Doorify Real Estate Podcast

Real Estate Media Trends Every Agent Should Know with Travis Albritton

• Doorify MLS • Episode 83

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Forget about chasing views or trying to game the algorithm. Content that actually leads to clients looks a lot different — and way more personal — than most agents think.

In this episode, I’m joined by Travis Albritton, content strategist, founder of Honest Podcasts, and a behind-the-scenes force here at Doorify. Travis has helped shape our social strategy, podcast growth, and overall media game, so I knew he’d be the perfect person to talk about what’s actually working in real estate content right now. 

We get into the shift toward more authentic, consistent posting, how to use video without overcomplicating it, and why trends don’t always mean doing what everyone else is doing. We also touch on where things are headed with AI, new platforms, and how to stay focused on what works.

If you want a clear take on what’s working, and what’s not, when it comes to content and media in real estate, this one’s packed with insight. Hit play and get ahead of the curve.

Specifically, this episode highlights the following themes: 

  • Creating original content that builds trust and authority
  • The difference between trend-chasing and consistency
  • How agents can use video content without overthinking it

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Travis Albritton [00:00:00]:
I think one of the key shifts that we've seen, especially with social media, is that it's not just about the number of direct connections that you have that can determine how successful you can be with real estate. It really just comes down to how creative you can be and just putting yourself out there as someone who is trustworthy, relatable and memorable.

Andrea Presnal [00:00:26]:
Travis Albritton launched honest podcast in 2021. Originally a rocket scientist for real, Travis has always had a mind for taking complicated problems and creating simple solutions. From becoming an Amazon best selling author to hosting a podcast that has been downloaded more than 350,000 times in 158 countries, he's learned firsthand what it takes to share a message that resonates and drives people to take massive action. Honest Podcast was founded as a podcast production company dedicated to helping value driven businesses with a heart for helping others diversify their marketing and positioning themselves as thought leaders in their industry. In this episode, Travis will be revealing key content trends and strategies shaping the real estate industry and providing you with actionable strategies to implement them for success. All right, Travis, thank you so much for being on the door Glorify MLS podcast. We are so excited to have you. For our listeners, Travis helps us with so much content creation from our social media strategy, different content ideas for giveaways, to also running and helping us grow our podcast.

Andrea Presnal [00:01:48]:
So I thought it would be fun to have Travis on to talk about the future of real estate media and just kind of pick your brain on all the things media related that our listeners could kind of gain from your knowledge, your wisdom, your knowledge. So thanks Travis for coming on.

Travis Albritton [00:02:11]:
Yeah, I'll try to live up to that excellent billing that you just gave me. We'll see, we'll see at the end if I've lived up to it.

Andrea Presnal [00:02:18]:
Well, I want to kind of talk about the current state of real estate media. So first, from your observation, what are the most significant shifts you've seen in the real estate media consumption over the last couple of years?

Travis Albritton [00:02:36]:
So I think one of the key things that I've seen and as just like a trend, is a move towards more original content and more original branding we'll call it, because traditionally real estate was very much a word of mouth referral game. The more friends you have, the more business that you have. Because when they go to sell or buy a house and they don't know what they're doing, they're like, well, who do I know in my network who's a real estate agent? Right? And that was kind of how you would build your business. And so now with digital platforms that allow you to reach people outside of your immediate network, there's new opportunities to introduce yourself digitally to people that have never met you before and be at the forefront of their mind when they go to discuss, consider who they want to ask to help them with whatever real estate transaction they're trying to make, whether they're trying to buy or sell. And so I think one of the key shifts that we've seen, especially with social media, is that it's not just about the number of direct connections that you have that can determine how successful you can be with real estate. It really just comes down to how creative you can be and just putting yourself out there as someone who is trustworthy, relatable, and memorable.

Andrea Presnal [00:03:45]:
Memorable. Such a keyword. There's so much content out there, and I think people nowadays scroll as tall as the. Is it the Statue of Liberty? So there's just a lot of competition out there. So. I loved what you said, being, like, unique and making more like custom content for your audience. I think that's so crucial to not get lost in the crowd. What do you think? How has the rise of some of the bigger platforms like TikTok and Reels impacted real estate professionals with themselves, but also their listings and how they market?

