Social media & Real estate

When I started this blog in 2005 there were not many Realtors using blogs or social media of any kind for business and the most popular social networks did not get started until after 2005 but when they did I signed up.  It wasn’t until sometime in 2008 that I really started finding friends neighbors and even clients on the popular social networks and in the last couple of years I am finding more local real estate agents on the networks too.

When I market homes I use the internet heavily and advertise every where that I can.  In general sites like Facebook and Twitter are mostly useless to me for the direct marketing property but I continue to experiment with them and I have a business page on facebook.

Most serious buyers work with a  real estate agent.  If I let local agents know about homes for sale that helps.  House hunting isn’t something most people  do all that often and buyers need to look at as many homes as they can and  will need to search beyond their social circle.  Social networks are more useful for finding an agent to work with than they are for finding a home.

Using social networks is a natural for real estate agents and the real estate industry because real estate is a people business.   In fact I don’t see how an agent can be successful without using the internet for marketing.  After all of these years the  Minnesota department of commerce has taken an interest in how we use social media.  They regulate the real estate industry and can regulate how we use social media.  They are watching closely these days and seem to feel the need to do some more regulating.