Facebook
X
Pinterest
Copy Link
Coldwell Banker Social Media Mastermind Recap: Real Talk on Video, Authenticity, and Growing Your Business Online
There are moments in this work that genuinely stop you in your tracks. Not because of a big sale or a major campaign milestone, but because you watch someone you’ve worked alongside step into the spotlight and absolutely own it.
That’s exactly what happened at Coldwell Banker’s May Social Media Mastermind.
As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I spend a lot of my time helping agents unlock their potential online — coaching them on content, branding, tools, and strategy. So when Betsy Ronel, one of my Westchester agents, was invited to be the featured guest for this national mastermind, I won’t lie: I felt proud. Really proud. She has been putting in the work, showing up authentically, and building something real on social media, and watching her share that story with Coldwell Banker agents across the country was one of those genuinely rewarding moments in this job.
If you missed the session — or if you were there and want to revisit everything that was covered — this recap is for you. What followed was one of the most honest, practical, and motivating conversations about real estate social media marketing I’ve heard in a long time.
Who Was in the Room (or on the Screen)
The session was hosted by Coldwell Banker’s national social media team: Nicole Gladstone, representing the South; Tiffany Giles, representing the Midwest; and Arianna Berta, Social Media Specialist for the West Coast.
The featured guest was Betsy Ronel, a Coldwell Banker agent out of Northern Westchester, New York, who specializes in towns like Bedford, Pound Ridge, Katonah, Mount Kisco, North Salem, and South Salem. Betsy started her real estate career eight years ago, from scratch, in an area where she knew no one, with no referral network and no roots. She leaned into social media when other agents in her market weren’t, and it became the engine that built her business. Hearing her story again, in front of a national audience, reminded me exactly why we champion agents like her.
The Top Takeaways from the Session
1. Face-Forward Content Is the Highest-Performing Content You Can Create
This was Betsy’s number one answer when asked what consistently performs best, and it’s something the entire Coldwell Banker social media team echoed throughout the session.
People follow you. Not your infographics. Not your market stats. Not even your listings. They follow you because they like you, and they want to see your face.
Betsy put it memorably:
“Even Cindy Crawford doesn’t wake up looking like Cindy Crawford.”
Stop waiting until your hair is perfect or your lighting is right. Show up. Say what you have to say. That is the content that outperforms everything else, every time.
As a real estate marketing specialist, this is one of the single most important things I tell agents, and Betsy validated it beautifully: your humanity is your greatest competitive advantage online.
2. You Don’t Need to Spend Money to Win at Social Media
Betsy has been doing social media entirely on a budget of essentially zero, and she’s not apologetic about it.
Her toolkit:
- InShot (free) — video editing
- CapCut (free) — video editing
- Canva (free) — graphics and design
The Coldwell Banker social media team confirmed these are tools they use and recommend as well. The session also mentioned Edits, an Instagram-developed app similar to CapCut, which will be the subject of an upcoming workshop.
If you feel like you’re not tech-savvy enough to use these tools, Betsy’s advice was refreshingly direct: learn during your downtime, or find a college student who can show you the ropes for an hour. Either way, there’s no budget barrier standing between you and a strong social media presence.
3. The Biggest Mistake Agents Make Is Not Getting on Camera
When asked directly what the single biggest mistake real estate agents make on social media, Betsy didn’t hesitate: not getting in front of the camera.
She reframed it in a way that I think every agent needs to hear. You are not on social media to be judged on your appearance. You are there to establish your authority and give people information about your market. No one is looking at you the way you look at yourself. They’re watching because they want to know what you know.
“Take your agency and authority back,” she said. “We are advisors. We have a lot of information on our respective markets. Just start talking.”
Whether it’s a new restaurant that opened in town, an update on local market stats, or a quick open house walkthrough. Pick up your phone and start talking to it as if you’re talking to someone you love and trust. The discomfort fades fast, and the results compound over time.
4. Hook Them in Three Seconds or You’ve Lost Them
On video length and strategy, Betsy was equally direct: audiences today have a skip rate of anywhere from 40 to 50 percent, and if you don’t hook someone in the first three seconds, they’re gone.
Her advice: lead with your point. Think in soundbites. Hit hard right from the start, then go into the detail. For length, aim for under two minutes. Under one minute whenever possible.
Arianna from the social media team reinforced the science behind this: the first three seconds is when you either earn attention or lose it. Your opening line is not a warm-up, it’s a hook.
5. Posted Is Better Than Perfect — Just Post
The session’s most quoted theme, repeated by both Betsy and the Coldwell Banker social media team, was a simple one: just post.
Stop optimizing. Stop waiting for the perfect moment or the perfect caption or the perfect outfit. You’ll film 50 takes and no one will ever know. You’ll piece together the best parts of three different clips. That’s normal. That’s fine. No one sees your outtakes.
“If you can sell real estate and walk into a house with a stranger, you can put yourself out there on a video,” Betsy said. “It’s just that logical.”
On the question of timing — whether there are better days or hours to post — Betsy’s honest answer was that Instagram’s insights will show you your own personal best windows, but the priority is consistency and volume, not scheduling perfection. Post. That’s the move.
