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Posts Tagged ‘social media’

How To Use Google+ Communities To Build Your Referral Business

Posted on: February 21st, 2013 by Beth Heilman

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As a real estate agent, it is vital that you stay in contact with your clients and potential customers. The Internet has been considered as an amazingly powerful source for looking real professional while also letting your customers get in contact with you easily. In this article, you’re going to learn about the powerful Google+ social network, specifically Google+ Communities, and how it can be used for you to get more clients and develop a better online presence. It is definitely true that using Google+ for real estate agents is very powerful.

This social network is basically where people connect with each other using a Google-like social network. If you have a Gmail account, you automatically have your very own Google+ account which is pretty cool. The truth is that Google+ can be used to build a really good platform for attaining more referrals in terms of getting clients. There are plenty of people who’ve had much success and earned so much just from using social media alone for gaining clients.

How To Use Google+ Communities To Build Your Referral Business

– Create Community

In the G+ platform, you can easily create a community. This community can be for your past clients or it can be for anybody in your area looking for a home. Once you create your own community, you can make updates, so every time you say something in a new post, everybody who is a part of it will get it in their main profile page.

– Invitations

After you have a couple of people whom you know personally to be a part of the community, make sure to get them to invite others. You can even give them an incentive if you’d like to make them invite others, but do not give away a house for a new member to your community. Try not to be that desperate. The best thing to do is to let others know that if they know somebody who can use a home to invite them to the community so that you can help them.

– Open Houses

The best part about these communities is that you can use them to let others know about your future open houses. You can tell people about future discounts that may be available. This is one huge benefit. You can get more and more people to come to your open houses. The best part is that you can schedule how many people will come since people will message you and email already asking you questions, making it that much easier to sell the home.

– Public or private?

This really does depend upon what you want. However, keeping it public will allow for many others to come in easily and join in on your updates. If you do decide to keep it private, it can help on making it seem mysterious, so keeping it private may help cause more people to join.

Be sure to be very alert and to always use respond to requests, emails, and other important questions when you actually get the chance. Don’t forget to use other parts of Google+ like the “circles”. This is where you build a “circle of friends” to promote to, and sometimes it is just as powerful as creating your own community.

Have you started your own Google+ Community? Do you have a Google+ account for your business? Leave your link below and let’s connect!!

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Why You Need a Real Estate Blog

Posted on: January 25th, 2013 by Beth Heilman

RealEstateBlog

Social media and real estate blogs are immensely powerful tools for Realtors. They can help you generate leads and help you grow your business. The power of both tools lies in the exposure and visibility they offer. A real estate blog is useful when you are:

1) Creating brand awareness
2) Marketing yourself and business
3) Connect with potential customers in real time
4) Building customer loyalty
5) Managing your reputation

Property buyers are becoming savvy by the day

Majority of home buyers do not only consult their Real Estate Agents. Most of them seek inspiration from blogs and social media platforms. Research indicates that 90% of home buyers consult online resources and another 50% engage actively in social media. This revelation underscores the immense importance of social media and blogging to find real estate clients. In the next section, we’ll give you some inspiration on building your brand through blogging and social media.

Scared of setting up a blog?

Setting up a real estate blog is not hard as you think. There are many free and easy to use platforms such as Blogger and WordPress. You can start slow, connect with established professionals, and learn into to grow your blog. Most importantly, you need to be really inspired to keep your keep your post up and running. Realtors and agencies that keep an active social media presence reap huge benefits from their blogging and social media engagements.

Want to Build a Professional Image or Monitor Your Reputation?

A real estate blog can help you build a professional image. You can really score highly if you help readers or visitors make important decisions on their investments. If you are consistent and really helpful, clients will trust you and even seek you to do business. Besides building your image online, a real estate blog can help you monitor your reputation as a realtor. Web analytics tools can help you track discussions in social media spaces and most importantly, what readers are saying about you and your services.

What’s Your Entry Point?

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn remains the most common entry point for Real Estate Professionals into real estate community online. A carefully designed and professional fan page not not only appeals to potential customers, but it also increases the momentum of interaction. You can increase your followers by pitching unique ideas, highlighting opportunities, and keeping them up to ate with developments in the real estate market.

Build Your Brand Quickly

Are you are a brand, or are you working to brand yourself? If the answer is yes, then Twitter and LinkedIn can help you develop and maintain a personal branding. Your brand encapsulates your identity, values, and messages or impressions that you create. In real estate, brand is everything. If you’re not a brand, then you are losing out to your competitors. Start blogging an

Convert Social Media Traffic to Web Traffic

Major search engines and even SEO specialists know the power of social media in drawing web traffic. The reason is simple. A consideration percentage of web traffic to real estate sites is drawn from social media spaces and real estate blogs! Homer buyers and trust real estate blogs and social media scene their first ports of call before they consult. So, if you are blog is operational, you can bet a good number of them will follow you from your blog your site.

