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.

via mashable.com

This one hails from Mashable, my favorite social media new site. Many people who are new to Twitter, sometimes miss their @ replies or don’t know where to find them. So Mashable lists out some good free options to check out.
Go give it a read!

Posted via email from megbarberva’s posterous

Image of Michael Russer

After attending the awesome VREBC last week, I wanted to highlight one of my favorite speakers from it, Michael Russer. When I first started out as a Real Estate Virtual Assistant over 5 years ago, I was introduced through the REVA Network to Michael Russer and his fantastic classes and webinars. Also known as “Mr. Internet”, Michael has been speaking and coaching real estate pros for years on using the internet for their real estate business. He is also one of the biggest cheerleaders of the Virtual Assistant industry, which is another reason why I am a big fan of his.

Michael’s extensive list of accomplishments and books written can be found right here. His latest program, Online Dominance, includes a fantastic Mentoring program for agents that contains his high-energy group coaching calls, as well as the highly valuable CLICKS to CLOSES™ and ePRODUCTIVITY™ courses. This is one program where a few of my real estate friends are participants, and they all are raving fans.

The main reason I am posting this is to highlight a fantastic lead follow up resource that he shares and how he goes about sharing it with the use of his Facbook fan page. The resource Michael shares is the ingenious “Critical First Response Email Script”. It is a simple email sent to internet consumers after their initial inquiry. It is crafted in a way that is no pressure, “non-salesy”, and invites consumers to open a dialogue when they are ready to.

How do you get this fantastic email script? Well, you must become a fan of the Online Dominance Facebook page in order to get to the download link. This Facebook tactic demonstrates a great way to generate new fans (or leads) to your Facbook fan page by enticing users to get something of value from you that they want or need. This simple trick is something you can do with your own fan page by creating a tab that only fans can access and use that tab to share valuable links, or special downloads for your fans. Then just watch your fan numbers grow.

I highly recommend that you check out Michael Russer

• Online Dominance – www.OnlineDominance.com
• The Mr. Internet News Real Estate Blog
• Online Dominance Facebook Page

Looking to spruce up your own Facebook fan page and add valuable links and information for your fans? Your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can help you! Contact us today for an assessment of your real estate and social media support needs. and if your not already, come on over to Facebook and be a fan!

via mashable.com

There seems to be a theme here with all this talk about Facebook lately. But her I go again. They’ve got a whole new look on their homepage now. Greater emphasis on search. Easier to instant message. I’m liking it so far.

Posted via web from megbarberva’s posterous

Image by Evil Erin via Flickr

Many agents are catching on and joining in on the Facebook fun. The talk of social media and using it for real estate business have been quite the buzz around all the conferences and webinars in the past year. You will find no bigger cheerleader for this that than me, since I have been encouraging this for what seems forever now. Now that I see numerous agents embracing and using Facebook, I have been making some observations. Some that make me pull my hair out. So now I feel the need to give out some guidance on some pitfalls to avoid when using Facebook. It’s time to stop the madness.

1. Don’t incessantly use your status updates to do nothing but post your listings over and over again. Sometimes I wonder if some agents think that consumers log on to Facebook just to look for real estate. Newsflash… They don’t. Posting listings on there once in awhile is fine, as long as you also post relevant and interesting information that people may want to know. Using it to constantly post listings looks fake, inauthentic (and in my generation despise that) and will easily get you ignored by the simple push of the “Hide” button. There are subtle ways to put your listings on your profile. Here is one way I suggest to do it.

2. Keep the drunken bachelor/bachelorette party photos and the like, off of Facebook… or at least make them private. Even though you are a professional, you are probably not all business all of the time and want to project that on Facebook. Even so, be mindful of current and potential clients that may be connected to you and that certain things can turn them off and not give you their business. Yes, your friends might find that picture where you were passed out on the floor or making out with some random person funny, but your prospective clients might be downright offended and cause them to look down upon you. Get to know your privacy settings. They are your friend.

3. Try not to trash people, cities or things on your status updates, links, fan pages, etc. You never know who may be looking at your profile. Things get around, and though you may think you are safe to post how much you hate a certain person, place or thing, no matter how justified you are, it may come back to bite you. This story is a great example of this. And though that story happened through Twitter, with 350 million active Facebook users it is bound to happen there too.

4. Don’t air your dirty laundry for all to see on Facebook. There is such thing a too much information. And really, people don’t really need to know all of your personal drama, marital problems, etc. As the above points mentioned, be mindful of who is looking at your profile. It looks unprofessional. And really, does the public really need to know your very private personal drama? Your clients may look at you differently, or stop returning your calls.

5. Stop constantly posting your Farmville, Mafia Wars, CafeWorld, Fishville, etc, in your status updates. Now in fairness, I do play and participate in some of above mentioned games.  They’re fun but must played in moderation  Really, do you want your colleagues, prospects and clients to think you do nothing but play with a virtual farm all day? It starts to make your clients wonder if you are really spending the time marketing their home or plowing imaginary land. There are ways to play and not share every single detail of what you have done in your games. So if you’re tempted to share it, don’t. It’s annoying. And people will tend to ignore or unfriend you.

