- It will only serve as a powerful communication tool if you actively use it to communicate. It’s an ongoing process!
- It will only build your presence online if you actively build it!
In other words, a blog doesn’t build itself. Putting it up is step one. Step 2 through to step 10 million-bazillion are all up to you. And if you don’t do it, who’s gonna?
To put it better than anyone else I’ve heard…
One of the keys to blogging is to freaking post to your blog. – Grant Griffiths
When I read that in a recent post to his own blog, I knew I was going to have to quote him at least once, but that quote is awesome! It couldn’t be more true. This business is very simple.
It’s hard work to build your business online, but Realtors are already used to working very hard. If you commit yourself to the work that’s necessary, your blog can become the most cost-effective and powerful marketing tool you have ever used, period. And I mean that with every fiber of my being. I am 100% convinced your blog can change your business for the better a myriad ways, but you have to be willing to write regularly.
This is something many Realtors seem to struggle with.
An Unfortunate Trend in Real Estate Blogging
There’s a trend out there. And it’s a bad trend. The trend is that 99% of real estate blogs seem to be 99% listings. I’m generalizing of course, but this seems to pretty much be the norm. Why is this a bad trend? Because posting your listings is not blogging. Yes, you can share any information you want on your blog, and posting your listings to your blog is 100% valid. But trust me please…your readers (if you have any yet) and NOT going to your blog to see your listings. They’re not. They’re just not.
So if your readers aren’t interested in your listings, what the heck do they want from you? Believe it or not, they want to know what you think about the market! They want to hear from you…on a personal level…and regularly. And the more you can make your blog follow suit with this, the more success you will build over time.
For my post today, I wanted to share a few ideas and guidelines for the content every Realtor should post to their blog. Please comment and let me know what you think!
- Listings should be 10% of your content, maximum.
- Local stories, news, history. Do you love your town? Talk about it! What’s going on tonight? Are you going to a show? Are you meeting friends at a great historic pub downtown? Talk about what’s going down? As a committed and networking Realtor, you likely know a LOT of people and are very involved in your community. Seriously, talk about what’s going down in your town.
- Respond to inquiries. As a Realtor, inquiries come in from a lot of different places. You get inquiries on the phone, by text, by email. You get questions at cocktail parties. You get questions from your website. And if you’re new, you can find TONS of real estate questions on Yahoo Answers, LinkedIn and a million other places. Answer the question, and post it to your blog! It will seriously take you 5 minutes, and you’re sharing valuable expertise with your readers. When someone asks you a question, answer it, and then say something like “That’s a great question! Do you mind if I put that on my blog too?” Of course they’ll say yes, and guess who’s going to be stalking your blog for the next week, looking for their name in print?
- Have something go very wrong with a client lately? Lessons are learned every day in real estate. Share your insights. This is the GOOD stuff. Leave names out when necessary of course, but lessons are lessons. This is the foundation of your true expertise. If you’re not talking to your readers about these things, you’re withholding valuable info from them and practically begging them to cause the same problems with you in the future on future transactions
- Have something go very right lately? Put it on your blog. Success stories are awesome. Everyone loves them! If you’ve been in the business for over a year, I guarantee you have some interesting stories!
- Have a closing? Blog it! Congratulate your clients publicly and sincerely thank them for business. Also, publicly ask them for referrals! Email em a link to your post.
- What do you LOVE about real estate?
- What do you HATE about real estate?
- Do you think NAR has done something god-awful-stupid lately? I know, this NEVER happens, right?
- What challenges are you having in the current market?
- What problems are you having with clients lately?
See, Realtors often tell me two things:
- I don’t have time to blog
- I don’t know what to write
Here’s the answer…I’ve given you topics that will keep you busy for years. And any post in any of these categories doesn’t need to take you more than 20-30 minutes maximum. Many posts could be written in 5 minutes. Don’t have time to blog? Are you kidding me? If you don’t have 5 minutes to throw down a post every day, how are you possibly going to have time to answer the phone when those leads come in? Don’t know what to write about? Seriously, give yourself some credit. You’re in an industry that the majority of people out there find pretty fascinating. You have a LOT to talk about.
by on November 19, 2009
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