Posts Tagged ‘social media’
Ask Your Fans a Facebook Question!
Friday, June 3rd, 2011Many of you might have noticed a new addition to your Facebook page. Right above where you update your status, along with the normal “Status”, “Link”, and “Video” options, you probably noticed the tab that says “Questions”. Facebook Questions is the newest way to interact with not only your fans, but the entire Facebook community. As an agent, you can use Facebook Questions to capture leads, interact with your community and find out what they’re interested in, and get even more fans in your area to “like” your page. We wanted to share our newest Facebook find with you, so you can start using it as part of your social networking initiatives.
For those of you who don’t know, Facebook Questions is a feature that allows you to create polls for your Facebook fans, (or friends, they offer it on personal pages too!). You can ask them anything from what their favorite pizza place in town is to whether or not they’ve thought about buying a house recently. You can also enable your fans to contribute responses of their own, outside of the ones you created for your poll. The best part about Facebook questions is that once one of your fans or friends answers your question, their response shows up in their newsfeed, so THEIR friends can answer your question, too! The benefits of Facebook Questions are endless. Here are just a few reasons that you should start using it:
It can help you figure out what you should post about next. If you ask your fans to give their opinion on things such as their favorite coffee shop in town or their favorite summer sport, you can see which local businesses or sports the people in your area are most interested in. You can then take the results of the poll and use them as clues as to what topics will get the most interaction on your Facebook page. For example, if you ask your fans what their favorite spring sport is, and the majority respond “Lacrosse”, you know that any community lacrosse-related posts will likely get more interaction than the other options. Not only will you get that interaction on your page, but you’ll get insight into how to get even more!
You can interact with other people in the Facebook community, besides your fans, and get even more people to like your page! When you post a question on your business page wall and one of your fans answers it, your question then shows up in their friends’ news feeds, along with what answer they chose. This means that their friends are seeing what question that your page posted, and they will see that it came from your page! What’s even better is that their friends can also answer your question directly on their news feed, which creates a viral effect. More people will start answering your question, more people will see that your brand and your page is on Facebook, and as a result, you will get even more fans. Facebook Questions, in a way, allows you to interact with the entire Facebook community, and not just your fans. This is a powerful way to both get interaction and draw more, all while giving your page more exposure.
If you ask the right questions, you can get leads without even realizing it. Asking questions such as “Have you thought about putting your home on the market this year?,” “When you think the best time to sell a home is?,” or “Are you thinking about taking the plunge and buying a home?” is a great way to get leads. If someone answers “Yes” to any of these questions, or even “Maybe”, you will have leads directly on your Facebook page. You can view who responded to each question, so if you click on the answer, you will see who selected that when they answered your question. You could then send that person a Facebook message introducing yourself, or, if you want to take a softer sell approach, continue interaction with them right on your page. For example, if Hannah Smith picked “Maybe” on your “Are you thinking about taking the plunge and buying a home?” question, you could maybe comment her back and say “What is it about buying a home that you’re unsure about?” This would create a conversation between you and a potential lead, and it would start that relationship in a way that’s not coming across as overly-aggressive.
One of the best parts about being on Facebook is that they are always thinking of new ways for people to interact with one another, especially for their business pages. Facebook Questions is another way to interact with your fans, but it’s also so much more than that. It allows you to interact with the entire Facebook community, and even start a soft-sell conversation with potential leads. One of the most important parts to having a successful social networking presence is to embrace the new, and this is a new way of communicating in your social networking initiatives!
Make it a great day!
Contact Carrie
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What Matters More in Social Media: Quality or Quantity?
Friday, May 27th, 2011
Each time we log in to Facebook and start jumping around to different business pages, we’re always impressed by the Facebook pages that have large numbers of fans. It’s impressive to have a large following, particularly for smaller businesses. Sometimes, however, we get caught up in the how many Facebook fans and Twitter followers we have and forget what the whole point of building a social networking presence is: interaction. That’s why, when it comes to building up your social media presence, we tend to think that it’s better to have a quality following, not just a large amount of fans.
Think about it: would you rather have only 75 fans on your Facebook business page that are active and responsive to you, or 3,000 that barely comment? As much as we’d like to show the world that 3,000 people “like” our business, the reality is that you’re never going to get anything from those fans unless you see interaction from them. That’s why the goal of your social networking efforts should be building quality relationships with what fans you do have, not just worrying about building your numbers. Of course, it is important to do some things when you’re first starting social media to build up your fan base. After all, nobody wants to “like” a page with 3 fans. The important thing, however, is not to dwell on the number of fans you have and instead to focus on the quality of your fan base, rather than the quantity.