So real estate pros, please heed my above advice.  Facebook is a great opportunity to engage with your clients, market yourself, your properties (subtly), and show a bit of your personality, please be mindful of everything you do on there. You never know who is looking and how it may help or hurt your business.

And while you’re at it, come on over and be a fan – www.facebook.com/barbervasolutions

Facebook is not just another place for you to market, but a place to share and ENGAGE with your clients and prospects. It is another opportunity to become a trusted expert in your local market or among your friends and colleagues. Facebook claims to have 250 million active users, so think of how many of those users may be within your reach. What are you waiting for?

You better not be using lack of time as an excuse. Being active on Facebook doesn’t have to take up a lot of your time. So if that is the excuse you are still using, drop it. With a few applications and tools you can automate much of your Facebook updates and such that it will really only take you a few minutes a day to communicate, comment and engage with your Facebook friends.

In case you didn’t know already here are a few things that you can be doing in Facebook to help increase your online presence:

• Advertise your listings and use Postlets which can help you syndicate to Facebook as well as dozens of other places (DO NOT do nothing but promote your listings. Nothing is more annoying than a friend that does nothing but advertise)
• Add an RSS feed from your blog. It will automatically update when you have a new blog post.
• Connect your status updates with Twitter or Ping.fm. Make all your status updates in one place that will update Facebook automatically
• Talk about the latest open house or how excited you are about your first time buyers new home find.
• Converse directly with clients, friends and prospects and add a personality to the “brand”. Become someone they know and trust. (you don’t have to be all business all the time)
• Create a Business page that can include all of your business happenings, blog postings, newsletter sign up, and so much more. Then invite everyone to become fans so you can easily broadcast your important info to them.

There is a lot you can be doing in Facebook and you are running out of excused to not be on there. So if you are still a stranger to Facebook, stop what you are doing right now (I really mean it!) and get started by doing the following:

1. Sign up for Facebook
2. Set up your profile and don’t forget to add a picture
3. Find some of your friends and colleagues
4. Engage with people
5. Set up a Business Page – or ask your real estate virtual assistant to help
6. Become a Fan of BVAS!

And here are a few awesome places to get more tips and advice on how to use Facebook effectively for your business:

Using Facebook to Sell with Soul – A few dos and don’ts

6 Facebook Apps Every Realtor Needs

3 New Facebook Strategies For Building Your Personal Brand

Facebook – Genius Drip Marketing & Free

InsideFacebook.com

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What do you see here? I’m using video now? That is right, I have started some video blogging. Right now I’m playing around with video and incorporating it into my business.  I’ve decided to use every tool I can in my social media marketing arsenal, and video was next on my list. So here it is, my first video.

Video blogging, or vlogging, is a fantastic tool that real estate pros should seriously consider incorporating into their real estate marketing plans. They are super simple to make with a webcam, or small camcorder (My favorite is the Flip), and can be uploaded numerous places like YouTube, Facebook, etc., to gain you more online exposure.  

From being a "talking head" giving informative advice, to showing off your newest listings or favorite local businesses, incorporating real estate video on your websites or real estate blogs is a great real estate business tool. And of course, video a task your Real Estate Virtual Assistant can help you get started with and maintain.

More tips and tricks are to come in the future. For now, I invite you to come along on this video blogging journey with me. I want to see YOUR videos too!

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, LLC,  and runs blogs, The BVAS Connection and The Virtual Perception. Megan has been in a Virtual Assistant for nearly 5 years and has spent 10+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.

Over the last year I’ve wondered what was the value of LinkedIn or Facebook for my business. Why was it generating all this buzz in my industry and others?  I joined both networks ages ago, but just wasn’t sure what the point of it was, other than to connect socially with friends and family on Facebook, or connect with my peers in my industry on LinkedIn. I understood the value of social networking to a degree, but these sites seemed to limited to me, not quite as valuable as something like Active Rain where I can blog and market directly to my audience (REALTORS).

Well it looks like I underestimated them. I am finding with more participation and more activity, I am actually getting noticed and have received viable leads from both places.  Goes to show me that I should never rule out the power of these social networking sites and the possibilities they can bring.

Real Estate professionals especially should not underestimate the value of places such as LinkedIn and Facebook. ANYONE can potentially be your client, and what a way to reach consumers, market to them, and show them your knowledge & experience.  Places like Facebook are no longer just for the kids anymore. Business and marketing is making up a big chunk of what is going on Facebook now.

For the blog behind the book, I’m On LinkedIn — Now What?, here are some good tips on how to utilize LinkedIn to work for you : http://imonlinkedinnowwhat.com/

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, and publisher of The REAL Advantage E-Zine. Megan has spent 9+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.