Yes, consumers have changed.  What a lot of Realtors do not understand however is that YOU are a consumer.

Own an encyclopedia?  How do you find the closest Starbucks?  Go online for recipes?

The sooner real estate agents realize the shift in consumer behavior has already happened, the sooner they will be able to embrace the right tools and start providing them what they really want.

We are the they.

Kristina will also be speaking at the upcoming Real Estate Marketing Summit in Southern California and if you would like to attend we have arranged a discounted price, details here.

In Part II of our interview “The Most Innovative Interview“ with Broker/Owner, Krisstina Wise, and Chief Technology Officer, Jack Miller, they spoke with Chris on  how Brokers need to lead by example, and where single agents must start their marathon of social networking endeavors – At Mile Zero!

How many times have you heard your broker dictate that YOU should “go to ABC seminar and learn about XYZ“, or tell you about how “we’re having Bobby Jones from Jones Marketing come in and give a presentation about how to market online – YOU should attend!“…  That’s all well and good, but are they leading by example?  Are they innovative, and at the top of their game?   The term, ‘do as I say, not as I do’, does NOT come into play here!  The Good Life Team are constantly learning new tricks of the trade, new tools to try out, and putting innovative strategies into place – THEY are walking the talk!

But what if you’re a single agent with no true Broker to help you succeed?   Being a tech savvy agent can be achieved going solo too.  Jack suggested to, “start with your database – it’s your lowest cost business generator“.

“Get them wired up – add them to your Facebook Fan Page, put them on an email campaign.”  By choosing just one platform at a time and getting connected (or even reconnected), following and learning from the people around you, you will both grow yourself and your business.  LinkedIn has a great platform now, Facebook, even us here at Tech Savvy Agent could and would be a great place to tap into on a regular basis.

There’s so much to learn and put into place, (believe me, I know!) it’s often difficult to just simply start.  But by taking on just a single social networking or learning environment and using that information to connect with your database, will set the stage for a snowball effect in months and years to come.

We hope you enjoyed these interviews with Krisstina and Jack as much as we enjoyed putting them together for you!  Please feel free to promote and share with your team or fellow agents.  Content is king and we love providing it for you, for free!  We are living in a “Thank You Economy“, and we love it when you thank us by sharing our content with others.  Thank you!

Two things stand out from this most innovative interview we have ever conducted:

1.  True ROI will be evident when you are either IN or OUT of business in 5 years, and

2.  The fundamental shifts in how consumers (your leads) are behaving means equal shifts in how you must conduct your business!

In the past, realtors have used two main strategies to gain business and find success – database management and maintenenance (keeping in touch with clients), and neighborhood farming (Recipe cards!?  Yikes!)  But with the innovative shift (or 360 degree spin) over the past year or two, real estate marketing strategies have taken on a very similar shift, and that’s where Jack Miller, The Good Life Team‘s Chief Technology Officer (CTO) comes into play and has been so vitally important and paramount to their amazing success.

Fundamental shifts in how the consumer is behaving has been the main focus and insatiable drive for The Good Life Team’s innovative social marketing strategies; during the first 10 months of inception of their new site, they can directly report more than ten times the traffic and five times the leads from social media than previously reported and recorded!

Notice, however, that I did NOT say first month of inception.  No – Like anything worth waiting for, social marketing is no exception – hard work and purposeful, strategic planning over many months is what it takes to produce the fruit of your efforts.

Here’s some amazing statistics that Jack shared with us:

Prior to their social media strategies being put into place, The Good Life Team reported about 30% of their business coming from their online marketing, 90%-95% of which were buyers.  Today, those numbers have reversed, with between 65%-67% of their business coming from their social strategies, of which the number of listings has dramatically increased to be almost equal to their buyers!

This is where many Realtors fail – gaining that fruit often seems to take too long to attain – it just can’t grow fast enough!  But, this is where instant gratification must take a back-burner position and understand that you cannot expect to have results in a month, but stay for the long haul.  Put your passion to work for you (do you have passion for what you are doing?!)  And, again, just as anything, if you love what you do, (and have a Brokerage that backs your passion!) and put heavy duty effort into it for longer than a fleeting moment, your efforts will surely flourish.

One last note, when you check out The Good Life Team‘s site, notice the type of site it is.  Yep, you guessed it – a Blog!

So, where’s your insatiable drive taking you?

Part II of The Most Innovative Interview in Real Estate

We all know that the world is becoming more social.  There is a little site called Facebook that is connecting us like never before and is becoming a go to resource when we want to know whether our friends think we should by a product or invest in a service.  Oodle.com is looking to take the new social media space we are living in and merge it with the classifieds.  Honestly, haven’t we all been a little reluctant to list something on Craigslist because we thought someone may show up to buy a futon and end up asking to lick our toes?  The combination of Oodle and Facebook Marketplace have given consumers a safer, more open place to buy and sell products online and yes that includes real estate!

