We speak with Carol Flammer, mRelevance “The blog is the engine of your social media program,” begins Carol Flammer. She should know – she’s been blogging since before most of us ever heard the term. Her company,mRelevance, helps builders, developers and communities define and implement successful online marketing strategies, much of it centered on social media. Carol explains why blogging is so important to a current marketing strategy and how to get started. 5 Key Reasons to Go Social There are five basic reasons to use social media: The idea of social media, though – keeping up with blogging, Twitter, Facebook, Active Rain and so many others – can be intimidating. “How do I keep all of that up to date?” is a question Carol gets a lot. She explains how it works: “The answer is easy if you build your program around your blog and post a minimum of eight blog posts per month. Those eight blog posts will feed through to Facebook and LinkedIn and your other social outlets, so right there you’ve created a big part of your content. Then, when they click on your Facebook page and the see your blog post linked, guess what – they end up on your blog! The same for Twitter, etc. “Just think about what’s already going on in your company and it become really easy to find 8 different topics to talk about each month. Builders and Realtors are already sending out eFlyers on programs and incentives; they’re educating people about the tax credits and different things going on in the community. All that information that they’re already putting out can be repurposed into blog posts. “For example, if you’re a builder and you’ve introduced a new home plan, talk about that. If there’s a new restaurant that opens near your community, or an event, such as a parade or fair taking place, talk about that and say, ‘Oh, by the way, if your attending the event, why not come by our model or sales center or office while you’re here. “Your blog and your social media strategy should tie in to your overall marketing plan. If there is a theme or promotion going on, then you should see parts of that in your social media. Granted, it should not be the main push of your social media; you don’t want to turn people off and get ‘unfriended.’ But it does need to be there. “So, you’ll have 8 blog posts per month which will also become 8 Facebook posts and 8 Twitter posts, etc. Then, monitor your social sites and respond to questions or comments. There’s nothing worse than a potential buyer trying to contact you or ask a question through Facebook and not getting a response.” Flammer notes the backside advantages of blogging and social media – it increases the SEO (search engine optimization) of your main website. However, she takes it a step further. “We’re seeing more and more that the blog is becoming the main website. If you need a new website and it can be a blog, that’s the way they’re being built today.” How to get started blogging. There are a number of blog hosting sites available that will allow you to get your first blog up and published literally within minutes. Most of them are free, the most popular being www.blogger.com and www.wordpress.com. The downside of using a hosting platform, though, it that your blog’s URL (online address) is always attached to the platform, i.e., ‘http://yourblogname.blogger.com.’ You’ll also have less flexibility with the look and feel of your blog. That’s not a problem for personal bloggers, but for your company blog Flammer suggests something better. “We recommend a self-hosted WordPress blog (a free download fromhttp://wordpress.org/.) It’s the only part of your social media program that you can control. So if you build your program on the one thing you can own and control – you can archive it; it’s sortable; it’s indexed by Google – you can control your own SEO and you won’t have to worry so much about what happens on the sites you don’t own, such as Facebook and Twitter.” Once your webmaster has installed the software, the next step is to choose a theme – what your blog will look like. There are thousands to choose from (again, many of them free – just Google ‘Wordpress Themes’,) but most businesses will have a custom theme created that matches their website and includes the features that will help them keep connected with their readers. “You want to brand your blog so that it looks like your website and your print ads,” advises Flammer. “It’s critically important that when people see you logo and images on your blog that they get the same impression of you.” Set up is really just that easy. So now you’re ready to outline your list of possible topics, perhaps assign topics members of your team to write, and start blogging. “Make your blog posts about the lifestyle and the amenities and surrounding area of your community. Sure, you can sell on your blog, but only about one out of four posts should be a ‘soft sell’; keep it about the buyers and the lifestyle you offer.” Will a blog really help me sell more homes? “Marketing isn’t going online,” says Flammer, “it’s there. If your not online and you’re not blogging and Tweeting, and if you don’t have a smart phone and you’re not striving to respond to anyone and everyone who wants to connect with you within 5 minutes, then you’re behind! If they want to engage with you on Facebook and that’s where they ask the question, then answer them on Facebook. But if you’re not there and that’s where they’re looking for you… “Savvy buyers are shopping builders, then they’re looking to see if they are in the social networks, whether they’ll interact with them, what the conversation is like, if they have negative comments on their pages. What’s the quality of those interactions? If they are torn between two builders, that could be the tipping point.” Blogging and social media engagement will also help you find more buyers. “You can optimize your website for maybe 5-7 key words, depending on where you are. But with you blog, you can be indexed for thousands – sometimes tens of thousands – of key words! That’s the real power of the blog – to attract the search engines and bring new traffic to your site.” Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you buyers don’t blog. They do. “Statistics show that seniors are only one tenth of one percentage point behind teenagers for blogging,” says Flammer. “Twenty two of the top 100 website in the world are actually blogs.” Does blogging make sense to you? Consider this: Social media reaches more people with a more personal message and for less money than traditional advertising. “You can fund an entire month’s social media program for one quarter of what you might spend on one weekly newspaper ad,” quotes Flammer. And, it will get more responses and be more effective in attracting traffic and closing sales. Search engines love blogs; your buyers read and respond to blogs. So, if you don’t like blogging yourself, you probably have someone on staff or that you work with that would love to write it for you. If not, give Carol a call. She’ll take care of everything. _______________________________________________________ . Carol Flammer’s company, www.mRelevance.com provides Public Relations services and designs social media programs for builders, including websites and blogs.
Why Bother Blogging? Social Media Explained.
Download Carol’s report: Blogging & Social Media here. www.BuilderRadio.com/BloggingReg
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Listen to the audio interview: http://builderradio.com/blog/?p=1434
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