How a realtor should be using Social Media – Top 7 tips for Realtors & Social Media

I do many coaching calls for our 500millionstrong clients. Many of them are Realtors and I get a lot of the same questions about Real Estate & Social Media.

So I thought it might be helpful to the Realtor community to give this advice on how to use Social Media.

Here are some of the best ways to use Social Media as a Realtor.

Top 7 ways for a Realtor to use Social Media.

(*in no particular order)

#1 Facebook - Facebook is great for Realtors. Most Realtors get a ton of referral business from friends and family – and primarily this is exactly who your connected to on Facebook. This is also who you clients are connected to The trick is to not be selling your services all the time.

No one goes on Facebook to be sold, so updates like “I am taking new clients” never work.

How do I use Facebook then? Simple, Take the “Top of mind/awareness” approach.

Post updates like “I am grateful to be blessed with so many great clients.” Or post photos of your listings with comments like “Super excited for this new listing – isn’t it beautiful?”

Then get ninja and tag your sellers in those photos. This is a great way to get in front of their network ALWAYS add your clients on Facebook. Communicating with them on “their wall” is a great idea as well. Just keep it classy and don’t sell using this approach – ever”

Be sure to leave an update on their wall once you close. Example – “I just wanted to say thanks for your business. You guys were a treat to work with” or something along those lines.

#2 YouTube – This is often times the most overlooked of all the networks. Hands down YouTube is one of the best things you can do to get more business as a realtor online.

How? Simple – start filming all of your listings and throw them up on Youtube today.  I did this, I kept it real simple (as you can see here) and just turned on my camera and then proceeded to walk and talk. My buyers loved it – My agents loved it as the buyers they showed homes to who had seen the videos were 5x as likely to sign.

1 quick tip when it comes to YouTube:

Make your title “Keyword rich” – Example: If your listing is in Santa Barbara – Make your title “Santa Barbara Real Estate – 1234 hight st” Most of my videos ended up on Google as the first result. This in turn drove a ton of targeted traffic to our website.

If you want more information on how to get your videos to show up on the first page of Google for popular terms like ” Denver Real Estate” go get www.VideoTrafficAcademy.com – I guarantee if you get it – your videos will be all over Google for the best keywords. The course is that good.

#3 Twitter – I honestly think Twitter might be one of the least useful ways to use Social Media for a Realtor. Actually I take that back. It can be useful, but is very time consuming. BUT – if you enjoy Twitter and use it currently – make sure you are focusing on building a local following. If you live in Miami Florida, a follower in Denver probably will never lead to new business.

To build a local following I would look at the followers of News Celebrities, Radio DJ’s, Local Restaurants, Rotary Clubs Etc. These kind of profiles will almost always have a local following. I would then go and follow all of their followers as many will follow you back. Using this tactic – it works as a virtual handshake. Most people you follow will wonder who you are and why you followed them – they in turn will look and your profile and many will click on your website link.

If you don’t want to do this following – you can use a tool like Tweetadder to do it on auto pilot. Tweetadder can be your best friend if you value your time. It’s not cheap – but it’s worth it.

#4 Linkedin - This is the diamond in the rough of Social Networks. Take full advantage of LInkedin I promise you will thank me later. The best thing you can do first is to optimize your profile. My business parter Lewis Howes has a great post here explaining exactly how to do that. The second thing I would do is get active in groups. I would start my own group, and also get active in others that are local.

Start a group – this is a great way to get more referrals. We have a Realtor student in who started a “Young Professionals” group on linkedin. He then invited all of his local friends and the group took off. After 2 months He held a happy hour mixer/get together for the group. The first time he did it – 25 people showed up – not bad! The second mixer he through over 100 attended. As you can imagine – as the head of the group, and the host of these events – he got & gets a ton of referrals! Literally over 2 million dollars in business came from this one tip for him.

#5 Ads – Linkedin & Facebook – As a Realtor, personal branding is everything. Ads can be an amazing way to build your personal brand. There is probably no better tool than Facebook ads to build your personal brand. The targeting options on Facebook are ridiculous. Do you know your customer? If you do you can laser target them on Facebook. Categories for targeting include – Sex, Education levels, Zip Code, City, Marital status, Interests etc.

