I was talking with a seasoned real estate professional recently about jumping into the social media scene with her business. I wasn’t surprised to hear that she was very anxious and unsure about how to best get started. So I thought I would share my thoughts on getting started with social media in 2009!
To start, before you get to deep into any social media plan you need to think about your goals and what you want to achieve. For example, who are you trying to reach specifically? Where do those consumers hang out online? How much time do you have to focus on social media each initiatives week? Once you have the answer to these key questions and have set goals, you can move forward knowing that you have something to gauge your success.
Monitoring
Now that you’ve established goals, it would be a good idea to establish a pulse or monitoring system for your brand and market. Remember that it’s not just mainstream media you’re listening to. With current technology you can easily track individual conversations online. Ask yourself what type of content a prospective client would find if they search you online. This exercise will also help you identify new emerging topics early so that you can implement them into your business, communication plan, or social media objectives.
If you want to setup automatic alerting, one of the most popular free services is Google Alerts. It’s a free email update service offered by Google to help you stay on top of developing news by setting specific keywords to track. (i.e. your name, business, competitor). I would also suggest using tools like SocialMention and WhosTalkin to search user-generated content like blogs, comments, forums, bookmarks, events, and videos. To learn more about monitoring tools, read 7 Ways to find out who’s talking about you.
Your Homebase
Next let’s talk about setting up your homebase. For many real estate agents it will be their website or blog. If you do not have a website today, I would suggest looking at the rDesk line of websites. They are an easy to implement solution with sophisticated features like IDX map search, customized property searches from your home page, neighborhood and school info, and built-in contact manager with action plans.
With the rDesk website you can customize your pages as you see fit with your own content, but if you want to publish content regularly you may also think about implementing a blog. That’s a place for you to share your expertise, opinions, and personality. I recommend the blogging platform WordPress. You have 2 options: WordPress.com and WordPress.org. The WordPress.com version is the easiest to start, but long term allows for less customization. WordPress.org on the other hand is highly customizable because you host it yourself. This option may require professional assitance in setting up and configuring. [Tip: The IDX search from your rDesk website will work on your blog too! ]
The Outreach
Once you’ve established a homebase, start to perform your consumer outreach. You have a wide variety of options ranging from social networks to photo, music, and event sharing sites. For example take a look at the arms of social media detailed in the Starfish concept by Robert Scoble.
Compliments of Robert Scoble & Graphic by Darren Barefoot
Now there are some things I know about you, starting with the fact you’re busy. You don’t want social media to be an all day endeavor. You need to get out of the office and perform a multitude of offline responsibilities each day. So here would be my initial recommendation:
Facebook
I would have you start with network like Facebook. It’s the #1 social network worldwide, with over 150 million users. Their fastest growing demographic is 30 years plus. It’s a place online where people come to commingle and have fun. One of the most attractive components to a marketer is the flourishing friendstream-a mashup of your contacts activity. Take a look at this chart, for some basic Facebook tips:
LinkedIn
I would also send you over to LinkedIn.com, a social network of experienced professionals. It boasts over 35 million members-with a new member joining every second. LinkedIn is still very much a job resume site, although they have made great strides to increase user interaction. Recently LinkedIn has added the ability to add applications to your profile and share status updates around what you’re working on. Take a look at this chart, for some basic LinkedIn tips:
ActiveRain
You may also want to participate in ActiveRain. It’s a strong community of professionals from the real estate industry. ActiveRain is a great resource for gaining insight into how other real estate agents are marketing themselves in other markets. Also remember that the content you generate through posts, can be found on search engines like Google.
Participate & Evaluate
After you have performed your outreach and joined some communities, you want to loop back and continually evaluate your presence in these networks. Is your sphere growing? Are you making connections that foster community? How can you share more and help more? What’s not working? Identify these items and then go back and try something new. How did the results differ?
Good stuff Reggie. A couple things I need to fix in my own plan. Definitely saving this.
I love the starfish illustration. It’s so much easier to see it visually than in a list.
Whats up it’s my first visit on this site. I LOVE thoose images
Tarkista luotto-raportti ennen kuin haet pikalaina – ei ainoastaan tarkistaa luotto-raportti paljastaa, miten voit katsoa tulevaisuuteen lainanantajia, se kavaltaa myös mahdollisuuden elvyttää tietoja, jotka ovat väärässä ja jättää itsellesi parhaat mahdollisuudet on hyväksynyt .
There are several, but, you will not be able to do it out of a book or video, I promise you. Look at leerburg.com see if he has any. Again, what you are trying to do has legal implications and you need actual drugs. I have been doing it for 27 years, I know. If you try to short circuit it, you will get in trouble. This is not a game.