Think before you push enter and destroy your reputation!
Social networking is growing tremendously popular, especially within the real estate industry. Social networking has also dramatically changed the way we communicate with people we want to do business with. And, with one little push of a button, years of hard work building a professional reputation can be severely damaged. All it takes is one little rant, complaint about a customer, or retaliatory attack to completely change the perception that people have about of you.
Unfortunately many people have jumped into the fray without really giving this new form of communication much thought. In the old days (pre-2000), most of the conversations we had were more one on one. They were either face to face, on the phone, or through an individual email. If you made a comment that was not in line with the reputation you wanted, it really only had an impact on one person. In fact, the impact was usually minimal at worst because your close friend knew you were just blowing off steam. You would never dream of writing your complaints down and mass e-mailing them to everyone you know, would you? But today, communicating via social networks is the equivalent of putting you complaints up on a bill board for your entire network to see.
Here are just a couple of examples of I've seen lately:
I have a friend on Facebook that never really thinks about who might be reading her status updates. Yes, she is the one that tells everyone what she is eating, how tired she is, which body part hurts today, she even has a count down going to her up coming surgery! Don't get me wrong, she's a great gal. But she has no concept about her audience. Last week, she had both a good friend and her mother-in-law un-friend her! She was deeply hurt and had no idea what happened. I can tell you. After months of reading her negative updates her friends finally had enough and decided to make their world more positive!
No doubt you have seen many posts here on Active Rain about how hard an agent worked only to have their customer not buy, or worse, buy from someone else. I think that this kind of adversity opens the door to a person's true character. Before I send close personal referrals out to an agent, I check them out here on Active Rain. Complaints about customer, rants about how someone did them wrong, or how unfair the world is, tell me a lot about them. Now they may never know this, so it doesn't hurt them at all, but 3 agents lost referrals from me this last week, because of the character they displayed in their blogs and comments.
Remember when you push enter to post that blog, status update, tweet or ??? It's going to be read by more than just one person. It's easy to forget about the people you are connected to but don't actively engage on the network. Trust me, they are out there watching. Even people you don't know may be watching. If someone or something upsets you, drive deep into the woods and give a good yell. If you're short on gas money, a nice big pillow does well in a pinch! Remember your key board doesn't have an unsend key, so don't push enter on those rants & complaints - your reputation may depend on it!
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