#6 Blog / Website – While a blog is not a necessity, you should definitely have one. This can be the hub of all your online marketing efforts. A great place to drive Social Traffic to turn it into leads. WordPress is the only platform I would recommend. There a million great themes specifically for Real Estate. I used a WordPress site for my listings. WordPress is super easy to use.

#7 Email Marketing – While not social – A good email marketing campaign should be your #1 priority.  If you set up a decent site with a good email capture in place – you can expect to convert 5-15% of your traffic to your email list. This was vital to my success in Real Estate. Every time I sent an email – my phone immediately rang off the hook. in 1 year my list quickly grew to over 10,000 people. People loved getting my listings by email.

Hopefully this will spark some ideas on ways you can use the internet and Social Media to drive more traffic to your listings. I could have easily written an entire post about each of the 7 ways mentioned above. If you liked what you read or would like more on a specific network or method – let me know below.

A few month’s ago I decided to download Twitter’s iPhone app. One of the first things I noticed was that when you viewed a profile you could see the date they signed up & the account number.  

To verify that is what the number represented I checked Twitter Founder Jack Dorsey’s account and it showed the number 12. (Supposedly the first 10-11 accounts were junk accounts created to test the system.)

You can clearly see from the image his account was one of the first and by the date it looks to be the month and year Twitter launched.

To track Twitter’s growth I initially began clicking on Twitter profiles that were spam targeting me using the @reply method.

Since these accounts usually only last for a day or so I started looking at their sign up date and number. By doing this I could keep an eye on Twitter’s growth as spam accounts were almost always brand new.

I then later began to create new accounts so I could track more accurately.

To track Twitter’s Growth you will need an iPhone and the Twitter app.

You can then repeat the what I did to accurately gauge it for yourself.

Side note – It wouldn’t surprise me if this feature disappears soon from the iPhone app as Twitter has saved their growth numbers & reports for big announcements or conferences in the past.

Tell me what you’re thankful or grateful for and win an Ipod touch.

When I was younger I used to keep a gratitude journal. I had heard there were benefits to being grateful so I thought ”why not?” I would try this exercise for 30 days.

I would spend 10 minutes a night writing down the things I was grateful for that had happened that day. I got some enormous benefits from that exercise that have lasted throughout the years.

The most important benefit I got from it was a habit of being grateful. I take the time daily to think about things I am grateful for. I do it because it makes me feel good and I truly realize how blessed  I am.

Some new research has been done that proves being grateful or thankful is beneficial to your well being. I did some research for this post and found an interesting article that provided some evidence on the benefits of being grateful.

Heres an excerpt:

So on this Thanksgiving I ask – what are you grateful for?

Leave a comment and let me know. I will be awarding the Ipod in the next few days.

::UPDATE::

After much debate I awarded the ipod to Ellen Crimi Trent. I read and re-read each and every entry and it was damn near impossible to pick a winner. I even tried asking my friends on Facebook for numbers  to randomly pick a winner. I then got lost in the calculation and trying to make sense of those numbers, so I went back to reading the comments and finding one that I felt really moved me.

It was tough picking a winner as there were many that stopped me in my tracks and made me think. So I picked 3 and then asked 2 of my employees to read them and tell me their 3 favorites. Ellen’s came up with both of them. So boom you have your winner.

The reason it moved me? Well I can relate to almost every sentence in her comment. I too feel like I am lucky, I wake up everyday thankful for my life and what I do. I too am thankful for the hardships and crazy negatives that have happened in my life as most of the time they were catalysts to bigger and better things. Finally like Ellen I am grateful for all the amazing people I have met through social media. Most of our employees have come through relationships built using social media and beyond that I have made many great connections, friendships, etc using social media. So that is why I picked Ellen.

Thanks again for everyone of you who took the time to post a comment. I hope it was as beneficial for you as it is to me to take the time and stop and think how grateful I am for everything.

___________

Rap artist 50 Cent went on a Twitter tirade last night, spewing profanity and an endless stream of obscene photos after  apparently discovering for the first time that he has a Twitter account with over 2.9 million followers. Surprise! The rapper’s account is usually run by a PR rep, but at some point yesterday 50 Cent decided he wanted to have some fun/shoot himself in the foot/vent to his 2.9 million followers.

