How Top Real Estate Agents Use Personal Branding and Social Media to Win More Clients

Tyler Mount (00:00)
And so I hear time and time again, well, I hate social. Well, frankly, I don’t really care about your opinion. It’s more about this is the unfortunate reality of the business in which we live time and time again. Scott, how many times have you not gone to a restaurant because the food didn’t look good on Google?

We do it all the time. But the thing that’s important to note here is you probably didn’t pick up the phone and call the taco shop and tell them you weren’t coming because the photos didn’t look good. You simply didn’t show up.

Scott Bursey (02:02)
Welcome back to the real estate pros podcast. I’m your host, Scott Bursey. And today we’re talking about the visual edge in this competitive market and who better to guide us than Tyler Mount, the creative force behind Henry street creative Tyler. Welcome to the show.

Tyler Mount (02:18)
Thanks for having me, Scott. I’m excited to be here.

Scott Bursey (02:20)
It’s wonderful to have you here. And for those of our listeners who may not be familiar with your world, please tell us how your career began and where you’re at now.

Tyler Mount (02:28)
That’s a that is a highly complex question, Scott, but I’m certainly happy to share. So, you know, I grew up in super small town Texas. had dreams of working on Broadway from a very young age. I moved to New York City 13 years ago. I pursued a career on Broadway, was certainly fortunate enough to work on Broadway multiple times. And I think it’s important to note that I got my career in real estate started when I was going to school in Austin and

let’s say 2009. So I’ve always had a love of real estate. for many reasons, I probably don’t have to name here, but like, it’s always been something that I’ve been really, really excited about. So cut to me pursuing Broadway professionally did that for some time. And then I found myself back in real estate development on the corporate side that was in 2020. And as you can imagine, no one

was doing anything in New York City in 2020 because of COVID. And so I had to pivot and I pivoted to starting accidentally a personal brand consultancy firm in 2020, which absolutely and accidentally changed my life. now Henry Street Creative, the company that I founded, now represents some of the most prolific leaders in real estate, specifically focusing on their digital marketing efforts,

both at the corporate level, the brokerage level, and multiple top one, two, and three agents in the majority of US markets and in 14 countries across the world.

Scott Bursey (03:55)
Awesome. Wow. What a nice journey that is. And to start, what is the single biggest visual marketing mistake you see real estate agents continuously make that instantly, I guess, cheapens their brand?

Tyler Mount (04:58)
Well, I think we need to take a step back here, right? Because I think to answer your question, we first have to understand how consumers are finding people’s brands. And they’re historically always doing that via Google, right? Now they’re doing it oftentimes via GPT or another AI search engine. But whenever we actually do get onto Google and type in first name, last name, real estate, or first name, last name, realtor, or first name, last name, city,

There are three or four links that typically populate without question. Number one is going to be a personal website that the agent owns and operates. Number two is if they’re an independent agent, it’s going to be the brokerage template that the brokerage has set up with their headshot on it. Number three is almost always going to be Instagram and number four is typically LinkedIn or realtor.com. And the reason I take a step back to recognize that

is because regardless of your opinion about social media, whether you like it or not, consumers are going to your Instagram profile and making a judgment about if they want to shop with you.

And so I hear time and time again, well, I hate social. Well, frankly, I don’t really care about your opinion. It’s more about this is the unfortunate reality of the business in which we live time and time again. Scott, how many times have you not gone to a restaurant because the food didn’t look good on Google?

We do it all the time. But the thing that’s important to note here is you probably didn’t pick up the phone and call the taco shop and tell them you weren’t coming because the photos didn’t look good. You simply didn’t show up.

And that is a huge issue that I believe most real estate professionals have is the fact that they don’t know they have a problem because no one’s picking up the phone and calling them and telling them they have a problem because why would they but they’re getting looked over. And so the biggest visual

Mistake I find people make is poor taste and poor design prowess across their Instagram Especially because they’re standing in rooms of homes at listing presentations Claiming to be expert marketers and their ability to sell homes are unmatched while their own Online profile looks like a kindergartener made it

Scott Bursey (07:10)
Sometimes, Tyler, you have to take a step back to take two steps forward. That’s a powerful point. And beyond, I guess, know, static images. How crucial is professional video content right now? And what type of video should every agent be focusing on?