Final Thoughts:

Unless you exploit the power of social media and blogging, you can never curve a professional image change in the real estate blogging scene. Social media engagement can open up a new world of possibilities. You can get leads to generate more revenue, build your reputation and image, and establish a base of happy and satisfied clients who look up to you as an authoritative figure. Anyway, that’s just one side of it. You need to be motivated to keep your blog up and running. And, that’s where the challenge begins!

Do you have your own blog? If so, do you blog regularly? If not, why not? Let me know below…

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Use Twitter Lists To Focus Your Social Media Marketing and Cut Out The Noise

Posted on: July 23rd, 2012 by Beth Heilman

Creating Twitter lists and categorizing those lists will save you tons of time and probably your sanity.

In order for Social Media to be effective in your business, you have to filter out the noise and be able to concentrate on the things that will connect you with potential customers and eventually make you money. That is what you’re in business for, right? Ok, just checking πŸ™‚

One nifty tip I want to share with you today is how you create a Twitter list and the different types of lists you should have.

First of all, log in to your Twitter account. I’m assuming here that you have one if you’re reading this. If you don’t, trot your buns right over to Twitter.com and get one. It’s a powerhouse for connecting with
prospects.

After you log in to your account, go to your profile page and find “Lists”. Click on “Create List”

A box will pop up that gives to places to name your list, add a description and make it either public or private.

Make sure your use good keywords in your title and description. Doing that will help people who are searching for the same information find you.

For example, I have public lists called Social Media Gurus and Real Estate. Anyone out in the Twittasphere who’s also looking for Real Estate people or Social Media Influencers can come and either follow my entire list (and I’ll get notified when they do), a select few people on my list or little ol’ me (because I put together a darn good list and they like my tweets)

Here’s how you’ll make your list…

Search for the people you want to follow. You can use terms like Real Estate if you’re looking for other Realtors (I’ve found this one works better than using the term “Realtor”…go figure), a city or state you want to concentrate on. Even getting away from the work focus, you could search by a hobby or a favorite food.

Life isn’t all about business, ya know πŸ™‚ Some really great conversations have been started on Twitter because I include that I like Merlot and Mexican food.

Now that you have your lists you’ll be able to keep closer tabs on either the people who influence the area you specialize in (can you say referrals?) You’ll also be able to keep your finger on the pulse of the latest trends in you area.

Lists are just another tool to tame the social media beast and put you in control of your online marketing efforts. Once you use them, you’ll never look back. Let me know how you’re using Twitter lists to cut out the chatter in your social media marketing. I’d love to hear how you’re doing. Until then…

To your Twitter list success,
Sonrisas (smiles),

Beth πŸ™‚

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Keeping your Pipeline Full: Are You Generating Your Own Leads or Relying On Your Company?

Posted on: May 14th, 2012 by Beth Heilman

Are You Generating Your Own Leads or Are You Relying On Your Company?



 In the Real Estate business, a constant stream of prospective buyer and seller leads means the difference between being able to pay the bills comfortably or struggling to make ends meet. 

Something happened this past week that really hit home for me the importance of working with people you find as a result of your own efforts.

First let me say that I totally love the broker I work with. Even though it's a fairly good sized company, they still give us all a feeling of
family and I treasure them for that. The situation that happened made me realize how much in control of my business I wasn't when I accepted a corporate relocation lead.

When I got the call to see if I wanted the lead I was told that the relocation company would pay a certain amount for me to show the folks being relocated a home to rent. The required time was a maximum of six hours, in one or two days and they needed to see between four and six possible choices so they could make an informed decision.

No problem, I thought. I've worked with many rental clients and once they give me the area and criteria for the home they want, we can usually find it in an afternoon of hunting. Six hours, piece of cake…NOT!

When I got their "wish list" it had the usual bedroom and bathroom count stuff. They wanted a 3 car garage and hopefully a pool. Easy, peasy.

They wanted no more than a 30 minute drive from the husband's work. Again, no problemo. What I should have paid more attention to (and believe me, I will next time…if there is a next time) were the words "picky" and "leave no stone unturned". They weren't joking.

I met with the wife early in the week armed with a list of nine homes (that she had pre-screened from a list I'd sent days earlier), a full tank of gas and high hopes that we'd find a perfect rental home by the end of the six hours. Uhhhh…no.

Mrs. X (name changed to protect the picky) had her heart set on "the one". A home she'd found online that was way bigger and $600 a month over the HIGH limit of the rent they said they wanted to spend. Oy…I knew I had my work cut out for me at that point.

She knew (because she kept mentioning it) she was only contracted to have six hours from her husband's relocation department to find a suitable home (and believe me, we found some VERY nice ones…the FIRST day), but she asked if we could look for one more day.

