Posted in If the Internet has become a big part of your business, and you’d like to decide which direction to take it from here, this article is for you. If you’ve just recently established an Internet presence, this article might be more relevant for you.
So, what is social networking, how can it complement your marketing activities, and what kind of time and financial investment is involved? As usual, we will investigate this according to our core principles of making you money, saving you time, and keeping it simple.
Many of you are already using social media. Facebook.com, Twitter.com and Linkedin.com are perfect examples. The principle for each is the same: they help you organize, expand, and communicate directly with your social and/or business networks. Twitter.com is the most recent popular social networking tool, allowing you to broadcast tiny snippets of information to your social network using a text message from your cell phone.
The fact is that some of our customers have had a great deal of success using social networks as prospecting tools. Others have found it time-consuming and inferior to the more conventional marketing that they are used to. We find that it is the people that have already integrated these tools into their daily routines that have the most success.
If you are already regularly using Facebook, Linkedin, or Twitter, modifying your discussions to include mention of your real estate business will be very simple and natural. As mentioned in a previous article, including a link to your fully-featured website, or to an interesting relevant article on your website, can drive a lot of traffic your way, and increase your business. Including a link to your website is just one way of driving traffic and building rapport with potential customers on social networking tools – we’ll discuss other methods in future articles.
If you have a Facebook account that you haven’t used since 2007, find it cumbersome to send a text message, or have a separate prospecting plan that is efficient and working well, social networking still has the potential to make you money, but will require a bit of an adjustment to the way you conduct your business. This is not to say that you should dismiss it – any potential source of new customers should be entertained. Rather, I’d suggest starting on a small scale. Here are some steps that keep it simple, and will allow you to gauge your success in as little as a few months:
- Sign-up for a linkedin.com account (Facebook is more for personal friends and family, whereas Linkedin is designed for professional connections)
- Spend an hour or two creating a compelling profile for yourself and your business, with links to your website
- Spend a few hours searching for, and adding colleagues, customers, and prospects to your friend list.
- Add articles every day to your business website’s blog (if your website doesn’t have a blog, try one of ours free for 30-days)
- Spend 15 minutes each day on linkedin.com posting links to the new articles on your website
The key here is to have a compelling website that you can drive traffic to. If your website doesn’t have features like an interactive MLS search, real-time trending, auto-blog, mortgage tools, etc., contact us and we’ll get one set up for you.
For those of you using social networking tools already, posting links to your website and other relevant real estate information on your various social networking tools will not impact your daily routine at all, and will make you money.
For those of you who want to test the waters, 30 minutes a day is all it will take, and chances are that you will ink at least one deal a year as a direct result from the above simple tips.
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