I spoke with Oodle’s CEO Craig Donato about the ability to bring a more social classifieds experience to consumers and how his company is filling that void. Craigslist hasn’t evolved from a user experience standpoint ever.  They are sticking with their interface and have obviously had some bad PR when it comes to the freak factor.  What Oodle is doing differently is bringing listings to a place on the web where we all feel more comfortable, Facebook.  Facebook Marketplace has grown from 1 million to over 10 million users in the last 12 months.  I personally have just over 1,000 friends and 282 of them have registered for Marketplace.  By seeing what are friends “like” as we browse it does bring a more sound sense of security.  Craig loves the way that you can really meet the person behind the product you are buying and just like an Ebay, make sure they are legit before reaching out to contact them.

One of our favorite real estate brokerages and fellow Inman 2010 Innovator Nominee The Good Life Team from Austin, TX  has set up many of their listings in Facebook Marketplace and I must say that I was impressed.  The profile page includes their listings, branding but also a link to check out their Good Life Team Facebook Page so that someone considering reaching out to them can do some homework before doing so.  I know I research just about anything I buy these days online including items that cost $99, much less a $300,000 hip urban condo!  The ability to check out someone’s profile or page to see their legitimacy before you make contact should provide a security blanket that is obviously missing over in Craigslist.  Many times our goal is to drive people to our website, but when there is such a high comfort level and time on the site over on Facebook why not bring the homes there?

Oodle offers one listing for free and then has a Pro Option that is priced out per listing on a monthly basis which you can check out here.

I really feel like Craig, Oodle and the Facebook Marketplace are on to something here in an effort to make the classifieds more transparent/social and when I see a tech savvy group like Krisstina Wise and the Good Life Team leveraging a new technology I always know it is worth a second look.

Feel free to leave any comments or questions for Craig Donato, CEO of Oodle.com, below.

After attending both NAR in San Diego and the Triple Play convention in Atlantic City over the course of the last month, we have come to the conclusion that the most succesful agents are leveraging their website and social media as a way to “educate” and not “advertise”.  Luring clients with valuable insight about their local real estate market is more crucial than ever.  You are at a time in real estate where everyone and their brother is asking you “how’s the market”, good news is they REALLY want to know.  Saying “it’s great” when we all know it’s scary makes you a salesperson and what consumers want is a consultant.  Self promotion and endless personal advertising does not contain the information that todays internet savvy consumers are looking for.  As you browse the web daily, are you looking for salespeople or are you looking for information about products and services?

Take a step back and look at your own website objectively. Can a consumer instantly find home values the way they can on Zillow?  Can they search for properties quickly without giving up their email address the way they can on Trulia, Cyberhomes and countless other sites?  Are you just trying to “get leads”?  Are the tabs on your site my listings, about me, contact me, areas I serve, etc…?  By the way, how many leads is that approach getting you?  Why do you think those aforementioned sites get millions of visitors each month?   They provide quick, graphical, user friendly information that is all about the consumers needs and goals and not self promoting at all.

While attending a seminar by Max Pigman, a national speaker and technologist for one of the largest real estate tech companies in the world, it became clear that social media and consumer behavior has changed the game.  While qualified buyers and people willing to list has gone down along with home values, social media and technology are allowing tech savvy agents to handle more contacts seemlessly than ever before.

Max pointed out that contrary to what many Realtors believe, a lot of the automated systems available as tools can hinder the agents growth in the social media realm.  For example: a program like Postlets, that syndicates listings to several sites automatically and works well with sites like Craigslist, Zillow and Trulia, may cause Gen Y’ers in Facebook to ignore your future posts or even hide your updates because it is autoposting your listings which isn’t exactly why Facebook is so popular.  Interupt advertising is not kosher in the social networks.  Instead, try creating a Fan Page for your business like the one we have where once someone joins willingly they have then given you the okay to then provide real estate specific content.  You may also consider creating a Fan Page for the areas or neighborhoods you work in as a resource for the community to post garage sales, local events, things for sale, best front lawn pics, etc…as the admin of the page you can also post the recent solds, listings, links to your website and market trends which would be much appreciated by all those “nosy neighbors”!

Finding the balance on your personal account in Facebook between real life and real estate is very important and can be a make it or break it when it comes to social media. Try using the old 80/20 addadge as a rule of thumb. The 80 being personal and the 20 being business related.

To see an example of a team of agents who have figured this out and are in perfect balance with today’s tech savvy consumers check out one of our personal favorites:

Krisstina Wise and The Good Life Team

Good Life Team Facebook Fan Page

If you are a consumer looking for an agent in your market that “gets all this” then simply leave a comment below and we will make sure to get you in touch with the best Realtors in your area!