We know how important social networking is becoming in our daily lives. Drew Izzo, CMO of Roost.com, and I attended SocialMediaCamp this last Tuesday and learned how social networking sites are being integrating into businesses everywhere. From Twitter to LinkedIn to Facebook, the world is becoming connected.
Social Networking Sites
So I got a tweet this morning from Peter Cashmore at Mashable.com linking me to a post on their site titled “Social Networking Stats: Facebook and LinkedIn Surging in US” by
MySpace might have established the category but according to Nielsen Online, they actually had a decline in unique visitors in June year-over-year (YOY). Now they only dropped about 300,000 unique visitors to 59.4M, but it was the first decline they have experienced in their incredible growth so far.
On the other end of the spectrum, up and coming social networking sites Facebook and LinkedIn saw substantial increases in their unique visitors. Facebook was up almost 14M YOY (77% growth) and LinkedIn was up more than 6M YOY (187% growth).
So why am I writing about this on a real estate blog? Well because I think real estate as a whole is playing a part in why this shift is happening.
MySpace was, is, and probably always will be thought of as a social networking site for Generation Y and Generation Z. It is more about sharing new pictures from the party you were at last weekend rather than networking for new customers.
Enter Facebook and LinkedIn. These sites introduced a lot of agents and brokers to the world of social networking for the first time. I remember late last year while I was still at Intero, a gentleman came to the training center to talk about LinkedIn and the place was packed. Everyone was not only interested in what LinkedIn was, but how they could possibly leverage it into their business. It gave agents a great reason to reach out to clients by adding them to their connections. It also provided them with a way to reach a ton of people quickly and efficiently, whether the message needed to be personalized or not.
Will these social networking sites prove critical in helping consumers find homes for sale or an agent? I think the jury is still out on that one but what I do know is that people that use these sites (myself included) are building sizeable networks and correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t a good network critical to a successful career in real estate?
Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
derek.overbey@roost.com
Twitter - @doverbey<–>
3 responses so far ↓
1
Poppy Dinsey
// Jul 17, 2008 at 1:58 pm
I live for social media, I <3 connecting with new people and know I’ve made fantastic business connections in RE through all the various SM offerings such as Twitter, FB, LinkedIn and AR. I agree with you about MySpace though, I never publicly promote my MySpace URL…I’m happy to connect thru every other medium but on MySpace you’re likely to catch photos of me a little worse for wear…not good for business!
2
roostblog
// Jul 17, 2008 at 3:45 pm
If you read my post from July 11th,
http://blog.roost.com/2008/07/11/exclusive-conference-call-poppy/
you would know that is how Poppy and I met each other…on Twitter.
She loved Roost and I loved Zoomf and now we interact on almost a daily basis. I know this would have never happened without the social network joining us together.
Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Partnership Strategy
Roost.com
http://www.roost.com
3
Deb Miller
// Jul 17, 2008 at 7:47 pm
Reggie (from http://www.mytechopinion.com…also husband to Nik_Nik my twitter-friend), had an invaluable suggestion for maximizing LinkedIn. In real estate I may not get clients directly from LinkedIn, but I can use it as a quick source of information regarding market value, consumer confidence, etc by posting questions. I recently had a “green” listing, and queried my contacts regarding what the market would bear for “green” premiums and was delighted by the responses I received, not just from my network but others who troll the site as well!
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