The Biggest Obstacle When Marketing Yourself Online
As real estate minded professionals, we understand that the Internet is a fantastic tool in helping us promote and engage various audiences. It helps us connect with those most interested in information we are looking to share, and it helps all of us find the right content that can benefit us in a myriad of ways. However the biggest obstacle we face when looking to market ourselves and our services online is having the feeling that providing “quantity” and not “quality” is better.
Taking our time
Sometimes the best strategy we can all follow is to slow down and think through a topic well before we actually put pen to pad. Readers quickly understand if a piece of content is “easy” or if it is content worth reading because of the time it took to actually create the content. It’s easy for all of us to have an overwhelming sense of wanting to engage in every forum and blog online, but the best service we can provide our audience is to provide an engaging piece of content. This often takes time to create.
First content then promotion
Once you have created unique and engaging content, the next thing you should invest your time doing is searching for areas online that could benefit the most from housing your content. Bigger Pockets is a fantastic avenue for real estate minded professionals because of the niche community we created together. Ignore sites that provide opportunities to post content if they aren’t focused on a specific audience. Although there are always exceptions to the rules, the most important thing to remember is you want the content you worked hard to create to be in front of those that could benefit the most by reading it.
Be engaged
Once you have identified an online community to share your content, get engaged. Joshua Dorkin said it best on a past blog and gave some very helpful tips for engaging. Be an active member and spend the time reading what others have to say. Chances are those bloggers on an industry related website providing the type of insight you need when it comes to topics you are most interested in. The content you create isn’t going to magically create any new business for you, but following up and being a voice within a niche community will do wonders.
Good luck to you as you look to provide helpful content in the real estate industry. I would love to hear some real world examples of how the content and engagement you provided were beneficial to those interested in what you had to say.
Taking our time
Sometimes the best strategy we can all follow is to slow down and think through a topic well before we actually put pen to pad. Readers quickly understand if a piece of content is “easy” or if it is content worth reading because of the time it took to actually create the content. It’s easy for all of us to have an overwhelming sense of wanting to engage in every forum and blog online, but the best service we can provide our audience is to provide an engaging piece of content. This often takes time to create.
First content then promotion
Once you have created unique and engaging content, the next thing you should invest your time doing is searching for areas online that could benefit the most from housing your content. Bigger Pockets is a fantastic avenue for real estate minded professionals because of the niche community we created together. Ignore sites that provide opportunities to post content if they aren’t focused on a specific audience. Although there are always exceptions to the rules, the most important thing to remember is you want the content you worked hard to create to be in front of those that could benefit the most by reading it.
Be engaged
Once you have identified an online community to share your content, get engaged. Joshua Dorkin said it best on a past blog and gave some very helpful tips for engaging. Be an active member and spend the time reading what others have to say. Chances are those bloggers on an industry related website providing the type of insight you need when it comes to topics you are most interested in. The content you create isn’t going to magically create any new business for you, but following up and being a voice within a niche community will do wonders.
Good luck to you as you look to provide helpful content in the real estate industry. I would love to hear some real world examples of how the content and engagement you provided were beneficial to those interested in what you had to say.
Comments (1)
David Mulberry I strongly agree with your post. Especially the part about the time required to create content. My best "real world" example would be the piece I wrote with Ibrahim S called 8 Habits of Highly Effective Inner City Landlords. It took us a couple of months to pull together something we both were happy with. My blog received a wave of traffic and got a lot of new subscribers as a result. Also, I've noticed when I'm not engaging in forums, my blog traffic goes way down. So let me ratify your point about staying engaged. Thanks for your post.
Al Williamson, over 13 years ago