I just got back from a Real Estate Bar Camp in Atlantic City, and like so many conference I attend lately, social media marketing dominated the conversations. A lot of talk revolves around: how can I get Twitter followers, how can I get Facebook friends, how can I get LinkedIn contacts. Then talk ebbs into, are we just talking among each other [ie real estate pros] or are we attracting people who will actually transact with us? Good question!
These are definitely important considerations and things that need to be thought through in a social media plan (here is my personal plan). But a dimension of social media less discussed is, instead of thinking about how you can attract people to your brand, why not go out to where the people you want to connect with are already congregating. Both are important sides of the social media play.
For example, we all know how much the general public loves Zillow. And these people are asking thousands of questions a day on topics easily answered by real estate pros. So while writing a blog post about the $6500 tax credit is great, you can augment your social marketing sphere by answering questions on this very topic within Zillow Advice. This is a place where thousands of people are already going for answers, and many people will see your responses, thus helping to build an online reputation for being helpful.
Since I know we don't have time to constantly be on the lookout for questions to answer, my advice is to subscribe to be emailed whenever a question is asked with a particular keywords that you set up is included. For example, I am emailed whenever someone asks a question with the words "Wicker Park" in it, because that is my ‘hood and love contributing about it.
It only takes a few clicks to set up and is free. Here is a two minute demonstrations on how to subscribe to keywords on Zillow Advice:
Excellent advice, now it's time for implementation! Is there an app for that?
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