Just to provide some balance to the Hate Article.
- There is absolutely nothing in this world like Facebook for connecting with all your old friends. The most successful people in real estate truly understand that networking is one of the real key’s to this industry and setting up a Facebook profile is drop dead easy thing to do to take advantage of it. Most of your old friends probably did not even know you were in real estate anyway. In sales the BIGGER YOUR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE THE BETTER.
- Facebook and Twitter are truly opt-in marketing. There can be no chance that you can ever have provisions of the the privacy act thrown at you as they chose to follow you and they still WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU.
- Testimonials are like gold for real estate agents and Linkedin allows you to write and receive business testimonials from other members. Testimonials that you approve become part of your profile for everyone to see. WHO DOES NOT WANT ANYMORE TESTIMONIALS?
- Ensure your following the right people on Twitter as it is simply the best barometer on the real estate industry. Everyday you will get the latest training tips, strategies, news and commentary and all in just 140 characters each. On Twitter follow few and follow quality and YOU WILL BE REWARDED. Try to follow too many and it all just turns into noise.
- Networking with others in and associated with our industry is just as important as networking with potential clients. When you are looking to contact someone you have never met Linkedin shows you who in your network already knows them and how. Linked in allows you to BUILD RELATIONSHIPS AND CONNECTIONS INSIDE THE INDUSTRY.
- Twitter Search is a fantastic way to keep abreast of just what people are saying about your company, your brand or a recent advertising campaign. You get to see exactly what consumers are TELLING THEIR FRIENDS ABOUT YOU.
- If they find it interesting or worth sharing, your friends and followers will spread your news for you when they retweet, comment or like something that you post. The power of social networking is INCREDIBLE WHEN IT GOES VIRAL.
- Tweets are now integrated live into the Google Search Engine Results Pages. Facebook Fan Pages and Twitter Lists are now in the Google Index which makes setting up a Twitter Account and Facebook Profile the EASIEST SEO ON THE PLANET.
- If you dont like someone or they are posting or tweeting rubbish… you can just DELETE THEM!
- Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin are 100% FREE… at least for now.
5 Comments
Greg Vincent
Glenn, every day I am blown away by how effective these 3 sites are for connecting with some of the best people within the real estate industry and/or any industry for that matter.
The leverage that real estate agents can get from these Social Networks is enormous, if they use them the right way.
It’s a shame to see so many people within the real estate industry sitting back & waiting to see what this Social Media thing is all about and/or if it’s just a fad.
If it’s ROI they’re worried about then they should check out this video about Social Media ROI by Erik Qualman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypmfs3z8esI
Glenn Batten
One of the biggest issues I think is that they believe that social networking is totally foreign… something that they have never done before. Agents have been doing social networking since the first deals were ever struck and the social networking sites are just tools to make it more efficient and cast your net wider.
Whilst we can disagree or have different opinions on exactly how to use these solutions they are certainly successful. As an example I would never broadcast every listing we have over our main twitter account because too many people would miss the news and information we broadcast on that account. IF we were ever going to do this then I would setup a separate account just for the listings and keep the main account for news, comments and the like.
But clearly many people disagree because there are probably a hundred or so agents who I have followed along the way because of this practice. I wanted to see what sort of tweets they were doing and all they ever did was their properties for sale which I have no interest in… DELETE… or unfollow actually.
Glenn Batten
Even if somebody does not signup for a Twitter account they can still use the advanced search on twitter to find out what people are saying about their agency…..
http://search.twitter.com/advanced
Some Examples
http://twitter.com/hoodyboody/statuses/10547714768
http://twitter.com/thepoofterson/statuses/10196531254
http://twitter.com/JordyJaelyn/statuses/10253347303
Greg Vincent
Glenn, I’m currently doing some experimenting with posting listings out onto Twitter via a separate Twitter account. I’ll keep you posted.
The advanced search feature is great for geo-targeted searches on Twitter and shows the importance of using some keywords within tweets too.
Glenn Sojourner
Great stuff Glenn that can be applied to not only real estate but all other businesses.
I use two Twitter accounts…one to just build a list from everywhere and anyone. I have another to focus on my niche. You cannot count on everyone filling out their bio completely on Twitter so you may be leaving a lot of potential followers out if you focus solely on the niche. Plus it allows your to really build your personality on Twitter and develop a larger community. Use the bigger one to bring others who have an interest in your niche to your focused Twitter account.