Monday, December 10, 2012

Excuse Me! Five Social Media Faux Pas

Social media continues to be a great way, though not the only way, to create relationships and business opportunities. Like face to face contact, we have to make sure our message comes across sincerely. Nobody likes it when our friend invites us out for coffee or lunch to just pitch a product. The same insincerity comes across on social sites as well.

Watch out for social media faux pas in your online marketing plan:

  • Outsourcing your social media The first word of social media is social. Keep it that way. Use your source sites to interact with your friends and customers. Have fun and show your personality. It isn't easy to do that when you give someone else the responsibility of posting for you. A compromise would be to let others research, gathering data and articles, and then posting yourself. Use a site like www.hootsuite.com to maximize your posting instead of delegating posting to others.
  • Automating responses "Hi. Thanks for following me. I look forward to sharing with you valuable information." Yikes!! Thanks< Mr. Automatron.
  • Syncing social media sites Different sites have different nuances so let them stay unique. It may save time to post once and sync so the same message populates to all other sites but the rules change from site to site. Facebook users can spot a Twitter post a mile away so why not #keepitonTwitter.
  • Promoting listings only As far as I can tell, very few people use social sites to look for real estate. So perhaps bombarding your friends, followers, and connections with just listings isn't the best way to go. Instead, brainstorm a list of topics and key ideas that your friends would like to learn and hear from a real estate agent about. Using "How to's" and other informative posts will endear while just advertising may drive friends away.
  • Being a broken record I haven't forgotten that interest rates are low. Yes, I know NOW IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY. I get it. Do you have anything else you want to tell me? If not, I might quit paying attention to you. Consider this instead. What group of people do you want to attract? What information do they need from you? Look at you from their perspective. With a variety of information, you'll stay relevant.
Yes, we sell real estate. But isn't our job really to represent the best interest of our clients? Are there other faux pas that I'm missing? Let me know.

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