It’s all about the Content Baby! Part One
Ok, so you’ve joined all of the online social networks that you can, launched a personal Blog and have officially embarked on a journey to business greatness through online marketing on the new, social web 2.0. You finally got yourself connected. Congratulations!
Now what, what do you do next? Do you have a plan? Do you know why you’re here? Most importantly, do you know what to post and why to post it?
The new social web allows us to connect with our personal networks easier and more frequently than ever before. As sales associates, we know that staying in contact with our network is very important for our referral business. Actually, the two activities that will form the strongest foundation of a successful real estate business and have the most potential for generating business in sales are; building or increasing the size of your personal network and increasing or culturing your relationship with that network.
How does that all relate to content?
What are the key components that must be in place before a past customer or personal contact will actually refer us to their friends and family?
It’s important to stay in contact with our network on a regular basis to continuously remind them that we are still in the business and for some sales associates, that’s as far as they go. If you are going to take the time to connect with your personal network on a regular basis, there are a few things that you can do to maximize the effectiveness of each of those individual connections.
People need to know that you are still in the business and are successful. They also need to know that you know what you are doing, that you are experienced and knowledgeable, trustworthy and consistent. Their own personal reputation is on the line and if there is any doubt in their minds about any of those key pieces, they will not be confident enough to take that risk. Our consistent contact with our network needs to also address these key pieces of the referral puzzle in order to be successful.
Today, that contact will most likely come in the form of a “post”, to a social network like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, to a Blog or Fan Page and even in the form of an email message.
Online marketing through Social Networking and Media is all about leveraging yourself as the expert in your personal network, it’s about trust and it can, if done correctly, even demonstrate competency and consistency in your business. The effectiveness of this marketing all comes down to one basic component, what you post and how it is posted.
So, it’s really all about the content!
Your content needs to attract attention, provide value and be relevant in order for it to be effective at leveraging yourself as the authority or expert in real estate to your network. The ultimate goal here would be to have your personal network enjoy your content so much that they actually feel compelled to forward it on to their personal networks. If this happens consistently, there’s a good chance that members of their network will in turn become members of yours. This concept covers the basics of the foundation that I introduced at the beginning; increasing the size of your network and culturing the relationship with that network. Is this all starting to make some sense now?
So, again, it’s really all about the content!
Finding good relevant content online to send out to our personal networks is the difficult part; posting it or sending it on is actually the easy part. To be continued…
Be sure to catch next week’s tech tip, part two, where I will focus on online content sources for real estate sales associates. What to post and an extensive list of online links to where to find it.
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