Here are some ways that you can insure that you have a fan base of quality, not just quantity:
Be selective of who you follow on Twitter. When you go to follow people back on Twitter, take a look at what they’re tweeting. Do you actually have an interest in interacting with this person? Are they local business, or someone who lives in your area? If you can’t answer “yes” to any of these questions, it’s probably best not to follow that person back. They would just flood your Twitter streams with tweets that you’re not interested in, and it’s better to be selective if it means you get more interaction in the long run.
Post every day. We know that it can be difficult to find the time to post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts every day, but it really is the only way to remain in people’s minds and get the interaction you want. The world of social media moves so quickly that your content could move through people’s news feeds or twitter feeds at a fast rate. If you’re not posting frequently, your content could get lost in the shuffle, which makes people less likely to comment on your posts.
Focus on building your fan base, but make sure it’s for the right reasons. Ultimately, yes, you do want the fans to “like” your page, but not because they see that so many other people have. You want your fans to see your page through their friends’ interactions with you. If someone sees that one of their Facebook friends interacts with your business page frequently, they’d be more inclined to not just “like” the page, but to join in the interaction, too.
When you first start posting on Facebook and Twitter, it’s absolutely a great idea to focus on building your fan base by inviting your current friends to become your fan or follower and reach out to your data base. It’s also a great idea to run a Facebook ad, but once you start getting that initial fan base of about 25 or so, then it’s time to start focusing on interaction, not just the number of fans you have. Losing site of the reason you’re maintaining a social media presence can result in a Facebook and Twitter page that isn’t very successful.
To put it all together, the answer to the question in our title is that a quality fan base is far more important than having a humongous number of Facebook fans and Twitter followers. Focus on interacting with the fans that you do have and start getting interaction from them, and once the interaction starts to come, the large number of fans will follow.
Make it a great day!
Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
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It’s That Time…Social Media Spring Cleaning
Friday, May 20th, 2011Spring has finally arrived! The flowers are blooming, the weather is getting progressively warmer, and we’re already gearing up for Memorial Day next weekend. Many of you have probably already done the appropriate “spring cleaning” on your homes, but what about your social networking sites?
If you haven’t updated your account in what has seemed like forever, or you haven’t sent a tweet in months, you might be surprised as to what you’ll find when you log in. You might have spam all over your Facebook page, or have gotten hundreds of new Twitter followers, all spam. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t have time during the spring housing market to maintain your social media presence, and that’s where social media spring cleaning comes in. Just take these three steps to clean up your profiles, and your accounts will be as good as new and ready for your next post!
1. Start by searching yourself. The number one goal is to be towards to top on the Google search page, right? If you haven’t blogged or updated your social networking profiles in a few months, you might see that your rankings have slipped in the search engines. Take a second to step back and look at yourself from the perspective of a potential client. Are you easy to search? Will someone see your website, blog, and social networking sites simply by googling your geographic area for real estate? If the answer is no, then it might be time to take a step back and start building up your “Google juice.” You’ll realize that you have to resume your blogging and social networking posts in order to get back on top in the search engines.
2. Update your profile. We’re not talking about posting here. It’s easy enough to start resuming your Facebook, Twitter, and blog posts at any time. I’m talking about the actual, informational profile aspect of each site. Chances are, if you haven’t touched your social networking sites in a long time, then much of your information is outdated. If you take the time to answer a few of these questions, you’ll find that your profile might need a little more polish than you had anticipated:
- Is my picture current?
- Does my bio and general information portion of my profile have a recent and up-to-date overview of my professional accomplishments and services?
- Do I have the latest, most cutting edge tabs and applications on my profile that will help me get my page out there?
- Are my social networking sites feeding where they should be?
- Are any of the links I have posted on my page broken?
If it has been a long time since you’ve even logged on to your social networking sites, chances are you would have answered “yes” to one or more of these questions. Luckily, these are all situations that are easy to rectify! Simply make the necessary updates to your profile, and see what applications other agents are using that you could potentially add to your page.
3. Clean up your Twitter following. As much as Twitter is a quality marketing tool in this day and age, there is also a high frequency of spam on the site. You’d be surprised on how a seemingly normal-looking profile could be a spam account that tweets the same things over and over again. The point of Twitter is to connect with your community, potential clients, and network, not to read spam! Go through the list of people you’re following and remove all spam accounts. It’s also important to sort through users who you actually pay attention to and users you don’t. For every person you follow, ask yourself why you follow them. If you can’t think of one good reason, chances are it’s time to take them off your list.
