August 13, 2011 on www.emmergroupblog.com:
This morning, an article came out on Inman.com discussing how there’s a potential need for MLS to modernize and become more consumer friendly, since many potential buyers are going online to do sweeps of the market before they actually immerse themselves into the home-buying process.
What this says to us, more so than ever, is that the internet is quickly becoming the biggest and most influential element of real estate media for the modern age. Between listing sites like Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow, the social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare, and the overwhelming amount of blogs and blogging sites, every single element of the real estate world has a place on the web, and consumers know it.
Obviously, it hasn’t been too long that we’ve been dabbling in the online world ourselves. We’ve got the blogs, the Activerain, the Twitter handles, and we’re posting to sites like Digg and StumbleUpon, but that’s not to say we know everything (we promise, we don’t!). But something we have noticed is how often all the real estate talk starts to look the same.
Say you’re an agent or a broker or a builder and you’re on the right sites. Good job. But what happens when everyone else vying for the people in your same location, same market and same audience start posting the same content as you? Only so many real estate articles and local events happen in a day, and after a while, it’s like a blur to a consumer, especially because they probably don’t care about a lot of the industry jargon. When that happens, you could certainly be at the right place at the right time, but you could still be doing the wrong thing.
Social media and web presence and even just consumer accessibility are all incredibly important, but only if you stand out! Write about something you know, that not everyone else knows, even if it’s about yourself! The internet is a social playground, after all, so users don’t mind getting to know you as a real person! And despite how easy it is to get and share information, you can’t be lazy- dig for the good stuff that nobody’s seen before.
The industry is in a rough place right now, and it’s important to show possible clients that despite what all the newspapers say, decisions can be made and you can help them make wise ones. Like we said, we aren’t perfect and we’ve Tweeted our fair share of New York Times articles, but recently, we took a step back and did an exercise that we think helps our quality of content (though we’d love to hear if you agree or disagree!):
Imagine yourself as a new homebuyer or seller. What would YOU want to read?
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