How to Reach Millennials in the Marketplace

I recently witnessed a childhood friend's journey of purchasing her first home on Facebook. She posted links to homes she was interested in, and her friends oohed and aahed and offered their opinions on each property.

What impressed me, however, was my friend's Realtor. She was quick to respond to my friend's Facebook posts with an offer to show them the home or with a bit more information on the property. While I'm sure this was useful to my friend, I'm sure that this activity greatly benefited the agent, too. Think about it--each helpful response was seen by my friend's network of several hundred mostly local individuals. That's a ton of free exposure for the agent!

Like most of my friends, this acquaintance and her husband are millennials, and her social sharing behavior is not uncommon among members of her generation. Millennials have grown up in a fundamentally different world than their older peers, thanks to the impact of the internet, and that has had a significant effect on their habits.

Millennials use the internet, and particularly social media, to share things with family and friends and to elicit their opinions. Because of this, millennials are generally more collaborative in their decision making process.

For agents, this means that millennials need to be reached and nurtured differently than other buyers and sellers. A strong online presence is a good place to start, and good smartphone game is as well, particularly with an app that clients can use to search for homes on the go.