Social Media is changing everyday; it is hard to keep up with all that is new. The best news is that it is FREE and very easy to teach yourself; you just need to get started. Creating a user profile and password does not mean you are a part of social media. That is what I call being a “wallflower”…you go to the dance but never join in….you drive to the party but you sit in your car. This is an incredible opportunity for you to develop meaningful and relevant relationships to your business for the investment of your time and energy.
Use the same profile photo on all social media sites, for consistency Don’t use a stiff photo; can be a non-professional photo -nothing that sends the wrong message: don’t want to put yourself in a bad light -remember what is on the internet stays forever Be judicious in requesting that others join your causes and lay low on gimmicky type things available: Farmville, sending presents, etc.
This is just one row of David Cox’s photo albums; he has at 15 albums Vacations, Holiday times, Profile pictures Also a tab just for Videos Join Causes: things of interest to you
This is a VISUAL of who you are and what you are interested in. You will be kept up to date when there are postings to the group sites. Very simple to create groups. This could be your neighborhood, your church, your book group, soccer team, gardening club…any group of people that have a common interest that have a need to communicate with each other.
When you “FAN” a page it shows your support or interest in what that business is doing. Again you are kept current when future posts are made.
There are many “applications” available for real estate. Some help you import your listings, some help you customize parts of Facebook.
This is when you join the party. You come to the party and you start greeting everyone. You catch up with old friends, you stay current with people you see regularly, you make plans. Being on FB is like joining a cocktail party in action 24-7. You make comments to others posts, happy birthdays, accept invitations to various causes, etc. But the goal is to transform yourself to being the life of the party…..taking the lead role on the stage. It does NOT have to absorb more time out of your life, in fact, FB should be able to free you up from other time you spend doing other marketing activities or sending out a mailing. You can easily post an open house, invite people to a homebuyer seminar and simply keep your name in front of your community.
Not sure which camera to buy? Ask on your wall? Going to Atlantic City, anyone have a restaurant recommendation? This got over 10 responses for me. News Sources: Get an RSS feeder such as Google Reader and start subscribing to RSS Feeds; this will keep you on the cutting edge. You can also “share” material you see on other sites…this is the onlly time when you can take someone elses work and re-populate it. Give Answers: what comes naturally to you is GREEK to others not in real estate Keep a presence; you don’t have to post everyday but a couple of times per week is right for beginners
This will give you that bit of separation between social and business. This is the place where strictly business related posts are welcome. Look at this as it if is a website. POST…. what business is doing Business events connections to other pages/groups News articles Blog entries Information on market
Applications are available to make one post that hits all accounts. Such as YELP that will help you tie all these various platforms together so you can post on 1 and it will go to all of the others. Again, it may seem overwhelming at first, there is a learning curve but once you get rolling there are programs coming out all the time to make social media optimization easier and time efficient.