Following these three steps will significantly clean up your social media accounts and make them ready to post. You’ll have a list of followers on Twitter that you care about, your bio and profile will be up-to-date, and as you start blogging and posting on your social networking sites, you will move back up the SEO ladder.
Make it a great day!
Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
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How Well Do You Know Your Social Media Audience?
Monday, April 11th, 2011It’s apparent that the key to having a successful social media presence is by having a strong following. It sounds simple enough, but this is something that several agents struggle with when they start their social media marketing campaign. Agents with large followings and a successful online following don’t have any special secret or trick that they use to obtain success, they just know the golden tip for building up your following: you have to know your audience.
The reason that social media is successful as a marketing tool is because it allows businesses to interact with their consumers. The only way, however, that you can get the interaction you need to have a successful social media presence is by knowing your audience. What interests them? What information will they want to read about on your page? What will spark their interest in your page enough to get them to interact with you?
Using some of these tips will help you get to know your followers even better:
Know who your target demographic is. Who are you targeting? Buyers? Sellers? First-time homebuyers? Empty-nesters? What age group are you trying to interact with? What geographic location are you targeting? It’s important when you’re maintaining both your Facebook and Twitter accounts that you post information that is relevant and interesting to the types of people that you’re trying to engage with. If you try to post information for too broad of a scope of people, you end up having a page that is too general and won’t get any interaction. Before you start setting-up your page, make sure you know the answers to some of these questions. Don’t make your target market too narrow, but narrow it down enough that your page will be engaging for the types of people you’d want to be your next client.
First impressions are key. If someone becomes a fan of your Facebook page or follows you on Twitter, make sure you thank them! When someone decides to follow you in some way online, that’s their way of making the first step to interact with you. The best way to make a good first impression on your new follower or fan is to send them a message on Facebook or mention on your Twitter page thanking them for deciding to follow you. We suggest that you try to personalize th
ese messages because then you’ll seem more genuine and people will be more willing to interact with you. On Twitter, it’s okay to mention someone on your page, but if you see a new follower who could be a lead or looks like somebody you’d be very interested in interacting with, you should send them a direct, personalized message thanking them. This is something that is easy to do and can be done every day in a short period of time! You never know what types of interactions can begin just by thanking someone.
Don’t be silent-join the conversation on your page! When someone comments on something you post on Facebook or re-tweets one of your tweets, don’t just ignore them! Respond to them and start engaging them in conversation. The more you interact with people on your social media pages, the more comfortable they’ll feel coming back and talking to you more. It’s also a great way to get to know your audience more and what types of content they respond to.
Ask questions!! The best way to 
encourage your fans and followers to give you their input or engage with you is to ask questions. For the holidays, ask your fans what their gift ideas for Mom and Dad are. On Friday, ask your fans what they’re doing that weekend. Doing this frequently shows that you care about your following and what they have to say. When you’re on Facebook, you can use the Discussions tab to ask questions and start conversations with your fans, and you can use your wall to direct fans to the discussion tab. This tab is a fantastic resource to use because people can engage and talk with people who are also interested in that topic, whereas conversations taking place entirely on the wall can sometimes be overlooked. This is another way to make people feel more comfortable coming to your page and interacting. Remember, the more approachable and engaging you seem on your profile, the more comfortable people will feel using social media to begin a conversation with you.
Follow back. This sounds simple enough, but you’d be surprised how many people don’t take the time to follow people back on Twitter or fan back a page or local business that liked them on Facebook. Besides the fact that this simply makes you look more friendly, the best way to get to know your online following is to look at their profiles. It’s also important to remember that if you find a fan or follower that you’re interested in, REALLY follow them! That is, if you found them on Twitter, try and interact with them on Facebook as well. Read their content, read their blogs, and start engaging with them on their page as well as your own. Taking the time to get to know the online presence of a potential lead, business contact, or interesting fan will help you get to know your overall audience much better, and you can converse with them on similar interests that you both share in terms.
Check out their following. This might not be something you’d initially think to do, but think about how much you could learn about the interests of your following by looking at who else they’re a fan of on Facebook or following on Twitter. You could also see potential new leads and fans by doing this. Remember, people are more likely to respond to you in the social media world if they feel you have common interests or a common friend, and so looking at your following’s audience and picking the ones relevant to you could help you not only build your online presence, but engage with more people as they feel that you’d have something else in common.
We know it sounds as though these initiatives take a lot of time, but in the long run, it is worth getting to know your audience. The more you get to know your online following, their interests, and what they’re looking for, the more likely they are to interact with you. If you don’t have the time, ask your Real Estate Virtual Assistant to manage your social media presence.
