I gave a social media talk to some realtors yesterday. They were attentive, energetic, and really seemed to get what I was telling them, which (briefly, but of course it’s more complicated) was to focus on relationship-building narrative. As I told Jay Drayer on Facebook, best question I had was from a woman who worked mostly with investors,
and was concerned how casual her online persona could be without
potentially turning investors off. We discussed the importance of
authenticity, and balancing professional with personal online. Broad agreement in the room that authenticity is important and it’s okay to reveal your “secret identity.”
Realtors are thinking about social media, and they totally get that overt advertising is inappropriate in a social media space. They’re social all day long, and they generally know how to expose their expertise without flashing the real estate banner. Their challenge is to find time to be social outside their business-focused conversations, building relationships that won’t necessarily lead directly to business. It takes time and exploration to build an authentic presence, a social life online, that’s also business-relevant. Even experts in this space are still getting the hang of it, still learning.
