I believe that the most powerful internet marketing strategy for real estate investors ever created on the internet is social media marketing. That’s right. Social media is extremely powerful and one of the easiest marketing strategies you can incorporate into your real estate business.
What is Social Media Marketing?
According to Wikipedia:
Social media is online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. Social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content; it’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use.
Social media allows people to connect with each other on levels, otherwise not possible. It allows people to get away from the usual commercial marketing messages — interruption marketing — that we see on the TV, and closes the barriers that usually exist between the user and the provider. Here’s the best part: social media allows people to build relationships that can turn into something bigger, much bigger.
Some of the most popular social media networks are facebook.com, twitter.com, linkedin.com, youtube.com and yes, biggerpockets.com. When you sign up on these sites for your free account, remember to not abuse the network.
If people use social media to get away from commercialism, how do we use it for marketing?
Here’s how you should look at social media. (I learned this analogy from Perry Belcher). When you go into an existing social media network, think of it as going to a block party. When you go to a block party, you don’t know anyone there, right?
Therefore, you go up to them and introduce yourself along the lines of: “Hi My name is Peter Kolat. It’s very nice to meet you.” You don’t go up to them and say: “Hi, my name is Peter Kolat. I am a real estate investor. Do you know anyone who needs to sell a house?”
Here’s the Big Secret to Social Media Marketing
Build relationships, build relationship and build relationships.
Don’t sell your products and/or services right off the bat. Otherwise, people who are already there will likely ignore what you say. Instead, you need to be a servant — help people out, provide great advice and minimize the amount of selling. People use social media to get away from selling.
Believe me, if you just do what I just shared with you, people you meet will ask you to tell them what you sell. That, my friends, makes selling your products and services much easier that trying to force your product or service down their throat.
Here’s one more piece of advice for you; When you use social media marketing, be iton facebook, twitter or biggerpockets, keep your commercial content to about 10-15% at most! The rest of the content you share with people within your network should be fun, educational, helpful and something that will actually BENEFIT the network, and the users that are linked to you within that network.
I hope this short article has been helpful. I strongly recommend you use social media in your business because it can take your business to the next level. I know that for a fact because several of my students have already experienced this phenomenon. If you have any questions, post them here within the comments and I’ll either try to answer them here or write another article about it next week.
One last thing, if you have any questions, I’m pretty active here on BiggerPockets. Send me a message and I’ll be more than happy to help you.
To Your Success,
Peter Kolat
Article Author:
Peter KolatPeter has written 24 articles for us.
Visit Peter's Website: http://www.realestateids.com
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Good article. Drives me crazy when I get spammed by realtors or whomever using social media to just blast their products and services. I am almost certain that this tactic has never worked for them, so I wonder why do they keep on doing it.
Guess they never learned the secret that you layout here so quietly, BUILD RELATIONSHIPS, BUILD RELATIONSHIPS, BUILD RELATIONSHIPS!
It must be like everything else in life. The easy place to hide something is right in front of people. And the secret of social media is obviously relationship building on a massive scale, but guess that is just too obvious.
Thanks for the insight!
Freddie Taylor´s last blog ..Get Rich on the Government’s Dime
I have been using social media since college, I started out creating Friendster account. I think it’s already obsolete. Twitter and Facebook are the “in” thing. I believe social media is really a powerful marketing tool today. Almost all have accounts in this social media sites.
Thanks Freddie. You are so right. A lot of real estate professionals make this mistake and it just does not work all that well. You are a living proof. It drives you crazy!
I appreciate your comment and love how you answer the question
Remember, it all start with a relationship.
To Your Success,
Peter Kolat
Peter Kolat´s last blog ..How To Take Advantage of Google To Find More RealEstate Leads
Peter, thank you encouraging social media relationships versus spamming!
Social media is a double edged sword, it can turn me just as quickly as it can get me excited about working with someone. it’s pretty easy to tell the difference between the people “who get it” and those who don’t!
Build Bankroll´s last blog ..House #14 – Close Escrow 8/5
I’ve used social media marketing on some of my real estate projects and I must say that it works beautifully. Especially when I manage to get small communities talking about the value of their property with their neighbours – online!
Dalesh Kowlesar´s last blog ..Another Open Source Project
Unfortunately a lot of real estate pros are some of the worst at social media marketing…however I do give em credit for taking up new tools and getting out there to use them.
I don’t think it comes naturally to everyone, but I’ve learned that it can be taught…and it can be learned. You CAN become very effective at using these tools to market yourself. You can also spin your wheels endlessly. I encourage anyone in real estate (or any business really) to get down with how to use these tools properly. It will make everyone happier and you richer
Christian´s last blog ..How Much Time Should You Spend Blogging?
Great Comment Dalesh,
Now that’s what I call power of social media marketing. When you get people talking about the neighborhood and your property, you’ll have a lot easier job selling to.
Heck, you can even use it in your marketing saying that people are talking about your property ON THE INTERNET!
How’s that for social proof!
To Your Success,
Peter Kolat
Peter Kolat´s last blog ..How To Take Advantage of Google To Find More RealEstate Leads
This is so true, build relationships with everyone from Facebook to Twitter to LinkedIn – the new social media – web 2.0. Great article!
I couldn’t agree more. Social media is really creating buzz right now as the most effective ways in internet marketing. It is important to build relationships, don’t talk business right away but instead like what you said, help them first, give advise…etc