Social Media Marketing VS. Search Marketing

Social media marketing VS. Search marketing is something I feel is pretty vital to talk about with those of you who have your own real estate websites and blogs and are part of the many of different blogging communities available to real estate agents. I often see a lot of discussions related to “how much time per week do you spend networking online” and I’ve realized that for many new to this it can be pretty overwhelming and confusing.

Most agents with websites have grabbed the concept of social networking pretty easily – but search engine marketing can take quite awhile to effectively master.

While both are ways to drive traffic to your websites and hopefully result in increased business, there are major differences in how they affect not only the type of traffic you receive but also your bottom line when it comes to time and sales.

Let’s take a look at what each one is first:

Social Media Marketing is pretty much basically online networking. It’s like going to a chamber of commerce meeting except there’s no limit to the size of the room or number of members. You can go on a site like Facebook or Twitter and immediately connect with thousands of people who have related interests as you. In theory it’s a gorgeous concept – rather than attending long dull meetings to pass out business cards or making cold calls all day you can simply send a few messages rather easily.

We all know in real estate networking is the name of the game when it comes to meeting people and getting clients. If you don’t have a solid network chances are you won’t have much business coming your way naturally and effortlessly. There are plenty of different ways to capitalize on social networking, which we’ll probably save for a future post here on UpstartAgent.

Search Engine Marketing is a whole different beast when it comes to generating business online in my opinion. Rather than spending all of your time reading other people’s blogs and profiles, you’ll spend most of it doing significant keyword research and optimizing your personal website to become the #1 spot in the search engines for targeted traffic driving words like “real estate in ABC City” or “best real estate agent ABC city” and “sell house ABC city”. You won’t be too worried about posting to Twitter or whether you have a gazillion online friends. Rather than getting caught up in a popularity contest of sorts, you’ll be focused on making only 1 friend – Google.

There’s advantages and disadvantages to both methods. If you’re on the social networking bandwagon, then you’ll naturally be in a excellent position for people to feel comfortable with you in asking their real estate questions and visiting your site. As you build online relationships, people will feel like they know you – even if they’ve never really met you in person. They’ll come to trust you – and naturally when they choose it’s time to buy or sell a house they’ll likely reckon of you first.

The disadvantage to this is it can be time consuming. You could potentially spend all day in front of your computer leaving comments, making new friends, etc. etc. – and not see one solid sale as a result – or wait months before you finally interest a client.

Search engine marketing on the other hand is comparable to floor time. You might get anywhere from 10-100 people that stop by your website. Some of them are tire kickers, some of them are genuine potential clients. These guys are in the choice making process and doing research. The hard part of this is trying to rank in the first few listings on Google’s search result pages – and competition can be pretty fierce.

You can’t really say that one of these methods is better or worse than the other. Instead, you can only really look at them comparatively, and then choose what combination of using the two suits you best. Knowing the balance between them is what is going to make your online presence a success.

If you question me for my solid straight out opinion on what ratio of time you should spend on search marketing and social networking, my answer is this: Spend 80% of your time on search marketing, and the other 20% on the social stuff.

Obviously, not everyone will agree with me, and it’s right that may not even be the best solution for you. But, what I do know is that search traffic brings results if you can convert it effectively. Search traffic brings people who are ready to go right now – they are looking for answers and for solutions, and hopefully your website will offer it.

There is a reason but I reckon you should have that 20% of social networking – and that is you will need some online friends to ever get ahead in search marketing. Search engines rely on the amount of links you have pointed at your website to establish authority and trust – and having others online who freely and happily link to you will help you rank higher. Not to mention, I do genuinely value the ability to learn new things and meet new people online – you never know what you might stumble across.

What do you reckon? What are your thoughts regarding search marketing versus social networking online? Comments are always welcomed below.

P.S.- My next post will be all about helping you do better in search marketing. If you haven’t already you may want to Subscribe to Upstart Agent by Email to be told when it comes.