You ever have one of those days, where your mind is just go in really slow circles. Well that's me today, I'm spinning my wheels, and just can't get my mind to get engaged into one coherent task.
On days like this I find myself reading tons of posts, viewing new websites related to marketing, reviewing my friendfeed and twitter accounts. I'm looking to find a loose concept that combined with massive amounts of scanned information starts to form a trend.
It's sort of like looking at one of those cool pictures you can't see until you defocus your eyes, then the picture is clear. My minds already defocused, so I use that to find trends in the global conscience we call the web.
Of course, one of our biggest trends is social networking, whether it be in MySpace, Facebook, Linked In, Active Rain, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Friendfeed, etc, etc, etc.....
We're looking at a new paradigm shift. The concept of how we do business is changing, and like the frog in slowly heating water, we don't even know we're about to be cooked.
Facebook has 120 million users! Consider that, one hundred twenty million users. That's bigger than many countries, and even Facebook can't figure out a good way to make money from it.
And here you are, the Realtor, looking at this massive collection of sellers and buyers. In fact, over 59% of Facebook user are between the age 18 - 44, 61% earn over $60K and 57% have college or higher education.(stats provided by Quantcast.com). So what do you, that's only one social network.
Well let's start looking at what you could do.
1. Get you profile address on your business card. Sure you have your website, email, phone number, maybe even your cell number. You be da contact master! Whatever. Get your profile address on there for all your main social networks. That's the point of a network, and they won't find you if you don't tell them where you are.
Besides what a great conversation started, "Here's my card, you can reach me on facebook, twitter, my website, email, by phone, are you facebook?" Boom, another contact, networked and ready for a relationship with you. I'm not telling you to assault people, it has to be natural, but the business card can help to lead into a further discussion.
There's a great article about this over at the The Future of Real Estate Marketing
2. Start networking online.
If you use Twitter, start following people. Make friends on Facebook in your area.
3. Blend the two worlds.
Daniel(The Real Estate Zebra) is starting to introduce clients to social networks with client seminars. By being their guide he's the top of their network, building trust and friendships long before they are looking for a Realtor and aslo being central hub for all their networks too. He has a great post here at: Realestatezebra.com.
4. Learn to engage your customer without offending.
The below video was held by Dustin Luther, Jeff Turner and Rudy Bachraty at the 2008 National Association of Realtors. I need to give credit the RealEstateZebra.com for the original find on this one.
5. Use the right network for the right purpose.
Place photos on Flickr, communicate with Twitter, build relationships and networks with Facebook.
This is just a start, and we're getting pretty long here. So we're going to call this post a wrap. But there will be more to come.
What are you comments for best practices in the Social Network world.
P.S. - You can follow me on Twitter at: @tlyons
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