Contact Carrie
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The Top 7 Marketing Trends for 2011!
Friday, March 11th, 2011
I think we all sensed it. It seemed that the beginning of 2011 established the fact that real estate marketing had officially changed. The last few years have been a whirlwind of crash courses in social media, blogging, videos and other creative online tools. Many agents remained on the fence as to whether or not jump on board to this seemingly passing phase, while we, as Real Estate Virtual Assistants, quickly came up with processes for the most effective way to market for our agents using these mediums.
During the slower holiday season, many agents took the time to evaluate the last year, wrestle through their stance regarding their online presence, and determine their steps for the future. As the real estate community wrapped their minds around the changes, shuffled through their options and planned for the coming year; it seemed there emerged a renewed attitude, balance and self confidence with the beginning of 2011.
We’ve seen the change as agents are coming to us with a sense of calm and fortitude knowing what they want out of their social media and online branding. The whirlwind is settling, along with the debris of the past few years, and we’re clearly seeing our way along this new path.
Here are the 7 marketing trends that are at the forefront of marketing for 2011.
1. Niche Marketing- We’ve noted this in the past that the most effective agents are those that hone in on a niche market. Rather than being a “jack of all trades, master of none;” find that place in which you excel and focus your energy. Whether you’re great at helping first time home buyers, can sell a waterfront property in no time, can relate with empty nesters or work best with high end buyers; there’s a market out there for your specific skill set. Find it and go for it.
2. Quality Content- In a world of texting, Facebook, Tweeting and key word greedy blogs; we can tend to push quality to the background, and focus more on quantity and quickly climbing the crowded SEO ladder. The bottom line: it’s still business and you’re still representing your brand. While these mediums can be more casual; they still require professionalism and virtue. Make sure that what you’re saying online is valuable to the reader in order to stand out from the online noise.
3. Leaning towards Social Media- Agents are spending less money on print marketing and moving their funds to their social media and other online branding. It’s the idea of meeting your market on their terms, and we can’t deny that it’s an online world. Marketing money is being used to enhance and maintain social media sites as well as custom websites and other online initiatives.
4. Multiple Branding Experiences- You’ve probably experienced the feeling that suddenly keeping up with your Facebook and Twitter isn’t enough anymore. Flickr, YouTube, Yelp and other marketing means are also coming to the forefront. It’s a matter of providing a variety of options for people to interact with your brand.
5. Getting Local- Narrowing down your online presence through geotargeting allows agents to market to their direct market. There are a variety of ways to hone in to your area of service through Facebook ads, Yelp, Google and many others.
6. Co-Marketing- This form of marketing is quickly emerging in our current economic state. From teaming up with non-profits, local stores, restaurants and more; agents are finding creative ways to cut marketing costs and build local relationships. (View our recent blog on Co-Marketing.)
7. Mobile Marketing- While still in the works; mobile marketing is beginning to take off beginning with QR Codes, Foursquare and other applications. Creating a mobile marketing presence will most likely be one of the top growing marketing strategies this year.
As you can see; these top seven approaches to marketing are significantly different that a year or two ago. It’s no longer a matter of if you want to jump on board; it’s necessary for staying in the game!
If you want to take this year to get up to speed, but aren’t sure where to start; find a Real Estate Virtual Assistant! Your VA can walk you through determining your needs, finding a plan that works for your target market and budget, and can handle it all for you! If you just need guidance in the beginning and want to learn along the way to be able to take the marketing on for yourself; your Virtual Assistant can help with that too.
It’s not too late to start, and a renewed marketing plan can be just the thing to rejuvenate your spirits for the spring season and carry you through the rest of the year!
Contact Carrie
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What Should Feed Where? Breaking Down Social Media Feeds
Friday, February 25th, 2011
Feed your Facebook business page to your Twitter account. Many Facebook users feed their Twitter to Facebook, but when you do that your Facebook page statuses are comprised of tweets, and not all of the Facebook community speaks the Twitter language. That’s why we recommend feeding Facebook to Twitter. That way every time you update your Facebook, the post automatically feeds to Twitter as a tweet, and your followers can read that great content. It will also fit in nicely with the rest of your tweets, as Twitter users both understand Twitter language and the normal English you use on your Facebook page. In order to feed your Facebook to Twitter, you simply log in to your Facebook and go to http://www.facebook.com/twitter and link your business page to Twitter. After you authorize the application to access your Twitter account, you simply select which types of posts you want on your Twitter page and click “Save Changes.” It’s possibly the easiest feed you can ever do, and it increases your efficiency, because if you only have time to update your Facebook that day, the feed will insure that you at least have the content from your Facebook on your Twitter, too. Feed your blog to your Facebook page. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your blog is to have your blog posts automatically feed to your Facebook. Every time you post a new blog, it just wastes another 5-10 minutes to log on to Facebook, write a cute little intro, and attach a link to your latest article. When you automatically feed the blog, you don’t have to worry about manually posting it, and it instantly provides your wall with great content. Since you’ve already fed your Facebook page to Twitter, that means that once your blog feeds to Facebook, it will show up on your Twitter page, too. We feed blogs to Facebook using a free service called Twitterfeed. You simply register for an account, create the feed using the user-friendly set-up, and then the website automatically checks for a new post every few hours. It’s the most reliable service that we’ve found for blog feeds, and since it’s free and user-friendly, it only takes a few minutes of your time to set up. This is one of the most imperative feeds that you can have for your social media sites, as the more traffic you bring to your blog, the better, and the more quality content you have on your social media sites, the more interaction you will get.
