Kevin O’Leary on Personal Branding for Commercial Real Estate Developers

Last month, the largest commercial real estate conference in the state, Power Connections in Commercial Real Estate, brought together the region’s most impactful developers, real estate CEOs, family offices, construction companies, property managers and real estate service providers for two days of networking and experience sharing. We heard from several prominent voices–from the CEOs of Bedrock Detroit and Henry Ford Health to several multigenerational developers and investors. Even Michigan State University Basketball Coach Tom Izzo made an appearance. There was plenty to say about real estate, creating relationships and doing deals.

During the closing conference keynote, speaker Kevin O’Leary highlighted a topic I did not expect to be discussed: commercial real estate, branding and the use of social media.

Mr. Wonderful at Power Connections

In case you’ve been living under a rock, Kevin O’Leary—widely known as “Mr. Wonderful” from the hit TV show Shark Tank—is an entrepreneur, investor and entertaining TV personality. He made his fortune co-founding The Learning Company, an educational software company acquired by Mattel in 1999. Side note: O’Leary told a great story at Power Connections about working with Steve Jobs and his colorful personality, which the audience loved. After his success with The Learning Company, he’s launched various investment ventures: mutual funds, ETFs, venture firms and specialty brands, in addition to his continued investments via Shark Tank.

In recent years, O’Leary has shifted toward real estate, both as an advisor and investor. He also has a major stake in a data-center project called Wonder Valley, the largest data center in the world.

As the Power Connections in Commercial Real Estate closing keynote, I wasn’t sure what to expect with O’Leary. When he took the stage, a brief video introducing him and his successes played on the large screen–O’Leary’s own voice narrating his success. He then immediately launched into a current review of the markets and real estate with a Powerpoint that was dated for the day. At first, it looked like I was about to sit through an average corporate Powerpoint, not a TED-style talk. But, Mr. Wonderful’s approach was actually helpful to understand his “what’s happening today” introduction. Then O’Leary launched into talking about his passion projects, such as AI and data centers. He was captivating and a great speaker, effortlessly traversing the stage while stating his opinion on the economy, politics, entrepreneurship and his all-in attitude on artificial intelligence. I was hooked.

If You’re Not on LinkedIn, You’re Nuts

During his Power Connections fireside chat, O’Leary was asked about personal branding tools for real estate. His recommendation on the best platform for branding: social media. While O’Leary has a massive platform, he highlighted how municipalities, governments and strategic partners still research him and his track record. When he goes to bat for a project, often ones that have billions of dollars of capital behind them, he needs to have a solid digital footprint in place to match the ambitious visions of his projects. He was very serious about putting forward a real, but curated, brand on social media.

He was also bullish on developers getting on LinkedIn and talking about their projects and successes, still viewing the platform as in a “growth state” and yet to reach its height of use.

“If you’re a real estate developer and you’re not on LinkedIn, you’re nuts.”

Hearing him utter those comments endorsing social media was like drinking a double espresso for me––an immediate jolt of energy straight to the veins.

At Identity, we’ve been working in commercial real estate public relations for decades and preaching the value of social media for almost 20 years, before LinkedIn was even a thing. Today, we’re actively managing the digital presence of real estate developers and their C-level executives. And, as one of the nation’s top commercial real estate PR firms, I could not have asked for a better endorsement for “getting on social media.”

That said, it’s not that real estate executives aren’t using social media. A quick advertising data pull from LinkedIn tells me there are more than 840,000 C-level executives in the real estate industry based in the United States with profiles on LinkedIn. What they’re actually doing with their profiles… is what is in question. According to a Kinsta report, only 1% of monthly users post content on the platform, and that average is likely smaller among developers.

In the eyes of Mr. Wonderful, these developers have the opportunity to better market themselves and position their companies for better success using social media, especially LinkedIn. A true entrepreneur at heart, he repeatedly encouraged developers to “jump into” social media and take a risk. 

To boil it down: developers are leaving branding and visibility opportunities on the table by not effectively leveraging their social network.

The Curse of Being Humbly Confident

Like other industries or verticals, there are commercial real estate developers in the space who love attention and visibility and make investments in elevating their portfolio activity, people and transactions. For them, commercial real estate PR, social media and marketing are part of the growth formula. We love those clients.

Others, meanwhile, live a humbly confident existence, where great work leads to new opportunities. Word of mouth and relationships are the lifeblood, and marketing and being visible can sometimes feel awkward. Moreover, these types of efforts are a slow burn and take time to bear fruit––just like relationship building.

A Big Leap or Small Steps

The reality is that effective social media management takes time, creativity and some technical know-how, even for real estate developers. Moreover, you need to be brave and willing to put a part of your brand out in the open. The most effective users are consistent with content, understand how to offer perspectives that spark some level of discussion and go niche with discussion and topics to speak directly to defined audiences (capital providers, JV targets, high-net-worth investors, etc.).

O’Leary’s confidence in the power of social media and his advocacy for LinkedIn may not drive every real estate professional at Power Connections to get more active with LinkedIn. However, real deal makers know LinkedIn is the best professional networking that works while you sleep.

With few real estate executives actively playing the social media branding game, even in 2025, now is the ideal time to jump in.