This is Part 2 of a series in which I’m opening up about how I built Ailsa. Part 1 was about what makes a media article work for a real estate agent’s SEO. This one’s about social. (You don’t need to read Part 1 first if you just want to skip to the good bits, but if you were the kid who asked “but why?” six times, go there first!)
In Part 1 of this Ailsa series, I talked about the Portal Test – the idea that if you strip out everything already on Domain, realestate.com.au or Zillow, your content should still be worth reading. This one’s about social media.
Somewhere around 2006 – the year Facebook opened to the public, Twitter launched, and MySpace was still a thing (showing my age) – agents started posting “Just sold!” with a photo of themselves pointing at a SOLD sticker. Back in those heady early days of Facebook, where there were no comment trolls, no brain rot, no ads… and oh… could go on for hours about the good old days when social media was social, it was fun, and you could reach your own followers for free.
But we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.
In 2026, the address and price are usually things people can look up on their phones in seconds. So if you’re only posting a selfie in front of a sold signboard, it’s probably still something your mum will like, but unfortunately, already old news.
Then there’s the other crowd.
The ones who asked ChatGPT to “write me a social media content calendar for the next three months” and felt incredibly organised for about four days – until rates moved, a big auction result changed the conversation, and suddenly Thursday’s pre-scheduled post about “5 tips for styling your home” looked like it was written by someone who hadn’t been outside in a week. (If this is you – no judgment. OK, a little judgment. But mostly I just want to help.)
Neither of these passes the “Portal Test” I talked about in the first article. They’re not telling anyone anything they couldn’t find faster or easier somewhere else.
So, this piece is one strategy I have up my sleeve about what to post instead. The frameworks, the hooks, the phrases to stop using, and the questions to actually ask. Use it to write your own content after every sale. Get AI to help you. Or, if you’re an Ailsa user, this is exactly what’s already baked into the engine. Either way, you’ll walk away with the playbook.
When I am thinking about applying AI to any workflow, I follow this framework I teach called the AI First Formula – an eight-step framework for reimagining a process with AI in a responsible way. (The full breakdown is in the AI First Agent Accelerator, but you also don’t need the course to follow along here.)
The step that matters for social content is Step 4: Invite best practice to the party. It’s the one most people skip. They go straight from “I need a social post” to prompting ChatGPT to write one. No research. No understanding of why some posts get engagement, and others get scrolled past.
Before I built Ailsa’s social engine, I went back to research some of the people who’ve spent years testing what actually makes agents’ content perform.
Three real estate coaches in particular shaped how I think about just-sold content – and whether you use Ailsa or not, their frameworks will make your posts better.
If I had to pick one person whose thinking shaped how I approach content, it’s Sharran.
His content philosophy is deceptively simple, and it’s the opposite of what most agents default to: show how you handled the sale – not that you sold it, but how. Let the reader follow a story, not read an ad. And demonstrate competence through specifics, not claims.
That last part is everything right now. In a world where anyone can look up what a property sold for, “trust me, I’m great” isn’t a strategy. But showing the specific way you navigated a complicated situation – that’s what builds the kind of trust no portal can replicate.
Most “Just sold!” posts fail all three of Sharran’s principles. They don’t show anything. There’s no story to follow. And the only thing being demonstrated is that you sold a house (i.e., the job description).
What Sharran understands – and what I think the rest of the industry is only just catching up to – is that your content is your transparency. Every post is either evidence that you do this job with skill and care, or it’s... “Another one done in Kellyville.”
If you’re doing this yourself: Before you write your next post, ask: Am I showing how I handled it, or just announcing that I sold it? If you can’t point to a specific decision, conversation, or moment that made this sale different, find one. That’s your post.
Jimmy’s framework for just-sold content is a short true story – around 70–120 words. Not “sold for $X” but what actually happened. The situation. The approach. How it unfolded.
The idea is simple: go back and do the marketing you wish you’d done around a notable sale. You had the sale. You had the story. You just didn’t have time to write it up properly.
If you’re doing this yourself: After your next settlement, sit down for ten minutes and answer three questions: What was the situation when the vendors first called me? What did I do that made the difference? How did it end? Write that up in plain language. That’s your post. No hashtags, no celebration, just the story.
Tom’s insight is the one that changed how I frame everything: the testimonial and the process are the proof, not the price.
Social proof doesn’t come from celebrating numbers. It comes from demonstrating professionalism. A neighbour reading your post should think “that agent handled that well” – not “wow, big number.”
If you’re doing this yourself: Read your last five social posts. How many of them lead with a price or a result? Now rewrite the best one so it leads with something you did – a decision you made, a conversation you had, a problem you solved. That’s the version that earns trust.
Every platform’s algorithm rewards one thing above all: the first line. If nobody stops scrolling, nothing else matters.
