Real Estate Happens
All things Real Estate! From the crazy things you see in real estate to better ways to do business. Thought provoking to get you fired up and ready to take on the day. Kenny Letner is the Broker and Owner of Aweigh Real Estate in Virginia Beach VA. Join us as we explore the different aspect of Real Estate as it pertains not only to the real estate professionals but also to the consumer and see what is changing in the real estate landscape.
Real Estate Happens
A Quantum Leap in Real Estate: Social Media Tactics with Alex Byrd
Ever wondered how to harness the power of social media to boost your real estate business? Join us as we sit down with Alex Byrd, a savvy social media coach from the Social Bird Company, who reveals her unique professional journey and how it led her to become a sought-after expert in the field of social media for real estate professionals.
From her early acting career to her breakthrough into the bussiness industry, Alex's story is as surprising as it is inspiring. She shares her secrets to effective content creation, tips on how to stay current with industry trends, and the role of AI in streamlining these processes.
The conversation doesn't stop at business strategies. Alex talks about how sharing your personal passions online can increase your authenticity and appeal to potential clients.
So, if you're ready to take your real estate business to new heights using social media, this episode is a must-listen. Tune in for impactful insights, hearty laughs and a whole lot of authenticity with Alex Byrd.
@alexbyrdd (insta)
@alexbydir (tictok)
Socialbyrdco@gmail.com
Top 20 podcast in Virginia Beach https://blog.feedspot.com/virginia_beach_podcasts/
Hey guys, welcome to another episode of Real Estate Happens. We are here with some special guests today. I'm very fortunate to have with us on the show Baby Yoda. No, no, no, I'm just joking. I'm just joking. We do have Alex Bird here from Social Bird Company and she is a social media coach and social media marketing company and she has just been doing incredible things within the industry and with a bunch of other companies. Welcome to show, alex.
Speaker 2:Hi, thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm really glad you're here. So tell us a little bit about your background, how you got into social media and why you got into social media, and where are you really wanting to go.
Speaker 2:Okay, great, so it really all started when I was a little kid. I've been doing acting since I was eight years old so I did some of those, you know, those cringy investigation discovery channel shows.
Speaker 1:Wait, what Are you trying to say? You were one of the Disney club kids or something. What was that?
Speaker 2:No, I wish Investigation, discovery where they reenact murders. So I'd be like pushed in the basement and killed.
Speaker 1:Oh, so you've been murdered several times, that's. I don't think I've ever had a guest on the show that's been murdered. So here we go.
Speaker 2:Yep trapped in a freezer and everything Lots of cool ways. So I've done that, done some commercials. I did Joel Bieber commercial that would play during football for a while.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, are you kidding? You were on the Joel Bieber's called Joel Bieber. Yep, that's hilarious, you did you ride in the spaceship with him?
Speaker 2:I wish You're right. So I did that. I love acting. I stumbled upon a YouTube web series that I was on. I was just kind of the main character. Just so happened I was in the right place at the right time, actually up in Pennsylvania, I know you are.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, we're in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2:Allentown here in the capital. Now, I'm not from.
Speaker 1:Pennsylvania. My wife is from Pennsylvania, I'm from Tennessee. Mary DeYankee worked out great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, up there it was great Go back.
Speaker 1:I wanna stop you for a second. Go back. What is this web show that you were the star of? What was that all about?
Speaker 2:So I was a co-star. We were a group of witches.
Speaker 1:Oh Lord, have mercy. Some things haven't changed.
Speaker 2:It's very cringe, but in a cute way. The main following is eight to 12 year olds.
Speaker 1:I'd say oh, that's hilarious.
Speaker 2:They love the show.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep, go ahead.
Speaker 2:So that had a big following. So it'd get like half a million viewers per episode is the average. So a lot of those people came over. They wanted content from me. So I really built up my Instagram, my TikTok, and I was doing pretty well. I was making some money on it with brand deals. I was also doing some side jobs here and there, but I had some tough things going on. I needed to settle down, kind of get a big girl job just for so I could apply for an apartment and things like that. So I started an insurance. I worked for Prosper Insurance. They are amazing.
