Creating Visibility and Credibility
I likely utilize social media as prolifically as any commercial real estate professional in the country. However, the statement I am about to make might surprise you, “Social Media doesn’t create sales,” you do. However, social media is increasingly playing a role in the sales process.
CRE Is Not An On-Line Business
The reality is that people do not hire a commercial real estate professional over the internet. We all know that commercial real estate services is a relationship based business and in order to obtain new business from a prospective client, they will have to attain some level of trust in your capabilities and experience, as well as develop enough confidence that you can deliver a solution to their particular need.
The Importance of an On-Line Presence: Visibility and Credibility
What are the chances that anyone that is considering meeting with you to discuss your services is going to conduct an internet search to learn more about you and/or your company? Rewind back just a couple of years and all they would find is your profile on your company website that looks just like all the other hundreds of real estate professionals in your market. However, today with the growing use of social media among business professionals this is no longer the case.
“It does not matter, whether you have been cold calling a prospect for 2 years, met someone at a networking function or your best client referred you, at some point you are going to get “googled”.
The Tenant Advisor-Traffic Sources
Content Marketing Works
The value of social networking tools is that you can populate your social profiles with a plethora of self-created and curated marketing content that speaks directly to the typical pain points and solutions that your client’s are experiencing with their real estate requirements. In other words you can build tremendous credibility and when you do have that “face to face” meeting you can focus specifically on the prospective client’s challenges and issues rather than selling your experience and capabilities.
I stated earlier that social media does not create sales, but I should elaborate that I have obtained new clients and closed transactions with people who found me on the web, as well as companies who were referred to me by individuals that I have connected with on various social networks. In each and every case there was either a face-to-face meeting or an in-depth phone conversation. The cool thing was in each of these scenarios there was no selling of my experience or capabilities required as my credibility was already established. I was able to focus specifically on my the prospects specific real estate issues and potential solutions.
Today, people conduct online research before they purchase products or services. I want to have some level of control of what they find about me when they are looking for a tenant representative.
Coy,
Thank you so much for writing this. I love this topic!!! I cannot miss the opportunity to give one of my projects a plug, it that is okay? Well here goes…
That is exactly why we are working on theBrokerList.com project. It just seems so obvious that there is so much hassle to finding us due to the massive amount of groups, noise and subscription systems and costly directories. It is apparent we need something free for our industry to use that allows large firm brokers as well as independent brokers the same power to be found. Also, it provides someone who does not have the time or expertise to create a brand for themselves, as you have been able to accomplish. Most just cannot, nor will not do this. The idea is a simple pitch of whatever it is you want to pitch, your market, your expertise and your affiliations or designations. Then your digital portfolio gets complete by adding your current firm, URL links back to YOUR sites and listing links and Published Articles and SlideShares, LinkedIn, on and on. Now those accepted into theBrokerList (members) including mortgage brokers, attorneys, accountants, property managers and anyone else in our industry can contact you without your email address. On top of that, anyone, whether members of theBrokerList or the general public (those who do not want to join) can also search our list and find an expert via geography, expertise, property expert type, CCIM, SIOR or whatever they wish. There is no one place today on earth that collects us in one location for easy reference and that is vetted and credible. We maintain each profile has been filtered and reviewed so we can assure the person is part of our industry; if not, the profile is removed. For now, we are not offering automation with respect to removal, we are deleting profiles manually at this early stage, however, depending on our success, that may be programmed as automatic in the future. The HAVE feature was added due to request of users, but we are not gathering property data or listing data or selling data to anyone. It was a courtesy allowing our members a craigslist type timeline list of public messages. However, if you wish to identify key cre experts, you can message those cre brokers privately within the system. If they wish to block you, they simply click block future messages from you and those messages stop.
The name of the game is online digital portfolio/profile that is open and easy to access. With our integration with social media, people can tweet, like, google, LinkedIn or whatever to share your profile, firm profile or HAVE post and give you more exposure effortlessly. Today it is about transparency. For those confident cre brokers, give us a try. If you do not like it, simply log back in and delete your profile! Once deleted you can always come back, the door will be open for you!
Great post and I am happy to reprint this article and give you credit back to your site. Let me know as I love your work!
Thanks,
Linda
http://thebrokerlist.com
Great stuff Coy!