A 24-Year-Old Miami Realtor on How She Uses TikTok to Find Clients

• Samantha Purnell is a realtor at Keller Williams Miami Beach.
• She pivoted after a pandemic layoff and expanded her social media to include real estate.
• She said to lead with your personality and take the time to show units in their best light.

When Samantha Purnell graduated from the University of Miami in 2019 with a degree in public relations and marketing, getting her real-estate license wasn’t the first thing she’d planned to do. She instead followed the path set out by her major and was hired as an associate account executive at Miami PR firm Kreps DeMaria, where she worked on luxury real-estate accounts.

“I loved working on those accounts because I loved real estate. I remember telling my boss, ‘I need to get my license and do this on the side one day,'” Purnell told Insider.

In March 2020, Purnell’s accounts paused and she was furloughed. She said this gave her the last push she needed to sign up for Florida’s required 63-hour prelicense course at Gold Coast Schools of Real Estate. By January 2021, Purnell had passed the Florida Real Estate Exam and signed with Keller Williams Miami Beach as a full-time real-estate agent.

Purnell, who said she had 200,000 followers on TikTok at the time she signed with Keller Williams, quickly realized that TikTok, in combination with Instagram, was a great way to connect with clients. In her first two months working with Keller Williams, she said she connected with approximately 200 clients through social media.

Lead generation through social media has “just been so successful that I’ve never thought about using anything else,” Purnell said. She added that her TikTok following, garnered through the consistent creation of lifestyle, recipe, and fashion content prior to her career in real estate, was an immensely helpful place to start.

At present, Purnell has more than 607,000 followers on TikTok and 22,600 followers on Instagram. Here’s how she built up her social-media presence and turned it into a prime platform for landing deals.

Adding real estate to her established personal brand

A post shared by Miami Real Estate Agent (@sammypur)

Purnell’s social media content isn’t tailored to a real estate-specific following. In fact, her TikTok and Instagram presence is largely the same as it was before she got her real-estate license: heavily focused on recipes, lifestyle, and her day-to-day life. Now, she incorporates photos and videos of her listings — but doesn’t let real estate dominate her feed.

“I just show my personality and who I am, and people know what they’re getting themselves into if they want to work with me,” Purnell said.

One of Purnell’s first TikToks to gain traction was “Juicy Chicken 101,” a tutorial where Purnell shows how to prepare the chicken featured in many of her other recipe videos. She estimated that her following is 40% those interested in real estate and 60% those interested in lifestyle content, but added that there’s a lot of overlap.

Purnell said “blending your personal life with professional is an asset” in the Miami real-estate market, as it uses Miami itself as a selling point. “Showing the day-to-day in Miami gives people an idea of what their life could look like if they lived here,” she said, adding that the posts that tend to do the best are the ones featuring luxury listings because they have the most “wow” factor. 

Keller Williams Miami Beach is encouraging of social media use as a form of lead gen, she said. “In new agent training, I was told that one of the ways to lead generate is to use your sphere of influence, which is the people and connections around you already,” Purnell said. “Because my friends know how active I am in real estate, they consistently refer me to their friends or family members whenever they are looking to buy and sell.”

Balancing content on TikTok with reach-outs on Instagram

Instagram and TikTok are not created equal in Purnell’s experience. “My following is higher on TikTok because a few of my videos went viral, which boosted my following,” Purnell said. She added that people tend to find her through TikTok but will message her about properties through the Instagram page noted on her profile. 

Because TikTok and Instagram are her main forms of lead generation in addition to in-person networking, Purnell said her clients tend to be between 25 and 35 years old. However, she added that she does get clients over 40 that connect with her through social media, but mostly through the referral of someone younger. “Someone will message me and say something like, ‘Oh hey, my dad’s looking to buy in Miami, here’s his contact info,” Purnell said.

Purnell’s first sale, a new construction one-bedroom condo on South Beach, which sold for $795,000, was made with a client who reached out to her on social media.

For those looking to use TikTok and Instagram for real estate, Purnell said leading with your personality and taking the time to show units in their best light is key. For Purnell, this can mean taking high-quality videos that accentuate the unit’s best qualities, such as a water view, large balcony, or marble floors and countertops. Additionally, she suggested practicing your video skills because video content is the new way to go in real estate.

When Purnell shoots video on her iPhone, she adjusts the lighting in the space and puts her camera in “wide lens” mode. “Even little things like making sure the camera lens is clean, editing the videos using a bright filter, and walking really slowly and level handed all make a big difference for the content,” Purnell said.

Have you advanced your career using social media? Email Lauryn Haas at [email protected]