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With 60,000 followers to his name on TikTok accrued over 18 months, Andrew Cumming knows something about getting social media attention.
As he explained during a recent podcast episode of the Secrets of the Top 100 Agents, that’s actually his original bread and butter: social media was the avenue that led to pursuing a career as an agent.
The 25-year-old first gained a name for himself showcasing his entrepreneurial spirit operating under the moniker “@genzceo”. Detailing his daily hustle to support himself by ingenious means, Mr Cumming served up inspiration to a generation entering into the workforce and looking to capitalise on opportunity and enthusiasm.
Taking a real estate course as part of this experience led him to pursue real estate as a genuine career path.
“I obviously had an underlying interest in property having done property economics at university,” he noted. Once the program was complete, the course director advised him to give it an honest shot, identifying that the go-getter attitude that comes across in TikTok made him primed for success in real estate.
“I didn’t need much convincing,” the agent acknowledged.
“I emailed the best real estate agents in Brisbane. And I heard back from a real estate agent, Heath Williams of Place New Farm, who was selling architectural high-end homes all over Brisbane; not contained to one particular geographical spot, more so product specialists working in architectural and high-end real estate. Somehow, I landed a gig with him,” Mr Cumming explained.
He’s since moved on to be a lead agent in his own right, working out of Place’s Kangaroo Point office.
After laying low and learning the ropes, the agent has since relaunched his social media presence as @brisbaneagent, amassing one of the biggest audiences of any real estate professional in the country, with millions of likes for his luxury walk-throughs as well as occasional humorous commentary on the industry.
The first post that blew up was a tongue-in-cheek take on how agents often talk about waterfront properties, but hosted from a newly-formed, temporary lake in a Carindale park during Brisbane’s recent floods.
Since then, he’s noticed that walk-throughs where he guides his audience through his listings as well as those of his Place Kangaroo Point colleagues perform well, particularly when they put themselves in front of the camera, speaking confidently about the reasons to fall in love with a given property, just as they do in person on a daily basis.
These posts attract interest from real buyers – as the agents note that the online traffic to their listings is equal to that of the first-day-on-market when Mr Cumming posts a walk-through – as well as quench the thirst of stickybeaks keen to ogle interesting property prospects.
And though Mr Cumming notes that confidence is important in presenting a property to the camera, the key to success on social media is keeping it focused on exactly that: the property, not you.
The biggest mistake he sees agents making in their social media marketing? “I think that they make it too much about themselves,” the agent opined.
“Some people could laugh at me saying ‘your content is all about you’, but it really isn’t. I don’t even name-drop myself in my content. I stand in front of a property and immediately I’m explaining why this is the best house in Pullenvale or this is one of the best properties I’ve ever seen in Brisbane. I don’t mention my name, I don’t mention what I’ve done, I don’t talk about my sales,” Mr Cumming said, lifting a lid on his strategy.
“It’s really not about me, it’s totally about the property,” he added.
In the agent’s view, it’s a fine line between building an audience that appreciates your take and making it an ego exercise.
“You need to be a figure and you need to be a presenter for the property. But at the end of the day, you’re just representing a product. They’re not buying you. They’re buying the property,” he reminded agents.
Long introductions with hefty brand plugs aren’t going to garner the attention you’re looking for, Mr Cumming said.
“It turns me off as a viewer. I’m not really interested. I feel like you’re not providing me any value by watching it. I feel like I’m only feeding your ego.”
Audiences, he believes, are very savvy when it comes to a presenter’s intention.
“But if your motive is just to create educational entertaining content, and take yourself out of the equation, people will come back for more, because they’re not feeling like they’re being sold anything. They’re just feeling like they’re receiving content that they enjoy watching.”
Ultimately, he advised agents to keep their eyes on the end-goal.
“Detach yourself from it, let go of the ego and make it about the property, make it about the product, because at the end of the day, that’s what you’re there for.”
Listen to the full conversation here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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