Not wanting to disappoint my company, this family and myself by only doing the minimum required, I agreed to meet with her the next day…which became the next…and the next. At one point she asked me to drive her to a dry cleaners because the one at her hotel was too expensive, then she left me waiting for her for 20 minutes in 100 degree heat while she went in a store to "grab a sandwich" (the restaurant food was too expensive) and then ended her house-hunting session by leaving all her lunch trash on the floor of my car!!

No, she didn't ask if I'd mind throwing it away for her. She just got out and left it. Classy, huh?

Long story short, after four days, 20 hours, 21 homes viewed, $125 in gas burned and 45o miles on my SUV, they finally decided which home to RENT. Rent, not buy. They only plan on being in it a year…Lordy!

Now the reason for this long, drawn-out story is to make my point for how important it is to create a targeted marketing plan, a system if you will, to find and attract the clients YOU want to work with.

A big part of that plan should be using Social Media as a way to reach, connect with and build a relationship with your soon-to-be clients. When you're "beholding" to your company to give you leads, you're putting the success of your business in someone else's hands.

When you attract clients by building relationships with them using Social Media as part of your marketing strategy, the control; both of your income and your time, is all yours.

I know you guys have some stories like the one I just lived through πŸ™‚

Share it in the comments below. We'll all have a good giggle together.

Until next time…

To Your Success,
Sonrisas (smiles),

Beth πŸ™‚

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What’s The Interest With Pinterest?

Posted on: March 5th, 2012 by Beth Heilman

What's the Interest with Pinterest?

There's a new kid in town on the Social Media landscape and it's taking the internet marketing world by storm. So what's all the interest with Pinterest? Pinterest, an image sharing site where fellow "pinterites" (I just thought of that one…cute, huh?) can visit your Pinterest page and "like" and repin photos you've posted on virtual bulletin boards you create within your account.

Folks are pinning things like motivational quotes, yummy recipes, cute critters and very cool clothes. Then there are those (like you and me) that see the enormous business potential this has.

Unlike sites like flickr where folks just go to look at lots of pretty pictures, Pinterest is proving to be a marketing powerhouse with incredible reach. In January 2012 alone, over 10 million visitors frequented Pinterest. Ten Million!! That's a lot of pinning!

For the average business owner Pinterest has enormous potential. For the Real Estate pro (that would be you) using this as one of your marketing channels could blow the doors off how you showcase your listings like nothing you've ever done before.

How, you ask? Let me tell ya…

Say for instance you get a really cool listing. I know, any listing is really cool, but follow me here. You upload photos of the house to the normal channels; your local MLS, Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow and you throw in Craigslist for good measure. Great job…you're cookin' with gas, and here's where the new kid on the block comes in.

You go to your Pinterest account and create a bulletin board JUST for this listing. You add the photos, put in some really catchy comments and hit the "save" button. The potential for what's next is enormous…

Say you have some fellow "pinterites" (heehee) stop by and repin your photos to their boards. Their friends stop by, people you may have never even met, like what they see and repin to THEIR boards. And so on and so on and…well, you get the picture (yes, pun intended).

But wait, it gets better. Every photo you pin to your board includes a link back to the original "pinner" (that would be you) so anyone interested in finding out more about that particular house can find you. and research shows that over 50% of people who repin, click through to the site the photo originally came from to find out more information. Are you happy dancing yet?

It's a backlink strategy made in heaven. (Note: for those not familiar with backlinks and other internet wizardry stuff, that's why I started Red Leopard Marketing in the first place, so you wouldn't have to try and figure it out. That's my job πŸ™‚ )

Guys, Pinterest knocks most other kinds of ways to visually market your homes on their ear because of the HUGE potential to go viral. People all over the world will be able to check out your listings in a casual, fun way AND had direct access back to YOU!!

Are you excited yet? You should be…

Pinterest is still in the Beta phase as I write this, so you have to be invited to join (and yes, it's free). If you can see how awesome this can be for your business and want to learn more, shoot me a message along with your email and I'll send you an invitation. I look forward to meeting you and seeing what fun things you have to share. And please leave a comment below and let everyone know how you're using Pinterest (or would like to πŸ™‚ ). Until then…

To Your Pinning Success,
Sonrisas(smiles),

Beth

 

Beth Heilman is a 20 year Real Estate veteran and Owner/CEO of Red Leopard Marketing, a company specializing in using Social Media Marketing (and some other nifty cool things, too) to help Real Estate Professionals attract, engage and keep their ideal customers. After experiencing the devastating effects the housing market crash had on her and her fellow Real Estate peeps, she has made it her mission to get businesses back on track using innovative marketing strategies with an emphasis on Social Media. Business as usual just doesn't work anymore. Beth has lived in fabulous Las Vegas for 30 years. She's a mom of four great kiddos and a "gramita" to 10 amazing grandmunchkins. Her philosophy in business and in life is "when you do the right things for the right reasons, things will turn out just fine". Believe it…

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