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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

Yep, I’m saying that you should treat your blog like you would your home. 

In thinking of your blog as your home, let’s stretch the analogy a little further.

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.

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 (
• 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

(stufftotweet.com) and is of interest to you

Content Provided By: Todd Waller

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…