Live blogging this NAR session presented by Rudy Bachraty, Jeff Turner and Dustin Luther:
Starting with Skype IM and voice among the panelists.
Jeff: the ultimate goal of social media is real life meetings.
Question: Do you use SM to find and meet new people?
What is the best Social Network for business? Panelists agree – LinkedIn
Jeff: LinkedIn is purely business network – strength in being able to see downline stream. LI helps you meet people directly or through introductions.
Dustin: LI lets you see how other people are connected and how they are (indirectly) connected to you
Rudy: everyone wants to work with someone they know.
Jeff: whenever you join a network the first thing you should ask yourself how it relates to a real life situation. People try to turn social networks into something they are not.
Jeff: look at Facebook as your neighborhood.
Rudy: Facebook “is my little black book”, tip for Realtors – find classmates and renew connections.
Jeff: Social networks are a good medium for CRM (customer retention management)
Dustin: Effective uses of Facebook: personalized, ie: parents of children in daughter’s class. Ineffective uses: business oriented pages that don’t get to personal level.
Jeff: why is it hard for people to break out of using SM as an advertising medium instead of letting customers discover you? Rudy: find common connection – opportunities for business will arise without a hard sale.
Jeff: act in networking groups as if you were with the same audience in person.
Jeff: How do you engage in social networks without getting yourself in trouble? ie: pictures in profile.
Rudy: must be careful about how we engage.
Jeff: safety concerns – where am i willing to draw the line on how much information to share?
Jeff: prefers flickr for photo sharing – it is a social network centered around pictures – benefit is good indexing on Google. Jeff discussing effective uses of flickr for Realtors.
Dustin and Jeff on building relationships on flickr – good examples of inappropriate Realtor behavior using hard sale methods.
Use flickr to meet local people throug meetup groups.
Good discussion on reacting to negative comments about you on SM.
30 year Realtor giving his views on social media……..
Jeff: Social media groups must have value or no one will use them. Start online group with the same purpose as starting an offline group,
Jeff: social equivalent to Twitter is a party. You can engage or not. Just follow or interact. Act on twitter the same way you would act at a party or you will never engage the person in real life.
The key to twitter is understanding what is socially appropriate and what is not.
Rudy: uses the “Cheers” metaphor
Rudy: Meetup is a good place to find and engage people with similar interests locally – don’t mention you are a Realtor.
Jeff: If you can engage people successfully on twitter, you can engage them anywhere. There is always a need for face to face in business, especially real estate.
Rudy discussing syndicating through multiple social networks.
Jeff responds that you cannot be effective on lots of networks – need to focus on doing great in one or 2.
Objective: moving online conversations to in person conversations.
Find your passion and take it to the appropriate social network.