Feed both your Twitter and blog to LinkedIn. Between posting on Facebook and tweeting good content daily, it’s easy to forget about LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is great for networking with other agents and building your professional reputation within your field, it’s not conducive for interacting with your clients, which is the ultimate goal of social media. That’s why oftentimes, many agents let their LinkedIn become lower on the priority list than Facebook and Twitter. If you simply set up these two feeds for LinkedIn, you wont’ have to worry about manually updating your profile anymore. These two feeds will make sure that you have a populated profile with quality content to share with your professional network.
The first feed you’ll want to set up is your Twitter to LinkedIn feed. You simply log in to your LinkedIn account, click, “Edit Profile”, and add your Twitter account to your LinkedIn profile. Then you go to the main homepage and find the “Applications” menu at the bottom of the page, and select the “Tweets” application. You want your tweets to show up on your profile and your homepage. You also want to set the settings so that ALL of your tweets feed to your profile, NOT just the ones with the #in hashtag after them. You click “Add Application” and your tweets should automatically show up on your profile! When you feed Twitter to LinkedIn, ALL of your tweets will show up on your profile, which puts high-quality content on your page. The kicker is that since your Facebook feeds to Twitter, and your Twitter feeds to LinkedIn, everything you post on your Facebook will show up on LinkedIn due to the feed you had already created! Content from all of your other social networking sites will provide enough content for your LinkedIn profile.
After you set up that feed, you’ll want to make sure that your enticing blog posts show up on your LinkedIn profile, too. In order to feed your blog, you log in to your account, click “Edit Profile”, and you edit your websites on your profile. Select “Blog” as one of the websites you’re adding to your page, put in your blog’s URL, and save. Once your blog is saved as one of your websites, you can go back to the home page, go to the Applications drop-down menu, and select the “Blog Link” application. After you add the application, your blog posts, as well as blog posts from the people in your network, will automatically show up on your LinkedIn profile. This is another efficient way to make your content available to your network, and it also populates your LinkedIn profile even more. Between your weekly blog posts and your daily tweets, you’ll have enough content on your profile that you won’t have to log in to LinkedIn as much!
Is your head spinning yet? Not to worry, when you read it all at once, it sounds a lot more confusing than it really is. If you just break down this blog post into one feed at a time, you’ll find that setting up these feeds doesn’t take much time and will be beneficial to how efficiently you do your social media marketing. Once you have all of these feeds set up, you can rest easy knowing that all of your sites will be populated with high-quality content for your community and prospective clients to read, and that just makes you look like even more of a real estate and community expert to more people. If this all still seems puzzling to you, or you don’t think that you have time to sit down and figure this all out, your Real Estate Virtual Assistants will be happy to take care of this for you as part of your social networking setup!
Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
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Facebook: A Whole New World in Real Estate Marketing
Friday, November 26th, 2010
We recently created a Facebook ad for one of our clients. The ad we came up with was “Art, Literature, Food and Real Estate. Living up to Boston’s standards. ‘Like’ what you hear?”
Our client called us, confused and slightly disappointed. She wanted to know why it mentioned nothing about her real estate business, her contact information, and where was the call to action?
If you have taken a dive into the wonderful world of Facebook lately, then you may have seen the ads that Facebook allows you to create to advertise your Business Page. These ads are a great way to grow your fan base. The idea is to pull people in and get them to “Like” your page, thereby becoming a fan. These ads are, in fact, the #1 way that Facebook users find out about fan pages.
What you need to remember, and what our client did not realize, is this - Facebook is a completely different world than your classic real estate marketing.
