The next time you run a search on Google:

1. Choose the “Show Options” link located just below the Google search box.

2. A side panel of useful sorting options displays.

3. If you choose Wonder Wheel from the “Standard View” category, a wheel display of relevant search terms displays. By simply clicking on one of the search terms will display a new sub-wheel of relevant search terms and so on and so on. It provides a more intuitive graphical display and makes the task of narrowing down your search results a little easier. It’s also a fantastic way to research relevant and related key words for website and Blog article Search Engine Optimization. Kudos to my friend Scott for sharing this cool insight.

Craigslist is the 800 lb Gorilla

If you’ve not heard of Craigslist, check out the site and learn how you can expose your listings to a much larger audience than just your local MLS.  We’ve used Craigslist to market our rentals and first time home buyer priced homes.  Every time we put one of those listings out on Craigslist, the phone and email inbox light up with inquiries.

Craigslist isn’t the Only Gorilla in the Mist

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Great post on why you should not simply focus on one network in your SocNet strategy at the detriment of other networks.

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn…they all have good aspects in trying to connect and re-connect with friends, family, past clients and soon-to-be clients.  The one thing they all have in common, other than being able to absorb a LOT of your time, should be your…

Blog.

Your Blog is Where Your Heart Is

You invite a bunch of “followers” to your home for a get together.  They drive to your home, come in through the front door, admire your taste in [fill in whatever hobbies float your boat], grab a drink and head out to the deck where the grill is working its magic.

Once you’ve gathered a few folks in this manner, you simply have a good time.  Make sure everyone’s comfortable, the conversation is good and the food and drink are plentiful.

5.  Secret everyone knows:  most of Twitter is just linking to blogs and content on the open web.  Being the end product people are actually interested in and focus their attention on is where your ideas will be studied carefully, not in the cacophony of Twitter.

Easy, right?

Unfortunately, what some folks on SocNets think they should do is usher you directly into the dining room, whip out a white board and begin to sell you the latest and greatest widget designed to get you your heart’s desire.

Where’s the warm up?  What happened to “folks don’t want to be sold, they want to buy?” If I’m in someone’s house, I want to know more about THEM, not their product or service!

As you engage your SocNets, remember that you should have a place where folks from any SocNet can learn more about you and how you do business.  A blog is perfect to showcase yourself and your knowledge of your marketplace.  In addition to being able to showcase your service and knowledge, folks will see how you handle yourself; they will get to see a lot of who you are just by how you communicate and what you communicate.

We’re Real Estate Agents, Dang it!

We are social by nature.  We have a deep rooted desire to be out and about, chatting with folks around town and learning who needs to move.  We get the idea of not pushing our services, because we don’t like having services pushed on us.

With that in mind, here are a few tips to integrate your website and/or blog with your SocNet presence:

Do’s

• Be yourself
• Fill out your SocNet profiles with links to your site and/or blog, noting that you are a real estate agent (Dang it!);
• Share information that is relevant, deemed interesting (stufftotweet.com) and is of interest to you;
• Periodically mention in your SocNet chats about being in real estate
• Connect with folks around the country – when they think of someone moving to or from your area, often times, you’ll be the only real estate agent they know in your marketplace (works well with other agents and lenders across the internet)
• Be sure to compliment, engage and converse with others across your SocNets (re-tweeting on twitter, for example, is a great way to engage with others on twitter)

Don’t

• Constantly push your services or the fact that you are an agent (people want to buy not be sold, remember?)
• Be someone you are not
• Blather to the SocNets with no direct purpose (is it really a conversation if no one responds?)
• Reveal intimate/personal stuff via SocNets – remember, the Google has a better memory than an Elephant
  • And really? How creepy if you knew THAT about your real estate agent? eek!
• Complain

Social Media according to Wikipedia, “are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings.” The different social media outlets aim to integrate both media (print, audio, video) and interaction between the content creators and the consumers of the media.

Social Media? Like MSNBC?

No doubt you’ve heard about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. All three of these social networks (SocNets) have their place within the online community as places to “gather.”

You’ve also likely tried to get involved in one SocNet or another and found yourself asking, “Why do I care what these people are doing right now? Heck, why do they care about what I’M doing?”

Both are valid questions, however the point of social media is to have a conversation with prospective clients across the internet. Remember, the National Association of Realtors states that nearly 90% of real estate consumers utilize the internet to find information about their next foray into real estate.

So, if 90% of consumers are utilizing the internet, that means that as an agent, you need to be found in as many places as possible across the ‘net….just like your listings!

[but that's an entirely separate subject and article]

Why SocNets? Think Chamber of Commerce…

As a successful agent, you have no doubt made the rounds at your local Chamber of Commerce networking events. In attending these events, you were diligent to either bring a stack of cards to distribute or you drew up a list of folks you need to meet prior to leaving the event.

SocNets are a giant Chamber of Commerce – but without the geographic boundaries!

This means that you can have conversations with folks interested in your marketplace from across the globe. This level of networking allows you to communicate with many more folks than just the ones you are in direct communication with. You see, every person you connect with on just those three SocNets mentioned earlier has their own network of folks. So by chatting with one person, you could be communicating with an addtional 10, 100 or even 1,000 additional folks.

Social Media Will Change Your Business Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up…or catch you later

There Are Two More Benefits

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

• Google Indexing

If the first item doesn’t make you twitter, the second one will!

Every account you fill in online for these SocNets will have a profile for you to flesh out. To continue any conversation from SocNet to appointment, you need to place your high value website or blog in your profile. This allows interested parties to learn more about you and your business at their own pace (see how this is kinda like geo-farming an area?). More clicks on the link to your site, the more traffic you get, the more Google begins to notice your site.

