Personal branding has become something of a buzzword in estate agency.
And with good reason.
People buy from people. Video, social media and YouTube give agents an opportunity to become known long before a potential client invites them through the door for a valuation.
A strong personal brand video strategy can make an individual recognisable, demonstrate their expertise and build the kind of familiarity that’s difficult to achieve through traditional corporate marketing alone.
But there’s another side to personal branding that agencies need to think about.
What happens when the personal brand becomes bigger than the agency brand?
And, more importantly, what happens if that person leaves?
A personal brand belongs to the person
Imagine you’ve spent several years putting one individual at the centre of your marketing.
They’re presenting the market updates. They’re on YouTube. They front your social content. Local homeowners recognise them and your audience follows them.
That’s fantastic while they’re part of your business.
But people move jobs.
And when that individual joins another agency, their face, personality, expertise and professional reputation go with them.
Their personal brand doesn’t stay behind because your company helped build it.
That doesn’t mean agencies should shy away from developing their people. Quite the opposite.
It means personal branding needs to sit within a wider brand strategy.
Build personalities without losing the agency
There’s a balance to strike.
Your agency should benefit from having recognisable, trusted people. But consumers should also understand what those people represent.
Think about the visual identity around your video content. Is the agency consistently recognisable? Are your values and positioning coming through? Is the content reinforcing what the wider business stands for?
And crucially: are you building more than one person?
We’ve talked before via Move iQ Pro about identifying the natural communicators within a business rather than assuming the owner or most senior person always has to be on camera.
That approach also protects the brand.
Your lettings expert might explain regulatory changes. Your branch manager could deliver local market insight. A negotiator might create first-time buyer content. Another team member might be brilliant at property tours.
Different people can become known for different things, while collectively reinforcing the agency behind them.
Don’t make one person your entire content strategy
There’s a wider marketing benefit to this approach too.
Audiences can tire of seeing the same person, same format and same subject repeatedly.
Property tours have their place, but so do market updates, educational videos, local area content, case studies, podcasts, interviews and commentary.
Mixing the people and the formats gives you a much richer content strategy.
It also means the departure of one individual doesn’t leave an enormous hole in your marketing.
If you’ve built an agency with several credible voices, a recognisable visual identity and consistent content themes, the brand has its own equity.
Make the agency the platform
One useful way to think about it is that your agency should become the platform on which personal brands are built.
Give talented people opportunities to develop their profiles. Let them have opinions. Encourage them to share expertise and become recognised locally.
But connect that expertise back to something bigger.
If somebody becomes known for excellent local market commentary, the association should be:
She’s brilliant on the local market – and she’s from that agency.
That’s very different from an audience remembering the individual but barely noticing which company they represent.
What happens when someone leaves?
You can’t, and shouldn’t, try to prevent someone’s professional reputation moving with them.
Instead, plan for it.
Build content formats that aren’t dependent on one person. Introduce different experts to your audience. Maintain consistent agency branding. Make sure your own channels have value independently of any single contributor.
And think carefully about where your content appears.
Your marketing doesn’t have to exist solely on an individual’s social profile or even your agency’s platforms.
Appearing through credible third-party media can provide another layer of visibility for both the individual and the agency they represent.
The role of video
This is where a considered video content strategy becomes much more valuable than simply deciding somebody needs to “do more Reels”.
Video can build familiarity incredibly quickly. Potential clients see how somebody communicates, hear their opinions and get a sense of whether they’d trust them.
But the strongest strategy asks more questions.
Who should be on camera? What should they talk about? Which format suits them? How does the content look and feel? Where should it be distributed? How does it reinforce the agency? And who else should we be developing?
On-camera confidence matters, but it is only one part of building a brand with video.
Building brands and people together
At Move iQ, we’re in an interesting position because we can help agents do both.
We can create professionally produced content that strengthens the agency’s identity while giving its people opportunities to demonstrate their individual expertise.
But we can also put those people and brands into a different environment.
An agent might join a Move iQ presenter to discuss their regional property market, contribute to a podcast, showcase a property or appear within expert-led consumer content.
That creates something different from another self-published social post.
The agent gains visibility. The agency is represented. And both can benefit from appearing in front of an established property audience beyond their own platforms.
The resulting content can then be shared and repurposed through the agency’s own marketing, giving it another source of credible, varied content.
Personal brand or agency brand? Build both.
Personal branding isn’t going away – nor should it.
The opportunity for estate agencies is to stop seeing this as a choice between promoting the company or promoting the individual.
Build great personal brands. Just don’t build one at the expense of your own.
Develop several voices. Create different types of content. Give people room to show their personalities. Maintain a recognisable agency identity around them. And use platforms beyond your own to extend the reach of both.
Because people may move between businesses.
A well-built agency brand should be strong enough to keep moving forward when they do.
Build a video strategy around your people and your brand
Move iQ helps Propertymark agents develop video and media strategies that showcase both the people within their businesses and the agencies they represent.
From professional video and YouTube content to podcasts, local market commentary, property showcases and opportunities across Move iQ’s own platforms, we can help you build a more varied and sustainable content presence.
If you want to make your people more visible without losing sight of the brand behind them, contact us we’d love to chat.
