This whole Social Media thing is pretty awesome. It's moving forward at warp speed at a point that is incredibly difficult to keep up with. Every new site or update gives the average consumer and business owner the potential to have a larger voice and allow their story to be heard.
For a while now businesses have started to grasp the concept of needing to track their brand reputation online to keep from being bashed and blind folded.
A couple years ago I attended a conference where a speaker mentioned that "Web 3.0 will be just like Web 2.0 - But Web 3.0 will bring blood"
That really possibly seems to be the case. Are we getting to a point where we need to reconsider our actions and content? Not even necessarily from a business perspective, but from a consumer perspective.
Several times over the past few months I have noticed where homeowners, home buyers and sellers have gone online to gripe. Which is all well and good for the time being, but what about in the future?
Two good examples:
- I have noticed on a couple different Facebook Groups that homeowners will complain about a community or builder shortly after buying a home. One even said that buying that home was the worst decision they had ever made.
- Just this weekend on a popular Q&A site an upset home buyer was complaining about how their transaction was handled an was publicly disclosing problems with the home that were found after moving in.
I am sure that these points were placed on the Internet for their right to speech - We all have that right. The problem with that, however, could possibly not so much be today - It could be a year, or two or five from now.
We are all getting used to doing our own research online to help us make educated decisions when purchasing anything from movie tickets to a house. How advanced will these search functions be in the future?
Here is the possible scenario:
- Homeowner that is upset with a builder gripes on a Facebook group that is open to the public. This homeowner a year from now gets Relocated for work and puts his home on the market. Potential buyer researches to find that he thought purchasing that home was the worst mistake he had ever made.
How is this potential home buyer now going to feel not only about that house, and that builder - But the community in general? What about every other person that lives in the Community that had an excellent experience and would refer every person they know to be their neighbor. We all have our opinions and perceive things differently than the next.
Or how about the home buyer that discloses problems with a home after purchasing and goes to sell the home 5 years from now? Those items were likely disclosed on the very same site that the following listing agent will advertise it on.
As Real Estate Professionals and as the Social Media Wagon moves along - How would you handle a situation like this a few years from now?
I think its safe to say that the users of the Internet and social media (being anyone reading this post right now) are the ones that are making it evolve every day. With that being said I think that we should consider how we could be a little more responsible in how it evolves. We all need and have the right to speech - But how far should that go?
Griping about Homeowner's Associations, Builders, Neighbors, Restaurants, Movies that we go to see and so on...where is this leading us? Could Social Media be the make or break of Communities and Property Values in the not so distant future?
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