There are a number of people on the Internet who profess to be real estate experts. A lot of them have never sold a home. They’ve never sat across the kitchen table with people planning to sell their home. They’ve never shown a home to buyers looking for a “champagne home on a beer budget”. Yet, they make a substantial income holding seminars to tell us (Realtors®) what we need to do to do it RIGHT.
Yesterday I attended such a class at our Board. In this case, the presenter actually was a real estate agent. His topic was Social Media Marketing, which means marketing ourselves and our listings, using such venues as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. He also spoke on the importance of photography and video in our marketing.
Because I’ve been using social media for over three years, much of what he said wasn’t new-news to me. I didn’t agree with everything he said, but I’ll allow that each market (and agent personalities/goals) are different so we adjust as needed. I DID like how he is executing and editing the making of videos and plan to incorporate that technique.
In following up with some of the information he gave us, this morning I checked out his web site and blog. There are several online analytical tools that I can use to measure the effectiveness of having my sites be crawled by Google, such that when someone performs a search for “homes for sale around Hoover Reservoir“, they find my blog on page one of the search results. At least that’s what I strive for.
Guess what! Both my web site and this blog outperform his web site and blog by a fairly wide margin. Also, Google hasn’t crawled his blog for a week, whereas Google crawled this blog today already. So does this make me an EXPERT? Should I go on the speaking circuit? Nah! I’m just glad to know that my marketing efforts are working, and that it’s helping to sell my listings and provide buyers and sellers with the info they need to make informed decisions.
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Elaine,
Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach. Those who can’t teach, administrate.
LOL!
Funny! I had heard the first 2 pieces of that saying. Hadn’t heard the last one. Actually, the guy was a good speaker. I was just surprised that his sites didn’t grade better given what he was telling us to do.
I to get a big kick out of the speakers at various events. We recently had a guy join our office as a brand new broker. Within a month he was preparing his speeches and power point presentations. I asked what he was doing and he told me he was going to teach our office and all the Realtors in Denver how to sell homes. I said OK. Interesting. Never sold even one home but was about to teach the world. Bet you didn’t know Mr. Ferry the famous coach never sold homes either.
Regarding your new office person, I heard about something similar here. Hadn’t heard that about Ferry. Usually you find them on Inman or blogger lists.
Hi Elaine,
Funny you should write about this, I have been discussing just this situation with Realtor friends across the country for the last few months. My initial comments was going to be Vance’s so I am in total agreement.
There are so many social media guru’s out there now, I have no idea how anybody could tell the difference between who has good information and who is full of pooh.
Their own website/blog really should be an indicator of their ability to get YOUR site/blog to be effective. Mostly they are not. If they cant even do it for themselves, how the heck are they going to do it for anybody else.
Failures looking for stipends on the public speaking circuit.
I was invited to speak at the California Realtor’s Assn (CAR) Expo in San Jose. I turned down the 1st invite to participate in a panel – don’t really care for those, and instead did 1 1/2 hours on stage. Last session of the day – I went an hour over. They would have stayed if I didn’t end it. (There was a martini waiting for me had to go)
The people attending my session had been to many other sessions that day and the day before. They all agreed, they got more valuable information from me than all of the other sessions combined.
People that are looking for information are hungry for that which works. Fluffing them up with purple smoke doesn’t work. Blogging in the real estate industry works. It sends leads which convert to clients if handled properly.
Social Media can drive some business, but at this time you will not survive on that business without a fully functional blog that has positioning on the engines.
And that is that.
Luvs you woman!
Oh yeah that makes you an expert. No you shouldn’t go on the public speaking circuit any more than I should. We are damned good Realtor’s generating leads and working. Kudo’s to us for not being confused.
Laurie, without naming names, I think I know of a couple gurus that fit what you describe. I’ve always had this urge to say, “But the emporer has no clothes!” because the gloating over the gurus reminds me of that story.