Your real estate business website features pages like “Your Home Buying Resource,” “Selling your Anytown USA Home,” “Featured Anytown Listings” and “About Your Anytown USA Real Estate Experts.” It’s chock full of ways to contact you, your real estate experience, and what you can do for their home.
Now take a look at your Facebook Business Page. If you’ve done everything right, your Facebook Page should feature posts like “Get Involved in Your Community at This Weekend’s Food Drive” or “Have You Tried The Newest Tapas Restaurant?” If you’ve really gotten into it, it may also feature an additional tab on your latest listings or price reductions. But overall, it will be completely different than your website.
As a rule of thumb, your Facebook Page is about 80% fun, local information and 20% real estate.
A Facebook ad is meant to bring business to your Fan Page, not your website. Asking the viewer to “Like” you, is the call to action.
Facebook goes against everything you’ve ever learned as a real estate agent because your Facebook page is not about real estate. It’s about connecting to your potential clients on a different level. In our opinion, as Real Estate Virtual Assistants, this connection could be a lot more valuable than any sales pitch-y ad you could put out there. True, it may not get the client to list their home with you right away. But you are forming a friendship – one without motive. You are simply providing them with information about your community. If you can get them to “Like” you, then you’re off to a pretty good start.
RealSupport offers a great Social Networking service if you are struggling getting your Facebook Business Page off the ground. Check out RealSupport’s website for more information and samples on social networking for REALTORS.
Contact Carrie
Visit us Online at RealSupportInc.com
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So I’m on Facebook and Twitter, Now What’s My ROI?
Friday, October 15th, 2010
One of the biggest questions we get asked as Real Estate Virtual Assistants maintaining social media for our clients is, “What’s my ROI?”
This is a valid question. As an agent, you want to know where your money goes when you’ve hired us to maintain your social networking presence. Thankfully, we’ve found something that might help answer some questions about what your social networking efforts are really doing for you!
The first study that directly showed social media success metrics comes from Business.com’s “Social Media Best Practices: Question & Answer Forums” report. In the midst of all the statistics and analyzing there was a hidden gift: a chart below which listed social media success metrics!
This might not seem like it’s a big deal. You’d think that there would be many more studies that show how successful social media is in marketing. Because social media is such a new medium for business, there aren’t many studies that can show a quantified list of how successful social media really is in the business world. This could possibly be the first cut-and-dry, quantified list of what social media can really do for your business, and we’d like to share it with you:
According to the results of this study, the three most powerful things that social media does for your business are:
1.) It drives traffic to your website: According to this chart, 61% of companies said that social media led to an increase in their website traffic. A Facebook fan page or Twitter profile is just an introduction to who you are as an agent. If people are interested in hearing more about your business, they will click on the link to your website from your fan page to find out more.
2.) It allows you to engage with prospects: The whole idea behind social media is to engage with your network. Having a Facebook fan page and Twitter profile allows you to interact with local businesses and your fans and followers in an easy, accessible way. The more engaging you are on your pages, the more fans you’ll get, and the more fans you get, the better-known you’ll be in your community. You never know, the owner of that local dry-cleaners you’ve been interacting with on Facebook could be looking to sell their house, and your Facebook relationship could lead them to want you as their agent! In this study, 57% of companies said that having a social media presence increased their engagement with prospects.
3.) It builds your brand: Since social media is the trendiest, most popular medium for networking right now, it’s important that you have a social media presence to build your brand. There are more than 400 million users registered on Facebook and over 190 million users on Twitter. The more active of a social media presence you have, the more fans you’ll get, and more fans means that more people on these social media sites know who you are and what your brand is. 54% of the companies in this study said that having an active presence in social media led to more people being aware of their brand.
Those are the three top things that having an active social media presence does for your business. The common theme that they all have is that they would give you more positive exposure in your community, and that leads to more business! 
While these are the more powerful things that social media does for your brand, there are aspects of marketing where social media won’t do as much for you:
1.) It won’t always lead to lead-generation: According to this chart, only 36% of companies said social media led to prospect lead volume and only 33% said that social media led to prospect lead quality. Unfortunately, while interacting with your fans and followers on social media builds your brand and can sometimes lead to client-gain, it doesn’t happen as often as we’d like. Most people still use Google to search for real estate agents, and while having a presence on social media can help increase your SEO, many times future clients are still led to your website, not to your Facebook or Twitter page.
2.) You may not get useful feedback from your customers: Only 23% of companies said that having a Facebook or Twitter account got them useful feedback from their customers. While it’s good to know that there’s less of a chance you’ll be getting negative posts, it’d still be ideal to receive the positive ones! Many people would feel strange about posting their experience as your client in a public medium like social networking, which is why there might not be as much success in this area of social media marketing.
