Realtor Marketing Tech 101 | Getting Back to the Basics
What is your marketing plan for getting leads online? Do you have a plan?
Well before you start building websites and squeeze pages or paying for Facebook pay per click ads you have to have your basic online marketing activities in check. Think of this article as your guide for the “Back to the Basics” in online marketing. When practicing real estate it’s easy to get side-tracked from your lead generation activities. Consistent Lead Generation is the single most important activity that any successful Realtor must successfully deploy. Without it, all of your knowledge and experience as a Realtor will not help any buyers/sellers if you have none to work with.
Realtor Marketing Tech 101 | Online Professional Profiles for Realtors
Step 1: You must create and fully utilize Free social media and professional profiles online. These profiles are all FREE to use and will only cost you the time required to set them up. Obviously your time is money, but once created you’ll only need to keep these profiles updated.
Why are your online profiles so important?
Most buyers & sellers begin to search for homes, information, property valuations, and Realtors ONLINE. This is more than a simple trend, it’s REALTY in today’s online world of real estate. Today’s buyers and sellers are more informed and have no problem going online to gather the information they need. As a Realtor, we must make our information completely available everywhere possible online. We need to make it easy for a prospective buyer/seller to seek us out. Furthermore, when a prospective clients does find us online we need to provide them with every bit of information allowable by that online profile.
This is the easiest step and one that a lot of Realtors do not completely fulfill. Every online profile you create should have all of your information, pictures, websites links, reviews, video links, etc… Every field that is possible to fill out should be filled out. It’s that easy, there is no “technical know-how” required here. Below is a list of your Basic online profile which should be completely filled out.
- Realtor.com: Complete your profile and link your listings to your profile.
- Trulia.com: Complete your profile and link your listings to your profile. Make sure to begin getting reviews from clients to post. Engage in discussions via the Trulia blog and make contributions.
- Zillow.com: Complete your profile and link your listings to your profile. Make sure to begin getting reviews from clients to post. Engage in discussions via the Zillow blog and make contributions.
- Yelp.com: Complete your profile and get reviews.
- Google Places (if you have a physical working address): Complete profile and get reviews.
- Facebook – Personal Page: Make sure to have your work info (phone, email, website) in your personal profile.
- Facebook Fan Page: Make sure it’s linked to your Personal Facebook Page, with all of your contact info.
- Linkedin: Complete your profile and begin extending your network. You should engage 10 minutes per week increasing your connections via Linked In. If you blog or write articles make sure to post them to your Linkedin Profile.
- YouTube: Once you have some profile videos of yourself available and property videos you will need to create your Youtube page.
- Google Plus: Complete your profile and extend your circles/groups.
- Pinterest is quickly becoming a social media site that users are gravitating towards in huge numbers. There is a way to use this as another vehicle for online lead generation.
- Twitter: OPTIONAL, if you have completed filling out FULLY the above mentioned profiles and are already utilizing Video and Effective Facebook Posts then you can twitter!!!
Use this list for your own checklist in creating your online profiles. Remember that creating your online profiles alone will not bring in a steady stream of buyer/seller leads, but it is the first step to building your online presence and creating an online lead generation marketing plan.
If you have more questions about setting up your online accounts please check out our other blog posts or contact me directly.
Thanks for the info George! I appreciate your time and efforts in bringing us up to speed on social media.
Thank you Shirlene, I’m glad you liked the articles, I have more coming soon, right now we are working on doing a Pinterest tutorial for this week.
Sounds interesting – please keep me posted.
What’s up, everything is going nicely here and ofcourse every one is sharing facts, that’s genuinely excellent, keep up writing.
This was really helpful. Thank you!
Your welcome Kirsten. I have a ton of more material I’m working on to put into the blog. If you have any questions please feel free to ask, and this week I’m having a live call going over a lot of this stuff. Hope to see you on it.
George
Geroge – Thank you so much for taking the time to post this valuable information. I find I have only done a small portion of what needs to be done to properly attract online leads. My concern, like Dee’s, is appearing professional and being selective in who I connect with, due to scams and undesirable character references. I am not well versed in social media so any assistance you can offer in this area will be appresiated. I look forward to your next post!
Hola Shirlene, and thank you for your comment. I believe your are correct to have some concerns about undesirable character references and possible scams. Realtors, should always use proper judgement when deciding to take on a new client, this should take place at the very initial phase. You would always employ the same safety protocols that you should already be using if it were a call coming into the office or a walk in. When it comes to bad reviews, you almost have to expect that one will be out there on you. There always seems to be that one unhappy client, no matter how hard you worked for them. However, a series of positive reviews will always demonstrate to most viewers that the one negative review out there on you must be something out of the norm. Embrace the way things are moving online, but still apply the same common sense measures you use in your current day-to-day business.
Sincerely
El Gaupo
Thanks George for all that helpful information. Do you have a blog that discusses what we should or should not put into our profiles. I’m wanting to stay professional and I’m always conscience of what I say and who I connect with. Any help is accepted!
Hola Dee, thanks you for your comments. I’m actually in the process of creating a series of step-by-step videos on filling out these profiles, also including, material like what to put in place. Really, what you want to start out with is the basics. Include all of your contact info, place a profile picture, fill out your bio with short and accurate info. Also, some of these profiles like Zillow and Trulia will allow you to place video on your profile, which is another great way to get yourself out there. If you have anymore questions feel free to email me at george@agentredefined.com.
Sincerely,
George “El Gaupo” Cuevas