The Dirty Little Secret About REALTOR Facebook Training
How many of your Facebook friends are REALTORS?
The secret about REALTOR Facebook training in most quarters is pretty simple. Most real estate Facebook training sets the students up for failure if the students’ aim is to learn social media skills that will advance their business. Here is a checklist of topics REALTORS should cover in the course of their Facebook training.
- Terms of Service. Facebook is built upon a solid educational culture. Business solicitation on personal profile pages is highly discouraged. Wonder why people lose their accounts? Behavior leading to account deactivation include massive friend hijacking, placing marketing links on other people’s profile pages, extensive advertising on the offender’s own page, and similar conduct. Understand that the culture of Facebook is best understood with a thorough examination of the Terms of Service.
- Legal Compliance. Fully 99% of the REALTOR pages I survey regularly at Facebook are noncompliant with state licensing law. Brokerage name and contact information are not readily seen on agents’ and brokers’ profile pages. Many of these agents have completed “social media training” in many venues, in person and online. Most real estate offices still do not have a written social media policy.
- Going Viral with Questionable Marketing Tactics. Real estate licensees pay less and less attention to serious risk management in the bricks-and-mortar world; they increase brokerage jeopardy when they play with those matches online. Internal saber rattling at Attorney General offices in many states makes me think predatory marketing of distressed homeowners will be the undoing of some brokerages in 2010.
- Calling Social Media a Marketing Channel. Social media is NOT a marketing channel. Social media is a conversational medium. Fundamental precepts about purely social engagement eschew traditional marketing language and methods. Return on investment (ROI) is less easily applied to social networking plans.
- Lack of Strategy aka “ActiveRain syndrome”. Some bricks-and-mortar strategies apply to online engagement. In recent years, the ActiveRain blog community established a peer-to-peer social networking model replicated among licensees on other social platforms. Take the First Time Home Buyer Seminar bricks-and-mortar marketing device. Whom does a REALTOR invite? A lender? … home inspector? … and people who are renting! Does a Coldwell Banker REALTOR host invite all the RE/MAX agents in town? There are increasing numbers of qualified REALTOR groups where agents can gather and engage … Women’s Council of REALTORS has new groups, CRS and other specialty groups are pages where licensees can gather and share ideas.
- Choose Friends Wisely/UNfriend Fellow REALTORS. Most REALTORS’ Facebook Friends lists are comprised of fellow REALTORS. Real estate Facebook trainers can share good dialogue for declining Friend requests and UNfriending fellow REALTORS. I urge students to UNfriend their colleagues with words that acknowledge their plan of action. Example: “I am grateful for your friendship in real life and I look forward for ways that we can connect online to advance our business. I am designing a social media strategy that reserves my Facebook profile page for close friends and family. Thank you for your friendship … Let’s connect at the “Women’s Council of REALTORS Region 4″ page.”
- Facebook Fan Page Titles are Written in Stone. Once you start a Fan Page, the title is a permanent part of the page. Do NOT use your company name in the title of the Fan Page unless (a) you have the broker’s permission to use the company name and (b) you expect to stay at that company for the duration of your real estate career.
- A Teacher Is a Model. Be clear about strategy. Study the teacher’s Facebook presence. Does the teacher actively list and sell real estate? What is the ratio of consumers to licensees on the teacher’s pages? Can you see a strategy that you can emulate for dollar-productive results in your market?
Engage and Enjoy Success!
« Real Estate Social Media Tech Audit Survey | Home | Look, Ma, No Blog! »
Comments
You are right on I read your first article. So True! I spent 3 days with Tom Ferry and the RE Bar Camp in SD and came away really motivated to get more involved in Social Media. Spent a lot of time making friends with God knows who. Who are all these people. You have given me a lot of food for thought. Thank You.
I also thought that Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, etc. was a waste of time. But I learned that mailing out cards and letters to your sphere was costly and that Facebook, etc. was not. So, I can still let my shpere know that I am still in real estate and let them know about market updates or tax breaks. My budget for keeping in touch has been decreased by 50%, only because I didn’t completely stop the mailings. I still get the referrals while keeping in touch online.
To me it’s worth it.
This social media stuff just isn’t worth the powder to blow it away. Here I am in Petoskey MI - a long way from the Bay Area checking out my Seesmic grid when someone mentioned your Facebook Unfriending post and i jumped over as I just went through “my friends” list and cleaned house. Cleaned up some twitter followers too.
Then jumped to this post that is another great one—hmm — think I’ll subscribe to your feed. Somebody with this much smarts can’t be all bad.
This Social Media stuff will never catch on!
Exactly what I was thinking, I couldn’t agree more!
How is possible to display your brokerage name in your Facebook profile? At least in Indiana it’s required to be bigger that your name (unless it’s a business card)
I am unfamiliar with how this would be possible on my Facebook profile. Thanks
Absolutely, Jim! Using common sense and best practices is the best first line of defense from a risk management standpoint. I am looking forward to the Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp event.
Great Post Frances! Will you be brining any of these points up in your sessions at VREBC?
Fran,
Excellent post. Excellent. Realtors friend me by the dozen and I never understood it.
Thanks for the timely help, really!
Excellent post! I think some agents struggle with this particular platform more than others. It’s a very large gray area between personal and professional communications and different people have different comfort levels with that. I think you hit two critically important points: brokers don’t have a social media policy in place to guide agents in what they are doing; and agents don’t understand the legal and long term ramifications of the choices they are making. This is really great! Keep talking about these things.
Lots of good stuff to think about, Fran.
I managed to sell a home via Twitter (indirectly, with help from a Twitter directory and links to my blog posts) but not from Facebook. I, too, have a gazillion Realtor friends on Facebook. Luckily, I’ve started to use “Lists” so I can track specific people whom I really want to follow.
Keep writing about this stuff and I’ll keep reading. Thanks for sharing!
Just tell it like it is Frances, I love the approach. We are all adults and can appreciate the straight forwardness of your posts. Articulate and educational, thanks.
Frances, an excellent post. Down-to-earth, useful insight. Thanks.
Frances, excellent commentary as always!
The level of Facebook training and education falls so pitifully short and is so filled with inaccuracies I think Realtors will end up more confused or worse will waste significant time using social tools with little to no return.
Unfortunately ‘advanced’ classes rarely are and basic social education starts with ‘Facebook is a cocktail party’. People will get a serious hangover if they don’t follow some of your excellent advice.
“Thank you” for providing insightful commentary that steps over the common dross.
WOW, there’s some controversial topics above that we could zero in on. The number one of course is Broker liability. It’s a loose canon that will only get worst as social media continues to grow. I guess it will take more law suits before the broker/owners get with a program.
As a Realtor and Educator, I think the best education I have ever received is online,reading and investigating topics like all the above.
Now, the tough one. I befriend other Realtors to become better acquainted, referral business, sharing, and finding common ground. I don not feel it is a conflict of interest.
OK, I;, going to quit here and hope we can continue this important yet, interesting topic. Great information. Mike
Monika, I have seen nothing to indicate this is under consideration. I have seen people switch offices and relinquish their Fan Pages after investing many, many hours into engagement there. Some people have switched offices and changed their Facebook Group names … Some of those folks find themselves in a legal quandary as brokerages stake an equity claim in the name of the Group. It’s hard to speculate about what Facebook will do. I’ve been urging REALTORS to avoid using company names in their Fan Page titles since Day One.
Do you think FB will ever make it so you can change that”written in Stone” fan page title? If not maybe I should start all over again… not happy at that though.
Trackbacks