still, i do have some recalcitrant brokers and agents that find reasons they can’t or shouldn’t or won’t participate.  some of these justifications are based on incomplete information, others are nothing more than veiled attempts at hiding their fear of the unknown.  all of which can be dispelled, debunked and demystified with a little education, time and practice.

blah, blah, blah

so over the course of the next 10 posts, i’m going to share the top excuses people give for not participating in social media, and how these can be overcome simply and with little effort.  i’ll take each excuse (face it, that’s what they are), and, with the help of some of my friends in the social media world, i’ll show you why these excuses don’t hold water, and why people that use them need to move past the pretext and into social media.

so stay tuned.  it’ll be fun.  and it’ll be crazy.

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contrived?  somewhat.  only the names have been changed to protect the ignor… er, innocent.  this scenario is playing out across the country as consumers find voice in blog sites, youtube videos and rating sites.  they’re taking matters into their own hands when they can’t get resolution, becoming digital town criers – warning anyone who will listen to stay away.  this means there’s no longer any place to hide for those offering unscrupulous business practices or poor service.  they’ll be ratted out eventually.

but what of the excellent companies and agents that have bent over backwards to provide a resolution to a consumer that has unreasonable expectations or demands?  are they going to be held hostage for fear of an internet smear campaign?

or take the scenario of the consumer that doesn’t complain to the agent or management, instead deciding she’s going to tell the world of her dissatisfaction with both the agent and the company.  she secures the domain name thiscompanysux.com and proceeds to post a blistering diatribe of why anyone in their right mind should avoid doing business with this firm and the agent.

there’s a lot of talk goin’ on out there.  better listen.

as sites like yelp, digg, outrageous agents and others take off and gain visibility with consumers, rating sites will proliferate to meet the demand of consumers that want to be heard. and since consumers are more likely to tell others when their experience has been less than satisfactory, this means that dissatisfied consumers will have more places to talk. which is why we need to listen.

listening in on the conversations on the web sounds daunting and much harder than it actually is.  you can use such simple (and free) tools as google alerts (www.google.com/alerts) and addictomatic (http://addictomatic.com), set up keyword searches through tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) and twendz (www.twendz.com), or extensive search tools for a fee such as trackur (www.trackur.com), radian6 (www.radian6.com) and wool.labs’ webdig (http://woollabs.com).

regardless of what you use, you need to start listening to the conversations.

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1. ignore social media – there are still a large number of folks that don’t see the need to engage in social media in any form – facebook, linkedin, activerain, blogging, youtube or twitter.  they still don’t see the need, don’t understand it, or are afraid of it.  my advice?  get over your fear, learn about it, read the success stories.  but get on it.  not 6 months from now.  get on it now.
2. spend too much time on social media – i’ve seen a number of people get caught up in the new gadgetry, gizmos and whizbang tools that come along.  they spend so much time – figuring the new technology out, playing with it, tweaking it – that they forget what their core purpose is in business.  it’s something i succumbed to years ago when i was still selling.  i was working on creating the perfect contact management program for my business.  i spent so much time building the perfect mousetrap, i lost sight of the primary objective – catching mice.  don’t spend all day on facebook.  don’t tweet all night on twitter.  don’t spend 3 hours per day on your blog.  use these tools to engage consumers and prospects.  then go out and meet these people face to face.  do business.
3. use social media to sell – so many people see these tools as another method to advertise their wares.  they jump on facebook and start posting advertorials in their status updates about how great their service is or posting a new property listing.  and that’s all they post.  they spam their twitter followers with advertising messages.  you know what?  if you’re not going to provide me with some value or tell me something interesting that’s going on in your world, i don’t want to hear about your listing.  and if you continue to do so, i’m gonna kick you out of my network.  i love sioux falls, south dakota, but i’m not moving there.  so stop advertising your listings to me.

don’t let any of these mindsets kill your business.  you’d be crazy to.

