social media guide for real estate mike lyon

8/9/2019 Social Media Guide for Real Estate Mike Lyon

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SOCIAL MEDIA GUIDE

for REAL ESTATE

MIKE LYON



Copyright © 2010 by Mike Lyon

First Edition

www.doyouconvert.com

All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced, stored in a

retrieval system, or transmitted in whole or in part in any form or by any

means - electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise -

without prior written permission of Mike Lyon.

Edited by Sue Publicover

Cover design by Lucia Lento www.dropdeaddesign.com

Printed in the United States of America

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Library of Congress Catalog Number: Pending

ISBN Pending



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To my beautiful family. Cori, Scott and Nate – you give me the best

memories to post on Facebook. I love you.



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Contents

INTRODUCTION: Selling Real Estate in the Digital World ....... V

PART ONE: WEB 2.0: THE NEW FACE OF REAL

ESTATE MARKETING.............................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1: Social Media: What Is It and

Why Does It Matter? ................................................................... 2

CHAPTER 2: Today’s Homebuyer: Who They Are,

What They Want and How They Find It .................................. 7

CHAPTER 3: Something Old, Something New:

How to Marry Traditional and New Media for

Bliss-Filled Lead Generation ..................................................... 11

CHAPTER 4: The “You” Brand .............................................. 15

PART TWO: BLOGGING FOR BUSINESS ........................... 19

CHAPTER 5: What IS a Blog? ................................................. 20

CHAPTER 6: Now What Do I Do? ....................................... 24



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CHAPTER 7: Asking For and Managing Comments .............. 29

PART THREE: CONNECTING WITH SOCIAL

NETWORKS .......................................................................... 34

CHAPTER 8: Social Media: So Many Choices,

So Little Time ............................................................................ 35

CHAPTER 9: Facebook: It’s Kind of a Big Deal .................... 40

CHAPTER 10: LinkedIn: Your Professional Network ........... 50

CHAPTER 11: Twitter: It’s not Just for Kids .......................... 56

CHAPTER 12: Viral Visuals and YouTube & Flickr ................ 63

CHAPTER 13: Get Smarter. Lose the “Dumb” Phone ......... 70

CHAPTER 14: Social Networking Efficiency ......................... 73

PART FOUR: STRATEGY ...................................................... 77

CHAPTER 15: Think Before You Tweet:

Creating a Social Media Strategy .............................................. 78



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CHAPTER 16: If You Can Hear Yourself Talking,

It’s Time to Shut Up.................................................................. 83

CHAPTER 17: Social Media Etiquette .................................... 86

CHAPTER 18: Where to Be Seen .......................................... 90

CHAPTER 19: Just Show Up .................................................. 94

APPENDIX 1: How to Set Up Your Blog ................................... 98

APPENDIX 2: Spreading the Word About Your Blog ............. 103

ABOUT THE AUTHOR............................................................ 108



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Introduction: Selling Real Estate in the

Digital World

I’m hearing everyone in the business world talking about being in the

“relationship business”, like it’s a life-altering phenomenon that has

just emerged. Maybe that’s the case in the corporate culture, but for

those of us in real estate, we’ve always been in the relationship

business. We are masters at courting the sale and cultivating a

relationship with the customer. The purchase of a home comes from

the buyer having a strong degree of trust in the agent, and that

doesn’t happen in a day.

Being a success in real estate selling is all about the Three R’s:

Recognition, Relationship, and Referral. That hasn’t changed and I

doubt it ever will, since the purchase of a home is usually the biggest

investment a person will make in a lifetime. But the path to claiming

results from the Three R’s has taken a sharp detour. Your traditional

marketing methods, like ads in the real estate showcase magazine,

have been shoved aside. The newspapers that you relied on to

feature your listings in the classified section are shutting down their

presses and closing their doors, because people aren’t reading

newspapers anymore—at least, not in the printed version.



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Life, marketing, and sales, as you knew it, are now orbiting around the

internet and new media. Your prospects are searching online for

properties. They’re reading blogs and they’re engaging in

conversations with their friends on social networks, like Facebook and

LinkedIn. These prospects are relying on their connections to provide

advice on where to buy, what to look for, and which agent to use.

Wouldn’t you love to be part of this conversation—or at least be able

to influence it?

The great news is, you can—and you should. The reasons are

mounting:

Facebook has surpassed 400 million registered users.

Twitter’s worldwide reach totals about 75 million people.

LinkedIn connects a community of 70 million professionals.

There are about 200 million blogs out in the blogosphere and

31.9 million bloggers

71% of active online users read blogs

And all of these numbers keep climbing!

It’s time to jump into the social media community. In this book, I’ll

give you step-by-step guidance for navigating this brave, new world.

You’ll learn how to get started, discover a few insider tricks, get some



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ideas on what to say once you’ve joined groups, and end up with an

invaluable road map to success in social networking.

Let’s get moving and see what all the buzz is about.

DISCLAIMER: I want to make a quick note. As I write down these

statistics – they start to fade and become outdated. That is one of the

biggest challenges in putting something like this together in written

form. I will do my best to keep the numbers up to date and roll out

new versions but keeping up with the fast changing ‘Net is a tough

task.

All of that said – I would really like to get across the concepts of being

“social” online. Tools like Facebook and Twitter may come and go,

but I believe this form of communication and connecting is here to

stay.

social media guide for real estate mike lyon

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