Speaker 1:Great company.
Speaker 2:Yes, they make insurance really fun, if you believe that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, anybody that can make insurance even a modicum of fun is amazing. So, and yeah, they do a good job of it. Sarah Dotson's out there. We love her to death. So they do a great job.
Speaker 2:Yes, shout out to Sarah, Yep absolutely.
Speaker 2:She's amazing business person of the year last year. So I got to learn from her. I really stumbled my way into doing business development for them. Didn't think that would ever be possible I think I was 25 at the time. So I got to meet hundreds of people in our industry and I noticed I'd go on lunches with these people and they would be talking about their problems with social media and I'd just look at them and tell them all the advice I could. I was like no, you should be doing this. This is what you need to do. I'm looking at your account and you're doing this wrong. If you just tweak this, you'd be golden. And Sarah was like why don't we act on this? Why don't you make a class and start teaching real estate professionals how to use social media for their business? And so I did. I've taught like 150 to 200 of these classes and it's gone great. I love teaching about social media. I love teaching anything, but I happen to know a lot about this and there happens to be quite the interest in it.
Speaker 1:So that's amazing and I love the way you this whole transition of what you've been able to accomplish where you started out. You have this background in it. I mean, we all know it takes 10,000 hours to come a professional at anything and I think you have those even at a very young age. You have those 10,000 hours that you've really spent working through this and has really made you what you are. But you take that and you've moved that into other aspects and then into social media help and then social media marketing and then now you're getting into what I think is probably going to be the most exciting phase of what you're trying to accomplish, which is social media coaching. And we talked about that a little bit. And stop me Tell me what I'm wrong. I'm not trying to get in the middle of your thing, but I only get this right.
Speaker 1:So basically, what you've put in place is the social media coaching, where you actually are providing a coaching service to these people. You're monitoring and Editing their accounts a couple times a month. You've got this great website presence with all of these videos in the back where you know they can go in there. And you know I mean people my age 57. I were old right.
Speaker 1:How do you start a Facebook page, how do you start a group from that and how do you get the marketing and boost posts and things of that nature? And then I think you also said you're gonna be doing like you track, like the algorithms of these Social media sites like tiktok and what's trending and try to get your clients Grouped in with that so that they start to trend. And and I think having somebody that is doing that for you on the daily, the weekly and the monthly, I think that's so super important and I think you're very reasonably priced also. I mean you provide all of that service for like $1.99 a month and that's just amazing to me. I'm really impressed by what you have going on.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Yeah, it's. It's great, very exciting.
Speaker 2:I think that there's something for everyone too. So I really try to make sure that, whatever level you're at with social media, I'm able to help because you know when kind of developing this, one of the biggest concerns is when are you at? Are we at the level of I need to help you figure out how to set up all of these accounts? Or are you at the level where you know you want to go viral and you are really good with social media, but you need a little bit of that accountability and the extra boost when understanding what is trending right now? Where is the algorithm going? Because it's changing so frequently, and I mean as far as trends go to, those are, those can be all over the place. I I really am fascinated with the connection between Gen Z, millennials and you know, every other generation, and how we see humor and trends and what's popular right now, and I like to consider myself that I bridge the gap between those who understand social media and those who don't.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'd be one of those that don't write my idea creating contents, getting on here and running my mouth for you know, 20 or 30 minutes and then, you know, do something with that. I tell you it's funny too, because with the with the onset in the proliferation of AI now, so I use AI a lot, like when we do these podcasts, I will put the whole transcript into an AI platform and it helps me develop. You know names and it helps me develop those types of things, and you know the podcast that I've used to do. That is don't even better. Do you do do anything with AI now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'm actually working to develop a course on how to utilize AI within social media. It's. It is a little tricky because it's going so fast and a lot of these programs are, you know, paid. So kind of what I am working towards is testing everything out and seeing how can it help you streamline the process throughout social media which is just another benefit to the people that you have in your private coaching program.