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if you’re relatively new to social networking, let me offer one word of advice: don’t talk business all the time.  ok, that’s more like six words of advice, but it bears repeating: don’t talk business all the time.  there.  now you’ve got twelve words of advice.

what i’m talking about here is the status updates so prominently featured in all social networks – facebook, linkedin, plaxo, ecademy, twitter, etc.  you know them by various questions – “what are you doing?” or “what are you working on now?”  invitations prompting you to tell your network what’s going on in your life at that moment.  handy little snippets of information to help your connections keep up with you.

some take the status update literally, offering up every nuance of their day, such as “having pancakes with my 9 year old,” or “going for my 3rd cup of starbucks this morning.”  not that there’s anything wrong with that.  just as long as these types of updates are done in moderation and with a modicum of taste.  believe me, when you start telling me about your dog’s bm’s, i’m gonna have to pass and say tmi.

others take the status update opportunity as an open invitation to smother you with marketing messages.  in the real estate industry, i see this all the time, and especially on facebook.  realtors who throw every listing into their status updates, hoping to expose their property to a buyer lurking in their network.  these same realtors place every price reduction, open house, buyer tour and offer they’re presenting in the feed, thinking that their network wants to hear about it.  well, newsflash kids.  they don’t.

would you subscribe to comcast if they only showed commercials?

the reason i accepted your friend request on facebook or decided to follow you on twitter was that i wanted to get to know more about you, the person.  heck, even connecting with you on linkedin i had hoped to learn something more than the product or service you were selling.  i was looking for some value in our connection.  instead, you give me spam.

you see, i’ll take a promotional plug every once in awhile, but if you’re going to pollute my stream with advertising constantly, why would i want to stay connected / continue following / be your friend?  i mean, would you pay comcast a monthly subscription if their programming only offered commercials?  didn’t think so.

stop social network pollution

if you’re currently using your status updates, wall posts and tweets to talk business incessantly, stop it.  stop it now.  do it before i unfollow / unfriend / disconnect you from my network.  and if you run across someone within your networks that’s bombarding you with marketing, send them a nice note encouraging them to provide those messages a little less frequently. and if they continue spamming you after your friendly warning, nuke em.

if you don’t, they’ll make you crazy.

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oh yeah?

it all started with a comment from one well intentioned realtor to an agent that had been posting listings on facebook without using the state required information for real estate advertising (brokerage name, etc.). the well intentioned realtor pointed out, nicely, that the posting agent should consider adding that information so as not to run afoul of the authorities. the response back from the posting agent was less than polite, spurring other agents to jump in and respond in agreement with said well intentioned realtor. after some discussion (public, no less, on each party’s wall), the final response from the posting agent to one of the commenters amounted to a very public insult, likely a violation of a standard of practice from the realtor’s code of ethics.

if you can’t say something nice about someone…

my mother always told me, “if you can’t say something nice about someone, at least wait until they leave the room.” well, social networking sites like facebook are big rooms, and even though we may think we’re talking directly to someone there, we need to remember that other ears may be listening. conversations or posts placed on walls and through status updates are very public, and can be used against us if we’re not careful about what we say. to air a personal beef in such a public forum not only tarnishes the image of the person hurling epithets, but brings the rest of us down to that level, lumping us all into the back-biting, opportunist, i’d-step-over-your-body-to-close-a-sale image that many in the public have for our profession.

leave me outta this

i’d just as soon not be categorized into that group, thank you very much, so for those of you engaged in this type of “smackdown engagement,” please stop showing your lunacy and childish behaviour in public.  take your disagreements and petty arguments offline.  pick up the phone and yell at someone in private if you must, just don’t malign the rest of us with your antics.  we’ve already got enough of an uphill battle to convince the consumer we’re not crazy.

and sometimes that’s not an easy task.

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alphabet soup

but it would appear we’re headed overboard in our pursuit of designations in the real estate industry. some agents have taken to fold-out cards to accomodate all their designations, and there are new designations being marketed each month to an insatiable market of letter hungry real estate practitioners. when is enough enough?