Tyler Mount (07:29)
So I have a robust experience working in editorial. I’ve obviously worked on Broadway. I oversaw a department at NBC, Universal for about three years. And the way that people consume content has shifted drastically, especially since the advent of TikTok. So 10 years ago, I would have never told you that you should be shooting content with your cell phone or non-professional content. Now we find that

quote unquote, non-professional content or self-shocked content almost always outperforms highly produced and like expertly executed content. Now there are exceptions to these rules. If you are a real estate agent and you’re showing your new listing that needs to be professionally represented. Why? Because the client expects that. If you are a developer and you’re opening a new development,

You can’t possibly film your hero teaser or your hero video on your iPhone. You need a professional team to do that. But whenever I am on camera talking about and ranting about my love of Target, right? The idea that I need a professional film crew here in order to do that is a misnomer. So the advent of the cell phone, specifically the newer generations of iPhones, have absolutely changed the paradigm in what is acceptable.

online, but most importantly, what people want, which is raw, unfiltered, authentic content that makes me feel like I’m sitting in the room with you versus something that feels highly produced.

Scott Bursey (09:00)
spot on and I’m not going to argue with that. That’s for certain. Tyler, Henry Street creative focuses on more than just listings. You you focus on brand identity. What should an agent invest in a distinct, let’s say cohesive brand look at instead of just focusing on property specific marketing.

Tyler Mount (09:55)
So what I think is important here is to realize that what you do is not special. There are a thousand agents minimum in your market that can write the contract. Okay. So if you think your negotiating skill alone is going to get you a client, you’re mistaken. Okay. What I really want to stress here is that affluent consumers expect

the brands they work with to be a brand. And what I find time and time again, surprisingly, probably 80 % of the time is that my clients are luxury consumers, right? They buy luxury autos, they go to Gucci and buy a purse, right? They have a Birkin bag and they expect a certain level of brand when they enter the store. They expect Gucci to be on the door. They expect

Gucci to give you a real branded Gucci bag that your purse sits in when you leave. They expect the receipt to come from receipts at gucci.com. Yet on the alternative, they are running a business that doesn’t have a business card that matches the website. They are operating on [email protected]. They are writing in Comic Sans font.

None of their listing property tours or collateral looks similar. There is no consistency. And yet they wonder why luxury consumers don’t want to transact with them. And it’s not necessarily intentional. It’s just a palpable feeling. One gives you a boat of confidence like I’ve done this and the other feels like I’m trying to figure this out alongside you. And when you’re working with someone that’s making quite literally almost always the largest purchase of their life or they’re paying you

3 to 6 % of the home’s value to sell it, that is absolutely significant and calls for a brand.

Scott Bursey (11:45)
Once again, spot on. Tyler, this has been on my mind since we booked you. In the world of social media, which visual platforms do you think offer the highest return on investment for real estate professionals today?

Tyler Mount (11:58)
So I get asked a version of this question all the time and it’s highly complex and convoluted, right? Because unfortunately there is no rule book. It’s not a science. are many scientific, there are many scientific aspects of my work, but a lot of it comes down to chance. A lot of it comes down to luck. A lot of it comes down to taste, right? And so overarchingly, I typically find that Instagram is probably the easiest, most generic catchall. Why?

It is a visual medium first and foremost. It is very easy to use. is sister to Facebook where most legacy older agents are most comfortable. And it allows us to work on an indexable platform. Meaning whenever I Google you, your reels, your post and your profile will come up in Google. Okay. Then when we talk about like, where are the best consumers?

Well, we know that the highest household income and the decision makers live on LinkedIn. Okay. Are people engaging on LinkedIn nearly as much as they are across the meta platforms? Of course not. And then if you’re working with an older demographic, okay, let’s say you’re working in the 55 plus community, you’re going to have significantly more success on Facebook because that user demographics skews older. I have a few clients who are in their mid to late twenties and they’re doing the majority of their work on Tik Tok. Why?

because they’re working with founders and tech CEOs who are in their 20s and that is the platform they use. So it’s less about what single platform has the greatest ROI and it’s more about where is my built-in consumer and how can I reach them organically where they’re already consuming.

Scott Bursey (13:34)
down just spectacularly. Tyler, looking forward a year or two, what visual marketing trend perhaps involving 3D mapping, drone footage, or AI do you predict will become standard for high-level agents?