While there are some parts of social media marketing that might not do everything you’d want it to for your company, the results that it can produce are undeniably important. As the times continue to change and social media continues to become a bigger part of our every day lives, eventually the parts where social media marketing is lacking will become just as successful as the areas where it has excelled.
There’s no doubt that brand awareness, community engagement, and website traffic can only positively impact your business, and right now, that is what social media can do for you. The more active you are in social media for real estate, the bigger your brand becomes in your community.
At least now you know what your real ROI is when it comes to social media. We still think it’s a positive and very essential component to your marketing efforts and online presence. Best of all, your real estate virtual assistant can maintain this presence for you!
Carrie Gable and the team at RealSupport, Inc. are our “VA Quick Tip” columnists offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents and brokers nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, branding, website and logo design, listing marketing, lead generation, technical support, transaction management, social networking, blogging and much more… Just ask!Contact Carrie
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Our Top Ten Twitter Tips All Tweeters Should Know
Saturday, September 4th, 2010Twitter is one of the fastest-growing marketing and networking websites in the country. Sometimes, however, it seems as though Twitter has its own language! It can be hard to build, maintain, and engage with your followers if you don’t know how to most efficiently communicate with them! We have complied the top ten (there are SO many!) Twitter tips for all tweeters to know in order to help you communicate better with your followers!
1.) Twitter Etiquette can enhance your presence on Twitter: In order to have a strong presence on Twitter, it is very important that you always follow someone who follows you, and vice versa. Even if you don’t know the person who is following you, you should always follow them back. You never know, the person who’s following could be a potential client, and following them is the way you can start engaging with them! Similarly, people who you begin to follow should always follow you back. Following this rule of Twitter etiquette not only makes you look friendly and engaging, but it also increases your presence on Twitter!
2.) Re-Tweet articles and quotes from people you’re following: Re-tweeting is tweeting another person’s tweet to your followers. It’s a great way to mention people you’re following on your profile, quickly engage/interact with that follower by giving them “props” for their tweet, and share an article or quote that is of interest to you. Re-tweeting is very simple: all you have to do is put your mouse over the tweet you want to re-tweet and click “re-tweet” in the lower right hand corner, and that tweet will immediately show up to your followers! This is a very fast and easy way to show that you’re paying attention to your followers!
3.) Hashtags or “Trending” gives you even more exposure: Hashtags, or “trending”, gives you more exposure on Twitter by allowing people to search your tweets, thereby giving you potential to gain more followers! A hashtag is a word or phrase you post at the end of your tweet that categorizes it and allows that tweet to be searched under that category. The hashtag words are preceded by a “#” sign. For example, if you post a quote on your page, you can easily make that tweet searchable on Twitter by adding “#quotes” at the end of your post. You should try and post a hashtag in as many tweets as possible in order to increase your presence on Twitter and get more people to see your tweets! This can increase your number of followers easily and quickly!
4.) Send personalized direct messages to new followers: Whenever you have a new follower that could potentially be your next client or an agent you may earn a referral from, it’s a good idea to send them a personalized direct message. Key word here is personalized. Direct messages on Twitter are private and can only be seen by the user, but they are a good way to send a personalized message that is a little longer than a tweet. Many tweeters have setup automatic direct messages that are sent out as soon as someone follows you. We don’t recommend this as it can come off as spam or impersonal. We’ve even heard that some tweeters will un-follow someone if they receive a canned automatic direct message. It’s a good idea to send personalized direct messages to important new followers to make a good first impression and make your new followers want to engage with you. Yes, it’s not automated and yes it takes a couple minutes, but we think it’s worth your time. After all, you could be interacting with your next potential client!
5.) Send tweets to thank new followers frequently: It’s difficult to send a private direct message to every new follower you get! One quick and efficient way to thank new followers is by sending frequent tweets thanking new followers by giving them a public mention. A good way to do this is by tweeting, “Thanks for the #follow!” and then mentioning as many new followers as you can at the end of the tweet.By putting a hashtag on #follow, you can increase both your presence on Twitter and the presence of your recent followers by making the tweet searchable. It’s also a way to begin engaging with your new followers, and we think they’d appreciate the mention on your page!
6.) Hashtags.org is a good resource to search for relevant trending topics (hashtags): It can be difficult to figure out which hashtags to use. You want whatever topic you’re hashtagging to be one that people use frequently. Hashtags.org is a website in which you can type in a trending topic in the search box and you get a graph that shows how often that hashtag was used over that particular week. If that hashtag is used frequently, you know it’s a good hashtag for you to use in order to increase your exposure! This is quick and easy resource for all tweeters!
