Dave

May 29 2012

Social Media Real Estate

Does your Real Estate Agent use Social Media? Should you care?

Real Estate Yelp Sign — Image is modified based on original, Creative Commons work of ThinkPanama

An article in the Sunday Chicago Tribune made me want to throw up on my shoes.

Here’s a link to to the article, which was entitled “Home Tweet Home: Agents turn to social media“.

It’s not a bad article – IF you’re someone who is in the business of selling the real estate industry on having more agents and brokers using social media tools – and using their mobile phone, too.

But it’s not a great article – because the takeaway is all wrong. From the headline, you’re going to guess that you should be using Twitter if you’re a real estate agent who wants to sell more houses. NO. That shouldn’t be the takeaway…

So, we’re first going to talk about some of the things we disagree with if you’re using social media for real estate. THEN we’re going to give you a brand new takeaway. Here goes:

1. It’s Not All About the Numbers

Here’s a quote from the article:

“Gregg Slapak, a real estate broker with Exit Realty Redefined in Wheaton, has close to 5,000 Facebook friends — the maximum for the social networking site. On his recent birthday, more than 1,100 well-wishers from all over the world sent him greetings.”

Awesome. Gregg is popular and he’s so busy on his birthday that he can’t possibly respond to every well-wisher.

And does this make you want to buy a house from this guy?

Gregg goes on to say that “70 percent of his clients find him today using their computers.”

I’m not picking on Gregg here – have never met him, and maybe he is darn good at his job. But let’s continue…

2. The misnomer is that it’s a “tech-only” business

The article went on to say that the new generation of buyers want to text message with their real estate agent. They want instantaneous communication. They’re using social platforms first and foremost – a fact I won’t argue with. But here’s where the article’s premise – that you have to be “social” first – goes off the rails:

“Terri McAuley, a broker with Koenig & Strey Real Living in Chicago, estimates that 75 percent of her new clients have never met her in person.”

Maybe I’m missing something here – buy those shopping for a home haven’t met their broker in person?

I’m left with a very shallow opinion of both sides of this equation: the agent will take any business they can find without so much as a handshake – and the buyer would rather see that there’s a Facebook presence or that the broker can use a mobile phone to send a text message. ACK.

3. Google and Yelp. Google and Yelp.

I can’t stress these two things enough – but they are afterthoughts in this article:

Remember our example above, Ms McAuley:

“…Instead, they rely on Yelp reviews or Google searches to find her.”

As well they should. As well they should.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that, if you are a real estate agent or broker, focus on Google and Yelp FIRST.

These should not be afterthoughts in your “social media strategy” – actually, they are the table stakes in your marketing – which is on- and off-line these days. You could spend hours learning how to do this right – and you SHOULD.

Because if someone finds you on Google or Yelp and reads up on you and decides that they don’t want to work with you because you DON’T HAVE 5000 FACEBOOK FRIENDS…you didn’t want to work with them anyway.

4. When Your Agent Has a Social Media Consulting Business – BEWARE!

This is a serious pet peeve of mine: the agent or broker should be working for you – and real estate should be their one and only profession.

You’ll find some dynamite speakers out there in real estate land – but the second someone crosses over from “agent” to “social media consultant” – you are no longer their focus. That sucks for you if you’re their client.

Real Estate Professionals: What Are You Leading With?

When we “wrote the book” on Social Media for Real Estate a couple years ago (and then rewrote the book again), we knew that a lot of this stuff would change. That’s why we focused on things like “knowing your target market” and “going where the buyers are.”

This doesn’t change; but the overarching theme of our work – then and now – is that you need to “be the kind of agent you would want to work with.”

Information is everywhere: and maybe you can find out more than enough about Gregg and Terri to decide that they’re the person you want to work with for your next real estate transaction.

AND, maybe it IS important to you to create a kicking Twitter presence and a dynamite list of Facebook friends.

AND…leading with the real you – Hey, Authenticity!!! – is never a bad thing to do. But here’s the thing, and here’s your takeaway from this article:

Location, Location, Location – Where is it?

This is the thing you should be leading with, real estate professional. We said it in the book, we’ll say it again, and here’s where you should build your online strategy:

Take a Look at Your Last 10 Transactions

There’s a theme there. Right?

If you found all ten people you sold homes to from Facebook, that’s great. Keep at it.

If all ten people found YOU through a Google search, maybe that’s where you should be spending your time.

Better yet – if all ten found you through a common thread, like a work or school group, or a club, or your referral network – isn’t that the thing to cultivate even more?

