So there’s enough talk about Social Media being the latest and greatest marketing tool and why it’s necessary to have in your marketing arsenal. It’s starting to be overkill, so I’m sure by now you are getting the idea. I want to dig in a little deeper and to talk about adding “friends” and connections that can be beneficial to your overall marketing strategy.
So you’ve set up your social media profiles, Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts. Now what? Now it’s time to add your “friends”. You can accomplish very little in social media without friends, or connections. Who is going to see your posts, videos, or updates if you are not connected to anyone? It’s like shouting out to an empty room.
The great place to start out is by adding your own family, your friends, current and past clients that you regularly keep in touch with. But it is a good idea to be strategic about the kinds of friends and connections you make on your social networks. You want to make connections with people that will bring you business or have the potential to bring you business. And though this may be controversial to some, I am of the opinion that agents should not be spending too much of their social media time connecting with just a bunch of other real estate agents.
When some agents just start out in their social networks, they get caught in the trap of spending a lot of time adding, and friending only other agents, and ignoring the potential client base they can find from their sphere of influence and local area. Networking primarily with other agents may be fun, may generate an occasional referral, but other agents are not the people that a majority of your business will come from. In some cases, they are your direct competition (but not always). You want to connect with real potential sellers and buyers in your area, people that would want to use your services.
Say you opened a new business selling widgets. You wouldn’t necessarily want to connect primarily with other makers of the same widgets. You want to connect with people that are interested in buying your widgets. You want to get front of mind awareness with THOSE people because they are the meat and potatoes of your business.
Now I am not saying that you should ignore and not connect and network other agents on social media completely. You should spend some of your time networking with other agents. You can find some great agents out there to inspire you, to learn from, to joke with, commiserate with. Heck, in my own business, I network with a ton of other Virtual Assistants on Facebook, Twitter, etc. But it is a good idea to balance it out and strategically build your friends lists with clients and those potential buyers and sellers.
So choose your friends and connections on your social networks carefully. Be sure to spend your time networking with a good mix of potential business and other agents. And don’t forget to provide that great content! Entice people to network with you. Provide them great information in a friendly way. Do that, and you will eventually have people clamoring to be connected to YOU.
Great post. Another point would be careful of adding those like your drunk Uncle Bill who likes to post pics of himself at parties. Be selective because your other connections and potential clients will judge you by the company you keep.