Is Social Media Key to Success in your Property Empire?

France is still among the most popular overseas destinations for buy-to-let investors. But in this new social world, how much does ‘being social’ play in the success of your buy-to-let business?

Real-Life Success Stories

Maria and Andy Richardson own two beautiful holiday lets in Brittany. We asked Maria for a top tip or secret to their success.  Instead of an organisational or operational reply that we were expecting, we were stunned when Maria replied, “It has to be – use social media!” Maria continues, “I originally thought that X/twitter was for Twits, Facebook for keeping in touch with family and friends, and LinkedIn was for business people; how naïve and wrong could I be? I have since discovered that this is not the case. Nowadays, many of our bookings come via Twitter.”

The Buy-to-Let Market in France

Around 200,000 Brits own houses and flats in France, many of which are used as rentals in some capacity, whether long-term, year-round holiday lets, or letting around their personal use, most of them in large cities with good transport infrastructure, decent population and universities. Look at our ‘a la carte service’ which is perfect for investors wanting to buy in Paris or other cities in France.

A Growing Trend

My-French-House.com has helped hundreds of international buyers and investors find their dream buy-to-let property throughout France every year. Patrick Joseph, founder of My-French-House, confirms that ‘growing social’ is definitely a growing trend, “We keep in touch with many of the people who buy their property through us on social media. Our buy-to-let clients are conscious about the broadband speed available when looking at property, as they inform us, we need to be able to engage with prospective clients online through not just our website but also socially.”

The Key to Success

Maria Richardson states her success is down to getting personal! “I think my success with social media is the personal interaction between myself and potential guests. I tweet about our holiday cottages and also about our local area, in particular things that I think are distinct to Finistere, our department in France.”

The Challenges of Social Media Management

Patrick warns that although this is a free form of advertising, it doesn’t come cheap. Managing X, Facebook and Pinterest accounts with regular content is time-consuming. It can eat away at that valuable time you want to concentrate on other areas of your business. And with so many new social media apps and platforms, such as WhatsApp, Threads, Reddit and BlueSky, it’s getting even harder to find the time, and especially the ideas, to manage them all. Then there’s the ever-growing YouTube platform, which can be an advantageous tool on many levels. But again, to be successful, it’s essential to post regular, high-quality content, which, for videos, often means dealing with and editing hours of footage.

The Personal Touch

Although there are no statistics or data on whether social media is the key to marketing a business, we’d say that success is down to the person behind the social engagement. Maria agrees that you have to believe success is down to the person behind the social engagement, and that you have to “be yourself, open, honest and creative”.