Which leads right into Google Indexing…

Where Have all the Values Gone?

[apologies to Paula Cole and her song Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?]

Seemingly, the halcyon days of real estate are behind us when you could list a home, throw a dart to choose the price and the home would sell in a week. Sellers were ecstatic, agents elated and buyers were just happy they purchased before things got too expensive.

Then the house of cards collapsed…

Now, agents have to justify to sellers why their home is worth 20-50% less than when they purchased. Buyers are having a field day applying the boot to sellers that NEED to sell.

Agents, meanwhile, have adapted as they know best. Some, who saw the declining values as never-ending and too much work, bolted the industry. Other agents, comfortable with their communication skills and an eye for the long term, saw the drop as their time to shine. These agents KNOW in their hearts that by serving their clients well, during the period of a down market, they will reap the rewards when the market turns…

Transparency…there’s that word again

Systems/Technology + Real Estate = Happy Consumer and Real Estate Agent

Web 2.0 has pushed many industries to figure out how to connect with consumers in the online realm. Heck, even the “online realm” line is getting blurred…Smartphones keep us connected to our “friends behind the monitor” no matter where we go.

Twitter is indicative of just this level of blurring. Twitter has also made agents re-think how they do business…not just in closing transactions, but also in marketing and prospecting.

The real estate industry, agents in particular, have flocked into the new Social Media. And it makes good sense why we have too. Agents are a naturally social animal. We go to Chamber networking events, we flutter around social gatherings picking up area information, clients and referrals simply by being who we are.

Some agents are very good at being duplicitous in who they are at a networking event and who they “really” are. This is the disconnect for some when it comes to SocNets (Social Networks) online.

This increase in constant exposure that this new web gives us is a two-edged sword: those who are willing to put themselves out there in this manner will gain more business, but you MUST maintain who you are or your online presence will feel forced or somehow manipulated.

Ginny Cain McMurtrie over at the AgentGenius.com, writes a great post on transparency and aligning your online “image” with your overall professionalism.

Simply put:

This new space is about the natural flow of conversation and information. Not that you can’t sell, share your personal life, make editorial comment or show humor, it’s about doing all that as you.

If you are looking for a wider audience to talk with about real estate in your neck of the woods, by all means jump on the SocNet bandwagon! But remember, it’s a two-way street. You will need to engage others for them to continue to engage you.

photo: jurvetson

You know something has hit it “big time” when Oprah is using and talking about it:

This social network has been a buzz word for some time now.  What separates this Social Network (SocNet) from others is its ability for one person to reach thousands of others in a short period of time.

Pictures, audio and anything else you can point to via a website can be shared on Twitter!

Real estate agents, being the social animals that we are, have jumped on SocNets, and twitter, bandwagon.  In fact, it appears as though the real estate industry as a whole has grasped the power of this particular social network more so than any other industry!

But I’ve Heard…

As with ANY kind of social networking (virtual or in real life), it has it’s detractors!  In fact, we had a post on this a littler earlier:  The Trouble with Twitter.  This link includes a funny video on how “trivial” some of the tweets can be.

The point of any social network is to be able to connect with folks interested in your services and folks whose services you are interested in.

Here at theRockStarAgent.com, we are constantly looking for systems, tools and information that can further assist in streamlining the whole real estate process.

Over at MyTechOpinion.com, NikNik has written a great book called Twitter for Real Estate Twits.  We recommend filling out their form below if you would like to learn how to set up and begin to use twitter for real estate.

Because twitter can be used to drive more traffic to your site, it is a recommended part of our ALG system to generate real estate leads.

And double extra bonus points to ya’ll that got the Peter Gabriel reference at the top of this post!  You’re on your way to making it BIG TIME!    =-)

Fortunately, for consumers, not every real estate agent fits this mold!

However, even though this video is quite exaggerated, high pressure agents ARE common – especially right now since business has beome skinnier.

If you have any hint of ‘need’, consumers will smell it a mile away and will run from you like you’re from the Night of the Living Dead.

High pressure sales ’stench’ comes from the lack of predictable business. And realizing that this is huge problem for agents right now, when we were deciding what product to launch theRockStarAgent.com with, we decided to roll out our  lead generation systems first. We figured getting agents a steady flow of predictable business in the face of the current housing debacle would bring the most value to agents.

And in the first month since launching, we have already had 40+ agents take advantage of our Automatic Lead Generation course.  It features over 7 hours of video and a 65 page manual that takes you step by step through the process of creating your own online lead generation system.

What’s cool is these agents are already getting a steady flow of business from this system and it has solved their ‘commission breath’ problem.

They no longer have to ask,”Do you have your checkbook with you TODAY?”  or, “DID I AKS YOU?”   

How?

How do you find information and convey it to your clients?

Twitter is networking on a much larger, faster level.  My best description about all social networks (SocNet), not just twitter, is that they are like Chamber of Commerce networking meetings, without geographic boundaries.

There are some other benefits to being apart of any SocNet, including twitter:

• the ability to connect with other professionals in different markets and learn from their practices
• the ability to connect with clients coming to or moving from your market place
• the almighty Google indexes all public “tweets” on twitter and other SocNet updates
  • huge if you want to capture eyeballs for a specific search term, like “[community name] real estate” [nudge, nudge, wink, wink]

The Trouble with Twitter

Of course, any SocNet you may become a part of, also has the ability to sap up a bunch of your time!  Here’s an entertaining and witty, yet poignant video on the “Trouble with Twitter.”

So, if you aren’t already a part of the online SocNet community, choose one and dive in.  You can follow me on twitter by creating your own account, and clicking follow on my twitter profile.