Travis Albritton [00:04:25]:
So I think the big thing is it's really empowered agents to be their own promoters where you're not having to rely on the brokerage that you work for to promote you or make you available. When you have people coming in through the storefront. Right. That people aren't going to, you know, you know, the, the Keller Williams or what have you store in the shopping center anymore to say, you know, I don't know, anyone assigned somebody to me to help me buy a house or to show me what I'm looking for. And so I think it's really empowered and given individual agents an opportunity to really be their own spokesperson and have their own megaphone. Because the great thing about social media is that you can start from zero, just like everybody else, and you can quickly decide who you want to be, how you want to be known, and who you want to be known as and really shape your differentiation or what makes you different around your own unique skillset. Because I know one of the pushbacks that I get from people that I work with to do social media is like, well, I'm not super outgoing. I'm not a great public speaker.

Travis Albritton [00:05:28]:
Like, I don't know what to say. And, you know, it's kind of like, you Know, choosing a podcast to listen to or choosing a TV show to watch. There's the perfect show for any particular person, but nothing is for everybody. And so there are people that are looking for a more low key, chill, relatable real estate agent, not the hype person that, you know is going up before the DJ set. And so being able to be authentically yourself is going to attract the type of people that want to work with someone like you. And so I think that's one of the other really cool things with social media is that you don't have to be this super polished, put together, you know, professional Persona. You can really be yourself and you'll be different and memorable in that way because there's only, there's only one you in the world.

Andrea Presnal [00:06:13]:
Yeah. What do you think some of the biggest challenges that people face trying to stay ahead of the curve in terms of like media trends.

Travis Albritton [00:06:23]:
There's always the, the yin and yang of social media. There's chasing Trends. So like TikTok is a good example of this where there'll be like a dance or a song that's trending and everyone starts jumping it because there's an opportunity to potentially get picked up by an algorithm and get a lot of exposure, you know, and that is a strategy to kind of chase trends and be on top of things. And that is a full time job in and of itself. Right. So a lot of the creators that are focused on that strategy, their full time job is social media content creation. The other thing you can do is curate content that you can do consistently and that aligns with your strengths. And so if you don't like dancing, you don't have to do dancing on TikTok in order to be successful there, Right? You can just record with your iPhone or whatever phone you have in your pocket and just talk about the things that you're seeing in the market, walk through tours of the homes that you're listing, talk about new things in your neighborhood, new things in your area, things to look out for, you know, whatever kind of tips and tricks of the trade that you have that you can offer to buyers and sellers to help them feel more informed about what they're waiting into.

Travis Albritton [00:07:25]:
Like you can create that kind of content as well, and that's still just as effective. And so because at the end of the day, you know, social media and marketing is really a means to an end, Right. Most agents that I know that get into social media, their goal is not to become famous. Their goal is to get more clients, to get more leads Right. And so it's not about how many people are engaging with you online. It's how many of the right people are discovering you and then turning into clients. And so, you know, because that ultimately is the business objective, you don't have to, you know, do the trending TikTok dance in order to achieve that.

Andrea Presnal [00:08:02]:
Right, right. What would you say is some of the types of content that would be most effective in capturing the attention of a potential buyer, even sellers today?

Travis Albritton [00:08:14]:
So I think some of the content that seems to really resonate with real estate is not necessarily always the kind of like, braggadocious. Look at this awesome property I just sold, though, that is important to have some social proof of. Like, here are some results that I've gotten for other people because you want people to feel confident that, like, you can actually do what you say you're going to do and you're going to help them and be a good representative for them, but really just informing people and educating people. I think we take for granted that not everybody knows everything that goes into a real estate transaction. And all the little pieces that go into scheduling, showings, staging places, all the paperwork, you know, all the underwriting, everything that goes into it, they just think, oh, I just want this house, you'll help me buy it. Right. And so the more that you can shed light on the process and the value of you as an agent or a broker is going to open the curtain so that they feel more confident kind of knowing all the pieces of the process. So that's one thing.

