By Bernice Ross
Inman News
Need help building your online business? Check out what real
estate's leading women had to share at the recent AFIRE (Awesome
Females in Real Estate) conference in Savannah, Ga.
1. Distribution trumps destination
Jennifer Anderson of Point2Agent explained how "distribution trumps
destination." In other words, it is more important to have your
listings appear on multiple sites rather than two or three sites with
high traffic. Since consumers search on multiple Web portals, it's
imperative that your listings appear in as many places as possible.
Point2's syndication service reaches 40 different major real estate
portals and more than 200,000 agents in 100-plus countries.
Janet
Case of Proxio.com explained how her company helps agents reach clients
all over the world. Her service allows agents to have their listings
posted in multiple languages in multiple countries. The Proxio platform
can also be used in other countries where they lack a multiple listing
service. For example, the Philippines just adopted the Proxio platform
to run their first-ever Multiple Listing Service.
Anne St.
Dennis from the Quebec Federation of Real Estate Boards and the Greater
Montreal Real Estate Board Service shared how her boards are meeting
the challenge of serving both French- and English-speaking clientele.
Dennis explained how they set up their own television station and
produce their own videos to reach both the public and their members
with important information. For example, they interviewed Bob Hale, CEO
of the Houston Association of Realtors and Inman Innovator of the Year
for 2008. They tried using subtitles but found that did not appeal to
their client base. Consequently, they now dub all of their video so
people can listen in their native language rather than reading
subtitles.
2. Have a plan and be patient
One of the
questions posed to Joeann Fossland of Advantage Solutions and to
technology speaker and trainer Amy Chorew, was "What kinds of behaviors
work well on social media sites and what doesn't work?" Both agreed
that you needed a plan for social networking and that it will probably
take 12 to 18 months before it yields results. Since many social
networking solutions require your time to succeed, Chorew proposed that
Realtors need to address both ROI (return on investment) and ROT
(return on time).
Both Chorew and Fossland also emphasized how
important it is to track your results. Without tracking, you will never
know what works and what doesn't work. For example, Fossland shared a
story about the winner of the Inman/Active Rain blogging competition in
2007, Mary Pope-Handy. When Pope-Handy first started blogging, she was
frustrated by the lack of results. Due to personal issues, Pope-Handy
had to recently cut how much she was blogging. Surprisingly, her leads
continued to flow due to the posts she did during 2007 and 2008. The
point is to stick with whatever you're doing long enough for it to
yield results.
3. What to avoid online
Keynote
speaker Marilyn Naylor called the negative energy that many people
encounter online "splinter energy." Responding to those who are highly
negative will result only in escalating the situation. You won't be
able to change the other party. Unfortunately, when you grab a stick
with splinters you're the one who gets stuck.
While it's
common for people to engage in online sniping, the best approach is to
avoid online battles and confrontations. It's also smart to avoid
flaming your boss, your clients or your company
For example, one new hire at a major technology company complained
about the choice between the fat paycheck vs. the long drive and the
stupid work. It took only a few minutes for the message to reach the
top levels of his company. Needless to say, he was fired.
Another
common mistake is to use social media to "pitch, pitch, pitch." Last
century's marketing messages are no longer effective in today's social
networking environment. Instead, people expect you to engage in the
online conversation as a person, not as a real estate agent trying to
drum up business.
4. How to handle negative posts
One of the challenges that almost everyone faces is what to do when
someone posts something negative about you. Marilyn Wilson of the WAV
Group and Darity Wesley of PrivacyGurus.com recommended using Google
Alerts to monitor what is being posted about you or your company
online.
When someone does a negative post, not engaging may be
the best policy. To lessen the impact of that post, be aggressive about
getting testimonials from past clients. Wilson suggested going through
the Quality Service Certification as a means to control your online reputation.
There
is also a new program from MyFrontSteps.com that can assist you in
pushing negative comments to the back pages of a Google or Yahoo
search. Wilson suggested that agents and brokers sign up for the "Step Rep"
program, which allows you to monitor, manage and build your online
reputation through social networking. Step Rep tracks posts on all
major social networks, along with video content and photo tags. Step
Rep allows you to categorize what you want posted and what you want to
bury. They also provide a widget that lets you publish positive
information across the Web with a single click.
When it comes
to implementing new technology, take it one step at a time. The key is
to discover what you will do on a regular basis. Even more importantly,
be yourself, contribute to the conversation, and remember what your
mother used to say, "If you can't say something nice, then don't say
anything."