Dealing With Social Media/Social Networking and Doing it Right

Social Media or Social Networking is the “Want Ads” of the 21st century.  I am going to give an abbreviated version of this whole Social Networking thing because I teach these types of courses and my courses typically go at least 3 hours and it takes me about 3 months to go thru the whole thing…so bear with me.

Social Networking would seem counter productive as when I first started teaching these courses some 10 months ago, all I heard from other agents was “Man you must have alot of time on your hands if your doing this”or ” This is for kids”.  OK, so yes, it is for Kids, and the 20 somethings, and 30 somethings, and 40 somethings, etc and even grandpa is out there, and if you don’t believe what I just said, then stop reading now and go find something else to do like go knock on someones door and see if they want to sell….good luck with that.

Anyway, I guarantee you that your clients are online in these social arenas so why shouldn’t you be where they are.  Ok, so if you are still reading this, you believe what I say..so far.  Social Networking is similar to the regular networking meetings you use to go to where you would pay $50 and bring a handful of business cards with you and talk to maybe 10-15 people about what you do and visa versa.  Great…but now lets look at doing the same thing online, I create a profile online at some of these social networking sites, tell people what I do, and I just interfaced with 150-200 people…wow, now that wasn’t hard was it.  But there is more, I continue to interact with these people online, become friends with these people that I have never met before and now I am getting referrals from these people….wow, also, I am interacting with clients talking to them, answering questions etc and now they are calling me because they feel they know me and trust me…holy crap batman…this stuff is incredible.

This is just what has happend to me.  There is however a “wrong” way to do it as well.  Creating a profile and then saying “Hey I am a realtor and I have 10 listings and here they are” is the wrong way to do it.  There are other places to advertise your listings, stick to those for now.

If you create an online presence and actively contribute to the online society like any other lead generation, you will do fine.  You have at least taken the first steps and found this article, now just start slow and don’t assume that you will get a wave of people knocking down your door…it takes time but as soon as the pipeline is full, just keep going and put it on cruise control!

Every Realtor Should Have a Flip Video Cam

I picked up one of these Flip Video Cams the other day because I like technology that is quick to use, and easily transported.  I have an HD Camcorder, an SLR camera, various computers, and Iphone, etc…believe me, I have more technology in my home office than most Corporate Real Estate offices have combined…but this flip video cam is remarkable.  I got the Flip Mino which is the new flip camera in their line and must say that it is incredibly easy to take a high quality video of just about anything.  The back of the unit is pretty simple.  There is a big red button on the back that starts recording and stops recording.  It uses flash ram to store video and will record 60 minutes of video.  It as rechargeable batteries built in (similar to the iphone), a flip up usb port that connects to the computer to upload videos, edit them, etc, and the software supplied with a push of a button, will upload to your favorite video hosting service like youtube or aol video, etc.

If you don’t have video in your arsenal of equipment, you half to try this out…you will be gld you did!

The best deals are online so search for the lowest price.  I got mine from buydig for $149 but get wherever you feel comfortable.

Realtors of the New Age get Technical

The old way of doing real estate, or should I say, “Selling Real Estate” is gone, done, ‘finito’, etc.  There is a new way of selling real estate that most agents do not understand.  What I am about to say will make some of you out there scratch your heads thinking, you gotta be kidding me, but here goes…the new way of doing real estate is by Not doing real estate.  So there you have it, this is the key to the new age of real estate.  Let me see if I can explain some of that.  The old way of selling real estate was to take out ad’s in the local news paper, go around and knock on doors, and hold open houses.  Great, that worked back in the 90’s to the early 2000’s.  Well, with gas being what it is, and all the latest advances in the Internet, people driving around does not happen that much any more.  Believe me, I tried those before and it did not work for me.  Having a couple of degrees in Engineering, I though that I could do Real Estate better but in a different way…by not doing Real Estate.  This is where Social Networking comes into play.

Social Networking is a way to network yourself to people online by creating an online presence.  Interacting with people from all over the globe regarding whatever you want.  At the same time, applying the old philosophy that “My friends buy real estate from me”, I just created new friends from all over the globe.  But I did not advertise a thing, I was just social…that was it.

There is a right way to do social networking and there is a wrong way and what I find is that most do it the wrong way, expecting to get out there in the cyberworld and all of a sudden, everyone is going to come flocking to you.  Doesn’t work that way…

With every passing day in the world, Real Estate Agents will need to get more technical training and learn how to do things in ways that are outside their comfort zone.  You can either sink or swim and if you want to be a real estate agent, you had better learn to swim really, really, fast because there’s a 50 foot wave coming your way!

When the Other Agents Don’t Believe You

I have been a high tech person for as long as I can remember.  When I was just a kid, my parents use to make me put together all the gifts on Christmas.  Although I use to enjoy it, eventually it got to be old and not very interesting, not complicated enough.  Anyway, I went on in life to get a couple of engineering degrees, worked as a project/design engineer for a computer hard drive manufacturer, and later got burnt out and took a shot at real estate.

I tried to do real estate the way that it was taught to me, the old fashion way, via knocking on doors and making phone calls.  I tried this over and over again for a few years and it just did not work for me.  I just was not wired that way.  I was about to give up and so I decided out of frustration, to apply my engineering/technical background to real estate…WOW, what a difference.  Now I have more leads than I know what to do with, my wife, who is a Realtor as well, gets all the buyers leads and screams at me daily that she cannot handle anymore.  So how did this all occur, simple, technology and perseverance.

I decided that with this new understanding of the business and an excess of business, I would begin to teach agents in my office.  At first, people looked at me as to what the heck was I doing and why was I doing this.  Coming from Boston, I was not surprised by this level of questioning, but living in Florida now, was a little confused.  My answer, “Because I want to teach everyone how to do what I do, because this is the way things are going”.  In either event, people began to flock to my classes and things were great.  But then something not taken into account occured.  People expected one class to be the fix for their business.  Well, like anything else, it takes time and dedication…after all, when you do lead generation, do you expect to make one call and sell a home, NO!

So now, people have abandoned the whole high tech “thing” in my office for the most part all though I have loyal followers and they continue to thrive in this market, but the others whine about not being able to pay their bills.  With this I say, “I don’t know what to tell you other than it may be time for you to come back and take my classes, although this time, dedicate time to it”.

I remember one agent in particular, very resistant to what I was telling him to do, said that he did not have the time and always wanted to know “Why”.  So then one day I get this call, and an email from him where he wants to talk to me right away.  I give him a call and he informs me that he finally did what I told him to do and his traffic on his website tripled…amazing!

None of this is rocket science and anyone can do it, it just takes the know how of what to do, how to do it, and how often to do it.  The majority of agents still don’t believe, and that is ok, it is their business that they need to deal with, but for those that have made the changes, they are now firm believers and followers and will definitely succeed in this business for years to come!