Travis Albritton [00:09:08]:
Another thing that is really powerful is remembering that not everybody is currently in the market for a house buy or sell a house. And so you always want to have content that's just focused on building a reputation around what you're known for. And that could be that you are an expert in whatever neighborhood, county, city that you work in. And you're just talking about the newest restaurants that have come out, or you're talking to influential people in the commerce space or business owners or, you know, hey, there's this really cool festival here in June. Let's do a little video walking around this festival so you can see what it's like to live here. And so you almost become like a curator for the places that you're working in. And you're like a local expert for. Okay, you have small children, so school zone is important to you, but you also want this type of home.

Travis Albritton [00:10:02]:
Well, I know exactly which neighborhoods we should target based on the things that you've told me. Right. And so being Able to be just like an expert in your space geographically, allows you to then create content beyond just kind of the transactional. Did I buy or sell a house this week?

Andrea Presnal [00:10:19]:
That is so important. I actually, one of my real estate friends just posted content about the top 10 coffee shops to go to. And actually one of them I hadn't heard of. And I was like, oh, I should go. I should go there soon. So, yeah, it's kind of like these user guides to your cities and, you know, that attracts people that they remember. Oh, that they're an agent. Like, I should use them.

Andrea Presnal [00:10:46]:
So that knowledge is so important. And video content, I feel like to some people is so scary. They think they have to get out, like, you know, all this equipment. I mean, now we have smartphones, so it's easy to point and shoot. But, you know, how can, you know, real estate professionals leverage video content to showcase, I mean, properties, but also just like connecting with their audience. It could be something really simple that they can do just every day in their content strategy. But what are some creative ways you have that you've seen?

Travis Albritton [00:11:22]:
Yeah, so I think the number one piece of advice I always give people is start with what you're comfortable with and what feels like is sustainable for you. Right. So whenever you're. If you're not currently filming yourself a lot, then it can feel awkward. Kind of like turning on a camera. And then now you're starting to talk, you feel like you're. You're trying to script something, you know, witty and funny and helpful all at the same time. And you're very conscious about what you're saying and how you're presenting.

Travis Albritton [00:11:49]:
So the number one thing you can do is just repetitions. It's just practice. So you don't even have to post it. Just record yourself. Practice taking a video of yourself talking and then watch it and take notes of, like, your mannerisms and how you're looking and how you're sounding. And, oh, this lighting was really weird. And so, like, I couldn't see the left half of my face. I should redo that or remember that, like, just getting more familiar with it, more comfortable with it is the first thing.

Travis Albritton [00:12:13]:
Because then if you are comfortable just turning on a video camera or recording yourself, then all the other things as far as what you want to talk about fall into place where you're not so worried about the, you know, the button pushing or how do I present myself or, you know, how do I look and sound. Because you've become comfortable with filming yourself or recording yourself. And so Then from there, it's really just a matter of what can I share that's unique to my expertise and what I bring to the table compared to other people that, you know, somebody could potentially work with in the real estate space? And how do I lean into that? Because, again, you were the perfect agent for a specific type of person, and so you're not trying to compete with somebody else who's just a different personality, has a different experience level, et cetera. And I think now, especially with a lot of the changes that have been going on in the industry, as an opportunity to, again, educate and inform people on what is out there, what their options are, what they can and can't do, and again, just re. Instill confidence that, like, no, I still want to work with an agent who knows what they're doing, who's going to make this whole process easier for me. So anytime you can share things that are going to help people feel more informed, relate to you, connect with you, feel like you're trustworthy in the long run, just doing that at scale is really what makes a big difference.

Andrea Presnal [00:13:30]:
I also think too, and it's always an afterthought, but just like effectively measuring the success of your media efforts and adjusting your strategies accordingly. Like, do you know, is there any tips or tricks that you can talk through? Like, for us, we always do monthly reporting and looking at how the previous month did, or is there, you know, anything that stands out or did, you know, anything go viral or just, you know, have bigger engagement numbers? Like, what was that piece of content and how can we replicate that? So I'm curious what some of your best practices are.

