Social media has become an important part of marketing and customer service. A survey found that over 60% of Americans use social media, and over 70% research companies and make purchasing decisions based on others' social media experiences. The document provides an overview of various social media tools like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and their benefits for building brand awareness, reputation, and driving traffic to a website. It also discusses the importance of having a social media strategy and tracking results.
WHY should you care? Reputation Management – When you Google your name, Do you like what you see? The Society for New Communications Research surveyed 300 Internet users on the influence that social media has on customer care. Less than 33% believe that businesses take customers opinions seriously! 59.1% use social media to vent. 72.2% research customer care online 74% decide based on other’s shared experiences 81% believe online discussions provide consumers a greater voice
WHY should you care? Reputation Management – When you Google your name, Do you like what you see? The Society for New Communications Research surveyed 300 Internet users on the influence that social media has on customer care. Less than 33% believe that businesses take customers opinions seriously! 59.1% use social media to vent. 72.2% research customer care online 74% decide based on other’s shared experiences 81% believe online discussions provide consumers a greater voice
Why Should you Care? Reputation Management, When they Google your name, do THEY like what they see? A recent Cone survey shows: 60% of Americans engage in social media Of those, 93% believe that companies should be present in social media 85% think that the company should interact with its customers through social media
We’re going to introduce you to a few of the tools you need to have in your online tool box.
Let’s see a show of hands. Who knows what a blog is – and I may call on you so be honest! Who is currently running a blog of some sort? Of those, who has a blog specifically to help grow your business or sell a product or service? Let’s start at ground zero – What is a blog? It means a blog is anything you want it to be.
Heron Bay is an example of a new home, community-specific blog. They post articles about the community, events, info from the builders involved A local New Years event near the community was posted on the Heron blog. The story had 250 hits in 3 day period! If you have a large community, or a significant number of homeowners, a blog is a great way to involve them (get those referral #s up!) The more information on your communities that is “out there” the better your search engine results can be. AREF – is a VERY popular local real estate blog. It has VERY solid Search Engine Results (which Carol will talk about later) Look for local real estate Blogs in your area – just google “real estate blog – Richmond” for example to see if there are any around you The handout you received gives you a few resources for starting your own blog. The set up is fairly simple – and YES – you CAN do it yourself!
No question - Facebook is HUGE. Yes- it is mostly used as a personal connection site, but think of the possibilities when you are part of a site with 57 million active users!? That’s incredible! There is NO reason that you shouldn’t be on this site. Set up is easy – it is unfortunate that a business page HAS to be connected to a personal profile, but that’s the way it is – just for now hopefully. Bullets Let’s check out a few national builders that are using Facebook and doing it really well…
This is a Facebook page for DR Horton. They post photos of their communities, realtor events and discussions. The other page is for Pulte in Chicago. Here is a good example of using Facebook for a specific promotion. This is for their “Bring out the Griswalds” holiday lights contest . Pulte “netweaves” their Facebook page(s) with their Blog. Kathie will be talking more about netweaving a bit later, but basically their promotion is based on their blog and them cross promoted on the facebook page and through posts on Twitter – which Carol will discuss next. The contest was used to connect with current (and hopefully future) homeowners. There are other social networking sites like Facebook, that are geared specifically toward real estate that you might also want to check out like Active Rain, Trulia and Zillow. Now, I’m going to turn it over to Carol to introduce you to microblogging on Twitter.
Ok – so Dina mentioned how Pulte is using Twitter… Show of hands – who has heard of Twitter. Of those, who knows what a tweet is? Twitter is a microblogging site. It is basically blogging, but one sentence at a time. You have 140 characters in which to “tweet” to your “followers” what you are up to. Twitter has totally taken off, even more so in the last 3-4 months. In fact, it wasn’t even on our radar when we submitted this seminar to IBS a year ago. You wonder how can 140 characters help you sell homes? It is ALL about building relationships: With potential buyers, with real estate agents, with industry and subject matter leaders. They get to know you and they tell their friends and so on and so on… Serious Twitter users are pretty opinionated and particular, so do some research on protocols and best practices before you jump on. – this is also called “twittequette”
Lennar uses Twitter to “tweet” announcements and links to blog articles on their product and specific industry news. Pulte use Twitter in more of a social, relationship building sense – as they are a little more “chatty” with their followers. Two different and applicable approaches.
A great way to expand your online presence is to repurpose press releases for online distribution Include key words and anchor text where possible Increases SEO to website through social media optimization Some of our Favorites: NHDBuzz, PR.com, PRLog, PRZoom, PRWeb, etc. Do your research! Some PR sites are free, some require a membership fee and others you pay per release. PRnewswire and Businesswire – paid sites
Example of PR stories on the site for Bowen Family Homes. Reporters are constantly searching the Internet for stories. This is just one way to keep your name in front of them.
You Tube is a Video sharing network with user profiles and channels Allows consumers to see your homes and take a virtual tour Serves as video database for sites across the web Increases SEO and web presence - Google loves video Video camera called the flip $199 – easy to use and upload video
Here is the Highland Homes YouTube page – story about the agent that was an hour away and uploaded all the video.
Flickr is a photo sharing social media network with profiles for users or companies Allows you to easily load and share galleries of photos The site is owned by Yahoo, so it ranks high for Yahoo image search Increases SEO for Web sites – Google loves photos
Here are some examples of builders using flickr – Toll Brothers & David Weekly Homes Next we will go more in depth with case studies. Dina . . .
Why Should you care? Brand is built online. Marketing Sherpa asked advertisers where they planned to spend money in 2009. The biggest increases will be seen in Web 2.0 (social network marketing) – a 28% increase And email marketing with a stunning 34% increase