‘splain please

i know.  sounds funny coming from a guy that’s got enough letters behind his name to ensure a win at scrabble, but seriously – do we really need all those designations?  sure, the education’s worthwhile, but after you’ve got 3 or 4 under your belt, is it necessary to promote the other 3 or 4?  who’s going to care?  or even know what they mean?

i’ve had my crs designation for 15 years now, and although the council of residential specialists does the best job at promoting their designation to the general public, i still find myself explaining to clients what those 3 letters behind my name mean.  now add abr, crb, gri and e-pro, and you can see how i’m spending even more time explaining what those letters mean.  still, i find value in the designations and the education i received in achieving them, but i’m not too wild about taking more courses just to get some more letters behind my name.  in fact, i’m currently working on other designation courses, but will likely choose not to promote those designations for fear of needing aforementioned fold-out card.

i don’t know. is it just me, or is this crazy?

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the concept borders on insanity i know, especially considering the iphone’s touch screen keyboard is designed for fingers the width of a pencil. hell, it took me six tries to type “designed” right now.

and i’d be crazy to think i could write anything of value posting this way. so why do it?

because i have an iphone and a wordpress app. because i can. and because i’m crazy.

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given the fact that the upcoming stewart title success series class is on the topic of advanced blogging, and my man derec shuler (@derecshuler on twitter) has tasked me with the section on publicizing and registering a blog, i figured i’d make this an interactive example using technorati to claim your blog.

some that follow me on various sites (@bradhanks on twitter by the way) probably thought this blog was abandoned, since nothing’s been posted for awhile. but i assure you, i was mulling over lots of ideas to write on.  really.  it’s just that preparing taxes, authoring courses, parenting and traveling halfway around the globe kinda got in the way.  ok.  busted.  whiney, sniveling excuses for no blog posts. enough.

claim your blog. now.

surprise!

so imagine my surprise when i log onto technorati (i know, i know – some time has gone by…) only to find that i hadn’t registered my own blog, real estate dementia.  this, after another twitter friend of mine, @stevenstearns, repeatedly drilled into my head the importance of registering my blog with multiple directories.  did i heed the advice of my jedi master?  umm … no.  which is exactly why i’m featuring my own addled-headed behavior in this post.  it’s downright crazy.

register today. or get lost.

not that registering your blog is going to make it an overnight success, bringing traffic by the boatload.  in a sea of sameness in the blogosphere, it’s hard to be found among all the other fishing boats bobbing about in open water.  rough and expansive open water i might add.  some statistics place the number of blogs at over 120 million.  that’s a lot of damn boats. and most of them look the same.

good quality, high value, community driven blogs attract readers (you have been paying attention, right class?). these qualities are what help your boat stand out in that expansive sea. but tools like technorati also can put a light on your boat.  it ain’t magic, but it’s a good start.

the vast majority of blogs out there go unregistered with blog directories, and even more go abandoned after a short time. now that’s just crazy. and in the words of jack nicholson from the movie ‘as good as it gets‘ – “go sell crazy somewhere else; we’re all stocked up here.”

so here goes everyone: Technorati Profile

one last thing…

for those of you wondering about the whole “interactive” experience i referenced at the beginning of this post: this is where irl comes into play.  ask the students who were in the classroom.

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while i was sitting in class, mind wandering to all the emails, phone calls and work that i needed to attend to, it struck me that in order to grow i needed to push myself.  and i was pushing myself: little sleep, added stress and less time to do my normal workload.  all for the opportunity to learn. but the realization came that if i wanted to better myself – to become a better broker, instructor, coach and mentor – i’d need to devote time and stretch my abilities.  if i wanted to become better, there was no magic pill, no short cut, no silver bullet, to get me to that level.

i’ve found in these challenging markets most of us face that there are a lot of people looking for that magic formula – the one gizmo, gadget or whirlygig that will bring us success.  maybe the key phrase that’ll turn lookers to buyers, or the prop that will get us every listing we set out after.  we’re looking for the quick fix, the magic elixir that we can drink with the promise it will deliver a deal tomorrow or next week.  but it ain’t out there. there ain’t no magic potion, and there ain’t no silver bullet.

in times like these, there’s only the realization that we have to expand our thinking and try new things.  ‘cuz the old things ain’t working.  as soon as we recognize that and stop chasing the quick fix for our business, we’ll be ready to move forward.

and if we’re not going to move forward, we’re gonna take a bullet.

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