Real estate is as simple as running your dog in the park

She’s grumpy and rarely smiles. If she does it’s when I’m not present.

Her reputation is fearsome. Young sales reps are pilloried by her about ethics and etiquette. Her commitment, it seems, is to make other agents cringe and cower. She’s like a caged fighting dog, snapping and snarling at everyone and everything, even her handlers.

And yet strangely she makes sales. Lots of them. In her patch she’s clearly the leading agent.

While others drive expensive cars and wear designer suits this agent puts sales together. Her marketing isn’t flash. To the contrary it’s dowdy. Small signs, small print ads and faded photos in an old shop window. She’s not on Facebook or Twitter and doesn’t have a blog. In fact she doesn’t even have a website, at least not one I could find.

So what is it about her that gets the job done?

For a start she lives where she works. That gives her a nuanced understanding of her patch that an outsider could only hope for. It’s an edge that others find hard to combat.

She knows the market backwards. That’s not hard when you’re the one making all the sales. When sellers ask her opinion she speaks with the confidence only years of knowledge bring.

And she walks her dog in the park and chats with the locals. She knows their names and the names of their dogs and their kids. She takes an interest in them and knows where they live.

There’s no need to sell or hand out cards. Her dog walking friends know who she is, what she does and where to get hold of her.

In short, she’s a social marketing pro. We who exercise our dogs online would do well to take a leaf out of her play book.

Photo credit: mikebaird on Flickr

The Importance of Social Media Marketing: Why You Should Learn and Master it: “Social media marketing is the process of promoting your site or business through social media channels and it is a powerful strategy that will get you links, attention and massive amounts of traffic.

There is no other low-cost promotional method out there that will easily give you large numbers of visitors, some of whom may come back to your website again and again…”

A report on Internetnews.com claims that IBM is merging business and social networking. Don’t do one or the other says Big Blue, do both.

IBM’s strategy places even more pressure on leaders and managers to wrap their heads around social networks and social software and formulate a meaningful strategy rather than waiting for their competitors to dictate the terms of engagement. Think back to 1995 when Microsoft switched their focus into making all their office productivity applications web-friendly. There’s nothing more certain than a similar effort occurring but this time it will be around enabling human interaction.

Managers who miss the boat may end up participating very heavily in the next round of corporate redundancies.

There appears to be little conflict between real estate and social networking in the real estate industry – or so it seems on the surface. According to a recent article real estate agents are jumping on the social networking band wagon in droves.

I wonder if there’s going to be some big train wrecks down the track as agents shift between firms and possibly make negative comments about current and past employers. And what of the potential for agents to over step the legislative mark without the knowledge of their principals.

One wonders if the genie, once out of the bottle, can ever be recaptured.

The Ontario government has experienced a powerful backlash against their ban of Facebook and Youtube in the workplace, according to Intergovworld.com. In a country that claims to have the highest per capita membership to Facebook, it’s understandable why Canadians are upset.

But, the article suggests, the ban may only be temporary whilst the powers that be get their head around the web 2.0 beast.

Notably, a government source claimed that they were struggling to keep up with the formulation of an appropriate response to this fast moving networking landscape. I have no doubt their concerns are reflected in other businesses across the world.

The debate for the government hinges primarily on lost time. But they also have their eye on the speed with which FB is moving, possibly looking at a ready-built platform rather than taking the slow boat by building their own collaboration platforms.

The article claims that Canadians spend an average of 29 minutes per day on Facebook; and that’s a big dent in production. The argument by business is that they are entitled to direct how and why their resources can be used, with private social networking not welcome.

However, I question whether this debate is not just a case of old wine in new wine skins. After all, the debate about private phone calls is a live issue in most organisations and will continue to be for some time to come. Most companies have an acceptable use policy with private phone calls being permitted so long as it’s within reason. How is social networking substantially different.

At another level I contend that social networking is very much more granular than making a phone call. After all, a person can check their Facebook feed or inbox in the brief period it takes for a customer to answer the phone or a document to come off the printer. Much damage done? I doubt it.

Finally, using social networking software teaches participants useful new skills in a non-threatening, enjoyable environment. I for one can’t see how this can be bad.

But back to the article, the claim is made that activity on Facebook has potential to do great harm to the reputation of a business through leaking of confidential information and through others being able to see what employees get up to during the course of the day.

To this I’d say, so what? If, as a manager and leader you have this little faith in your team, then perhaps the problem is sitting on the chair in your office.

This light-weight article gives a glimpse into why so many in the business community are so interested in – and getting involved with – social marketing. It’s the new buzz, the article suggests, with hard-to-ignore success stories and low barriers to adoption.

Sounds too fascinating and far too compelling.

No wonder that FB is now known as one of the most hyper-viral platforms on earth. Since they opened the doors to application developers cool ideas spread faster then the Ebola virus. Businesses simply can’t get enough of a good thing and move at lightening speed to attempt to monetise an audience’s attention.