How to Use Social Networking to Promote Your Real Estate Business
What is social networking?
A social network is a web based community that allows people with similar interests to interact with each other. Members of these sites have the ability to invite other members to be their friends, send messages to each other, chat, email, use video, share files, post blogs and more.
The guys over at Common Craft have come up with a great way to describe what a social network is:
How does social networking relate to selling real estate?
According to a NAR study in 2007, 84% of home buyers now use the Internet to aid them in their search for a home, which is up from 80% in 2006. Most of those buyers (82% of them) used a real estate agent to complete their purchase.
Social networking gives you the chance to attract new targeted traffic to your existing web site and puts your face in front of thousands of these potential customers. It also allows you to build up a network of contacts which helps you to reach out to more people with a more personal approach, helping you establish trust and allowing you to show that you are an expert in your field, which can bring you customers and can help send you referrals.
Social Networks for Real Estate Agents
There are a large number of social networks on the internet that you can use. You can use social networks that are made for real estate professionals like Active Rain or My Agent Book to network with other real estate agents.
Myspace and Facebook
Myspace and Facebook are two of the most popular social networking sites and are great places to create profiles to help you gain visibility right away.
One example of business generated through social networking sites is in the March 2008 Issue of Realtor Magazine where within three weeks of her Facebooks debut, Anne Marie Clements receives a referral by another Re/Max professional who found her profile.
LinkedIn is a website that allows industry professionals to connect with each other by allowing them create profiles. Its a great way for you to reconnect with past collegues, find new jobs and business oportunities and also allows you to ask questions of people in your industry and get some quick answers.
This site has some great ideas on how to use LinkedIn for your business.
Twitter and Real Estate
Twitter is a micro-blogging service that allows you to post 140 character 'tweets'. It is a great way to brand yourself and is becoming quite popular. Shoe String Branding came up with a great list of different creative ways to market yourself with Twitter. A great way you can use Twitter is to post about your new listings or open houses.
Social networking and Search Engine Optimization
Social networking can be a good means to send you web site targeted traffic. Millions of people use social networking sites on a daily basis. With social networking sites you can add a link to your web site which not only can send your site some targeted traffic but also helps you rank higher in the search engines. Social networking sites are also constantly checked by the search engines which ensures that your sites are quickly indexed.
One of the most important aspects of search engine optimization is the building of backlinks, which is something that social networking allows you to easily do. You can also use social bookmarking tools, like del.icio.us, to gain more backlinks.
Article written by Bradly Bernier, a real estate web site designer / owner of Real Estate Web Experts