Findability - It’s Important!
By Drew Meyers | August 9, 2007
Many home buyers — 70% according to the California Association of Realtors study — use the internet as an integral part of the home-buying process. They aren’t just looking for homes, they are looking for agents too. In an age where buyers and sellers are doing their research online, it’s important to always, always be findable. Further, when a potential client is seeking advice or help and finally enters the “find an agent” mindset, your name needs to be either on their mind or easily discoverable. Or, in the event that someone is specifically looking for you by name (maybe a friend of theirs gave them your name), you NEED to be quickly and easily findable wherever that individual may be online. There are numerous real estate websites that allow you to create a free profile — such as Zillow (my employer), HomeThinking, Trulia, TopAgents, ActiveRain, StreetAdvisor, etc — and are aiming to make real estate more social. Keeping a presence on all of them becomes a task that likely seems to grow by the week.
Real estate focused social sites aside, there are a massive number of traditional social networking sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Pownce, Orkut, and Bebo where individuals are spending a growing amount of their time — you should be there too! Here’s the complete list of social networks on Wikipedia. Since so many people are visual, below is a map of the most popular social networks by country that ValleyWag put together in late June (click for a larger view).
You might be asking — what does this have to do with real estate technology? Solutions to efficiently maintain an online presence on the constantly growing array of social networks involve technology.
Given that “time is money,” there are two possible technology solutions I’d like to point out:
- Virtual assistant companies understand technology & have the capability to help make you more efficient
- Technology could solve this problem if someone built a central database of profiles for agents AND syndicated the profile information out to other sites
First, virtual assistant companies can help you maintain and update your profiles in the growing list of real estate specific & traditional social networking sites. There are a growing number of companies that fit the bill — VirtuAllin, Virtual Creative Agent Solutions, DelegateNow, and 24 Hour Secretary (sorry I can’t list them all). Using a virtual assistant to create and update profiles on all the sites allows you to spend more of your time focusing on what you do best — helping clients and selling homes.
It seems the ideal solution would be if someone SOLVED this problem with technology by building a one stop shop for real estate professionals’ profiles. Then, you could fill out a detailed profile in one place and have it syndicated to all the different social networking sites. I’m not saying it can’t or won’t be done, but there are certainly lots of hurdles to doing so — including getting agents to fill out yet another profile, forming partnerships with other social networking sites to accept a standard profile data feed, getting NAR’s backing, etc. After all, many people (me included) have been vying for some sort of effective OpenID across the internet for a long time; there hasn’t yet been significant progress. But maybe, just maybe, the fact that real estate professionals have a vested interest in having a profile on as many sites as possible can lead to enough support for a real estate profile/directory to be built that will syndicate that information around the internet. Only time will tell…
Note that I am NOT advocating that virtual assistants answer questions or comment on your behalf. That is something that you alone should handle. Sure, you likely don’t have time to actively engage in ALL the social networks, but it’s up to you to determine where your online participation will get maximum exposure in order to build your online reputation and brand.
The main take away — use available technology to help you be everywhere and reach a broad audience.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Author's Website: http://www.zillow.com
Topics: Identity Management, Lead Acquisition, Marketing |
6 Responses to “Findability - It’s Important!”
Comments
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August 14th, 2007 at 10:53 am
“be everywhere and reach a broad audience”
It seems like everyday I discover somewhere else I need to be, your suggestion to utilize a VA to help create/update is one I’m going to ponder.
August 14th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Michelle-
Glad you found some use for this post! I certainly think virtual assistants are going to start playing an increasing role as more and more web technologies emerge.
August 16th, 2007 at 6:57 am
Great article - 100% agree with your angle of importance of being found as an agent. We have quoted a part of your article on: http://www.topagents.com.au/
August 17th, 2007 at 1:11 am
Drew! Glad I found your blog - RSS feed added to bloglines.
In addition to the obvious benefits of social networking - real people finding you - are the added benefit of growing the authority of your website with additional inbound links.
While an agent might dream of the high status of a link to their website from Realtor.com or Zillow.com, those are nearly impossible to come by. However, gaining 40, 50 or even hundreds of inbound links to your site from all the social networking platforms can certainly increase your page rank.
In Search Engine Optimization circles, it seems gaining links from social networks such as Twitter, blogging such as at Active Rain and forums are now de rigueur - replacing agent to agent link exchange schemes.
It certainly emphasizes your point - Findability is crucial to an agent’s success.
January 1st, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Drew,
Great post! I love the idea of a one-stop-shop for profile syndication to the major relevant sites. Which ones would you say are the most relevant to real estate professionals?
I think you should def spearhead that idea, before someone (like me) else does!
March 6th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Good information! Virtual Assistants are quickly becoming the must have for real estate professionals. Finding a Virtual Assistant that specializes in Internet marketing is imperative for your online success. You can also visit www.IREAA.com, an organization dedicated to real estate assistants, to find a real estate virtual assistant for your projects!