May 24 2012

Dear Steve*

Something’s bothering me, Steve.

Blog Well Written For You — Close enough. Right?

It’s about your article.

Remember the article that you submitted? You sent it to me. Then, after you didn’t hear back for a couple days, you sent me another note, marked “IMPORTANT.”

Steve, I know there comes a time in every writer’s life when they ask themselves, “am I good enough?” In fact, you might be asking yourself that very question right about now.

But, before I play the heavy and let you know what has been on my mind for the past 13 minutes since you sent that note marked “IMPORTANT,” I’d really like to talk about a few of the reasons why I don’t think your article is going to work for our site.

Maybe this will resonate with you, Steve; or, maybe you and your bloggy friends will continue to reach out to similar sites and hope upon hope that you’ll get the coveted “Article in Exchange for Link” that everyone wants.

Anyway, Steve, here’s why I’m saying no:

1. You Sent Me An Article With No Prior Relationship

This is probably the biggest mistake you made: you told me how great my site was (that’s a given; not that my site is great, but that you’d tell me that it’s great). Then you attached the article and that was that. I can use it if I want, or not.

But I don’t know you.

I’m not going to steal your article, Steve – but I could. And there’s nothing in it for you. And you have devalued your own content by sending it to me and just asking me to use it for nothing.

Build rapport, please. Then ask me if I’d like an article.

2. You Haven’t Sent Me Any Information About You

Steve, Steve, Steve.

If you’ve learned anything it’s that people can find out information about other people online. They use something called “Google.” And, if you don’t give them something to look at when you send them the first ever email…well, then they’ll either find out whatever they can about you using this Google site, or they’ll give up.

Table Stakes, Steve. Give me a link to published work that you’ve already done elsewhere. Or show me your LinkedIn profile. OR…

3. You Didn’t Create An Awesome First Impression

Even an okay first impression would have done okay here.

But the article you sent me had a title that didn’t make any sense at all.

It’s all in the setup – I’d love to have you guest blog on one of my sites, Steve, but now you had me wondering whether you’ve got the chops…and I was wondering this after the very first sentence you wrote.

4. And, About The Article Itself…

Steve, this is where I need to let you know something that maybe you haven’t heard before.

There’s a certain style for web writing: different from writing for a book, different from magazine journalism or for writing for a technical journal.

I, for one, prefer to read things that aren’t written with a heavy focus on words that will get the writing noticed by search engines. Sure, you have to put in some keywords – something you did – but I want to read “engaging copy.” Not copy where every other word looks like something someone would type into the Google search bar.

So, Steve, I’ve Got to Say No.

The door isn’t closed entirely. Maybe if you work on a couple of these things we can talk about your stuff getting on the site.

Maybe.

Regards,

Dave

P.S. This sort of thing DID happen. Just a bit ago. There was an article submitted for the New Frugality site. A site which you should totally check out.

*Steve is not his real name.

May 17 2012

The Death of Logic

Three things, interwoven, suggesting that Logic has died.

As Alan Alda once said, the world is running “like a car with square wheels.” Allow us then to mash together three separate occurrences – as evidence in our case to declare Logic clinically dead. Here goes:

Exhibit A: Fired by State Farm

State Farm fired us: my household was told that our homeowner’s policy was not going to be renewed. It was, at the end, an “underwriting” decision – but it was handled in the worst possible way, and it is a cautionary tale for businesses that want to fashion themselves as a “Social Business.”

And this is the first thing that tells me Logic is Dead.

First: The Background

My own relationship with State Farm goes back to when I was covered on my parents’ Auto policy. Since I got my license at the age of 16, and I’m now…well, let’s just say we have recently crossed the quarter-century mark in our business relationship.

When I moved to Chicago, in 1993, I took my policy with me and found a local agent to insure my 1993 Nissan Sentra. Then, we switched agents – but stayed with State Farm – when my wife and I got married. In 1995.

The cold, calculating letter

“Dear Policyholder(s):

“Thank you for allowing State Farm to provide your insurance under this policy. We are sorry that we cannot continue this insurance. Therefore, your policy will not be renewed…

“This insurance coverage is no longer acceptable to State Farm Fire and Casualty Company because of your overall claim activity. Our records show the following loss(es):”

What follows? One claim paid out in 1998. Before we even had homeowner’s insurance. Five claims filed that weren’t paid out, but at total of $561.25 paid on this policy.

What does THIS have to do with dying Logic?

Logic would tell you that, if someone has a long history with a company, the lifetime customer value of that customer trumps one $561.25 claim filed 13 1/2 years ago.

