Business todayLivingReal Estate RelatedUncategorized October 12, 2010

Let’s be “REAL” people!

I want you to think about this quote for just a min.

“To utilize social media tools effectively and properly, you must absolutely generate spontaneous communications in direct response to what others are saying or to what is happening in that moment. Be yourself. Be conversational. Be engaged.”
– Aliza Sherman, co-owner of social marketing firm Conversify

Recently I have seen new companies popping up that say they will automate your Social Media for you, and post blog articles for you. They say they will take all the worry out of the mystical phenomenon called social media,  they claim to enhance your SEO and get you more exposure. Great! Now you have more hits to your site of people that are wanting to interact with you, but what is being posted is not your voice at all.  How long does it take someone to realize what your posting and saying isn’t coming from you?

Social media is about relationships. Relationships are created when you are being real. People connect and engage when they feel a connection and feel like you are genuinely  interested in them.

What if I invited some friends to a baseball game but instead of going with them I hired a stand in friend? Yes, he would go in my place because I didn’t have the time. Then later I could follow up with him to see how my friendship was coming along with my buddies from the Baseball game. Silly isn’t it. Well that is exactly what you do when you hire someone to create relationships for you. Remember real estate is and always will be a relationship business. If your finding it hard to make the time to connect then at some point that relationship will disappear?

Thanks for taking the time. If you have any great ideas on social media engagement I would love to hear from you!

Business todayLivingReal Estate RelatedUncategorized October 12, 2010

Let's be "REAL" people!

I want you to think about this quote for just a min.

“To utilize social media tools effectively and properly, you must absolutely generate spontaneous communications in direct response to what others are saying or to what is happening in that moment. Be yourself. Be conversational. Be engaged.”
– Aliza Sherman, co-owner of social marketing firm Conversify

Recently I have seen new companies popping up that say they will automate your Social Media for you, and post blog articles for you. They say they will take all the worry out of the mystical phenomenon called social media,  they claim to enhance your SEO and get you more exposure. Great! Now you have more hits to your site of people that are wanting to interact with you, but what is being posted is not your voice at all.  How long does it take someone to realize what your posting and saying isn’t coming from you?

Social media is about relationships. Relationships are created when you are being real. People connect and engage when they feel a connection and feel like you are genuinely  interested in them.

What if I invited some friends to a baseball game but instead of going with them I hired a stand in friend? Yes, he would go in my place because I didn’t have the time. Then later I could follow up with him to see how my friendship was coming along with my buddies from the Baseball game. Silly isn’t it. Well that is exactly what you do when you hire someone to create relationships for you. Remember real estate is and always will be a relationship business. If your finding it hard to make the time to connect then at some point that relationship will disappear?

Thanks for taking the time. If you have any great ideas on social media engagement I would love to hear from you!

Real Estate RelatedTechnology September 1, 2010

How strong are your relationships?

I have to laugh because I was at a Starbucks coffee shop the other day over hearing two 20 somethings talking about all the friends they each had on facebook. It was almost like a competition between the two of them. Not that having 3000 friends is a bad thing but really whats the point. What came to mind was how Real Estate isn’t just about  buying and selling homes, it has far more to do with great relationships that are cultivated on a daily basis.

Today the mode of interactions is always changing and as I’m out in the field teaching how Social Media helps us to better connect I still see sceptics that use the 4000 friends, 20 something as the bench mark to dismiss this amazing world of Social Media.

If you think about it however it is pretty simple. Albeit Social Media may be the forum in which we interact the most, it is really just what I call word of mouth via Social Media in 2010. You also have to remember that no matter how often you interact it has to do with quality vs quantity. It would be very difficult to have 3000 meaningful relationships on a daily basis. That said we live in a world where word of mouth and recommendations are key to the decisions we each make every day about the services and products we choose to use.  The richer the relationship the more weight I put on that friends recommendation.

Recently I saw this video from Seth Godin that really spells out what Social Media AKA (relationships)  should be about and I would throw in the caveat that this doesn’t apply to just Social Media for business but also Social Media for personal sphere. Just because the connection has moved to the digital world doesn’t mean that it should be any less sincere. The idea is to show that you care, and that you listen and you add value. Relationships whether they are face to face or digital they have to add value to both parties or they are just what Seth says they are “worthless.”

