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

Don't Get Caught On Your Knees Sifting For Gold When You Could Be On Stage, Making A Lasting Impression.

I am so proud of the real estate industry.  You've come so far!

In the latter half of the 90's decade, as the Internet promised to be a modern gold rush, curiously, Realtors showed little interest.  It wasn't until just recently that the Realtor's personal website was accepted as an obligatory expense.  The irony is that now it has little chance of being effective.

But today, I actually have faith in the real estate agent's embrace of the Internet as an effective marketing tool. 

As much as the $500 brochure website of yesteryear catered to the ego of the Glamour Shots® agent, it failed to jibe with their gregarious nature.  Affable and outgoing agents couldn't recognize any immediate relevance to their obvious business model; network, network, network. 

Yet now, with the rise of Social Media, Realtors are feeling much more at home online, recognizing the opportunity to leverage the Internet as a viable networking tool.

Where it once seemed that Realtors needed to be dragged into the 21st century, they are now marching forward in droves.  A rush, if you will.

But there's a problem.

In the rush of 1849, where 100's of thousands broke from their traditional lifestyle in search of riches in the hills of California, there was no guarantee of success.  For every nugget of gold discovered, there were thousands left holding a fruitless shovel.  River panners spent break backing days sifting through the silt of the river bottom only to discover enough flecks of gold to keep him fed, and yet hungry for more.

As it turns out, those that were making the best living during the gold rush were those that sold the equipment (shovels, maps, mining tools, waterwheels, hydraulics, etc.)  to the prospectors.

This rush for Realtors to leverage Social Media for ready-to-act home buyers and sellers is proving to be a similar environment.  Shovels, pans and picks have been replaced by Blogs, Facebook, Twitter, ActiveRain, SEO and the endless list of consultants willing to sell you a few hours of their expertise (maps, if you will).

It might sound like I am tearing shingles off my own roof, for I am an "equipment" provider.  My intent, however, is to bring some clarity to the social media fog in which I see most participating Realtors aimlessly wandering around.

Almost no gold came easy.  And just doing what everyone else was doing made it harder still.
But there were fortunes made, when the proper systems were implemented.
It wasn’t about the map, the shovel, or the pan.
It was about organizing the community to work for you.

To be successful as a prospector there was a formula:
1. Get there early to stake out as much land as possible.
2. Build an outfit of contractors to do all the heavy lifting.
3. Provide tools and equipment.
4. Establish strong vigilance in an effort to prevent any 'unaccounted-for' gold.

Let me paint another picture.

For most, participating in social media is like going to a rock concert.  You find yourself surrounded by people that all have a common interest (be it AC/DC or real estate).  You like the familiar, loud music, you like the energy of the crowd, you feel connected.  But, at the end of the show, there are only a select few that the whole crowd remembers.  It was those on stage, leading the audience to be connected, that made the biggest impression. 

So with your efforts in social media, you need to make the choice: Are you going to be on stage, making the lasting impression?  OR  Are you going home in an overpriced souvenier T-shirt, telling all your friends how great it was?

For prospectors, making a fortune during the California gold rush was so challenging because the effort and investment of organizing an outfit to do all the heavy lifting was out-of-reach for most. 

Social Media on the other hand has made it all too easy to organize a formidable community.  Now, to be successful in leveraging that community to "work" for you, it is your responsibility to get up on stage, in front of them, night after night, and start leaving an impression.  If you go to the show just to hold a lighter, you'll always be just a face in the crowd.

To be successful as a social networker there is a (much easier) formula:
1. Get there early to develop the largest amount of followers as possible.
2. Regularly Provide Relevant, Compelling, Eye-catching, and Impressionable content for the community to consume.
3. Update your status regularly with Relevant, Compelling, Eye-catching, and Impressionable bite-size content.
4. Participate (comment, message, tag, nudge and friend) in the Greater Community to grow your reach, relevance and influence.
5. Lather - Rinse - Repeat.

I can't stress enough how important it is to learn to use these social tools of today. 
Be certain, they aren't going away.  The generation coming up under us will make sure of that.

Streets Paved With Gold

Tidbit of trivia for those that made it to the bottom of the article: Streets in Northern California mining towns were in fact paved with gold.  Slag from the mines was used to reinforce dirt streets.  Before the dust, dirt and mud again covered it completely, the kids in town would pick through the rubble, occasionally finding discarded treasure.

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Comments

[Portland Real Estate]

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.

[Mark Madsen]

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.

[Matt Dollinger]

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
www.TheYouFactor.com

[Jim Cronin]

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.

[Shawn]

Are there any suggestions out there on where you can go for quality training on developing a way to use the internet more effectively? I'm very new to the blogging and internet marketing(and Real Estate) scene.

Thanks Shawn at www.inexpensiveinvestinginflorida.com

[Tim]

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.

[Carl]

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.

[Dan]

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.

[mikel]

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.

[Foreclosure Properties]

I'm sure many would benefit from it.
- i will try and keep up with it!! please keep more coming :)
Really helpful post .. thanks for sharing.

[Luis Pezzini]

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.

[Stefan Swanepoel]

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