Speaker 1:You know that the benefit of that type of research is staying on top of trends. It's got to be nothing but help for them. And you know, I'd say it all the time. You know real estate agents really need to be outselling houses, but in order to do that, their number one job is to generate, you know, leads, and the way to generate leads is to be more relevant in society with content creation. But you know, I see so many agents out there that they're spending so much of their time doing that they're not doing the other parts that they need to do, and having somebody like you, I think is, is amazing, you know, to kind of have them in that corner. By the way, I have just signed up. I'm now a client also, so thank you for that. So we're going to track, we're going to you know what we're going to do a social experiment and we'll just see what, what she's able to do with my, my little little accounts, and we'll kind of go from there. We think about that challenge.
Speaker 2:I love it. I don't think you give yourself enough credit. I looked through his accounts last night. I was digging through all of his accounts that he has. I'm like man. This man's good at this stuff. He just needs to post more, get himself out there more.
Speaker 1:And I like to do two things I like to choke people and I like to cook, right? So I mean and okay, let me, let me clarify I'm a black belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, so I teach Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and I like to choke people and I like to cook, so I mean, that's not a bad thing, right?
Speaker 2:So I would have never known that, because you don't post about it.
Speaker 1:No, not a lot, right, not a lot, I think. Occasionally, maybe, when somebody else posts it at the, at the gym where I train, you know we'll, we'll post. I teach there, so occasionally you'll see a post if we've promoted somebody or put a belt on somebody or something like that because it's important, right? I mean, I think Jiu-Jitsu is probably. I've got black belts in some other disciplines, but I think Jiu-Jitsu was the hardest one I ever got. Took 10 years well, almost took almost 11 years for me to get a black belt, and I think nine is about average.
Speaker 1:So I was a slow learner, I guess. Right, maybe got choked out too many times, I don't know, but you know we finally got there. So what else do you do, like, just in life in general? I mean, you seem like you're just a very happy person overall and you know, I think that comes to that. I tell people when I'm coaching them, when you're talking to somebody on the phone, smile while you're talking on the phone, and so how do you get that enthusiasm to show through on social media, right? I mean great question, right? You like that right?
Speaker 2:Wow, I love this question. Let's hear it so so for the audience.
Speaker 1:here's your takeaway. Here's your free advice for the day how to show your enthusiasm, to get other people excited with your social media posting.
Speaker 2:Okay, great. So I really preach authenticity. I think no matter if it's social media or in person, that is probably the most important thing, and we were kind of talking about this earlier, because a lot of people ask me to post for them, they want me to manage their account, but the problem with that is it's it's not so authentic to them. So when you are out here posting about jujitsu and cooking, that's going to come across because that is authentically you, you.
Speaker 2:I see a lot of people make the mistake of only posting content within our business and it gets repetitive. I, you know, I love the educational content and all it's great, but I think if people would post a little bit more about themselves and what they love to do, they would really shine and it would come across very well online. So that is what I try to do in my daily life to stay happy. I have a lot of different interests and I love to talk to people about them. Like we were kind of talking earlier, I love talking about anything dealing with space and big picture things. So you know, when I talk about that, I do. You know, I have kind of that tendency to light up when I'm talking about my passions, and so I really love quantum physics.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and just so everybody knows, when she says she's really into space, I was trying to know things, like she recently. Okay, so she comes in my office today, just so you know, alex is like four foot 11, right so, or, as I like to forfeit nothing, right so she's very, very short in stature. And so she come in and she looked at me the very sixth thing and I said something about maybe you can do, and I said she goes, she was, I can try. And I looked at her and I said, okay, baby Yoda, and that is kind of stuck. So she has now been branded as baby Yoda, just just so everybody knows. If you see Alex, just call her baby Yoda, she will appreciate it and we'll move forward from that.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, no, it absolutely comes through and I think it's important. You see, I see agents posting things that I just it makes me cringe, right, because what they're posting is I hate my life, this person pissed me off, and blah, blah, blah, and that just drives me nuts. There's a, there's a there's post out there where it is very obvious that they're posting and they try to make it a general post, right, but it's obviously somebody pissed them off and and this is their way, and it's just the stupidest thing in the world because you, just, you just come off as a, as a, as an idiot, and nobody wants to be around that.