I know your reading this thinking how does this relate to me the buyer or seller? From the perspective of Windermere we don’t want to have thousands of  worthless connections but rather fewer great satisfied individuals living in our communities we server that add value. We want to connect and better understand our customer via our Brokers in the field. We would love know how your real estate agent connects with you?

“While having plenty of friends is nice, how do you choose who to keep in your network?”

“Tell us some of your social media relationship success stories?”

Business todayReal Estate Related June 29, 2010

A different spin on Social Media.

So today I had to de-friend someone. Why you ask?

Because they were so focused on being a Real Estate agent that they no longer added value to my wall, but rather filled it up with listing noise that I wasn’t interested in hearing about.

Lets remember that Social media is about being social. If we wanted to be sold to then it would be called Sold Media. I think too many people are way to focused on one particular topic and they try to push that topic everyday to their social media world. After awhile we become numb to it.  If all you ever do is talk about your new listings, and your open houses, and I’m not in the market to buy or sell a house you become white noise.I don’t see it any longer and I don’t hear it.

But if you instead try to be real and post items of value that veer off topic but are interesting. Or you provide a useful resources and keep it fresh, then you are going to hold my interest. A recent article I read on socialmediatoday.com was called “Engagement or RElevancy: What is More Important in Social Media?

It really drove the point home for me. Especially the comment from Katie Urbain where she says.

” if business x is constantly and excessively talking about it’s product, it’s prices, it’s news, and it’s specials I am going to quit paying any attention if I am not currently in “buying mode”. This will result in a “boy who cried wolf” scenario. So when the said company posts something relevant to me I might miss it as I scan over their avatar in my feed, or I might have quit following them if it is too excessive.”

Bottom line, remember that the people you are talking to in Social Media are your friends. What if every day you ran up to my front door and rang my doorbell and handed me all the new flyer’s of your listings. The first few times I’m going to open my door but about the third time I would just ignore you and stop answering. If all your doing in your Social Media world is promoting your services and products then stop and think about what your doing to your audience that isn’t interested right now?

Would love to hear your feedback!


Real Estate RelatedUncategorized May 20, 2010

Starbucks has it figured out.

Recently watched this video form the Social Media Examiner Blog where they interviewed Alex Wheeler who heads up Starbucks social media strategy.

I believe Windermere is similar to Starbucks in that  we have overtime created a very strong and successful brand, one agent, one owner, and one office at a time. This didn’t happen over night but happends because we found great people and applied great ideas to a business that on it’s best day wasn’t very professional. When you listen to Alex talk in this video you will hear her say that Starbucks business is still all about relationships and all Social Media allows them to do is have a bigger reach with an already successful brand. Keep in mind your business is about relationships and the question I put out to you would be this. How are you taking your existing relationships and using Social Media to reach out past your friends of friends and have the success that Alex is talking about?

Real Estate RelatedUncategorized April 14, 2010

Foursquare may already have a place in Real Estate

So you may have heard of this new Social Media phenomenon using geo-tagging called Foursquare. It is the newest fastest growing game in the smartphone social media arena today.

If you want to get a great idea on how it works here is a great article from Realtor Magazine‘s blog that gives you a better understating about the application.

I have only been using foursquare for a few days now but as I use it I find myself seeing ways that it would benefit the Real Estate Agent.

Think about this scenario.

You now have four square on your phone and you holding a Open House this Saturday. Foursquare is syndicated to your facebook account as well as your twitter account. When you arrive at your open house you now check in and mention that two blocks away is a great coffee shop so if your in the area you might want to grab a coffee and stop by this great home that you are holding open. If fact you may have checked into the coffee shop your self prior to arriving at your open house because you are the Mayor of that particular coffee shop!  For the people in your network via twitter, or facebook,   you have just pinged them with that info and who knows they may just stop by, if they are out and about. It is just another way to have a touch point with these individuals who use these applications daily.

Quote for the Realtor Magazine artilce that we should all think about

Are you ready for this?

It’s coming. Apps like foursquare are the future of social media. The lines between online and face-to-face are blurred. Information is immediate, and can be pushed to a client, simply based on their location. It’s a huge opportunity and a scary risk, all at the same time. If you’re evaluating foursquare based on ROI, I think you’re missing the point. REALTORS® will need to be proficient on networks like these in the future. Might as well start figuring them out by playing this silly game. Now, who wants to go out and earn a “Don’t Stop Believing” badge with me tonight?”

