With the red-hot residential, commercial, and even raw land real Estate market, the timing has never been more ripe to take advantage, and become a real estate agent.
In most states, it is quite simple. Seek out a local real estate school, write the check , attend the class, sit for the exam, and, bingo, you are in business.

In real estate, the subject matter, the terminology, the writing of offers and contracts- that is the easy part. You can nail that down with practice and repetitions.

The hard part, to establish any element of measurable success, is marketing.

How you succeed in real estate will be directly correlated to how you get the word out and establish a personal brand. The idea here is to create excitement, and demand, for people to seek you out and use your services for real estate. That’s it. Marketing is how you win the day as far as listings, referrals, word of mouth, and “being there” in terms of who do people think of when they are buying and selling a piece of property.

In the old days, marketing was meeting with folks at the local Elks Lodge, or BNI networking event, or Toastmasters meeting. Those are all well and good. As a real estate agent, you can continue to do that and drive momentum.

Nowadays, in order to expand your reach and increase the magnitude of your sales, you need to be online. You need to learn the ins and outs of the major online platforms, specifically:

1) Instagram
2) Facebook
3) Twitter

This may seem obvious, but consider Instagram. What a perfect way to take a picture of a beautiful property, filter it, put your name on it, and let the world know that you were involved in the transaction.

Lets face it, Facebook is where everybody hangs out. Your network is currently on Facebook. Friends, family, other parents, colleagues at work- this is where they go to interact, learn, engage, and “play.” Marketing is not reinventing the wheel. Its about going where an existing audience is and exploiting it.

Lastly, don’t forget about Twitter. There is a ton of user base here, and it is a neat tool to engage with people you may not know in your current locale. You can tag, famous folks, celebrities, athletes, etc- people that are likely to own substantial, beautiful pieces of real estate- and draw eyeballs to you- the ready, willing, and able real estate agent.

That’s about it to get you started and to lay the groundwork for success. Moral of the story: get online, and do it fast.

Euguene Schneur is a real estate mogel and the co-founder of Omni New York.