Speaker 2:The thing is that content might land well within your friend's circle of other real estate agents or loan officers or inspectors, whoever it is, but is that coming across well to the clients that you're trying to work with? Probably not.
Speaker 1:Right, because they just see you as a complainer, right, that's it. You just see somebody who's just always bitching about something, right? It's just ridiculous. And you know, normally during this podcast we have old-fashioned. It's a little too early on Friday to do that, so we're gonna forget that, but we'll get you back on here for another one. You have a class coming up here in a couple of weeks, don't you?
Speaker 2:I do, I believe Wednesday the 18th.
Speaker 1:That's gonna be at 7.80 to Lynn Haven Parkway. That's gonna be open to all really kind of business professionals. This isn't really a class for your personal social media, but if you're in real estate or if you're into your home inspector or loan officer, I think you could benefit from this. We'll put some information out about that. There'll be an event coming out, so please we'll leave the link in the bio. Speaking of links, I've gotta put a link in there for a website called FeedSpot and we were just named. Real estate happened just named one of the top 20 podcast in Virginia Beach. Now I don't know if that's good or not right, I mean, maybe there's only 20 podcasts in Virginia.
Speaker 2:It's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Hey, maybe there's only 20 podcasts and we're number 20. I don't know. Or maybe there's only 19 and they gave us an honorable mention, I don't know. But hey, we got mentioned. I mean that's a good thing. So you know, we'll put the link in there for that, so you can kind of have some social proof that people actually do. Actually, we actually have a listener from Russia and we have one yeah, we do right and then one from South Africa, and then there's some people listening to Okinawa, but that's some old Marine buddies. That's who that is over in Okinawa.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, I'm international baby.
Speaker 1:What are you talking?
Speaker 2:about Wow, well, congratulations. This makes it feel even more real, because right now it's just us two sitting here. It's hard to imagine somebody's gonna listen. Hey, if you're listening, send me a message on my Instagram. It's at alexbird, with two D's. It's BYRD.
Speaker 1:Perfect, alex. No, please, I love these. I love these. How else can they get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:Okay, let's see. Well, on TikTok, I have a TikTok called alexbirdie BYRDIE, and then you can also email me at socialbirdcocom. If you would like any more information on my coaching services, I would love to have you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we'll get some links out, like I said, for people to sign up for that class. That class is only gonna it's gonna be limited to 40 people and I know you, your class is always they're amazing, right, and they always just completely full, but always turning people away anytime. You have one of those, so when you see that come out, make sure you jump on that fairly quickly. Anything else you'd like to give a shout out or talk about before we end this and go back to our normal broadcast day?
Speaker 2:I'd say, even if you are just an aspiring agent or really anything within this industry, I think you could benefit from the class because, even if it's just for your personal, I do have some advice in there, because I do preach that authenticity on your accounts, so you can kind of take it and apply it to many different aspects and I think that you'll leave the class feeling much more confident. And if you're somebody that's camera shy, I have an entire segment on how to feel comfortable on camera because, like I said, I've been on cameras since I was a little kid, so oh, that's great advice.
Speaker 1:And you know, guys, this is classes being paid for and sponsored by a prosper insurance Sarah Dotson. So normally to go to this class, there is a fee and cost for that, but this is being done free. It'll be right here at 780 Lynn Haven Parkway, suite 160, beautiful training room away real estate as a co-sponsor of this event. So we'd love to have you guys come by prosper insurance. They do such a great job. I just love Sarah to death. So you guys give her a shout out for sponsoring this and Alex will see you then. And if anybody has any other ways, you know how to get a hold of her. Guys, we're going to go ahead and let you get back to your broadcast day. Again, real estate happens. We'll catch you next time. Bye.