So I want to know where will your next check in be?

Real Estate Related March 25, 2010

You need to put some thought into your social media engagement.

So because I have a blog and I am engaged everyday in social media this blog post  and video from Social Media Examiner really appealed to me and I think you will find some great tips in it as well.

The main points I pulled from watching this is below.

1. You have to listen. Too many times we want to talk and get out what we want to say but if there isn’t an audience that wants to listen then it is wasted breath.

2. After you listen think a bit about how your going to engage. Be insightful, and don’t try to be interesting but rather be interested,  there is a difference.

3. DON’T SELL!!! I can’t express this enough.

4. Stay focused on what it is that you are interested in, the people you are engaged with are there because of that particular topic.

5. Don’t try so much to get new people but really focus on the people you already have, and with that new people will come.

Would love to know if you have any additional ideas on this topic.

Thanks for taking the time.

Real Estate Related December 15, 2009

What drives your social media efforts?

When you look at the bigger picture of Social Media you need to have an engine that drives content to each Social Media site.  In most cases with the successful agents today that content is being driven from a blog based website.  Here are some key elements for this blog based website.

  1. Make sure the content you are writing about is something you are passionate about.
  2. Even though this is a blog make sure it has a good real estate based search tool. (I use Networkhome for my blog)
  3. Make sure the blog is your own domain name not the domain given from the blog platform ex. www.michaeldfanning.com instead of mfanning.wordpress.com
  4. Add a Become a Fan on Facebook widget to your blog page. This is done by using the Networkedblog tool in facebook.
After you have established a great blog you will then want to make sure you have set up blog syndication in three places.
  1. Facebook professional pages
  2. Linkedin in
  3. Twitter.
Facebook makes this very easy by using an application called networkedblogs. Once installed on your page you can set the feed settings to be automatic. This way when you publish a new blog article it will auto post to your facebook professional page. Once inside facebook you can see how successful your post are by using the insight tool that is built into the professional page tool. (They now show you how users are interacting with your page, broken down by Wall posts, likes and comments.)
The next step is to make sure your professional page is linked to your twitter account. You can do this by going to this link http://www.facebook.com/twitter/
You will then want to set up syndication on your linkedin account. This is done by adding the application called blog link. Now your blog will automatically syndicate to your linkedin account as well.
By doing all this it will help to increase your readership and reach of your blog to the readers that want to engage with you. Remember stay on topic, be consistent, and interact daily.
Thanks for taking the time.
Uncategorized November 19, 2009

Social Media a Fad I don't think so.

So if you haven’t seen any of the Did you know videos or any of the Social Media Revolution videos you are not opening your mind to just what is going on around us today. I can’t tell you how many times I’m out in the field and here people say things like “Wow why would you waste so much time on facebook?” or “I sale Real Estate I  don’t have time to mess around with stuff like that.”

I would ask you to take a look at some of the videos I have posted in this article and understand that the customer today is moving into the Social Media world much faster then the companies that sell them products and services.  We still haven’t nailed down how to get in the space successfully. There are many good ideas out there but it all starts with education and an understanding of just how big this revolution is. Hopefully some of these videos will help you to better understand what is happening.

Did you know 4.0

Did you know 3.0

Social Media Revolution

Social Media in plain Englisn

Are you engaged?

Uncategorized November 19, 2009

Social Media a Fad I don’t think so.

So if you haven’t seen any of the Did you know videos or any of the Social Media Revolution videos you are not opening your mind to just what is going on around us today. I can’t tell you how many times I’m out in the field and here people say things like “Wow why would you waste so much time on facebook?” or “I sale Real Estate I  don’t have time to mess around with stuff like that.”

I would ask you to take a look at some of the videos I have posted in this article and understand that the customer today is moving into the Social Media world much faster then the companies that sell them products and services.  We still haven’t nailed down how to get in the space successfully. There are many good ideas out there but it all starts with education and an understanding of just how big this revolution is. Hopefully some of these videos will help you to better understand what is happening.

Did you know 4.0

Did you know 3.0

Social Media Revolution

Social Media in plain Englisn

Are you engaged?