While it might not have been his greatest move, it did score him a new nickname: Twitty Cent

Sorry Fiddy fans, this was not a hack.  After numerous X-rated posts, Twitpic stepped in and blocked his account. This may have stopped him from posting any more Kim Kardashian burger buns pics, but it certainly didn’t slow down the stream of f-bombs and irreverent slams about pretty much everyone else on his record label (Kat Stacks, Fat Joe, Allhiphop, Soulja Boy, and Miss Info, to name a few).

Is this career suicide? Or a dude from the streets just being real? Check out the full train wreck and then let me know your take on this below.

This is another installment of “I find cool stuff and share it with you” – cause I’m cool like that.

Recently my friend Trevor Mauch sent a message over to a mastermind group we’re both in with a link to create your own YouTube “search story”. It’s a fascinating tool that can be used to create a great piece of marketing for your business or brand in all of about 5 minutes.

What is a “Search Story”?

Remember the popular “Parisian Love” commercial that ran during the 2010 Super bowl? That was the the basis for the search story campaign. YouTube & Google have now made a tool for you to to use to create your very own search story.

To get an idea of how this can be used:

Here is the video I made to help promote a new service we are rolling out called  Free wordpress site.

You can see exactly how we implemented it here – www.FreeWordpressSite.com

Some guidelines you may want to follow:

(These 7 guidelines were provided to me by another great member of the mastermind, Dale Hensel, from Paper Assets 101 )

When creating your search story video, YouTube allows you to enter 7 search phrases that pull results from Google to create the video – so here are useful tips and guidelines.

1. Your Target market’s BIG QUESTION
2. Your target market’s REFINED QUESTION (when the big one doesn’t answer it)
3. The BIGGEST BENEFIT you can give them (if they had the answer now)
4. The next Biggest Benefit you can give them
5. EMOTIONAL HOOK (or heightened emotional state they are experiencing or seeking out)
6. Decision that you want them to make.
7. Fast forward to their dream as if it already happened

By structuring your 7 lines like this, you can walk someone through a sequence that ends with emotion, and a call to action and the benefit of doing it. For short videos that you can make, this is a huge marketing tool Google has handed us.

You can make your own search story here - http://www.youtube.com/searchstories

Go make your own video now and if you liked this post – share it!

How to enter -

Simply leave a comment below with your best caption – a RT would be cool of you too!

I will leave this contest open for 48 hours – so on May 13th at 6pm Eastern I will announce a winner.

I used to receive around 200 DM’s every day. The majority of them were auto DM’s, spam, unsolicited invites to join a mafia family, slap a trout on someone, play a game, or take a quiz.

Exactly the kinds of productive activities I normally engage in with my free time – NOT. I don’t have anything against these games and I actually think they are great if they help people get more out of Twitter, but plain and simple – I wanted my Direct Message box back, as I began missing valuable DM’s.

5 Changes Twitter should consider – Part 1

Below, I present some changes that In my opinion would enhance the user experience and take Twitter to another level. I know any or all of these changes could be risky as Twitter has had no problems growing in its original state, but it does seem the growth has slowed and user retention seems to be an ongoing issue. In my humble opinion, the platform could be greatly improved.

Yes, I realize that some of these changes are currently available in third party clients, but as for me and many other users (especially new users), Twitter.com is the place we use to access Twitter the most.

I know some of these changes I propose may be not in line with Twitter’s vision, but I definitely think they would grow and retain their userbase if implemented – which is in line with the goal of Twitter growing and becoming a major player in digital media.

If Twitter’s ultimate goal is to be a global information network, then I think some of these changes will aid in that goal as well by attracting and retaining more users to fully realize their vision of being “the” global information network.

Twitter has now hired over 150 employees and is looking to double its workforce . I suspect some big changes are coming soon, so if you like the ideas presented below please ReTweet this post and maybe someone will take notice.

So here are 5 changes that I think Twitter should consider:

Chat

Take connecting on Twitter a step further.

One of the main criticisms for most people is that Twitter’s platform limits the ability to truly connect with people on a more intimate level. Think about it for a minute and I’m sure you have some Twitter friends that you know well and like, but really don’t know at all. How nice would it be to be able to take the conversation to a whole new level beyond a daily tweet here or there.

