Using LinkedIn as a Networking Tool for Realtors

Doug Williams @ 6:23 am

This blog entry was posted on May 2, 2008.

LinkedIn is the professional networking portion of BLiF marketing (Blogging + LinkedIn + Facebook). We are continuing on our example of residential real estate sales using BLiF marketing. The focus today is on using LinkedIn. LinkedIn is more than a networking opportunity, it is a community.

Generating referrals and leads is a key part of the real estate business. Success depends on agents expanding beyond their personal circle of friends and family. Successful real estate agents have always been using traditional networks to meet new prospects. LinkedIn is a quick way to grow your sphere and referral database.

So what makes LinkedIn so special? First, LinkedIn has over 20 million members and this number is growing very quickly. This includes a high percentage of business owners, mid level and senior level professionals from companies and locations all around the world.

Profile: Building up a complete profile is an essential step in building your personal brand. Your LinkedIn profile is the easiest way to define your unique skill sets and the value you bring. Create a personalized LinkedIn URL that you can use on your website and emails. LinkedIn profile pages have a high PageRank on Google and come up prominently in searches.

Network: Build-up your network of contacts. Invite the people you know to become members. There are great search tools to locate people from your past. As you meet new buyers and sellers, invite them to become members as well. Check the connections of your network and find people you have in common and request a connection. Having lots of connections on LinkedIn increases your credibility as a successful agent.

Interact: Regularly interact with your network. Give testimonials, make referrals and regularly add new connections. Look to your contacts and introduce one to another and make referrals.

Use LinkedIn Answers which allows you to ask questions of just your network or globally to post a question for all of LinkedIn. Global questions allow you to meet new people and make new connections. Questions to your network allow you to reach out and interact with current connections.

As you complete each transaction, ask for a testimonial. Send your clients a testimonial request. These testimonials get added to your profile for all to see.

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Blog Marketing for Residential Real Estate Sales

Doug Williams @ 5:21 am

This blog entry was posted on April 30, 2008.

Blogging is the branding component in BLiF marketing. BLiF marketing means using a combination of blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook to market your business.

Your goal with blogging should be to make yourself memorable. Creating or improving your brand should be the foundation of your marketing strategy. Blog marketing allows you to do this by communicating directly with your target market. Blogging allows you to reach a different audience than your website or your print ads.

Let’s continue with our real estate example. If your primary targeted customer is someone attempting to market their own property (FSBO), then you need to write about topics that interest these sellers. They will be searching for information on how to put their property up for sale. If your blog writing helps them, then you will be the real estate expert they will turn to when they are ready to list.

Using a keyword research tool, identify how your targeted readers search for their information. People preparing to sell their home will use terms like:

“how to sell your own home”
“should you stage your home to sell”
“home selling tips”
“home selling checklist”

Use these keyword phrases as ideas for blogs. Since you want local clients, always use city, community and neighborhood names throughout your blog postings.

When you write, use keyword phrases in the blog titles and in first paragraph. This helps your postings appear in search results. The blog titles should be catchy and memorable to attract readers. You should write regularly, about 3 times a week is ideal. Keep your blog postings to about 250 words in length.

How often has a customer called you and told you how much they have enjoyed reading your print ads? They will say this about your blog if you put energy, originality and creativity into your blogging.

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Applying BLiF Marketing to Residential Real Estate Sales

Doug Williams @ 6:25 am

This blog entry was posted on April 28, 2008.

Social networking and social media has been a hot topic lately because it’s becoming so hot in the real estate industry. BLiF marketing is a zero cost marketing approach using three forms of social media. BLiF marketing is a focused approach using blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook to promote your real estate practice. Over the next week or so, we will layout an overall social media marketing strategy for residential real estate sales and then show how to implement this in each of the three areas of BLiF marketing.

Remember that the purpose of BLiF Marketing is to communicate, engage and interact with your target audience. The purpose of your website is to be the advertising and promotion part of your marketing. They each are used in different ways, but they work together.

