Q: Everyone is using social media platforms. How have the rules changed on traditional marketing? How do you build a successful marketing program on the web?
The choices for marketing and public relations look a lot different than the old days. In the past, real estate agents could stick a for sales sign in the front yard and the phone calls would pour in. House hunters spent the weekend at open houses looking for a place to call home. Today, most industries, not just homebuilding, have to be me more creative in driving traffic to their products. Social media has become the new kid on the block that everyone wants to befriend. Because of a struggling economy and the evolution of technology in the 21st Century, we now have new online media avenues like blogs, social networking, and online forums that have homebuyers literally hanging on to the edge of their keyboards to take it all in. The web is the perfect opportunity to tell the world about your expertise. If you have not dove into the social media world, now is the time.
Understanding Social Media
Pulling a dusty encyclopedia from the family study was the old school way to research a topic unfamiliar to you. Now, we bring a cup of coffee into our home office and surf the web. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia with constantly updated definitions.
Wikipedia defines Social media as online content created by people using highly accessible and scalable publishing technologies. At its most basic sense, social media is a shift in how people discover, read and share news, information and content. It’s a fusion of sociology and technology, transforming monologues (one to many) into dialogues (many to many) and is the democratization of information, transforming people from content readers into publishers. Social media has become extremely popular because it allows people to connect in the online world to form relationships for personal, political and business use.
Sound overwhelming? Take it slow. Spend time researching blogs and online forums in the homebuilding industry. Some good ones to follow are topbuilderblogs.com, and themartellexperience.com/blog/.
Writing Effective
The number one rule in marketing and public relations in the homebuilding industry is to understand the needs of the homebuyer and communicate your expertise. Think about the message you want your niche industry to hear. Writing is not a bunch of strung together adjectives that make a house sound pretty. It’s about giving the homebuyer what they want in digestible nuggets relevant to their desire to build or buy a home.
Blogs are powerful mediums in establishing connectivity because you can get instant feedback after a blog has been posted. Blogs are meant to drive action and what better way to convince someone to take that step than having the ability to respond instantaneously. Writing a blog is one of the most proactive solutions to fighting the negative mainstream media on the housing industry. You can offer custom-friendly answers to any issue that is currently flooding the market. If a newspaper columnist has written a negative piece about the down market, have your sales team put together numbers that prove otherwise in your company. Always be first and always be credible. Blogs should be well thought out communication tools not last minute thoughts thrown together. Communication is power and opting for plain language as opposed to standard industry jargon goes a long way.
Getting Followers
Building an audience for your social media efforts can be exhausting at first and it may be easy to get discouraged just understand it takes time. People need to know where to find your relevant posts. It’s best to create links to your hompage, online news room, post to your Twitter and Facebook accounts and work into online newsletters. People are even beginning to put their social media information on business cards and in their e-mail signature.
Blogs, tweets and Facebook posts should be done on a daily basis on topics of industry interest with your personality incorporated into the mix. Homebuyers like to do business with people they know and trust. Everyone including the media, homebuyers, homebuilders and your competition is on the web reading social media content.
Consistent and regular social media updates produce higher traffic with solid search engine results. Tracking your social media efforts can be done by setting up free Google alerts. An e-mail will be delivered to your inbox when the key words you have selected are published.
Once you have built a following base, you want to keep them, so ensure you are interacting with those who send you direct messages to your Twitter account or posts responses to your blog entry. Etiquette also says to follow those who are following you within reason and reply to posts in a timely fashion. Someone in your marketing department should always been monitoring your social media accounts.
Social media can be scary because there are so many unwritten rules to follow. Relax. Do your research and put together a plan of action. It may be hard to hit the send button on your first blog entry or tweet post, but once you start the rewards are plentiful.
