This is my first publication on www.WannaNetwork.com so I am planning to make this one a little short and little bit of an introduction to how I look at social marketing. Is your social networking strategy working? Don’t know? Any good online marketing professional will tell you that social networking can be very beneficial to your business, but they may say that with a little hesitation in their voice. Marketing yourself and your business online is not always as easy as it sounds. Online social networking websites like FaceBook, Twitter, MySpace and BlogSpot have grown over the last few years to be the most trafficked websites on the Internet today. As an online publisher and blog editor myself, I sometimes find it difficult to track my own success or failure with some of these efforts. Obtaining a new customer is as easy as setting up a profile on FaceBook and Twitter. Then just sit by the phone and wait for it to start ringing with all those buyers, right? Not quite.
Tracking social marketing success is not easy for anyone. Unless you get a call from someone that said outright, “Hey, I saw you on FaceBook and I am moving to your town. Can you help me?” then you really don’t know if your social website marketing efforts are working, so the real questions is, “How do I know if social marketing efforts are worth your time?”
I personally have a standard step by step plan to start my online marketing. Now, I did say start and I do want to be clear that there will be no magic or trickery suggested. I will never provide black hat, spamming techniques or offer my own services. I may on occasion feel the need to be a little honest with you. Online marketing success is not something that can usually happen overnight and it is not something I generally suggest you pay someone else to do for you unless you are a larger business and you simply don’t the have time or resources available. If you are an individual sales agent or run a small business, read on as I continue to add new posts. I hope to help you develop and succeed with your own online marketing strategy. At some point I may even get lazy and post my personal “to do list for success” for you to read and use, yourself.
Today I am focusing on introducing myself and the topic of Social Marketing for Real Estate. The average Real Estate Agent has always been a natural networker and marketing online shouldn’t be any different. The general population is searching for social interaction and chances are you are, too. According to Alexa, FaceBook is now ranked 3rd in the US for online traffic, MySpace is 5th, Twitter 12th and Linkedin 22nd. We should all know that social media websites bring in a massive amount of online traffic, and being in a service oriented profession, that is where we want to be, too. Yet only 33% of Realtors (according to NAR) are taking advantage of social network marketing. Is this because you don’t see the benefit in online marketing or maybe you have a fear of being slandered online or even sued? Do you see social networking even having a benefit in you real estate marketing strategy or just a waste of time? How do you make time for it, anyway? Where do you start?
To be successful with your online relationships a few basic communication guidelines should be followed. Start by being yourself and focus on building relationships. You already do this with prospects in your person to person sales approach, right? Remember to sound human rather than like a promotional advertisement. Show your personal side on your online profiles and interactions before your business side. Don’t be afraid to post pictures and share your hobbies and interests. You don’t need to share extensive personal info (and you should never give out any information that allow bad people to do bad things) but just make your profile a personable space. Try to focus on conversation and sharing the value of your expertise to bring others into the discussion. Don’t worry so much about proper grammar and try posting something as simple as, “If you have any real estate questions feel free to ask on my profile.”. This may start a casual non threatening dialogue around your business that allows interaction between you and your potential customers. The time you spend on social networks do not have be something that requires more than a few minutes per day but as you know with your face to face relationships, the more you put in, the more you get out.
Maybe next time we can discuss some of the possible ROI of your social network marketing efforts. Be sure to add my feed to your reader and for please follow me on Twitter.
We are not the FHA, VA, USDA, HUD or any other government organization. The content on this blog is intended for information purposes only. 
I thought your article was pretty darned good, especially for your ‘first time out’. Though I personally am about as computer literate as a sea sponge, I have wondered how well the whole facebook/ twitter (tweet?) affair works and have been tempted to try it.
In the past, I have had reasonable success with starting casual, nonthreatening conversations in checkout lines, in eateries, etc. by doing pretty much what you are suggesting above… I’ll comment on SOMETHING (a jacket, a car, whatever) and then ask what the other person does. I’ll ask them for a card, and that sure makes it easier to ‘trade’ cards with them. Let me ask you this… have you had much success with post cards? I’ve been looking at starting mailings again, but have been looking for that ‘silver bullet’ mailer. Thank you again for sharing your article! -Don Root Colorado Real Estate Associates 720-335-3282
I avoid snail mail campaigns as much as possible. Not only is the ROI often very low but with the same budget you can reach thousands if not hundreds of thousands of targeted with an online marketing campaign. Targeting sales using social marketing techniques requires a good strategy and a delicate touch. Learning to market online using the sweat equity approach can seem a bit daunting at first and the rewards almost never come quickly. Just don’t lose heart.