Jordan Silver wasn’t so thrilled by the idea of real estate as a career when it was first suggested to him.
The musical theater major had dreamed of a life in show business in New York City, but it was a pretty tough gig. Acting jobs were extremely competitive, and even when he tried leaning more into playwriting, getting a script read by producers felt like an impossible act.
But Silver also had bills to pay, and with the encouragement of a former manager, he decided to give real estate an honest go.
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Once he started as an agent — close to 10 years ago now — it didn’t take him long to develop an appreciation for what people in the industry are capable of. But it was not until he began intentionally creating social media content for his business that Silver’s career really started to take off.
In the past few years, he’s sold $30 million in sales volume from leads generated through his social media channels, Silver told Inman. But in the past 12 months, the Brown Harris Stevens agent sold $20 million through Instagram leads alone, and he has 200,000 followers across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
An evolution of content
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As social media video content started to become increasingly popular, and especially around 2020 or so, as TikTok was taking off in the U.S., Silver’s sister first encouraged him to create real estate content on his social media channels.
“I just started posting a lot and started getting leads through TikTok,” Silver told Inman. “Then once Reels picked up on Instagram, I started repurposing [content] on Instagram, and that’s really where leads then started becoming real deals.”
Silver started largely by filming straightforward apartment tours using his own voice as the narration, making sure to start off with something that would grab the viewer’s attention.
“I was kind of scared to show my face and was really just thinking of it as, ‘How can I sell this listing?'” he told Inman. “I just remember learning about how the hook is most important on social media, so you have to come in with a really strong hook — your first sentence, your first deed, whatever it is … something shocking, something that’s silly.”
Silver said he drew on his more creative side — what he called his “playwriting brain” — to think up hooks that were original.
Some of his more wild ones have included, “I kicked my grandma out of her townhome so I could renovate it and sell it to you,” and “Isn’t it ironic that a godless New Yorker is going to end up living in this condo because only a sinner can afford a life this good?” (That last one was for a home tour of an old church newly converted into condos.)
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More recently, Silver started branching out from property tours into more lifestyle content and short, comedic sketches. Lately, he’s enjoyed creating videos that almost blur the line between fiction and reality, so that his followers are left wondering whether he’s staged an encounter or if it’s something that spontaneously occurred.
An example posted to his TikTok this week starts with him riding in a coop elevator with a supposed building resident who tells him there’s no filming allowed in the building. It’s an uncomfortable conversation in which the resident is clearly ticked off, while Silver, from behind the camera, tries to explain that he’s got an appointment with the owner from whom he received permission to film in the building.
He also holds out his hand to quickly introduce himself, “in case you’re ever looking to buy or sell a …” which doesn’t go over so well.
By the post’s comments, it’s clear that Silver’s followers can’t tell if the encounter was genuine or not — some seem upset that Silver continued to film the encounter against the resident’s wishes, while others wonder if it was even real. Silver avoids explaining the truth in his responses to comments — but that may not be what matters, since it ultimately generated a conversation and created interest among viewers. (He explained to Inman that it was a choreographed sketch — and the “resident” is actually Corcoran Group broker and Marcus-Wells team leader Phil Wells, who was tagged in the video.)
“People could warn me, ‘Oh, be careful of the brand and what you’re putting out there,'” Silver said, in response to his more playful sketches, like the one he created with Wells. “But, I actually think, as long as I’m remaining playful and authentic and honest with the kind of stuff that I want to be putting out there, I think having fun … I heard a quote recently that stuck with me: ‘You can’t outcompete someone who’s having fun,’ because I think that will show and translate.”
For the most part, all of Silver’s content has been a one-man operation (with the exception of occasional cameos). But this fall, he’s launching a real estate reality TV show for Instagram where he’ll be working with a director, videographer, editor and producers. The show is called Selling Skylines, and will roll out in roughly one-and-a-half-minute installments on his Instagram account.
“It’s about the art of the deal,” Silver explained. “And about these people’s stories with these deals I’m interfacing with, these luxury buyers in the city and sellers. I was very inspired by Million Dollar Listing in 2010, and what Bravo and reality shows, that moment of the mid-2000s [was]. I think now the new platform is Instagram.”
Basically, all of his business today comes from Instagram leads, Silver said, but that doesn’t mean that he isn’t working other traditional forms of marketing at the same time as well.
“I try and use all the systems that are available to us as an agent,” Silver said. “Because while I enjoy posting content, it’s all in service of growing the agent and the broker business. I’m a broker first and then became a content creator, rather than the other way around.”
Silver is also well aware that if he wants his business to continue to grow, he has to keep an open mind and try new things. That’s partly why he wanted to launch the real estate reality series.
“As an entrepreneur, as a creative, as a business person … if you want to grow, you have to evolve,” Silver told Inman. “So I can keep doing what’s working — and I’m going to continue doing that with the apartment tours — but in addition, I feel like you also have to roll out new stuff, surprise your audience, keep them attentive and engaged, otherwise you’ll be known as, ‘Oh yeah, you do apartment tours,’ which is great. But I think people want to know you.”
Jordan Silver takeaways
- The best way to build your audience is organically. Avoid paying for views, likes or other engagement.
- Create a compelling hook.
- Post at least five times per week.
- Study the content that sticks with you and think about what makes you keep watching.
- Don’t post about things that you yourself are not genuinely interested in or excited about.
- Develop a vision and stay consistent with content. Anyone who has just “one creative bone” in their body, a smartphone and willpower will find success on social media.
- Keep trying new things and continue to evolve.
