Social Network Marketing - Is It Right For Your Real Estate Business?

I don't want to be one of the naysayers who haven't bought into the whole notion of Social Network Marketing (Heck, it's part of my core business), I'm just not sure it's right for all businesses including new home sales. It's certainly not a silver bullet, nor would I recommend it as the first or even second component of your overall marketing program. But if you've properly leveraged other elements of your marketing, advertising and online marketing programs, Social Network Marketing (SNM) could be a nice addition to the team so long as you understand the benefits.

Following is a dialogue between myself and some clients that I thought you might find interesting on the topic.

It all started a few days ago when my client received the following email and forwarded on to me for my thoughts....

Who Do Your Customers Trust?
By Meredith Oliver
In my seminars and workshops, I frequently talk about the dramatic plunge in consumer confidence and how that impacts their willingness to buy your goods and services. I cite a study conducted by PR firm Edelman which studied “informed publics” between the ages of 25 to 64 and explored this group’s level of trust in four institutions: business, government, media and NGOs. Results reveal the lowest across-the-board levels of trust since the survey began ten years ago. What does this mean to you? Your consumers don’t trust you!
The solution I am proposing is to use social media to reestablish trust by allowing your raving fans to do the selling for you! Who do consumers trust? Each other! We naturally trust our neighbor’s referral over any type of formal advertising. Traditionally this has been called “word-of -mouth” marketing.
Here is the GREAT news. Social media is word-of-mouth networking on steriods. And, this is no longer just my supposition. TodayeMarketer.com published a study that confirms online advertising trust is on the rise worldwide. “According to the “Global Online Consumer Survey” by Nielsen, 41% of worldwide Internet users trusted online advertising.” In fact, the study reveals the number one advertising tactic trusted by consumers is “recommendations from people I know”. You should definitely check out this fantastic article by eMarketer.com.
This strategy will require risk on your part. What if the reverse happens? What if someone says something negative? Can negative comments destroy all the trust you’ve worked to build up? Yes, if you don’t have a service recovery plan in place. You need a step by step plan in place to handle any negative posts. The plan should answer the following questions:
· • How fast will you respond?
· • What will your message be?
· • How will you reassure your other online followers?
With a plan a place you can effectively handle negative posts. AND, get this….you can actually earn MORE trust by allowing an honest dialogue to take place, showing that you have a plan in place and that you take your customer’s concerns seriously. This is the mark of a trustworthy company.
But, let me quell your concerns about negative posts. I monitor a lot of “business” social media sites. I don’t see a lot of negative posts EXCEPT for the big “corporation” type companies. Why? No one wants to fire the first shot across the bow. I believe we are all thinking “If I start the negative avalanche it will eventually catch up to me!” We are afraid to say something negative about another business in fear someone else will do it to our business. Make sense? In fact, I mostly find social media pages for small businesses to be a sickening love fest of unrealistic proportions!
Start allowing your past, current and future customers to talk to each. They can sell you better than you ever will. Open up the dialogue and reap the rewards.

My response was as follows....
Basically, she is correct. The trick is to a. get followers and b. get them to start talking about you.
I love my community. I've lived there for 10 years and I wouldn't think of living anywhere else (much like you and Mimi feel about Mountain Brook... understandably)
When the topic of communities and great places to live come up in conversation, I'm the first to sing the praises of my community. But I've never translated that to any online dialog.
I think that space (like most venues for public discussion) are reserved for the few, the screamers and the evangelists. The majority of us are just too darn busy to bother. I believe, that like other venues where the few, the screamers and the evangelists voices have become questionable will likely follow online. Savvy consumers who might tap into these public discussions when making a decision about something (ie. a new home purchase) will likely be just a skeptical of the discussion as any other medium.

For example, before I spend .¢99 on a song I'm not 100% familiar with on iTunes, I frequently check out the user ratings and or comments. This is for a .¢99 purchase. They don't necessarily dissuade me from buying or not buying the song, I'm just curious what others thought. The same goes for Amazon.com purchases.

Or how about going to the movies. You listen to the litany of reviews before going. Sometimes you heed poor reviews and see something else. Sometimes you go b/c of a good review. Most likely, you trust a friend's opinion over any of them.

The same would be true even more so with these online forums. Unless you know the individual spouting their opinion (good or bad) savvy buyers will take it with a grain of salt. Thus the effectiveness of the 'ole fashion referral programs.

Then there's the cost, either in real dollars for someone else's time to maintain this process or your time. At the end of the day, it's just another arrow in your quiver. Not a silver bullet. People are sooo excited about SNM b/c it's "theoretically" free. Just like traditional Public Relations ;-). I hear those PR firms are real cheap.

Here's an excerpt from a recent article in Ideas (NAHB's mag)

"Social media, reputation management, and public relations provide an interactive forum for home builders to relate to buyers, increase key words and enhance search engine optimization. A strong social media program can even drown out negative online placements while playing a key role in reputation management.
It may be helpful to think of social media as an extension of traditional public relations. Successful home builders who want to stay in front of print subscribers have always employed strong public relations tactics. When a press release results in a newspaper article, it is seen as a third party endorsement of the home builder or community. Proactive public relations costs a fraction of print advertising and can be 10 times as effective in reaching the right target audience, creating impressions and building brand.
Now apply that concept to the Internet. Home builders and developers who find ways to use social bookmarking (Digg, Delicious), Social Networking (Active Rain, FaceBook), blogs (Word Press, Blogger), video (YouTube) and more are reaching buyers in new ways. Social media optimization is a strong tool, and it's not just for teenagers anymore. It can provide third party credibility online, just as public relations does in print."
FYI - While I don't sound like much of a proponent, we actually provide SNM services for clients who want to leverage this additional "arrow". I just caution the expectations and over-zealousness surrounding the medium these days. It is a worthwhile tactic once other more direct tactics are in place and working to their fullest capacity.

Just a thought... :-)

Which conjured up additional input from another party...

Adding my two cents here, of course Jay is correct but in this economy and this housing market we need all the "arrows" that we can shove into our quiver.

And social media does give us additional opportunities to link to our web sites providing additional organic "visibility" to the search engines.

Besides, it's not like the sales people all have jam packed days with prospects walking in. This gives them something to do while awaiting traffic and keeps them with a positive attitude which is essential today.


So after all this, we created a straight forward Social Network Marketing program for our clients if they want to jump on the ole bandwagon.
See the details here: http://www.borczdixon.com/social_network_marketing.html