Face-led account or brand-led account, when the face can quit
I've been running content for my own rehab work since 2022 and for three clients since last spring. Small shop, me plus an editor at $28 an hour.
The split I can't resolve is face-led or brand-led.
My own account first. Posts where I'm on camera in a gutted kitchen explaining why a joist bay is wrong average 4,100 views. The same job posted as before and after stills under the company name averages 900. Comments run about the same ratio. Of the 11 seller conversations I traced back to social last year, 9 named me and 2 named the company.
Then the other side. A client with a small brokerage built everything around one agent's face for 14 months. She left in February. The followers didn't unfollow, they just stopped caring. Post engagement dropped 71 percent in six weeks and we're rebuilding from close to zero on an account they paid retainer on the entire time.
So face-led buys reach cheaply and brand-led buys something that survives turnover. AI sharpened this for me rather than softening it. Anyone can now generate decent listing copy and passable stills, and what still doesn't fake well is a person on camera who obviously knows what a bad framing job looks like. That argues for faces. It also means the reach lives inside a human being who can walk.
Middle path I've tried once. Brand handle, named contributors, everyone introduces themselves as part of the company. Reach landed at 2,200 average, better than brand-only, worse than a single face. Feels like a hedge that costs half the upside.
What I want to know is what you'd do on a client's account rather than your own, because the incentive isn't the same. My account dying is my problem. Their account dying after 14 months of retainer is a refund conversation.
For a client's real estate content account, what do you build it around?
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