A Real estate sales has always been a trust based profession. It is the only industry where professional members almost always have their photo on their card. Trust is built up around personal branding and this translates well into social media marketing.

Overall Strategy
Before we develop separate strategies for Blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook, we want to develop a single cohesive strategy that will be used throughout.

Objectives: Set objectives for your marketing campaign. This could be developing a regular readership that will follow what you say as the local authority. You can use this campaign to boost your search engine rankings on your website. Personal branding as the authority is another excellent objective. You will want primary objective and then up to two secondary objectives.
Target Audience: Clearly define your market segment in terms of buyer, seller or relocation. Which geographical locations? What income brackets and other demographics. A focused campaign will get better results than a general and unfocused one.
Measurement for Success: How will you measure success? The measurement chosen should reflect the primary objective. This could be search rankings, leads or website traffic. You can shape your campaign around the results you want by working in a “call to action.”

Our next blog posting will focus on blog marketing for residential real estate sales.

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Facebook Demographics: Who Is Using Facebook?

Doug Williams @ 7:36 am

This blog entry was posted on April 26, 2008.

Facebook is no longer a social networking website for the young college students. According to ComScore, the over 25 age group is the fastest growing age group.

Companies are marketing themselves on Facebook at an ever increasing rate. To be successful, the approach has to be very different than traditional advertising. Social networks such as Facebook are designed to foster human interaction, not to promote products. The idea is to engage your targeted audience with information that they are seeking. Is your targeted customer on Facebook?

Facebook Statistics

70 million active users.
6th most-trafficked website in the world (comScore)
2nd most-trafficked social media site in the world (comScore)
Facebook is up 78.6% (year-to-year growth in unique visitors-Hitwise)
No. 1 photo sharing application on the Web (comScore)
More than 14 million photos uploaded daily
Started in 2004

Demographics

34% of the visitor traffic comes from the US (ComScore Jan 2008)
Gender (US) 45% male/55% Female (Quantcast.com)
Household Income (US) 58% have a household income over $60K (Quantcast.com)
More than half of Facebook users are outside of college
The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older

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Facebook Pages: What Should a Business Include?

Doug Williams @ 6:53 am

This blog entry was posted on April 18, 2008.

So you have decided to enter social media with your business and publish a Facebook page. What kinds of things should you tell about your business to make it interesting for readers? You will want to focus on providing valuable information, tips and insights.

Your goal should be to attract and interact with “Fans.” A fan is the business term for a friend. Fans should be able to post reviews, comments, photos and comments about the company.

You will want to encourage visitors and prospective fans to interact with you and your business. After all… this is social media. You will want to allow and encourage participation.

Blog Feed: Include a feed from your blog. There is a feature in Facebook that allows you to grab the feed from your company blog and syndicate it on your Facebook page.
Portfolio: Include a portfolio of your work using photo albums, audio files or video. If you’re a home builder, include examples of your homes. If you are a musician, include snippets of your music.
Case Studies: Tell an interesting story of how you took your client’s vision and changed that into reality. What were the challenges and what did you have to overcome. People love to read stories and see successful outcomes.
Reviews and Testimonials: Include real reviews and testimonials that you have received. Allow fans to post their comments and reviews.
Location: If you have a physical location, include maps, driving directions and your address. Include a photo of your building so it is easier for people to locate your building.
Events: List any upcoming events such as workshops, special after hours gatherings or special promotions that are coming up.
Polls: Find out what your targeted audience is thinking by using Facebook polls.

As you craft your Facebook page, think about how you can involve and interact with your targeted audience. Consider how you will regularly update your business page to keep people returning regularly.

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How Many Connections on LinkedIn are Enough?

Doug Williams @ 6:17 am

This blog entry was posted on April 16, 2008.

This is a great question. Many people have strong opinions and there is no single right answer. Should you keep a small trusted network of 30 or so connections? Or should you build an expansive network of thousands? It really depends on what you are trying to achieve. There are proponents of each approach.