Tyler Mount (14:30)
So I think AI marketing, specifically, renders are already happening in the space. We render with AI all the time. I know drone footage is now commonplace. It’s almost expected in most large-scale development projects. But the thing that I think is going to develop, even more so than it already has,

to spend an hour recording a series of sentences that AI will then leverage to write content for me and create talking head content. So no longer will I have to actually stand up, get out the camera, think of the concepts and do it. There will be a 3D avatar, AI avatar of me that looks like me, that sounds like me, that talks like me, that has my mannerisms, that has my speech cadence that I can write content into.

tell it the tone of voice and it can render it back to me in 20 seconds. I think that is coming sooner than you can imagine. You know, you had Quira, which is now defunct, but now Nano Banana is a very, very popular Google extension that creates state of the art imagery. And so the idea that we’re not gonna have that in video in the very near future, I think would be a misstep.

Scott Bursey (15:44)
I agree. The consumer expectation for immersive pre-visit experiences is only going to grow from here. And Tyler, last question. What is one non-negotiable piece of advice you’d give to real estate pros who are ready to upgrade their visual game and truly stand out?

Tyler Mount (16:04)
So that is a very long answer, but we have time, Scott. I would say you have to look at your brand from air traffic control versus the tarmac, right? And that’s why I’m very good at my job. It’s easy for me to see things that others can’t see because I’m not in the business, right? We hear this time and time again, but…

Scott Bursey (16:08)
Yes.

Tyler Mount (16:26)
Whenever we’re really close to something, sometimes it’s hard to get rid of things that haven’t been serving us. Sometimes it’s hard to have a hard conversation and be like, this isn’t working anymore. And so the first thing that we have to do is give our business a visual audit in terms of if I weren’t me, if I didn’t know how valuable and how great I think I am, would this convey what I want strangers to think about me? And the answer is almost always no.

I just keep using Gucci arbitrarily here, but like if Gucci has it, the number one luxury real estate agent in a market should too, right? Whether it is a branded listing presentation in a custom box, whether it is email addresses that are all consistent across the team, whether it is a CRM that you own and operate and isn’t owned by your brokerage, whether it is a gorgeous state of the art website with a custom hero video at the top.

whether it is a logo and visual identity color palette that will extend across everything you do, including your letterhead and business cards, right? Oftentimes we’re concerned about telling people who we are and what we do, but it’s important to know we don’t get that opportunity to tell them unless they first see us and choose us. And so that is ultimately the biggest thing that I stress to all of my clients. And that in itself,

is ROI generating.

Scott Bursey (17:48)
that very well broken down once again and thank you for that. Is there anything else, any other advice that you would like to share with our listeners here today?

Tyler Mount (17:57)
You know, not necessarily. I just will say that I travel the country. do a lot of keynote speaking, 50 plus a year to real estate agents across the country. And the commanding message that I always share is this idea of authenticity. And it ties today’s conversation up with a beautiful little bow. I’m going back to the fact that what you do isn’t special. There are a million real estate coaches. What I do is not special.

My methodology might be a little unique. Your ability to negotiate might be a little unique. Okay. But if you need a real estate coach, you could find a hundred tomorrow. If I needed a real estate agent in New York city, I could find 10,000 tomorrow who would represent me in the sale. It is about how do I show up online and offline authentically? And that is what’s very difficult because oftentimes authenticity is also accompanied with vulnerability and vulnerability is scary. Isn’t it Scott? And so I’ve learned.

that once we start to realize that no matter who we are, okay, there will always be people that don’t want to work with us because of that. There are men that don’t want to work with women and women that don’t want to work with men and Democrats that don’t want to work with Republicans and Republicans that don’t want to work Democrats. And the list goes on and on and on and on and on. So no matter who you are even trying to fake like you are, there are people on earth who don’t want to work with you because you’re that. Why not show up as you are?

screaming as loudly as you can your authentic self so that your tribe can find you. And that in accompanying and accompanying your personal brand is the key to success in any entrepreneurial task or sales driven career.

Scott Bursey (19:30)
And that is some golden advice. Tyler, if our listeners would like to follow your journey or collaborate with you, what’s the best way for them to reach you?

Tyler Mount (19:40)
Yeah, of course, I’m online everywhere. You can find me at Tyler G Mount. You can find me online for any type of public speaking or consultancy work at tylergmount.com And of course, you can check out my online real estate advisory and agency, henrystreetcreative.com

Scott Bursey (19:57)
And Tyler, thank you so much for being on the show. This was a great conversation. And I know that our listeners are going to find a lot of golden nuggets with your words of wisdom. Thank you so much.

Tyler Mount (20:10)
Thanks so much for having me, Scott.

Scott Bursey (20:11)
And for our listeners, we appreciate you. If you got value from today’s episode, please subscribe. We have more conversations coming up with operators just like Tyler. Until next time, keep your standards high and your vision clear. We’ll see you in the next episode, everyone.