Is social networking a passing fad? Or is it a permanent evolution of our online culture? Should businesses embrace social networking and make it part of their marketing strategies? Social networking started out as a teen-age craze, but an increasing number of businesses are putting it to work.
I believe that social networking is part of the human dynamic and is here to stay. Social media is growing with people to people networks. Even in the earliest days of the Internet, forums allowed interaction, discussions and collaboration. This movement is a long term trend toward socialization of the web.
I would translate “social networking” to conversations… The essence of Web 2.0 is technology assisting conversations and people interacting.
Social networking is a skill that marketers need to develop in order to stay ahead of the curve in marketing trends. It is rapidly becoming a means to target and communicate with customers in more interactive and strategic ways.As a result, wise marketers are taking advantage of them to deepen their relationships with consumers.
So what does the future hold for social networking? The growth seems to be in mobile social networking. The use of mobile devices continues to grow and be a part of our culture. Can you imagine using your mobile device to quickly check the online profiles of the prospect you are getting ready to meet?
What ever the future holds, social networks will be a basis for communication and interaction… unless of course, social networking evolves into a newer and better media.
Networking, either online or face-to-face is still networking. LinkedIn is a virtual form of networking. You are networking because you want referrals. You have to give to get. You have to be active with your network.
Networking is still about building relationships, visibility, trust, and likeability. You want to use the power and leverage of technology. Results are multiplied when you combine online social networking with offline networking. This can be as simple as scheduling a phone call or meeting for coffee.
3 Steps to get referrals from your network:
- Build a targeted network.
- Communicate what you do.
- Interact with your network regularly.
One of the best tools to use on LinkedIn for networking is LinkedIn Answers. Answers allow you to ask and answer questions on most any topic. By focusing with subjects related to your industry, you are interacting with people who are interested in your market.
On questions that I ask, I will follow up with a personal reply thanking them for answering my question. If they are someone that I am not connected with and I think they would be a valuable addition to my network, I will suggest a connection. If they agree, then I will send an invitation.
Make a point to participate in answering questions posed by your network. This allows you to interact on their questions. You will also have a portion of your network that reads what is being posed and answered by their network. They do this to learn and obtain expertise. By participating in Answers, you are reaching this part of your network.
With LinkedIn you will get out of it what you put into it. It is a networking site and as in face-to-face networking you have to put in the effort.
Social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace have exploded in popularity. There are literally hundreds of social networking websites to choose from. How many of these sites should a person participate in? How many can a person handle before becoming overwhelmed?
Most people should participate in a maximum of two. More than that and you lose focus. This is one of the principles behind BLiF marketing (Blogging + LinkedIn + Facebook). Choose which social networking sites based on your objectives.
In BLif marketing, LinkedIn is more of a business networking site where Facebook is more social. There is an overlap between the social and business networks. In LinkedIn you establish a good rapport with your business contacts, then one starts discussing things other than just business. With Facebook, you are in a social setting and discussions may lead to talk about business. This way one is for business and one is for pleasure.
LinkedIn is for business contacts and career opportunities. LinkedIn is a good way in seeing what is happening in your field of expertise and in communicating with people in your field all over the world.
Facebook is for meeting and discussing in a relaxed social atmosphere. There is also a place for businesses by using Facebook pages or groups. Generally people gravitate to the social network where their friends are. Facebook is the fastest growing social network.
If your business or personal objectives better fit other networking platforms, then choose up to two and spend your time and energy there.
People are forming relationships online and real estate is a relationship based business. Facebook is the social networking component of the BLiF marketing system (Blogging + LinkedIn + Facebook). This is where you connect with your network on a more personal level. The key here is to make it fun, make it social and be there to interact. Facebook is a great socializing place to talk with your friends.
Once you build up your profile, you want to work on building up your network. Encourage your past clients and new clients to add you as a friend. Spend your first few weeks of network building by inviting 10-15 people per day with personalized requests. You are building a sphere of friends that you can share with.
Keep your content fresh and updated. This is how you keep people interested and coming back. If you just put up a page and leave it unattended, you will lose your audience. If you are a good networker that is constantly reaching out and engaging, you will be able to leverage the power of Facebook.
Facebook allows third parties to develop widgets and applications that you can add to your profile. There are over 20,000 applications available with some excellent real estate applications that help make your profile much more interactive.
Highlight your properties in creative ways. You can share your properties with your friends by including photos or videos of your properties in your profile. You can add external links to your listings or send flyers to your friends.
Facebook allows you to create “groups” which are communities of people with a common interest. Create a local homebuyers group for your sales area. This is a great place to interact with potential clients and you can showcase your expertise.
Use Facebook as the “cocktail party” setting for your BLif marketing campaign. Social media marketing is the new frontier in real estate marketing.
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.
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.
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.
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
Within the last month, LinkedIn has added company profiles into their results. There are now profiles for 160,000 of the largest companies added onto the more than 20 million people profiles. These can only be viewed by members who are logged in.
Companies include the Fortune 500 to philanthropic organizations. The information for the company profiles is pulled from LinkedIn plus aggregated information that is pulled form LinkedIn’s partners, CapitalIQ and BusinessWeek.
LinkedIn selects these companies through finding trends in the work history of users and identifying connections between companies. Companies are not able to add their own profiles. In the next few months changes will allow employees to edit company overviews, upload logos, and add other custom modules.
These company profiles are resources for members to research and explore companies for both job and business opportunities.
Uses of LinkedIn Company Profiles
- Locating contacts at companies that you are trying to network with.
- View job opportunities.
- Read latest company news.
- See listing people that have recently joined the company.
Top 10 most viewed company profiles for the first month: source: LinkedIn Blog
- IBM
- Accenture
- Microsoft
- Google
- Oracle
- Hewlett-Packard
- Cisco Systems
- Pricewaterhouse Coopers
- Deloitte
- GE
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.