Logic would also tell you that, if someone has paid an estimated $40,000 in lifetime premiums, you may not want them to take their business elsewhere. OR, if they are a risk, you want to keep them – but jack their rates up.

The cold calculation of an underwriter about number of claims filed could have been countered by one look at some sort of CRM data. 17 years with the same agent. Number of policies (2) with the company. Even profitability or lifetime customer value.

I would have respected their decision had they told me that, in light of all the above about my loyal patronage, I was not going to be a profitable long-term client. That did not factor into the decision.

The reality here is this: we are in a “check the box” world – that’s a given, and you’ll see another example in Exhibit B. But in order to really thrive in this Logic-Free world, businesses are going to need to start asking the right Binary Questions before they check the boxes.

This is the cover logo for the book. Stay tuned.

[You’ll hear much more about Binary Questions in the weeks to come; as Dave from Area 224 is working on a book called “The Binary Business.”]

Here’s a for instance:

“Does this client’s long-term history make him or her a profitable client?”

OR

“Does the client’s total amount of claims paid equal a percentage of his premium that is above our acceptable risk threshold?”

These are both Binary Questions – you can answer either YES or NO. A 1 or a 0. Those are your choices. But the way the questions are phrased on the front-end makes for profitable business decisions on the back-end.

More, in Exhibit B.

Exhibit B: GM Pulls Its Facebook Advertising (Right Before Facebook’s IPO)

First of all, I want to be fair – and, quoting a somewhat wise person I used to work with, “Everyone’s an Armchair Marketer.” It’s easy to say that GM is making the wrong decision from wherever you are: maybe you don’t see them engaging on Facebook like other auto brands (hint: Ford). Maybe you think they should be spending their money making better cars (like Ford). Maybe you think Facebook advertising doesn’t work (which is in stark contrast to, uh, Ford).

But the higher your profile, the higher profile your decisions become: add in the ultra-high profile of Facebook right before its IPO, and you get a headline that writes itself:

General Motors Pulls Facebook Ads Right Before Facebook IPO

Lovely. If you’re GM, you have abandoned all logic and made a decision right when it would make the most negative news for you. (You also don’t score any “social business” points either.)

Binary Question:

Will making the about a $10 Million “savings” in ad spend be done at the most inopportune time that the damage to the brand will offset the savings?

I’m reminded of another little Binary Question that was actually quite big in the annals of the auto industry in the US…

Did you take bailout money?

If you don’t think THIS question is being asked time and time again by people looking for a car, think twice.

GM does deserve a little credit here – as they did say that the reason for their moving their ad spend off of Facebook is that “it isn’t helping them sell cars.” And we can surmise that this was a numbers-based decision of some sort.

Or was it?

Are there television ads? Radio ads? Newspaper ads? Are those selling cars?

Once again, the right binary questions – ones with yes or no answers – can make all the difference.

Do we need to maintain a presence on Facebook because those are the “table stakes” that will help us compete?

OR

Do we have something else up our sleeves that will be a more calculated marketing spend that will help us sell cars?

I want to think that GM is doing some of those SAT-style questions, like: “If Sally spends 10 million dollars in advertising but doesn’t measure the ROI of the advertising, how much is she wasting?”

Hang tight, here comes Exhibit C. Also from the automotive world.

Exhibit C: The Air Bag Light

We drive a Hyundai in Dave’s house. (Not IN Dave’s house, as that would be illogical.) We enjoy our Hyundai, but we don’t get warm fuzzies. It has been reliable, it’s a fine machine, etc., etc.

We took it in yesterday for a routine oil change AND to have them look at the “Air Bag” light. (Take a look over there.)

Hyundai Air Bag Light — Shouldn't be on...

It shouldn’t be on, and we want to know why it’s on. Leading us to the following exchange with the service person.

Service: “In order to find out whether the Air Bag light is covered under warranty, I’m going to need to charge you $120 to look at it.”

Me: “What?”

Service: “We need to know whether or not it’s covered, so we have to have an electrician look at it. The minimum service charge is $120. If it’s covered under warranty, you won’t have to pay the $120.”

Me: “No. Just the oil change.”

[Time passes. Oil Change complete. Time to pay for the oil change.]

Service: “The Air Bag light is probably covered under warranty. $120 is a standard charge. You can ask other service stations. I don’t want you to be upset.”

Me: “I’m not upset. I just want to know why I would be charged $120 to figure out whether or not it’s covered under warranty.”

I left upset.

