DOES BLOGGING WORK? Converting blogs to real business, what you need know.

Usually at least every other day i get an email asking why i spend so much time blogging and am i getting any results. I often respond directly to their email, but this weekends email has me thinking to share it with everyone. 

A POTENTIAL BUYER WROTE: Mr. Godzyk, I first noticed your blogs over the summer,  i was quite impressed with how much information you shared. You seem to tell things like it is without the sugar coating i read on most blogs. You did not advertise yourself, you did not boast, you did not make promises, you just shared your experiences to help others. After following you for a good couple of months i wondered if your Real Estate business was so slow, this is all you did is write. I started watching your listings. I noticed a pattern that most new listings did not stay on the market long. I concluded that this probabily was not the case as you seem pretty busy selling homes these days. See, i am an investor and i am looking for someone with the knowledge and guts to tell me like it is. I would love to meet this weekend to share my wishes for buying properties. If you are as good in person as your writing, i think we will work well together.

MY RESPONSE: After receiving such an email, i had to read it again as i receive alot of email and i was waiting for a punchline. I asked my self if this was real...I emailed the person and awaited a response. Quickly i received a resoponse and set up a meeting with this investor. After meeting with him, he told me it was his son who found my blog first, his son graduated from college last spring, and was getting into Real Estate investment. The son forwarded my blog "So you want to buy a bank owned property?" http://www.trulia.com/blog/scott_godzyk/2008/08/so_you_want_to_buy_a_for
He told me is was so impressed he knew i was the Real Estate agent for him. After meeting on Saturday, I brought with me listing sheets on some bank owned homes and he wrote 2 full price cash offers on different properties. He told me "that it is not too often that what you see online and what you see in person match up, often the expectation does not live up to the image. He said not only did i meet but exceeded his expectations for such a hard working agent."

Now many of you may be asking why i would decide to share this story. The main reason is some agents who continue to shadow my blogs and make negative comments, i click on their links as well and see they leave them for alot of diiferent people, not just me. The one that irked me the most was when  a NH agent wrote: Scott, Glad to see your practice allows you the time to be chatting away at this time of year. I will have to wait until things slow down a bit".....

I wrote a response to that originally entitled "What has Trulia done for me lately?"
http://www.trulia.com/blog/scott_godzyk/2010/07/what_has_trulia_done_for_me_lately

I got my start blogging on Trulia and was referred pretty quickly over to Active Rain. This gentleman's comment got me thinking Am i wasting my time chatting away? Do i even have any extra time to be writing these blogs? Is anyone even reading them? This has been the busiest Real Estate has been for me since 2005. Buyers are buying and houses are selling. time is valuable and i have to use it wisely... so what am i to do? 

Before Trulia and Active Rain i would use my time to call expired listings, call fsbo's, search newspapers for foreclosures and do all the things everyone else does.

In Conclusion

I value my time very much, and do not have that much free time, so what is wasting time for some, is very valuable for others. So when I have taken care of everything i had to do up to that point, that all my customers are up to date and i have a few minutes... spending some time helping people and getting my name out there for future buyers and sellers is well worth it for me.

Having a potential buyer find my blogs in a world of millions and millions of them, read them and contact me is a great feeling, it is even greater to be able to meet them, talk to them and they become a client. Having someone leave our appointment so happy and on this Monday morning refer me to his coworker, son and neighbor already, shows me i am doing something right.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Let me here the positives or negatives that you may be feeling about Trulia. Active Rain and Social media in general.

Updated December 6, 2010

Blog writen by:

Scott  Godzyk
Godzyk Realty Group

www.ScottSellsNH.com

Copyright 2010, All rights reserved