I taught a class at our office yesterday entitled “Secrets of Marketing Through Social Networking”.

It was well received, yet I’m sure some agents were thinking to themselves “Do I really have to do this stuff too?”

Only if you want to have the opportunity to help people in their 20s and 30s with their real estate needs as well as have a chance to get connected with their families and friends.

One of the social networks is www.Facebook.com, where you can add people to your page to become a ‘friend’ - by invitation only.  It currently has over 140,000,000 members and is growing worldwide by up to 300,000 - 500,000 daily.

I want to share an idea with you about how to most effectively use Facebook.  Many agents use Facebook to connect with family, friends, clients, prospects, other Realtors, etc, all on the same page. 

Even though Facebook allows you to only have one account, you can put people into different groups.

My thinking behind using Facebook is to have my clients become my ‘friends’, so that I can get to know them better and for them to learn more about me.  We all live such busy lives, yet Facebook allows people to connect with each other and stay in touch.

I recommend spending 15 - 20 minutes daily interacting with your ‘friends’ by commenting on their posts and sharing things about what’s happening in your life too.

I don’t recommend mixing other Realtors in with your clients unless they are part of your team.  You can set up a separate group or page to have all of your Realtor friends join in.

Social networking should be one of the pillars of your business plan. 

Social networks, like Facebook, Active Rain, LinkedIn, Twitter and others are going to continue grow, because people want to be connected to communities.

If you’re not already on some of these networks, jump in.  If nothing else, initially get your profile page up, so you at least have a presence and know what others are talking about when they bring them up.

To your success,

Dan

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 7th, 2009 at 11:10 am and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.