Here’s the thing; and, again, this appears to be a rather binary question, or a series of binary questions:

Is the Air Bag light broken? (Yes or no.)

Is the Air Bag itself broken?

Is whatever is broken covered under warranty?

Even better – how bout offering to pull up my warranty information? You should have it right there. On your computer. Thanks.

Critical thinking. Snap judgments. Taking a step back and figuring out “if A, then B, A is bad, B is bad, let’s not do A.”

These are the types of logical decisions that aren’t happening at very rudimentary levels. And it’s symptomatic of a larger problem in business – in “Social Business” – that we’re all going to have to head off at the pass, lest we see some major trouble.

The Takeaway: Logic is Dead. And the “Social Business” might die, too.

In each case, logical thinking went by the wayside. In its place – old thinking. Formulae. “That’s not how we (used to) do it.”

In Timothy Ferriss’ brilliant “The 4-Hour Workweek,” he talks about a time he empowered his customer service team to take care of any problem that doesn’t cost him more than $200 to solve.

Where’s THAT thinking in these scenarios?

I’m not saying that you should put a dollar value on every big or little decision – what I am saying is that Mr. Ferriss’ focus on asking a very binary question – is this worth my time? – came about from first valuing his time and then thinking that his time had an actual dollar value, that dollar value was at least $200 an hour, and it made more sense to spend the money and use his time another way.

And the root cause here may be the Social Business Conundrum: How do you do what’s right, what makes sense, what’s logical, what you would want the other person to do (being “social” as in…the opposite of “anti-social”), when you have so many gosh darn polices and rules and crazy illogical thinking driving the organization you work for?

State Farm’s agent could have picked up the phone, called us, and tipped us off that corporate was trying to cancel our policy and they were going to fight it. They didn’t.

General Motors could have called Facebook Headquarters, said that they really want to work with them to maximize the money they spend on the platform, and they want to figure out how to do it better, faster, smarter. They didn’t.

Hyundai’s service guy could have said “hey, let’s see what your warranty does cover before we scare you away with mumbo jumbo about gambling your $120.” He didn’t.

Logic is Dead. Social Business: Dying with it.

May 10 2012

Can You Play Stick?

Does it sound like there’s a whole bunch of social media gabbing and not a lot of actual doing? Yeah. I think so, too.

Golfers Prepare to Play — Photo by oatsy40, used with Creative Commons license

There’s a phenomenal book from a few years ago – WARNING – NOT A SOCIAL MEDIA BOOK! – and it’s worth another look.

The book? Paper Tiger by Tom Coyne. [NOTE: I’m in Illinois and can’t make a red cent off of Amazon Affiliate Links; thus, there’s nothing in it for Area 224 if you buy that book or go to your library and check out a copy.] The subtitle of this book probably tells you a ton: “An Obsessed Golfer’s Quest to Play with the Pros.”

I won’t spoil the plot of the book – it’s a true story about the author and his handicap index and whether or not he can get a tour card. It’s a great read.

A Story with Social Media Parallels

There’s a ton of gabbing in social circles about who is great and who is awesome and who is killing it or crushing it. And if you were to believe everyone you follow, tweet with, are friends with or subscribe to – the economy should have no problem rebounding.

Which brings us to the story from Coyne’s book. About a young golfer who showed up for his first day on tour bragging about how he wasn’t nervous because he had already been a winner at every other level of his career.

Amateur Champion. College Champion. And so on, and so forth – this was nothing by comparison.

The story may be a little apocryphal – but, as Coyne explains in the book…

“As the story was told to me, it was Craig Stadler who wandered over to where the rookie was hitting balls and gave the young man a few quiet words of advice.

“‘You see the guy next to you, and the guy next to him? Every one of them, All-Americans…hell, some of these caddies were All-American…nobody here gives a damn if you’re All-American, or even if you went to college at all. All anybody here wants to know is…can you play stick?'”

Can YOU Play Stick?

There’s humble-bragging a plenty on the interwebs. It’s getting annoying – sorta like showing up at the tournament as a seasoned pro and having to listen to the guy brag about how he just won the college championship.

And the scary thing is – a good many of the braggers haven’t done anything of substance. They talk a good ballgame but, when it’s time to execute, they’re big on excuses – and small on actual work product.

Consider the precarious position of some social media types with no actual inside-the-ropes experience. (“Inside the ropes” being a golf term, as in…those inside the ropes are playing in the tournament. Those outside the ropes are spectators.)

They may have watched and reported on the business world from the get-go – and they may even have a blog with hundreds of subscribers, or a flirtatious Twitter presence that draws you into their lifestream.