I know you’re probably thinking that it would be hard to implement with the number of friends you have and might become overwhelming, but Twitter could limit the service to invitation only – where someone would have to invite you or has to be invited to be able to chat, just like Gmail does.

To take it a step further, they could limit it to 50 new connections a month, which would accomplish two things. Number one, it would make it more sincere if someone accepted your invitation or vice versa. Number two it could provide an excuse or reasoning to offer if someone was disappointed you did not accept his/her chat request.

This should not be just any regular chat, but a chat system similar to Gmail’s with voice and video capabilities. Chat would provide an additional way to make deeper connections and enhance user experience.

Link posting limits.

Tired of seeing 1 million links in your home stream?

80% of the tweets that come across my home screen are links. I can remember when the ratio was the opposite and people used Twitter to communicate. It seems anymore that everyone wants to share something or a spammer. This is where limits could be nice. This could be accomplished in a few different ways.

A set limit - 15 links a day and you’re done, or it could be broken down by hour, where you can only post 5 links an hour with a cap of 15 daily. Spammers would hate this as it would force them to open more accounts to reach there same level of link penetration.

Ratio of links to other tweets – Example 1 link to every 3 other tweets. This would force those hellbent on sharing every top 20 list they can find to actually converse with people and respond or engage with those that follow them and interact with them.

Home Screen Options

This would take lists to the next level.

Can you imagine having the ability to determine what you see when you click the “home” screen link? How nice would it be to have the option to see your favorite list? How nice would it be to be able to set a default “home” screen option of the content that appeared there?

The list feature is a great one, but it would be really useful if you could set a certain list as a default to display when you click your home button.

Be honest with yourself, how often do you check your lists? If you’re like me – not enough, and this change would make seeing my favorite tweeters’ tweets an easy one.

I remember when I had a few thousand friends and I could actually pay attention to the home screen. I used to sit there and hit refresh every minute or so and enjoy seeing what my friends were up to. I would jump in and out of conversations and find some great things to retweet.

Photos

A picture is worth 860 more words than a tweet.

This really needs no explanation, but Twitter should implement the ability to add a photo section to your profile.

Photos are probably the most viewed medium on Facebook, and probably where people spend the most time as well. Photos give you the ability to share your life beyond 140 characters. I love sharing photos, but would also love it if people could come to my profile and check my photos without having to search for a Twitpic link.

Speaking of Twitpic – this and many other apps are a few of the obstacles that Twitter faces. The developer community has created some amazing add-ons or features that have made Twitter what it is, and by implementing a change like this they risk pissing off the developer community. Also some developers are crushing it and a change like this could affect their livelihoods – so a fair solution would be to buy out Twitpic. In my opinion, failure to implement enhancements like this it is hurting Twitter & its users more than it is helping them.

Advertising

Targeted advertising based on real conversations.

I know this is going to ruffle some feathers, but get over it! Twitter needs to make money and I’m guessing the recent search deals will only go so far. This could be achieved in an unobtrusive manner that would not harm the user experience. If you own a business, think about how exciting it could be to be able to have your ad displayed based on keywords in a user’s stream.

Twitter could really step their game up and become a player in the ad space. I know my clients would be thrilled at the prospect of targeting users based on what they are tweeting about.

Think about it. You tweet that you are hungry for pizza, and a local pizza place ad pops up with a coupon for mentioning you saw the ad on Twitter. You mention to a friend that you need to get an oil change, a haircut, new car insurance, etc., etc. The possibilities are limitless and could be an exciting platform for advertisers.

I drew several comparisons to Facebook in this post for good reason. I think Facebook does an incredible job at rolling out changes and making the user experience a more user-friendly one.

It’s obvious Facebook is doing a great job when you look at time spent on the site.  According to Alexa, Facebook users spend almost 3x as much time on the site when compared to Twitter.

There are several reasons beyond these changes that can’t be ignored that lend to Facebook’s numbers, but nonetheless I think these changes could help bridge the gap and drastically improve the user experience.

These are just a few modifications I see that could drastically improve user experience, make Twitter more profitable, more fun and make it a platform that is here to stay and compete with Facebook from a user experience standpoint.

I think these changes would drastically improve the platform we love called Twitter. What do you think?