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!
