In real estate the use of Web 2.0 technologies to connect with customers and to market yourself is becoming more and more of a common place. Here is a guide to the most popular venues for marketing yourself using social media.

Benefits of using social media

• Brand Awareness
• Lead Generation
• Event Promotion
• Customer Loyalty
• Blogging Platform
• Build Brand-Centered Community
• Local / Regional Focus

Myspace.com

Quick Statistics

• #3 most visited website in the world
• Over 300,000,000 registered users
• Averages 65-75 millions visitors daily
• Average users spends 25-35 minutes per day on the site
• 40.6% of it’s users are between 35 and 54

When using myspace.com first get the most direct keyword based to describe your business. If I was a real estate agent in Pasadena I would try to get myspace.com/pasadenarealestate or myspace.com/pasadenarealtor. This is important for you to have a keyword that you want to rank for and as you add content to the site you want it to rank well for that term.

Be sure to create a custom theme for your page. You can either download one of the many free templates or contact your website designer to have a custom theme built for you. When you are creating your theme be sure to include third party apps like slideshows of your properties from slide.com, use the music player to introduce your self to your audience, and add video tour of your properties or market updates to your page using youtube.com

Facebook.com

Quick Statistics

• #6 most visited website in the world
• Over 80,000,000 registered users
• Averages 35-45 millions visitors daily
• Average users spends 14-16 minutes per day on the site
• 50% of users over the age of 25

Facebook is one of the fastest growing social media websites online. It has brought many new concepts that are now being implemented by other websites. After you have created your profile be sure to use the following functions. Join and create as many group as you need to market yourself. Join your city, county, and regional groups. If you participate in a caravan create join or create a group for it. If there is not a group for open houses in your area create one and email out your group to other agents in the area. Use the marketplace to advertise your listings. Add your open houses or seminars to the events calendar.

The best part of Facebook is that they opened up the Facebook Platform which allows for website developers to write custom application for you to market on Facebook with. Like I tell many of my clients this allows you to do whatever you want as long as your check is good. So think outside the box and see what can happen.

ActiveRain.com

Quick Statistics

• Ranked 6,771 most visited website
• Over 85,000 registered users
• Averages 400-500k visitors monthly
• Average users spends 8-12 minutes per day on the site

ActiveRain is the largest real estate focused social media website. The basis for the site is blogging and commenting, where users earn points for post and comments. The more points you earn the higher your rank on the site. From my point of view there are not a lot of consumers on the site so take that into consideration when making posts.

Like MySpace, ActiveRain allow you to customize your profile, take advantage of it and brand your profile page.

Affiliates use ActiveRain as a way to establish yourself as a professional in your area and as a way to connect with Real Estate Agents. Agents use the site as a way to establish yourself as an Agent who goes beyond the minimal. Give other agents reasons why they should refer you business. Post your properties in your blog with lots of photos and a good description of the property.

Social Media Tips for the all of the websites

1. Fill out your profile completely add links to your personal website, your other social media profiles, and be sure to post all of your contact information
2. Post all of your listings, open houses, and seminars
3. Give your readers something to think about. Don’t just tell me what the evening news told me. Take the news and add your expertise to it.
4. Think of your posts as the 60 second elevator pitch for the topic.
5. You get out what you put into the sites. So participate in the conversation
6. It takes time to establish yourself on the sites so be patient and consistent.