i’ve been seeing a lot of posts lately on a phenomenon that’s building on facebook lately – the “single listing fan page.”

given the popularity of the social networking giant, facebook is starting to make headway with real estate professionals as a marketing bonanza. especially given that fan pages seem to be the ultimate tool to trumpet your business success and promote your offerings. this latest tool is no exception.

designed to promote a single property listed for sale by a broker, the single listing fan page offers the opportunity to showcase the property, giving all the salient facts, price, location and multiple photo albums. tied together with the rest of the marketing campaign, this newest form of digital promotion aims to get more eyeballs on the property. what with multiple property sites to advertise on, email marketing campaigns, virtual tours and such, this added “feature sheet” really rounds out the marketing strategy for the property. and it certainly couldn’t hurt, right?

it could if you’re not minding your p’s and q’s

and those p’s and q’s in this instance are the advertising requirements of the regulatory body overseeing real estate licensees in the particular state or province you practice in.

not that i’m well-versed in every state’s regulations, but i’ve been licensed in a few that require certain information be included with any advertisement of a property or service offered by a real estate licensee. and yes, a facebook fan page (also known as an ‘official page’) is advertising. if you don’t think so, just ask your real estate licensing body. and your attorney.

it’s already ugly

of the single listing fan pages i’ve been asked to like on facebook, 75% immediately jump out at me with potential violations. no company name. “oops.” no office phone number. “i meant to put that on there.” violation of regulation z. “they don’t really watch that, do they?” no license number (in states that require it, such as california). “my bad.” violation of an agent’s fiduciary duty to their client. “did i really say that?”

wake up and smell the coffee

social media offers many businesses a new set of tools to promote and advertise their wares. but new tools don’t equate to new rules. use some common sense and apply what you know of your state’s advertising regulations to this ‘new’ digital medium. don’t just take some ‘guru’s word that this is what you should be doing without regard of how it could impact your livelihood. ask your broker or manager before you create your property page. and if they don’t know, call me.

putting your license at risk is insane.

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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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