The #1 complaint I hear from real estate agents regarding social networking is that it takes too much time. Oh there are plenty of reasons be sceptical of social networking, especially when it's viewed from the perspective that it's Facebook driven. After all, whose client cares where they ate dinner last night?
Following are a few tips that I use to help keep my social media time in check:
1) Pick 3 or 4 social networking sites to use as my primary means of communication; Active Rain, LinkedIn, YouTube, and yes, Facebook.
2) Have a business plan and make social networking part of it. My business plan must include my goals as well as the details of how I plan to get there; 5 cold calls per day, 3 scheduled appointments per day, 1 "open" training session per week, 1 blog per week, 1 video blog per week, etc.
3) Make sure I have a business purpose before logging into any of the social networking sites. For me, blogging works. During the week I'll make mental and hand written notes of topics of interest to me. Throughout the week I'll begin to formulate in my mind what my next blog will be. Sometimes it may be a funny personal story that I can use as a backdrop to something business related.
4) Let the social networking sites do the work for you. I "link" all of my social networking sites together (except for Active Rain). This week I made a "How to Create a YouTube Search Story" video. After completing the video I posted it to my YouTube profile. YouTube and Google did the rest of the work for me. The link was automatically posted to my Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook accounts.
5) At the end of each week I evaluate how much time I spent on social networking. I also look at leads generated and feedback received from existing clients through social networking. If I spend one hour this week on social media and the result is one new client I'm satisfied.
Approach social networking wtih an end goal in mind. If you set realistic expectations, put a plan into place, and then follow that plan you'll not only find some success but you'll also find it doesn't take as much time as you once thought.
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