6. Your Content Mix Should Be Listings, Local, and Personal
When asked how she divides her content, Betsy’s approach was practical and refreshingly balanced:
- Just listed and just sold posts
- Open house announcements
- Buyer tours
- Local happenings — coffee shops, restaurants, events, day trips
- Personal moments — birthdays, family milestones, what’s happening in her life
She offered a smart strategy for agents going through a dry spell with no listings of their own: ask a colleague in your office if you can post their listing. Credit them in the caption (legally required in many markets, including Westchester), and you keep showing up in your audience’s feed as an active, engaged agent.
If you have no listings and no content, go film local. Take a day trip within an hour of your market. Batch the content and dip into it throughout the week. Something is always better than nothing.
7. Carousels Are Now Neck and Neck with Video
One of the most significant platform updates shared during the session came from Emma Ramirez, who noted that carousels — multi-image posts you swipe through — are now performing on par with video in the algorithm.
Here’s why that matters: every swipe on a carousel counts as a view. So a six-image carousel that keeps someone engaged through all six images registers as six views on a single post. For agents who are not yet comfortable on camera, this is a powerful entry point. Start in Canva, pull from the content drops the CB social media team provides, and build out your carousel game while you work up to video.
The algorithms are constantly changing, which is exactly why the monthly mastermind format exists. To keep agents ahead of what’s shifting.
8. Forget Follower Count. Focus on Authentic Reach.
Betsy was characteristically blunt about buying followers: don’t do it. The algorithm is onto it, and inflated follower counts with low engagement hurt your reach more than they help your image.
Instagram recently conducted a major cleanup of bot accounts precisely because fake followers distort the engagement signal. If you have 20,000 followers but two likes per post, the platform flags you and reduces your organic reach. A clean account with 2,000 real, engaged followers will outperform a fake-inflated account every time.
Her approach: follow accounts that bring her joy or intellectual curiosity, engage authentically, and let her follower count be a byproduct of good content rather than a goal in itself.
9. Social Media Is Always Working for You — Even When You’re Not
One of the most valuable reframes of the entire session came near the end of the Betsy conversation, and it’s something I repeat to agents constantly as a real estate marketing specialist.
Social media is not just about generating direct leads. It’s about establishing presence, building credibility, and influencing where you show up when someone Googles your name or searches for agents in your area. People are watching you even when you don’t know they’re watching. They’re doing their research before they ever reach out.
“It’s like an investment account,” Betsy said. “It’s always making money for you.”
Your social media presence works while you sleep, between listing appointments, during the slow months. If you treat it as a holistic part of your marketing ecosystem rather than a direct-response channel, the numbers start to make a lot more sense.
10. The Podcast Play: When Your Personal Brand Extends Beyond Real Estate
A significant portion of the session was devoted to Betsy’s podcast, Heavens to Betsy! — a personal, lifestyle-focused show that has nothing to do with real estate on the surface, and everything to do with it in practice.
Betsy didn’t launch it to generate leads. She launched it because a producer who believed in her voice gave her a push, and because she needed a creative outlet that was entirely her own. What happened organically is that the authentic connection she built through the podcast. With local guests, with listeners, with people who would never have found her through a listing alert, translated into real estate business.
The lesson is bigger than podcasting: when you show up as your full, real self in any medium, you attract people who like you. And people who like you call you when they need a real estate agent.
For agents looking for a model of what storytelling-driven content can look like, the team also highlighted Connor Jorgensen (@homesutah), a Coldwell Banker agent out of Utah whose reels use property storytelling and agent collaborations as the foundation for his content. Worth a follow.
11. Coldwell Banker Tools Are Underused and Underrated
Betsy, who has been at three brokerages, was candid about this: she thinks Coldwell Banker’s tools are outstanding, and she uses them. Including Prospect Square for newsletters and the CB CRM. Her only marketing expense is essentially zero because the platform provides what she needs.
For agents who aren’t yet fully tapped into the Coldwell Banker ecosystem, this is worth paying attention to. Tools like Prospect Square make it easy to distribute market stats, personalized newsletters, and branded content without needing an outside vendor.
On the Compass/Coldwell Banker merger and tech integration, Betsy’s take was optimistic, and honest, given she has worked at Compass before: the combination of CB’s branding and tools with Compass’s intuitive tech platform is shaping up to be something genuinely exciting for agents. The rollout is close, and it’s worth watching.
Closing Thoughts: Why Sessions Like This Matter
I’ve been doing this work long enough to know that the gap between agents who succeed at social media and agents who don’t usually isn’t tools, budget, or even talent. It’s courage and consistency.
What Betsy Ronel modeled for every agent in that room, and what the Coldwell Banker social media team reinforces month after month in these masterminds, is that showing up as yourself, repeatedly, generously, and without overthinking it, is the strategy. Everything else is a tactic.
Watching Betsy hold her own in front of a national audience, speaking the same truths I’ve been sharing with agents in Westchester and beyond, was genuinely one of the highlights of my month. She has earned every bit of that spotlight.
If you’re a Coldwell Banker agent and you’re not attending these monthly masterminds, start. The level of practical, current, actionable guidance you’ll walk away with is hard to find anywhere else.
📅 Ready to Talk Real Estate Marketing Strategy?
As a Field Marketing Specialist at Coldwell Banker, I work directly with agents to build the kind of social media presence that generates real results. If you want to talk about your current approach and where to take it next, let’s connect.
