Houston Real Estate Blog

Where to Start with Social Media Networking Sites

September 1, 2010 | Posted by Darren Moore

As new technology emerges, real estate agents can get quickly overwhelmed. I am often asked by our newer agents what social networking sites they should join and whether they should be on all of them, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Well, my answer is, social media is not for everyone. You must make a commitment to yourself that you’ll keep it maintained and up to date. If you think you can create a page and then expect that your phone will start ringing off the hook with business, then I don’t recommend wasting your time and efforts.

Social networking sites are a great tool for prospecting, especially if you are just getting into the real estate business. But it requires hard work, time and persistence, just like anything else. Some real estate agents are very successful in generating business from social networking websites. Don’t feel that you need to be on every social networking site to be a successful agent. As a matter of fact, we have several real estate agents in our office who are very successful and do not belong to any of the social networking sites nor do they have their own website! However, according to REALTORS Magazine, 78% of Realtors are on the most popular social networking sites. As of today, Facebook has over 500 million active users! So there’s something to be said about that!

So, if you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and start using one of the social media networking sites as one of your prospecting tools, then the best strategy is to start out with one site and stay focused. Don’t get distracted by other technologies until you feel like you have mastered the first one. You’ll end up even more confused and frustrated if you try and do them all at once. I would personally recommend setting up a Facebook account, then creating a business page. Your business page will be the page that you will want to promote, not your personal page.

Next, what do you put on it, you might ask? Stay away from posting every listing you have or bragging about how good of a real estate agent you are, that’s a quick way to turn people off real quick and leave your fan page. That’s considered spamming these days! It’s okay to post your listings every once in a while, especially if you just got a huge price reduction or you have some interesting facts about your listing.

Provide informative and useful information. Engage your fans by asking a question. This will get people to respond. It doesn’t even have to be real estate related. However, don’t get too farfetched or get into politics, not a good topic. “KISI” Keep It Simple and Interesting. Also, another reason you’ll want to engage your fans is that when someone comments on your post, it pushes your post back up to the top of the news feed again.

After you have successfully built up your fan page and your fans are engaging with you, then you can pop the question in every now and then. “Hey, does anyone know someone who is looking to buy or sell a home in Houston? I found a great buy for a home that just came on the market in the River Oaks neighborhood”. Now you are more likely to get a response from someone because they’ve been engaged on your fan page.

Remember to stay focused on one site and do it very well until you feel that you have mastered it. Don’t get overwhelmed with technology, just take it one step at a time and you will do very well with getting new business.

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How Much Page 1 Google Real Estate Do You Own?

August 27, 2010 | Posted by Michelle Sandlin

Can you say that you own page 1 of Google for search results on your name? I can! And if your answer is also “yes,” then you must be doing all kinds of right too! I cannot over-emphasize the importance of this to your business and your personal brand. For example, I have worked very hard to make sure that my name is synonymous with Houston Relocation. This didn’t happen over night, but over a series of many sleepless nights, week after week and month after month.

As a bi-product of my efforts, my name has also become synonymous with Social Networking. If you are friends with me on Facebook, connected to me on LinkedIn, follow me on Twitter, read my Houston Relocation Blog, etc., then you know what I am talking about. I am out there posting, commenting, linking, following, blogging literally all the time. Of course it helps that I am an insomniac, as I often do most of these activities during the wee hours of the morning…thus the idea of many, many sleepless nights.

To read more, click on: Houston Relocation Blog

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iPhone App is coming to the Houston Real Estate Market

August 18, 2010 | Posted by Darren Moore

Over the last year iPhones and Androids have really taken a powerful leap and are becoming more popular among real estate agents. Technology is growing in the mobile market. About a year ago 68% of our agents were using BlackBerries. Today I can say that 45% of our agents are on BlackBerries. More and more agents are turning in their BlackBerries in for an iPhone or Android. Our agents say they like the larger screen size and that the functions are more intuitive than the BlackBerries. Not only that, there are many more apps available for the iPhone and the Android. Also, our website statistics show that we receive over 1,000 hits a month from the iPhone, iPad and Android. 1 year ago we had only 150 hits a month! So there is definitely a growing trend going on here.

Houston Association of Realtors has announced plans to release an app to the consumer and for realtors. They currently going through the process of getting it approved by Apple. Apple has tightened up their guidelines considerably for approving new apps. No more are the days of paying $500 and getting your app published in the App Store. So far from what I’ve seen of their app it is pretty impressive. You’ll be able to bookmark listings, search for homes for sale in Houston that are near you, conduct a Houston real estate map search, save history searches and much more. Can’t wait to see it in action!

As technology evolves in the real estate industry, we know that we must stay ahead of the game by providing our clients and website visitors the latest tools and trends in technology that will provide them with the best service. Technology plays an important role at John Daugherty, Realtors. We have been working on some top secret projects that we are about to introduce that will provide better service to our clients and website visitors.

Stay tuned!