I believe that the answer is somewhere in the middle.

It really is no different than face to face business networking. Is it better to network with a small group that you get to know very well? Or is it better to attend many networking groups and keep your name and your business in front of a larger audience? It really depends on your business and your goals.

On LinkedIn you can connect with professional colleagues from virtually any city in hundreds of different industries. Currently there are over 20 million people in the LinkedIn network and this is rapidly growing.

In selecting your connections, it should be quality over quantity. Before extending an invitation or accepting one, consider if this person will strengthen your network. Consider industry, location; are they potentially a good partner to give referrals to? Or receive referrals from? Quality should never just be someone with a lot of connections.

Develop your own criteria for building a quality network. Do you want like minded individuals with similar interests? Do you want to connect with people from a certain geographic area? Do you want people from specific industries or professions? You can include customers, people you work for, people who are working for you, and with you.

Connecting should mean that you are agreeing to collaborate. It is a gesture of trust. It should also be an opportunity for both parties. Whether you decide to build a small or large network, your goal should be to build a quality network that will help you meet your business goals.

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BLIF Marketing: Zero Cash Marketing System for Businesses

Doug Williams @ 6:52 am

This blog entry was posted on April 12, 2008.

Businesses are using a combination of blogging, LinkedIn and Facebook to market and promote themselves and are getting great results. Businesses are using BLIF marketing to share information and network using social media.

BLIF marketing is an approach for businesses to make use of social media to market their businesses by spending time and not advertising expenses. BLIF is part of the Zero Cash Marketing approach where a business can market, promote and build a customer base without spending one dollar on marketing.

Melissa Ward of NewWard Development uses the combination of blogging, Linked In and Facebook. “I have been getting good results with the combination of the above. My web traffic has increased, more people are signing up for my newsletter and we’ve generated a lot of inquires. In addition, I’ve landed a few accounts with people that I otherwise would not have been able to reach out to.”

BLIF Marketing

Blogging: Creates awareness, generates traffic and is powerful for building search engine rankings
LinkedIn: Expands your professional network and is a great way to meet others in your market
Facebook: Use a pages (not profiles) to advertise your company and add a human face to the company.

You can use all of BLIF or only one or two of the tools and get great results. Others use many more tools in social media. Robert Dodson of BrookEdge Technologies says: “I work by using a cross-linked network of LinkedIn, Blogger, MySpace, Ning, Xing and several carefully crafted self-hosted sites. I am also on Facebook, ryze, naymz, etc., etc…”

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Marketing Your Business on a Facebook Page

Doug Williams @ 6:24 am

This blog entry was posted on April 8, 2008.

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social networking sites. It is about communicating, engaging and building relationships. It is about creating a community of people who are interested in what you have to say or share their thoughts and opinions. This works for individual people and for businesses.

Facebook offers a way for businesses to have a presence in a way that is similar, yet different from the profiles of a person. Businesses create pages or groups, while individuals create profiles. You attract people to you by sharing information, knowledge, building up their trust in you until they have reached a point where they are open to doing business with you.

There are a number of distinct differences between profiles and pages in Facebook.

Profiles: Represent a real person and have only one administrator. Profiles have “friends” that must be accepted. Individuals can send messages to other people and up to 20 friends and friends can always message each other. There is no access to aggregate traffic statistics.
Pages: Represent a real business and may have many administrators. Pages have “fans” and requests are automatically accepted. Administrators can send updates to all subscribed fans, but fans cannot reply to these updates. There are detailed reports for aggregate traffic statistics broken down by demographics.

Creating a Facebook Page: A page isn’t a separate account, it is an entity that is created and managed thru a person’s account (or thru several people’s accounts). To create a business page:

Login to facebook.com with a username and password.
At the bottom of the page, click on the Advertisers link.
Click on the “Create Facebook Page.”
Follow the instructions and set-up can take 5 minutes to a few hours, depending on how much customization you want to do.

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