Travis Albritton [00:14:09]:
Yeah, you definitely want to know your numbers and know your data. Especially when it comes to social media platforms, you can very easily see which posts have done better on their own. Meaning that a lot of people interacted with it, a lot of people shared it, a lot of people viewed the video and ask yourself, how can we. How can I create more content like that? Because it seems to be that this is what people are resonating with. And so just having a sense of what works and what doesn't work for you is really key because otherwise you're just kind of throwing spaghetti on the wall and hoping something magical happens. Right? But I'll add the caveat that you don't always want to be beholden to whatever the algorithm is telling you what to do either, that you still have a sense of agency and you can choose to create the content that you feel is going to be more helpful for people Even if you know it's not going to go as viral as you know something else that you could potentially do. So knowing your data is the first step, like knowing what types of posts get better attraction, better engagement, better interaction. As far as lead generation too, because just because again, something gets a lot of views, leads from it and so always measuring the right performance indicators and then backing your way into what's the content that I can make to help with those things.

Travis Albritton [00:15:22]:
But also remember too, like you're your own person, you don't have to serve at the whims of the algorithm overlords. So you can also create your own strategy as well.

Andrea Presnal [00:15:30]:
Yeah, I want to shift gears a little bit and talk about kind of the future of real estate media. Like what emerging technology or trends do you think will have the biggest impact on specifically the real estate industry in the next like five to 10 years? Like things like, you know, AI, it's something that is talked about all the time, constantly or just the Metaverse or VR even. I'm just curious what, you know, emerging technology trends you kind of see having the biggest impact.

Travis Albritton [00:16:06]:
So I think a lot of it is just going to be an acceleration of some of the trends that we've already seen. I think about five years ago when the whole world shut down and it completely shifted the way that real estate happened. And we saw this huge boom in 3D virtual showings where you could walk through a house, not with static pictures, but you'd be able to actually go from place to place to place and do your own virtual tour. Technology is going to continue to accelerate that kind of accessibility. Whereas before there was kind of like these natural gatekeeping activities of you have to physically go to the house to actually experience it. Well, you don't really have to do that anymore. It's not the same, but it's pretty close. And being able to look at multiple types of listing services to look for houses, whether it's Zillow or Realtor or something else.

Travis Albritton [00:16:53]:
And so AI and technology, all these tools are only going to make hopefully if they're good piece of technology, the process more seamless for identifying opportunities for buying the house of your dreams or promoting a house that you want to sell and finding as many people as possible. And so I think the, the key differentiator for real estate professionals in the future is can they learn how to leverage those tools in order to make their job more seamless and more efficient rather than seeing it as a replacement. Because at least to this point, that's, that's what AI is really good at is automating processes that would otherwise be time consuming. And so if you can find ways to leverage things like ChatGPT or AI tools in order to speed up your workflow, you know, or anything like that, that's only going to make you more effective as an agent. Either be able to work with more people or not have to work as much in order to have the same kind of outcomes and outputs. So I see it as a huge benefit and I think technology over time has shown that it, it makes things more seamless. But I'll also say you don't have to adopt any of those technologies because there will be people that don't want to take part in that. They want to call you on a rotary dial phone.

Travis Albritton [00:18:16]:
Like they just know what they want and they know how they want to operate in the world. And so if, if that can be your niche, like that is a niche to serve.

Andrea Presnal [00:18:25]:
Right.

Travis Albritton [00:18:26]:
And so you also don't have to change anything about the way that you operate if you don't want to. I think that's often lost in a lot of the discussion around AI and technological innovation is like, it's kind of like front end of choice. It's like, well, how do you want to interact with this tool in order to best suit your needs? And so kind of having that decision process of I don't have to use this, but I can if I see a value for me, I think is really key.

Andrea Presnal [00:18:55]:
Yeah. Are there any specific like platforms or tools that are best practices or that you recommend to clients in this space or. Yeah, like staging software, I mean drone photography, like anything. I'm just curious what you've recommended in the past or just some that you've played around with yourself.