7.) Certain days of the week present creative ways to engage with your followers: There are certain days of the week where there are hashtag or trending themes. It’s a good idea to frequently use these hashtags because they are fun and creative ways to engage with your followers. For example, on follow Friday you mention some of your followers in a tweet on your page as people who others might want to follow and put the hashtag #FF on the tweet. There is also worthy Wednesday which is similar to follow Friday, except you put #WW on the tweet. There is also music Monday where you share some songs you’ve listened to that day and put #MM on the tweet. The list goes on! Using these hashtags on these days of the week is an interesting way to engage with your followers and increase your presence on Twitter!
8.) Re-Tweeting AND commenting (when space allows) on their tweets: When someone you’re following posts an interesting tweet or something you’d like to publicly comment on, you can! When space allows, of course. Since Twitter only allows/shows 140 characters, it’s best to only comment on the shorter tweets so it’s easy to read/follow. You simply click to re-tweet and then before you post, you add your comment after the tweet in parenthesis or brackets. By doing this, you’re starting a public discussion with the person who originally posted it. Twitter is all about interaction, so it’s good to engage in conversations on Twitter and build relationships as much as possible!
9.) Your ratio of followers to following should be pretty equal: The number of people you’re following and the number of followers you have should be pretty equal! According to Twitter etiquette, if you start following someone, they should follow you back, and so your numbers should be around the same. Real estate is all about being engaging and building relationships, so follow as many RELEVANT people as you can! A good resource to use to help keep track of who you’re following and who’s following you is an application called TweetAdder, which automatically un-follows any people you’re following who aren’t following you back, after giving them x amount of days to do so. It’s important to keep your ratio equal to look engaging and present on Twitter.
10.) Create lists for the people you follow to categorize, keep track and follow easier: It can be hard to keep track of everyone you follow. Creating lists for your followers is a good way to separate them into categories/groups and easily view what your followers are tweeting more efficiently and therefore it’s MUCH easier to interact with those you wish to follow more closely. You can put all of your potential leads on one list, other agents in a list, current clients on another list and perhaps past clients in their own list as well. That way, you can view each list separately and easily interact with each contact type.
These tips are ways that you or your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can most efficiently maintain and manage your Twitter experience! If you’ve just read our tips and you don’t have time or can’t wrap your head around all of this, maybe it’s time to outsource your social media marketing to a Virtual Assistant! Have additional tips to share? We’d love to hear them!
Oh and by the way, don’t forget to follow Erica on Twitter AND follow Carrie on Twitter!
While you’re at it, you might as well “Like” us on Facebook too. We share tips, ideas and giveaways for your real estate business! Be sure to enter our September contest – you might be the lucky winner of a FREE logo design!!
Happy Tweeting!
Carrie Gable and the team at RealSupport, Inc. are our “VA Quick Tip” columnists offering expertise in real estate marketing, technology and more. RealSupport’s office and team of 9 full-time staff members is located near Chicago, IL. Their successful team works virtually for many top real estate agents and brokers nationwide. Pioneers in the Real Estate Virtual Assistant industry, RealSupport offers marketing, branding, website and logo design, listing marketing, lead generation, technical support, transaction management, social networking, blogging and much more… Just ask!
Perhaps It’s Time to Rethink Your Sync
Sunday, August 29th, 2010
Just when you started getting a handle on what it takes to have a successful Website along comes social networking. In your drive to keep up and stay synced do you find yourself texting, tweeting, facebooking yourself to distraction? Or is that very activity the distraction (from life, business) itself?
It’s so easy to get lost in “doing” when we are not sure of the reasons behind it. Or worse, because it is what “everyone else is doing”. And the very worst of all, because it fills the space of the moment, squeezing out any possibility of just “being”.
These were the questions and concerns that came up a couple of days ago during a recent meeting with a speakers mastermind group I belong to. Just like you, to a person they felt overwhelmed by the process of keeping up with social networking even though they were not quite sure what it could do for them.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge proponent of social networking. However it is just a tool. One that you should be driving, rather than it driving you. And, if you feel the need to be in sync all the time, perhaps it’s time to rethink your sync…
People who are way out of sync with the digital maelstrom of the moment aren’t always bad followers. They might be great leaders.
Seth Godin
If you are feeling overwhelmed trying to stay on top of social networking then a) it’s not working for you, you are working for it; and b) chances are the people you try to stay connected with are feeling the same. As the powerful tool it certainly can be, you either learn to master it, or let it go. But never, ever let it (or any other tool) lord over you —that’s just plain foolish.