But have they actually been inside the ropes?

AND, those who throw the darts at those who are “doing it wrong” may have never actually built something.

Organizational Dynamics On Tour

If you think pro golf involves showing up, hitting a bunch of balls, being awesome and winning tournaments – consider a good chunk of the behind-the-scenes stuff that has to happen. I’m not talking about practice, mind you. I’m talking about playing in the qualifier to make the US Open field. I’m talking about writing the letter asking for a sponsorship exemption so you can play in the smaller event.

I’m talking about being the type of tour pro who has a great time at the Pro Am – not because it’s required of him, but because he’s playing golf with some people that he truly wants to have fun playing golf with.

And the list can go on, and on.

Because word spreads.

Play Stick at the Office

We’re not asking for you to suck up to everyone you meet, hoping that there’s an eventual payoff. We’re not asking that you put in extra hours creating white papers that show that you know what it is you’re doing.

What we ARE saying is this:

There’s “table stakes” in business and life. Eventually, you will be found out as the person who is all hat, no cattle.

You might be bloody awesome at whatever it is that you do. Great. You know what we want to see?

Evidence. Of you being bloody awesome.

That’s All We Want To Know: Can You Play Stick?

May 09 2012

Real Work Takes Time

New to this site? We’d love for you to check out our book: Six Biggest Mistakes.

Photo by simpologist, used with Creative Commons license

The payoff of your online efforts is proportional to the amount of effort that goes into it.

Spend an hour working on your link-building, and get a few people to visit your site. Spend some spare time on launching a business – and get that sort of spare-time quality traffic.

And so on, and so forth.

No Shortcuts to Online Success

Here’s a for-instance: Let’s say you’re launching a blog called “New Frugality.” It’s not an overnight success, because it takes real time. Time for you to build relationships, time for you to get real quality content, time for you to carve out your niche.

We’re in our Fourth Month over at New Frugality HQ. And it’s taking some time to get over the hump – as expected.

But here’s the thing: we’re actually in this for the long haul.

The Tactics to Definitely Avoid

If you’re new to the online space – or you’re a veteran marketer but are just now getting into blogging – you can easily get sucked in to some shortcuts that are disguised as strategic moves. They’re actually just tactics that are kinda lame – and will end up giving you headaches as you build your online empire. And here are a couple:

1. The “Can I Guest Post?” Email

These can be great – and you need a healthy reliance on guest posting (as you will read in this awesome “Noob Guide” on the SEOMoz site). But we have had a few requests over at New Frugality that gave us some serious pause.

Quoting an email: “This is Jack…I went through your site while surfing in Google.com, am very much impressed with your site’s unique informations.”

AVOID.

We HAVE had some great guest posts on that site – but they came to us from legitimate people with legitimate social presence. (Hint: they had last names.)

2. The “Same Stuff, Different Site” Post

We have watched a couple bloggers of note make this mistake – and they may NOT be paying attention to words like “Panda” or “Penguin.”

“Penguin” is Google’s Algorithm Update. This controls search like nobody’s business. And this can affect your business like nobody’s business.

In brief, you can’t copy and paste content that you used on one site and put it on another site you own WITHOUT making changes to a good percentage of the text. (Estimates we’ve heard: 70% of the content can be the same.)

3. The Over-Reliance on Facebook Likes

“Engagement” by big brands on Facebook – that means how many times stuff the big brands say gets shared, commented on, or has the like button clicked – is as high as 0.2% in the auto industry, according to this report by “All Facebook.” (This study looked at “daily page engagement.”)

Wait. WHAT?

Ford is considered the industry standard for its social media presence – and they have 1,400,000 fans on Facebook. They should expect 4,200 of those fans to be engaged each day. A tiny number.

This isn’t to say that 4,200 is a BAD number for Ford.

But for you…that percentage of engagement multiplied by your number of Facebook fans (or people who click the like button) isn’t going to give you much. And the amount of time to get those fans – well, your efforts might be better spent elsewhere. Now, the last thing to avoid:

4. Posting Stuff That Isn’t Good

Chris Brogan had a great piece on this the other day – though we think the title of the post doesn’t match the content.

Upshot? Write Good Stuff.

Not everyone is an awesome writer – we get that. But that doesn’t mean that crap needs to be put on the page just to have the page filled. You’re not running a daily newspaper here – if you don’t have something good, productive, well-thought out, clever or (here’s that word again) “engaging,” don’t publish it.

Real Work – Online AND Off – Takes Time.