Entry by Merv Forney

Is Social Media ripe for your real estate advertising?

  3 Comments

Maybe but mostly NOT! Don't do it.

Check out this article: Social Networking Dinosaurs.

Let's consider Facebook ...
If you want to advertise your real estate business, create a business page and invite friends to follow. Encourage your friends to invite others. Post your listings. Post your opinions on the industry. Make it a "I want to know more about what she/he thinks." Consulting? What are you telling your business audience about how you work and why?

Your personal FB page is for creating relationships. Invite your contacts to be "friends." In due time, invite them to your business page. Our business is about creating trusting relationships. Once established, business will follow.

Here's my FB business page: BIG (MT). You are invited to join!

3 Comments

I think it's fine to occasionally mention work that you're doing, but I agree that you certainly don't want to have your friends feel like your every utterance is an ad for your services, your blog, your successes (face-bragging) etc.

Whether it's facebook, twitter, or any other social media site, it's important to listen and respond and not just broadcast. The worst offenders are the agents who only tweet their listings. But it's not much better if your only tweets are about yourself.

Have dialogues. Share a link on a topic of interest (or something funny, even). Respond to other's tweets or facebook updates. Comment on their blogs. Everything should NOT revolve around you or your business, it should be community building.

Whether it's in social media or at a party, it's boorish to only talk about oneself and one's own work.

What I've done is to create a Fan page (now called a "like" page or business page for my real estate stuff and keep my personal profile for personal stuff. On my real estate page, I put interesting "tidbits" about real estate, the market, purchasing a home, etc.

But we do have to walk the straight and narrow even on our personal page to maintain a professional image. (Don't put photos of your wild antics at a party, for example).

It only takes 25 fans to create a personalized URL that you can use in advertising, etc. Mine is http://www.facebook.com/NWArkansasRealEstate. You can also get your listings on the page and link to your blog or IDX.

Since many people now use Facebook, it might not be a bad thing to do.

I totally agree with you Mary. If the only thing you talk, blog, tweet, or facebook about is your business people stop listening. You need to develop relationships, put your web site on your sig line and eventually, they will come to you and ask. I belong to a few games on facebook (cafe world because I love to cook) develope relationships with other people, and eventually down the road they will want to know what you do for a living, or you can ask them what they do. I also get a lot of business from Trulia by answering questions from buyers and sellers, but all I do is give my .02 on their question, but they read my sig line and check me out. I've had lots of business that way.

It's all about developing relationships and not always talking business. As I've always said "if you put the people first, the money will follow". You have to be sincere and care about the people, although they may not need any real estate help, they may know people who do and refer them to you. Just got one of those yesterday.

Be caring and your business will grow. Merv, I envy your traveling lifestyle, wish I could do that. I joined your business page. Have much to learn about social media but have had some personal issues to deal with and just now coming out of my coma. YOU are a rocket scientist!!!

This page contains a single entry by Merv Forney published on May 17, 2010 8:23 PM.

Consulting Brokerage? was the previous entry in this blog.

What "ACRE Principles" Guide Your Real Estate Practice and Differentiate You From The Competition? is the next entry in this blog.

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