How I learned to use Social Media and incorporate it into my current position as a Mortgage Lender. Explained the social media sources used, roadblocks along the way, as well as my personal insight and resolutions.

1. Final Project Selection
and Problem Solving
Framework
BY AMY SCHMOLDT

2. Where do I start???
Project
Choice
Problem to solve?
Target
Audience?
Most useful
methods?
Focal
Point?
Website?
Blog?

3. Homebuyer 101 Theme
One-stop
shop for
information
Using my expertise
Buyer contributions
Industry contributions

4. Why did I choose Homebuyers for the subject and
why use Social Media to reach out?
 “Generation X (individuals born between 1960 and 1980) made up 31 percent of the
home buyers in 2013.”
 “Generation Y (individuals born between 1980 and the early 2000′s) accounted for 28
percent”
 “Younger Baby Boomers (individuals born between 1955 and 1964) accounted for 18
percent”
 “Today’s home buyers also do their own research”
 “Generations X and Y use technology all the time, so it only makes sense that they
would use technology to search for homes and research what they want. Young buyers
are usually very in-the-know about local home prices and already know which homes
they want to visit.”
 Source: Home Creations(2014). Homebuying Trends and Statistics for 2014. Retrieved from
http://www.homecreations.com/blog/2014/03/04/home-buying-trends-statistics-2014/All rights
reserved.

5. How would homebuyers benefit from
by viewing my project?
• Share Experiences
• Ask (and Answer) Questions – Contribute to discussions
• Collect information from local professionals in the Industry
• Lenders
• Realtors
• Title Companies
• Moving Companies
• Home Inspectors and Appraisers
• Insurance Agents

6. Social Media Choices???
o Target Market/initial audience-builder – Facebook
o Ability to share ideas and start conversations – Wordpress Blog
o Feed relevant Mortgage and Home Market news into Blog –Twitter
o Collect professional audience and contributors – LinkedIn
o Demonstrate process of applying online for a loan (or to demonstrate
pertinent things in the future) – Screencast-o-matic
o With using Facebook and Blog pages, I can tell its effectiveness by reviewing
analytics and contributions from the audience (posts).
o The goal was to feed all social media audience users to
the blog page and/or Facebook page

7. The First Roadblock:
Setting up the Blog page…
Wrote a post… Lost the post!
 After navigating for 40
minutes, I found that
there was a dashboard
with different options.
One of the options was
to save drafts, which
was saved (and I didn’t
even know it!).

8. FACEBOOK
Capture Audience?
Increase Visibility?
Feed to Blog?

9. Facebook Community:
A Group or a Page?
 After developing a Group on
Facebook, and inviting almost 50
Facebook friends to follow it, I quickly
found that a Group cannot feed into
my Blog page. Therefore, I had to
revise my Group into a Page. A Group
cannot be ‘converted’; I had to start
over. I created a page, invited almost
100 friends to ‘Like’ my page, and was
able to link the feed of the page to
my blog page.

10. Twitter!
Retrieve useful information?
Quick references?
Trustworthy?

11. Twitter – follow and be followed!
Pages
Followed
Mortgage News
Rate Activity
Realtor/Homebuying
As a result of
following a few
pertinent pages of
information (to feed
to my blog page), I
acquired new
followers to my
Twitter account!

12. Screencast-
o-matic
Download software
Timing/creation of video
Permissions/branding issues and
questions

13. Video Creation and
Permissions/Legalities
After creating a sample video, I forwarded it
to my employer, asking what the legal
process was to use a demonstration video
from their website. I learned that there is a
process to reviewing the video through
compliance, security, and
Marketing/Branding before obtaining
permissions. This was completed, however,
timing was a factor with completing this task!
It is NOT a quick process!
Employer’s website demonstration

14. One more problem…
my video will not upload!!!
 After several attempts,
my format of the video
did not agree with the
Wordpress blog site.
Therefore, I uploaded it
onto my Facebook
page, which feeds into
my blog page.

15. Let’s Take a Look:
Facebook Page: Homebuyer 101 (and incorporated my video from Screencast-o-matic):
Facebook
Wordpress Blog: Southeast WI Homebuyer Guide:
Southeast WI Homebuyer Guide | Homebuyer info you need, under one roof!
Personal LinkedIn Page:
Amy (Justman) Schmoldt | Assistant Vice President - Mortgage Lending | LinkedIn
hit down arrow next to the Edit button in profile, view recent activity for blog post
Personal Twitter Page:
https://twitter.com/

16. Problem Solving:
WHAT PROCESSES DID I USE TO SOLVE
PROBLEMS???

17. “
”
Just do it…
I began learning initially by watching a YouTube video of subject matter to learn
things during our first 2 classes. However, I found that my best method of learning is
by experience. I tried new things and failed (on many occasions), but learned NOT to
make the same mistake twice! I did not learn Wordpress, Twitter, Facebook or
Screencast-o-matic by a video or someone showing me – I jumped right in and took
the challenge!
SLOGAN FROM NIKE

18. Can anyone use the Homebuyer 101
Facebook Page and Blog site?
 Anyone can use the chosen media sites, as long as they
have:
Internet access (such as Internet Explorer, Google
Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera, etc.). I personally used
Internet Explorer for the entire project.
Keyboard/mouse to type questions and responses
Some development of these sites included the need to
download the latest version of Java.

19. In Summary…
 Since I currently do not hold a training position within a company, I felt that
training my current position’s target audience was best suited for this project.
 After working in the field for several years, I found that my clients routinely ask
the same questions, and were always pointed to different websites or vendors
to acquire the information.
 Wouldn’t it be GREAT to have it all in ONE place?
 Wouldn’t it be GREAT if it were accessible by everyone with internet access?
 Hopefully, this project will expand on a larger scale.
Any questions?