Crowdsourcing: The Art of Social Sharing (1000 points wrapped inside)

As a Community, Let's Get Better at Social

For our next Crowdsourcing event on ActiveRain, we'd like you to share with us some specific strategy you are using on Social Media to help market your business. My friend Ben Kinney once told me that he never came up with a really great idea for his real estate business on his own, he merely took good ideas that other people were using and made them great. 

So we'd like you to share your good (and possibly great) ideas for marketing your business on social media with your friends here on ActiveRain. I'll give you a few examples, then we'll let the crowdsourcing begin. 

(If you hate good ideas and just want to get to the contest where you can earn 1000 points, just scroll down the page until you see 'the challenge')

A Few Really Cool Ideas:

Sharing Your Success in a Fun Way

In a recent webinar, I shared a story of Sheldon Neal. Sheldon is a real estate agent with RE/MAX in New Jersey (many of you many know Sheldon as he's been a long time member of ActiveRain). A few years ago, I came across something Sheldon was doing to market his business on Facebook.

Essentially, every time Sheldon has a closing, he takes a picture of his clients in front of their new home........well, it's not actually him taking the picture. In fact, he's actually in the picture. As you can see, Sheldon strategically places himself somewhere in the photo with a "Sold" sign (in this one, you can spot him up on the roof).

It's a fun way for him to show a little bit of personality when sharing the successes of his real estate business with his social circle. He's done photos where he is hiding behind a bush. He's been up in the second story window of the home. He's done the photo in the rain (which we love!) where he was in the background holding an umbrella. I'm sure it's gotten more and more challenging as the closings rack up, but Sheldon has found something that we should all be striving for.

He's found a repeatable action that he can use on Social Media to build momentum for his business. Each time he has a closing, he knows that he is going to get this priceless photo to share with his friends on Social. 

Then he started taking it a step further. If he happens to be 'friends' on Facebook with his client, he will tag them in the photo. Now guess what happens? The photo starts being seen by friends of his client.......and gives their friends an opportunity to be exposed to Sheldon's fun personality. It also gives his clients a chance to say something nice about the great job Sheldon did helping them buy their new home. The first time I ever spoke to Sheldon about this on the phone, he told me it was one of the best online marketing ideas he's ever done. How can you make this idea better? (by the way, good luck! This is one of the best ideas I've seen on Social coming from a real estate agent. Really outstanding stuff!)
 

Sharing Success in a Smart Way

(Not that Sheldon's idea isn't smart, because it is!) Amy Youngren is a real estate agent in Toronto. She has a pretty good following that she has built up on Instagram. She's not Lady Gaga, but she has amassed over 920 followers, many of which are local people in her market. She's done this over the months by posting lots of great pictures of Toronto, mixed in with many photos that allow you to get to know Amy a little bit. 

Every so often, I will see her post something like you see just below. Pretty simple, right? A photo of a recent listing with just a few words to let you know that she knows how to sell houses. Or even more simple, just a picture of a sold sign out in front of one of her recent listings. The people to whom she is connected aren't missing out on the fact that Amy knows how to price and market a home to get it sold! You can guarantee that when her Instagram buddies think about buying a house, Amy has top of mind awareness. The most recent picture from 3 days ago had 69 likes when I came across it. 

Sharing Your Listings on Facebook in a Way that Doesn't Annoy Everyone, Including Your Mom. 

The inspiration for this crowdsourced challenge was when I read Jared's post about how he shares his listings on Facebook. I'm willing to bet, there aren't many of you that have gotten 218 comments (Yes, comments! Not just 'likes') on a post about your listing.

Crowdsourcing! What Can You Contribute?

So the idea is, share with us, your peers on ActiveRain one thing you are doing in the social media realm that seems to be working to help market your business. I hope someone will write about how they are using Pinterest Boards. I know someone will share something about Facebook advertising. I'll bet there are one or two people doing something cool with Twitter. There have to be a bunch of great ideas of how people are using Facebook

The Challenge:

Write a blog post detailing your social media marketing idea. In the post, try to make sure that after someone gets done reading the post, they would be able to actually execute what you're talking about.

Once you've written the post, share it in the comment section of this blog post by leaving a link to your blog post. Please submit your blog posts by June 20th. 

All posts submitted for this challenge will earn the author 1000 ActiveRain Points. If you have previously written about a technique you are using on Social Media to market your business, you can certainly use that post to submit for this challenge.

The Webinar:

On June 27th, I'm going to take your best ideas and we'll host a webinar where I share the 7 best techniques, as judged solely and completely by me. (which is to say there won't be anything scientific about it)

If I share your idea in the webinar, you'll get another 1500 points.

We'll do a bunch of marketing about the webinar in the weeks leading up.......but you won't need to be on the lookout, because you can register right now!

Bob Stewart
ActiveRain Community Evangelist

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