to TREV.
This is sponsored content, I own TREV, and yes, here comes the sales bit.
TREV can do most of this for you.
Okay, so now it’s not completely free. There’s a small monthly cost. But in the sea of things you already pay for to get your name, your listings and your brand in front of potential clients, it’s pretty negligible.
TREV basically takes away the grind. Your listings come in automatically and are turned into branded social content, and for everything else you simply choose the audience you want to talk to and TREV comes up with the ideas and creates branded carousels ready to post. It saves all the uploading, downloading and Canva fiddling, and you can schedule everything in one place.
If you’re an individual agent, you can pretty much just turn it on and stuff happens automatically. If you’re running an office, one person can manage the office social and, if you want, distribute that content through another 10, 20 or 50 agents, automatically personalised for each one, with essentially the same effort.
The economics of social media are pretty hard to argue with. Right now, you have access to an enormous audience that costs you nothing to reach. Why wouldn’t you use it?
I can’t tell you the odds of a post helping you win a listing. But I can tell you the chances if you don’t post anything: zero.
The odds of winning might be slim, so I wouldn’t bet the house on them at the TAB.
But when the ticket’s free, and TREV makes it easy to take a ticket every day, you’d be crazy not to put your hand out for the prize.
See how TREV makes real estate social media easier at therealestatevoice.com.au