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Social Networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and others can be a great way to gain more clients. Contrary to popular belief, there are not just high school and college kids using these sites. From my MySpace friends list alone, 3 of them have bought and sold houses in the past year.
Here are some ways to make social networking work for you on a site like MySpace.com:
Create a Profile: Creating a profile on these sites is easy to do, even with little or no website or html experience. The sites provide step-by-step instructions, custom lay-out options, and more. To make your profile attractive, choose a simple color scheme. Fill out the About Me, Who I’d Like to Meet, Interests, and other forms to display on your page. Be sure to enter your zip code, school information, website link, and other networking information.
Beef Up Your Friends List: The best place to start adding friends is searching for old classmates from college or high school. Search for people by their email address or last name to find friends you may have lost touch with over the years. Next, search by age and zip code radius to find other friends and to eliminate anyone under the age 18. Don’t forget to look for other local businesses or other professionals to network with.
Post Interesting Bulletins: Bulletins are messages that can be read by everyone on your friends list. This a great way to share links to your listings, offer your services, or notify people of special events. Share a joke, recipe, video, story, news article, or other non-real estate info in between real estate posts so people will not be turned off by your bulletins. Do not post more than 2 bulletins each week. If you feel the need to write, start a blog on the site. Be sure that everything you post meets national and state advertising requirements, as well as your broker’s rules and the MySpace terms of service.
Check the Classifieds & Forums: MySpace free classifieds are one of the site’s best kept secrets. By checking these every few days you can potentially tap into meeting with many good people and gaining exposure for your listings. Networking groups also provide a good way to meet people.
Keep in Touch: Once you’ve added friends, it’s important to keep in steady contact with everyone on your list. Leave comments on their pages, send them personalized messages, and reply to their bulletins. Include your link on all outgoing messages and comments at the bottom so they will always be subtly reminded of your business.
Practice Savvy Internet Safety: Don’t share personal information or agree to meet someone unless it’s a public, well-lighted place. If something seems unusual, trust your instincts. No sale is worth jeopardizing your safety.
These tips will help you make the most of your social networking experience. Within a few months you should hopefully start seeing some results from very little effort.
4 Comments
I have been a member of myspace for roughly around 4 months and i have around 1000 friends. Most of them whom i don’t even know. But its a nice way to know new people and who knows among them one may want to sell their house and they could be your next client
In the past few years there has been a shift from just teens and young adults, to a wide range of ages and demographics on these particular social networks. These sites are no longer just a hip place for kids to hangout, and can be used successfully in many different ventures. Bulletins do work wonders, just be responsible with them. Spamming bulletins can get you in a bit of trouble, so do as the author suggests and limit the amount you create each week. Your post is right on the money.
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It can be a great way to get yourself out there – like I said 3 people from my myspace friends list alone have bought homes – and I don’t even have a huge friends list!
My real estate agent started using facebook to meet new clients–it’s a fantastic tool that most agents haven’t even thought of using (can you say untapped market?!)
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