Online Real Estate Technology

I know that I’ve spoken a lot about the integration of social media into your real estate business and without the assistance of someone monitoring and assisting you to do it, it’s not unusual to get lost. I’ve recently seen some of the franchise groups try to get into the world of social media and to be honest, their efforts are a total waste of time.

There is one group, trying to use Twitter as a means of promoting it’s listings, and it’s got 171 updates and 4 followers, totally a waste of time and a totally wrong strategy attached to their attempts.

So where do you start?

There are a lot of social networks popping up at the moment, some offer similar features and some have very unique features, taking advantage of all of these requires different strategies but fundamentally, the approach you take to all of these networks should be the same.

Understanding each network and how to communicate with it will help you assimilate yourself into the group, remember my post on Social Media, Working The Room and Creating the Handshake!  , but do this carefully. Jumping right in and interacting with those who helped build the group or network can leave you not performing to the users expectations. Over time community members build a standard on how they feel each member should act, if you don’t spend time getting to know the expectation of the community, your information can be buried or your questions unanswered, so spend time evaluating the conversation or information and understand what the community wants from its members. From this take the knowledge learned and then join the conversation. This is what the group I mentioned before has not done, they have not read the community that is Twitter and therefore they are doomed to fail.

When you have understood how the community works and what is expected from each member, begin to build the relationship. There is no need to try and connect with every member on the community, on my Twitter account you’ll notice I don’t follow everyone that follows me, I’ve spent time learning and reading the profiles of the people who follow me and I will only follow those that have good content and information that I find useful. Approach those that share a common interest with you and these followers will be more beneficial to you when it comes time to virally market your services or products.

With all of the information you have learned about each network and the way its members interact, you are ready to take advantage of the unique features offered by each of these networks. Understanding the network and building relationships is an ongoing process,so don’t be afraid to set new standards and contribute to the group on a regular basis. However, if your strategy includes techniques that are not accepted in your network, it will damage your campaign and you will not fully realise the power of social networking. 

As always, let me know if you need help with your social media marketing.