Comments on: Lost In The Crowd: Realtors Fail To Effectively Leverage Social Media.

By: Stefan Swanepoel

Stefan Swanepoel — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 19:05:06 +0000

Great post Jim, couldn’t agree more. I just re-posted this on my Fan page on Facebook at http://www.Facebook.com/SwanepoelInternational
Thanks for your constant quality blog posts.
Stefan

By: Luis Pezzini

Luis Pezzini — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:42:37 +0000

Though the social networking sites had become popular and is used to promote business , on my perception they do not help much , because the people there are with different interests.

By: mikel

mikel — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 13:16:26 +0000

Great post! Social networking sites are now also used for businesses that thrive on networking such as the Real Estate market. Buyers and sellers have used the opportunity to gather filtered information relevant to what they are currently searching for while real agents have used this media to broaden their customer base. The trick is knowing how to wisely use the ubiquitous social media sites to your business advantage.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 22:12:13 +0000

Great blog-
I think it’s things are even more scary for anti-social networkers than you portray. There are a lot of people out there who are going to make their money off social networking and leveraging the opportunities out there… some percentage of leads and customers are going to be taken by these up and comers. These folks may not even be good realtors, but they are in the right place and can get lucky. In addition, everyone born after about 1975 (and who has the money to buy a home) will do some part (if not all) of their research on line. As houses turn over it becomes more and more important to be on the computer. Just about everyone who receives and reads a blog (like the tomato) is at the head of the class even though they think they might not be… if we can just stay the vast number of non-tech people, we’ll do fine.

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:44:41 +0000

Great post and comments … I am new to blogging and actually need some type of direction ….. I only see some importance to it so few ……. if anyone can direct me to tutorials or solid outline that would be great. There is so much out hear I find myself not really moving forward ….. thanks again for any help.

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:07:40 +0000

I agree with some of the previous comments. Signing up to an online community is pointless unless you have some experiacne and/or knowledge in that background. You will save so much time if you know where you want to go, instead of just roaming around looking for possible connecions. There are tutorials on all of the recent/popular online community sites.

By: Matt Dollinger

Matt Dollinger — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:30:57 +0000

Jim,
I enjoyed your post, but allow me to make another analogy:
The gold rush of yesterday, much like the oil industry, exploits resources and focuses on personal gain only without thought or care to the environment. Would you agree with this?
So that being said, your idea to be a successful social networking poses some problems in my mind:
1. Get there early to develop the largest amount of followers as possible.
(so i put up 100 profiles that I don’t check and friend everyone, picking up 1000’s of Twitter followers at a time that I am never going to actually read or converse with – strike 1)
2. Regularly Provide Relevant, Compelling, Eye-catching, and Impressionable content for the community to consume.
(Compelling and Regular are the two that strike home with me… how about Honest, Factual, thought-provoking, and most of all VALUABLE information?)
3. Update your status regularly with Relevant, Compelling, Eye-catching, and Impressionable bite-size content.
(Again, where’s the 2-way value here?)
4. Participate (comment, message, tag, nudge and friend) in the Greater Community to grow your reach, relevance and influence.
(It’s not about influence… where’s the learning curve here? Seriously, learning is what we should be urging our agents to do, and Twitter is probably the best out there)
5. Lather – Rinse – Repeat.
I enjoy your blog immensely, and am an avid reader. But, I wanted to point out that where everyone is out there telling agents to GET ON SOCIAL MEDIA, we’re telling them the wrong reasons. The idea shouldn’t be to gain clients, etc. The first step in all of this should be to learn from the established collaborative community first, then proceed after you find your voice and grow your knowledge.
If not, were going to end up with a bunch of Facebook-Twitter-Craiglist-Link-Posting-Real-Estate-Agents-Highlighting-Their-Listings-on-Facebook. And this would do nothing but further the stigma the world has about our industry. (IMHO)
Keep up the good work. Where I have a couple of issues with this post, you guys do GREAT work and supply the industry with an immense amount of quality knowledge.
Matt Dollinger
http://www.TheYouFactor.com

By: Jim Cronin

Jim Cronin — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:14:48 +0000

Great comment, Matt.
I can agree that I could have included, and should have included: “Honest, Factual, thought-provoking, and most of all VALUABLE information” in what is being delivered. I think my oversight comes from the consistent training that we do with our clients, helping them to filter their content to be Honest, Factual, Thought-Provoking and Valuable…. where they have trouble is consistently making that type of content Compelling and Eye-Catching.
You are right – just puking all over the Social Media space not going to do anyone any favors.
I hope no one takes my suggestion to get there early as an invitation to game the system, creating several accts and friending whoever… the idea was that the earlier you embrace, the sooner you will grow.
The whole suggestion is really: Don’t just sign up for something like FB or twitter and wander around with no clue. Realize that you can develop a strong network that can be interested in your most valuable and compelling content… and that will lead to trust and appointments. Hopefully some will take the advice.

By: Mark Madsen

Mark Madsen — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:43:30 +0000

Jim – Social networking is a big waste of time for most agents / loan officers. As you like to say – the Realtor on Realtor action. People like to show up and pretend that their working just because some of their discussions are real estate related.
The most important thing to pay attention to with any social networking agenda is to have a strict schedule and pattern. Don’t lose time chasing shiny objects. (my biggest problem)
However, if SEO/SEM were a primary focus of social networking, then it would probably be a little easier to justify the time investment. It is also important to pay attention to the people you’re networking with. Basically, go where the clients are.
Either way, a social networking strategy should be part of an overall marketing and relationship building model, but only with a continuous measurement of ROI.
We forget about the great networking that takes place in the comment section on people’s blogs. (I’m not talking about AR commenting for points) Personally, I remember the people who stop by my blogs more than the guys creating noise on FB or Twitter.

By: Portland Real Estate

Portland Real Estate — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 17:22:10 +0000

Great analogy with the gold rush. It is a very competitive industry, I was speaking with a realtor from Phoenix and there are agents out there without any business at all, completely unable to make ends meet. Lets hope we have scraped the bottom of this market slump and we start climbing back now.