Travis Albritton [00:19:20]:
Yeah, so I think there's, there's typically two types of content platforms online. There's search based platforms and there's algorithm based platforms. So a search based platform would be like Google. So if you're looking for homes in Raleigh, Durham, somebody might type that into Google to then find a page on Zillow that has a bunch of those homes listed. Right. And so if you're creating local based content, like top 10 coffee shops, you know, in a particular area and somebody is doing research on a city they might move to, they're going to type in coffee shops in that city into a YouTube search bar and your video could pop up if you made a video for that type of content. And so when you're being kind of like a local tour guide for the area that you serve and you're creating videos that people would find engaging and helpful. If they're considering moving to a new area, then that's where you would look at YouTube, writing blog posts, those specifically for that kind of search based content.

Travis Albritton [00:20:21]:
But for algorithm based content where you're just creating things that are helpful, engaging, fun, authentic to who you are, then Instagram and TikTok are the top two platforms for being discovered. TikTok especially. But the only thing about TikTok is that the platform cares much more about the video, less about the profile. So you can have a video get 5 million views and then none of those 5 million people ever watch another one of your videos. Yeah, whereas Instagram tends to be a little stickier where people follow people that they like and so they're more likely to find more of your content in the future. So it's kind of like a, you know, you pick your poison as far as what you want out of it.

Andrea Presnal [00:21:02]:
Well, TikTok, hopefully it's here to stay. We'll see.

Travis Albritton [00:21:05]:
We'll see. That's the other thing too is platforms are always changing. Not too long ago everyone thought Snapchat was going to be the next hot thing and it kind of fell off the map as far as like a major player. And so there's always going to be new platforms that pop up. And so if you are already in the habit of creating content, whether it's video content, if you don't like video, you can just take a picture and write captions like that's totally fine too. Being an early mover to take some of those content creation activities and put them on new platforms can give you a first mover advantage versus other people that are kind of, you know, more happy to stay with what's familiar rather than trying something new.

Andrea Presnal [00:21:41]:
Right? What? So I ask everyone this when they do an interview with me on the podcast. If you could change one thing in the real estate space, and this can be anything, I had someone say, like the headlines, the media like want to change that completely. Which, you know, this industry's had a doozy of the last year with everything changing from so much. So if you could change anything, what would it be and why?

Travis Albritton [00:22:14]:
I think I would like more filters when I'm searching for property, like I think about myself where I'll just, you know, I'll window shop on Zillow or something like that, just because I'm curious, you know, what kind of homes are in a specific area.

Andrea Presnal [00:22:28]:
You don't search for Ondorify mls.

Travis Albritton [00:22:33]:
This is coming from a non real estate agent. Right. So I'm in the media space, but having more filters for like this is exactly the kind of property I'm looking for versus, you know, bedrooms, bathrooms, waterfront, you know, multiple stories. Like there's so many. Only so many things that you can check off.

Andrea Presnal [00:22:51]:
Well, a color of the house. Actually that was one of the filters I was looking for recently and it wasn't on there. I don't know why you would meet. I mean, you can always paint something, right? But hey, maybe you want brick. I don't know. So I, I love that.

Travis Albritton [00:23:09]:
Right. Or even, you know, it's like I want mid century modern or I want, you know, a ranch style house. Like the types of things that I would want to put as a filter when I'm searching for property are typically not available unless they're stuffed into the keywords of the headline for the property itself. Right. And so if I could choose anything, it's, it would be more custom filters for me to curate my own voyeuristic experience on listings.

Andrea Presnal [00:23:35]:
I'll tell our tech team maybe they can start adding some more filters on the MLS side. Thank you so much, Travis, for coming, talking to me all about media trends and what's going on in that space in the real estate industry. Where can people find you if they want to know more information about you or connect with you?

Travis Albritton [00:23:57]:
Sure. So my website is honestpodcasts.com and so that's where, you know, I interact and work with businesses that want to create media branded content for themselves to get their, the word out there about what they're up to and what they're focused on. And so that's the best place to learn more about me and what I'm up to.

Andrea Presnal [00:24:15]:
Well, thank you again and we are so excited to share this information with our listeners. So thanks everyone. Take care.

Travis Albritton [00:24:25]:
Thanks, Andrea.

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