Here are five angles we use. Read them and tell me you didn’t want to know more:
The number: “Forty-plus buyer groups through one Taroomball home.”
The speed: “Two weeks from listing to sold.”
The process: “We didn’t sell to the first buyer that came through.”
The outcome: “Off-market. Single inspection. Matched.”
The local relevance: “Buyers are actively looking in Sea Haven Estate.”
Now read these and tell me you felt anything at all:
“Another one done in [suburb]”
“Just sold!”
“Excited to share...”
“We did it again!”
If you’re doing this yourself: Write your hook before you write anything else. Pick one of the five angles above and write a single sentence. If it doesn’t make you stop and think, start again. Everything else flows from getting this right.
This is the bit that surprises people.
When I built Ailsa’s social engine, I didn’t just write rules about what to say. I wrote rules about what never to say. This is the prompt/test/refine stage.
So you won’t see any of these in Ailsa’s social engine:
“Exceeded expectations” / “Surprised the vendors” / “Above the guide”.
The buyer who just paid that price will read your post. How do they feel when they see you celebrating that it went for more than anyone expected? Not great. Not to mention the fallout of Teso-gate, which is making every regulator squint harder at everything.
Now that data and AI tools can cross-reference your guides against your results at scale, “above the guide” might not be a celebration. It could be a red flag.
“Smashed it” / “Crushed it” / “Record price”
Same energy. Buyers feel like they overpaid. Neighbours feel priced out. The market is tough for a lot of people right now. Celebrating big numbers when someone’s just stretched themselves to the limit might not be the best strategy in the midst of a housing crisis.
“Humbled” / “Honoured” / “Blessed” / “Excited to announce” Nobody believes you. These are filler words that signal “I don’t know what else to say.” These are the AI slop of human writing, alongside the em dash, the one-sentence staccato paragraphs that are all over LinkedIn. (Add, “it’s not just this… It’s that to the list, and you have the AI slop trifecta…)
“Another one done” / “Another one sold” This reduces a family’s biggest financial decision to a tally mark. And it tells the reader absolutely nothing about why they should care.
Better alternatives:
“Strong buyer interest drove a competitive result”
“The campaign attracted the right buyers at the right time”
“A result that worked for both parties”
“Smooth process, clear communication, good outcome”
Process over price. Every time.
If you’re doing this yourself: Do a quick scroll through your last month of posts. Count how many of these phrases appear. No judgment – just awareness. Then try rewriting your best-performing post without any of them. I bet it’s better. Or ask your friendly AI to do it for you. Even quicker.
Most agents write social posts for other agents. They don’t mean to, but they do. The language gives it away – especially in the engagement questions.
Agent-to-agent questions (the kind other agents answer):
“What are you seeing in your local market right now?”
“What sales strategies do you find most impactful?”
“How has the market been treating you?”
Neighbour-to-neighbour questions (the kind homeowners answer):
“Curious what’s happening on your street?”
“Thinking about what your options might look like?”
“Noticed more activity in your area lately?”
Small shift. Massive difference in who actually responds – and who starts to see you as the person who knows their area, not just another agent broadcasting into the void.
If you’re doing this yourself: Next time you’re about to end a post with a question, read it back and ask: Would my neighbour answer this, or just another agent? If it’s the latter, rewrite it.
This is the most important bit, and it applies whether you’re using Ailsa or writing everything from scratch.
AI can give you the framework, the hooks, the compliant framing, and the right questions. But it can’t add the local detail that only you know. It can’t decide whether the hook feels right for this sale, this suburb, or this audience. It can’t tell the story of the vendor who nearly didn’t list, or the buyer who drove three hours to get to the open.
Add something that the AI does not know.
Can you do all of this yourself? Yes. Everything I’ve described – the coaching frameworks, the hook angles, the banned phrases, the audience questions – you can apply all of it to your own content right now, for free. If you do, your posts will be better than most of what’s out there.
What’s hard to do yourself is to do it consistently. After every sale. Across six platforms. With the hooks optimised, the language proofed, and the questions aimed at homeowners, not agents.
That’s what Ailsa does. You have a 10-minute phone call about your sale, and the engine applies everything in this article automatically – the Sharran framework, the Jimmy story structure, the Tom process-over-price framing, the hooks, the banned phrases, the lot. Six platforms, ready to post.
You can keep writing it all manually. Nothing wrong with that – especially if you enjoy writing. But if you don’t have the time (and let’s be honest, most agents don’t), this is what the engine was built for.
Want to see what it produces? Get started at getailsa.com.
Next: The prompts that make it work across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, your newsletter, and a print flyer. Platform by platform, so you can see exactly what lands where and why.
This is Part 2 of The Ailsa Guide. ← Part 1: Is there enough of you online? |
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