If you are, you might not have thought about something that is VERY important...  Social media and online ads... the old ones. 

That's right.  I sat down and started looking at everywhere I had promoted myself... and the list started to get long.  And when I ran a search in Google, I started noticing that there were other places I had self-promoted and forgotten about. 

Now, the problem is that most state Real Estate Commsiions require us to disclose our brokerage name and contact info for any advertisements we place.  And, if we change companies or the contact information changes, we might find ourselves running afoul of those rules.  And we don't want to run afoul of REC rules! 

So, I decided that I needed to do a little house cleaning and preparation. 

Housecleaning...

Two years or three years ago (or more!), I didn't have a blog.  A year ago I wasn't targeting my marketing efforts to the level I am now.  So, looking back on those ads, they often don't mention my blog, or my website.  I started with a company designed site, and then went to a private domain running the company site... and then to a seperate domain... and then a completely different site (keeping all of the others active with mentions of my primary sites). 

So, the second step is to go over the content of each of these ads to update contact info and make sure they are still on target. 

Preparation...

Did you notice that the previous step was the second?  There is a first step.  You need to know where you are promoting yourself. 

As mentioned, I ran a Google search for me.  And then I broke out the spreadsheet software and started trying to figure out how to edit all of those old ads.  Usernames, passwords and any other information I needed to access the data and change it. 

Even if you aren't changing brokers...

Think about it for a minute.  Do you have ANY idea of all of the places you have a presence?  Do you remember what all of the ads say?  How many profiles do you have on social media sites?  MySpace, FaceBook, RealEstateWebmasters, Kudzu, LinkedIn... getting the idea? 

I've found 100 ads and profiles so far.  The vast majority of them are almost abandoned... but I still have info there. And much of it is terribly old...