Wisest of the crowds

Joel Burslem continues to demonstrate his deep knowledge of tech by discussing how the real estate industry can leverage social networking sites like Facebook to broaden their network of clients and market their listings. In an article entitled Marketing Real Estate on Facebook, Burslem outlines five basic ways an agent can use social networks. Naturally, we agree with Joel. My-Currency is a vertical social network, a term I first read many moons ago at the blog Social Degree. The difference between My-Currency and Facebook is the difference between Walmart and Whole Foods. Walmart has everything but Whole Foods has only the best.

My-Currency is trying to be more relevant to users by focusing on, and aggregating, content specific to housing consumers. We give you all the tools you need to get inside housing problems. For a professional, it should prove a resource that demonstrates to your current clients authority while hooking and incubating future clients. For consumers, its an opportunity to share information and get professional advice - free. The site has all the basic building blocks in place. The open question is whether a vertical network will better serve consumers and professionals than a horizontal network. We obviously think so. That is not to say Facebook and their like are not of value. They are - use them! In fact, we will look to integrate with them and other parts of the internet ecosystem. Its just that we think focus, focus, focus will create better relevancy and better engagement with those interested in housing.

So when you want to purchase Tide Detergent go to Walmart. When you need a 25 year old bottle of Academia Barilla Balsamic Vinegar from Modena, Italy, go to Whole Foods. Do you, as an agent, want to be lost in aisles of Walmart like poorly selling lines of Tide detergent?

In today’s Sunday Real Estate pull-out in the San Francisco Chronicle, Carol Lloyd discusses the various things that agents are, or can do, to market themselves in an article entitled “Surreal estate: Real estate seminars aim to give agents the edge in a competitive field”.
An interesting article that certainly offers a number of valuable points but perhaps the core perspective is that Agents must create personal brands - brands based upon specialized niche expertise. Don Hobbs opines “…Once Century 21 had 80,000 agents, how was an agent supposed to distinguish themselves from the crowd?” Hobbs’s company offer’s a host of marketing and coaching programs.

The most obvious thing missing in this whole article is discussion of the internet. Interesting! Let’s see, 80% of people start their housing search on the internet yet 2/3’s of internet leads have a conversion rate of ZERO percent (NAR data 2005). Consumers expect the immediacy and transparency of the internet to be delivered to real estate services. Yet as an agent, you are just a name and a face. The internet changes everything and makes the playing field much more fair. Gone are the days where networks of people are limited. The network of all humanity is up for grabs but dare you engage with it? The internet is an opportunity to expand your reach by showing people what you know - that YOU ARE THE EXPERT.

It helps you engage with your current and future clients in a meaningful way that elicits trust. It enables you to incubate ALL your clients at the same time and creates a history of your expertise for future clients to reference. In other words, it makes it cheaper, easier, and more effective to keep your pipeline fertile and growing. Welcome to the SHOW ME economy.

But if requires you to do new things. The simplest is to start writing things that demonstrate your knowledge base (blogging). Free systems include Wordpress and My-Currency that offer a blog free just by registering (30 seconds). My-Currency gives you the opportunity really differentiate yourself by taking things much further. We give you the opportunity to answer questions through our “answer” section, to participate in “wiki’s”, and to make valuation predictions on housing indexes (median values of a square foot by zip code) and homes. This all helps to answer consumers SHOW ME sensibilities.

My-Currency also enables you to create a very robust profile with all your contact information. And it is free!

Engagement with clients using social tools is a foregone conclusion in other industries. The real estate industry has begun to embrace it but there is a lot of adoption ahead. As the “rookie agent” at Coldwell Banker noted in Lloyd’s article, “You never know if that deal could be your last”, adding “… do people really choose their agents based on a postcard they get in the mail?”