How many transactions have you closed as a result of Social Media?

While it may take a while for it to translate to closings, twitter is definitely worth the time spent there. I've been invited to lunch, invited out for a beer, and met two of my followers in person already. Those relationships are what lead to closings. 

To each his own, but I don't think it's wise to dismiss social media as a time waste when social media isn't going anywhere. One of the world's largest websites is facebook. Twitter is huge. Fish where the fish are and they are on goole, searching for homes, but they're on facebook and twitter too. I just wrote a post on twitter explaining how to use it wisely. Not meant to plug my post, just saying it's useful.

Interesting and honest post

I was talking about you Ralph!  :)  Nice post.

In order of importance to the business.

1. Websites

2. Active Rain

3. Facebook

4. The rest of the social media stuff

For the amount of work and time I put into ActiveRain, I have to admit...not much.  I have had much better results with other social network sites.  Great post!

Hi Ralph, I am just getting up and running in my new market in Naples, FL but do believe it is going to work.  I received a phone call yesterday from a lady in NJ looking for a foreclosure on a post I did to Localism when I was working the Jersey Market 2 years ago.  We had a nice conversation and I referred her to a great agent in the area she wants to be!

Hi Ralph ~ I've been blogging for less than a year, which I don't consider long enough to make an adequate assessment of what works yet. In the last 3 months I have closed on two homes with buyers who came to me through AR, another two that came through Realbird and one from Craigslist.

Facebook and twitter have not yielded any results yet, although I'll continue to be active, just to keep my presence visible. Like I said, I actually don't think that less than a year is long enough to assess this properly, although I am pretty happy with my results thus far. 

What I will not be doing is paying any lead generation companies. I tried that before blogging, spent a lot of money and got diddley squat for it!

Denise

I've received exactly one direct lead from my blogging on ActiveRain, and that went nowhere.  (However, I do believe I've secured my place as a professional in the view of numerous clients because of my social media presence.)

One lead from Twitter, no closing yet.

No leads from Facebook but more Friends are talking to me about real estate  because of my activities there!

My best Internet lead sources in the past year have been from remax.com, and my own web sites.  A couple closings from those. 

Honestly, my best lead-generating source seems to be my ability to talk!  Good ol' sales skills.

Cool post.

Ralph - I have noticed over the last year that my online lead generation has been weakened a little by the market conditions but I would say that my personal website and AR are what have contributed mostly to business that comes to me via the internet. I also do old fashioned things like floor time, postcards, ecards and occasionally there is that lead that comes through my broker's website.  You cannot put all your eggs in one basket. 

Social Media has reconnected me to numerous folks I had lost touch with !!!!! It's REBUILDING my Pipeline !

Nothing happened my first 16-18 months on AR.  But I think you have to be in it for the long haul.  Some of my leads come from post cards, but those direct people to my AR site and my other blog "Real Estate Tomato."

Because Google is indexing to IDX - I am losing some of my punch becuase IDX isn't as popular.  That was a big way to capture and cultivate leads. 

Over the last 18 months  intenet leads from AR and The Westchester View have given me about 2.5 million in gross sales.  This is in a very, very slow market.  In my city only about 1.6% of the population actually moved over the past year.  So that's not bad.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers, but I know that I now get website leads and that before AR, I didn't appear on the front pages of Google for anything.

As to FaceBook, I closed 5 deals in the last year from FaceBook.

Had my license since June 1st and signed a contract from a Facebook lead so far (1st week of having my license).

I'm always surprised to read posts from agents stating that facebook and twitter haven't generated any business at all. Year-to-date, I've closed 26 transactions that came directly from my online activity, and have 3 others currently under contract. Of those 26, 22 (plus the 3 pending) came directly from relationships formed on facebook and/or twitter. The other 4 came through my blogs & websites.

Notice that I said "relationships formed on facebook and/or twitter." Unfortunately, that's the key that so many agents are missing. It's about building relationships, not about sales or self-promotion. It's about being a real person, being genuine and letting people see your human side. Yes, it works, but just like anything else in life, you get out of it what you're willing to put into it. I see a few here who get that, but the vast majority will just say they don't have time for it, or they don't think you should mix personal with business, etc.

This is a pretty fascinating thread. I think the answers are fairly simple for those of you who don't see the value of Facebook and Twitter, and that would be to see what the people are doing who are successful on Facebook and do what they do. 

I can almost guarantee that they aren't promoting themselves overtly. They are probably being themselves and cultivating business from their sphere of influence. 

Ralph, it's not that I don't let people know that I'm an agent. I just don't over-promote or sell people on anything. I'm there building relationships, and many of those conversations turn to real estate at some point. If you take a look at my facebook or twitter stream, you'll see a mixed bag of discussion ranging from real estate to little league baseball to traffic to weather disasters to local events to national news. Anything that I come across and find interesting on a day-to-day basis is fair game and those topics are what help people find a common ground with me and start a dialogue.

I hope this helps.

I have only been seriously blogging since January and haven't had any sales closed yet, but I do feel as if AR is the place to put my energy.  Thanks for doing this post.

I have only been seriously blogging since January and haven't had any sales closed yet, but I do feel as if AR is the place to put my energy.  Thanks for doing this post.