{"id":13086,"date":"2010-08-26T11:41:45","date_gmt":"2010-08-26T18:41:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=13086"},"modified":"2010-08-26T12:18:49","modified_gmt":"2010-08-26T19:18:49","slug":"prospecting-your-way-to-prosperity-with-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/13086\/prospecting-your-way-to-prosperity-with-social-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Prospecting Your Way To Prosperity With Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most real estate agents and mortgage loan originators don’t know how to find business.\u00a0 I fear that some of the social media strategies I’ve shared have morphed into a\u00a0 “build it and they will come” approach to business development.\u00a0 Greg Swann did a nice job of identifying this problem when he said that time spent on social media marketing is wasteful<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cMarketing\u201d by social media is a huge waste of time. Selling<\/em> is one-on-one, focused, time-consuming and goal-directed. Marketing,<\/em> done properly, is broadcast, diffuse, time-efficient and passive and long-term in its goal-pursuit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He’s absolutely correct.\u00a0 The time investment required, to keep your social media current, never pencils out if you want to make six figures annually.\u00a0 You will get some results but trust me when I tell you that you could have equaled or bested those results by handing out business cards at the swap mart (and yes, I’ve done that, too).\u00a0 Here’s where his opinion gets a bit murky, though:<\/p>\n

Even if you are really doing your best to market your services on-line, if you are doing it by engaging people one-on-one in fleeting media like Twitter or Facebook, you are almost certainly wasting your time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That, I can tell you from experience, is only partly true.\u00a0 Using social media to prospect can be exponentially more effective than cold-calling or handing out business cards at a swap mart because of the rich information users provide.\u00a0 People buy from people they trust and connections help to build trust more quickly.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I’ll come back to this later but it helps to understand the difference between marketing and prospecting as lead generation tools.<\/p>\n

Greg’s working definition of marketing (op. sit.) is a good one.\u00a0\u00a0 The long-term benefit of marketing is that it is scalable.\u00a0\u00a0 Online marketing, especially blogging, can be a workhorse, which generates inquiries from prospects for as long as the information is relevant.\u00a0 The hour investment in a well-written blog post can attract tons of inquiries over time (I have a few blog posts that perform that well).\u00a0 Likewise, a consistent display advertisement in the town’s weekly newspaper can trigger you to “top of Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most real estate agents and mortgage loan originators don’t know how to find business.\u00a0 I fear that some of the social media strategies I’ve shared have morphed into a\u00a0 “build it and they will come” approach to business development.\u00a0 Greg Swann did a nice job of identifying this problem when he said that time spent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[325,212,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13086","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-crm","7":"category-flourishing","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2519,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2519\/ahem-your-goal-is-not-weblog-traffic-your-goal-is-converted-sales\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":0},"title":"Ahem: Your goal is not weblog traffic, your goal is converted sales","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 20, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It might seem like I'm shouting up the drain pipe, but I'm not talking to Dustin -- I'm talking to you. If you were selling a viral product like Skype, where for every 10,000 people with a casual interest in your product, one will turn into a paying customer --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8332,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/8332\/the-goal-of-the-bloodhoundblog-unchained-training-conference-is-to-push-the-bums-out-of-the-real-estate-business\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":1},"title":"The goal of the BloodhoundBlog Unchained training conference is to push the bums out of the real estate business","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 9, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This from my Arizona Republic real estate column (permanent link): We publish a national real estate industry weblog called BloodhoundBlog.com. There are 42 contributors from all over the country, each one an expert in his or her own right. Together we talk about real estate marketing and technology, lending and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Flourishing"","block_context":{"text":"Flourishing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/flourishing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1997,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1997\/oh-good-grief-he-went-to-jared\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":2},"title":"Oh, good grief! He went to JARED…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Joel Burslem cites a Glenn Kelman quote from a comment to John Cook's post this morning, but I think this one is more interesting:By the way, no matter how many times the real estate industry insists that we're JARED (Just Another Real Estate Discounter) we can't help but add that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12248,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/12248\/video-killed-the-real-estate-star\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":3},"title":"Video Killed the Real Estate Star…","author":"Sean Purcell","date":"June 14, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I love\u00a0marketing.\u00a0 I love the opportunity presented by a brand new marketing campaign to be creative and stand out\u00a0from the day-to-day noise of everyone else.\u00a0\u00a0Unfortunately, most agents don't share my zeal for marketing.\u00a0 At least, I assume they don't; how else to explain the mind-numbing dreck I see every day.\u00a0\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1145,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1145\/first-russell-shaw-sales-success-seminar-eclipses-goals-by-33\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":4},"title":"First Russell Shaw Sales Success Seminar eclipses goals by 33%","author":"Greg Swann","date":"March 14, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We scheduled the room for four hours, but Russell Shaw was convinced we could only manage to fill three hours. Instead, he spoke from 6 pm to 9:58 pm, exceeding his own goal by 33%. In a night dominated by discussions of goals, goal-setting and goal-achievement, it was an impressive\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Marketing"","block_context":{"text":"Marketing","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/marketing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1410,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1410\/truliacom-versus-zillowcom-revisited-are-your-end-users-temporary-or-permanent\/","url_meta":{"origin":13086,"position":5},"title":"Trulia.com versus Zillow.com revisited: Are your end-users temporary or permanent?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"May 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"This is me last month, at the time of the Zillow.com's most-recent software release:In the world of Trulia.com -- and other listings.bots focused on evanescent listings -- users come and go. On the idealized Planet Zillow, users come and stay. 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