Social Media for Real Estate and Insurance Professionals

Social Media forReal Estate and

Insurance Professionals

Michelle AndersonDirector of Media Production/

Community Manager

What is Social Media?

Internet sites, tools and services designed for collaboration, sharing and communication

Blogs, social networking and bookmarking sites, wikis, widgets, RSS feeds, etc.

Instantaneous feedback Viral

Social Media Benefits

• Encourages conversations,builds trust and cultivates relationships (Networking)

• Helps clients find your business and get to know you better (Marketing)

• Keeps you informed on industry news, your online reputation and your competition (Monitoring)

Social Media Networking

• Your clients are on social networking sites and you should be, too

• Start here:– Facebook (family, friends, childhood buddies)

– LinkedIn (business connections and groups)

– Twitter (everything in-between)

Social Media Networking

• Participate in the conversation– Give more than you take

– Pay attention to the norm

– Be useful, don't broadcast

– Don't keep score

• Two ways to get on search engine results pages (SERPs)– Paid: listings that cost you money whenever

someone clicks on the link in your paid ad on the SERPs (i.e., Pay Per Click)

– Organic: ranking naturally on SERPs according to a match between the keyword(s) being searched for and your Web site's content,and the number of Web sites linking toyour content

Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Get a blog (CMS, built-in SEO, RSS-enabled,

widget-friendly, conversation-ready platform)– Choose keywords your clients would use to search

for you on the Web (“homes for sale in Portland” or “for sale in St. Johns Portland”)

– Use chosen keywords in domain name,Web site page titles, blog post titles (67 characters or less)

– Use meta-keywords, tags and alt-text on images

Social Media Marketing

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)– Submit your Web site address to directories like

Yahoo!, Bloglines, Yelp, ActiveRain, etc.– Leave useful, appropriate comments on

other blogs and use your Web site addressin your signature

– Link to sites that rank higher than yoursin your blogroll

– Link to your Web site in your social media profiles, and your profiles to your site

Social Media Monitoring

• Create an information monitoring dashboard– Customized home page that keeps track of

whatever you want it to keep track of

– iGoogle, NetVibes, Pageflakes

– Feeds, widgets, search results

http://www.netvibes.com/proschools

Social Media Monitoring

• What to monitor– Your online reputation (name, business)

– Your competition (activity, keywords)

– Community and industry trends and news (RSS feeds from reputable sources)

Social Media Monitoring

• Where to monitor– Google Alerts (Google search)

– search.twitter.com (Twitter search)

– socialmention.com (social mediasite search)

– backtype.com (blog comment search)

– Blogs (Google blog search,Technorati, Delicious)

Social Media Metrics

• Web site tracking (Google Analytics, StatCounter, manymanymany others)– Pay attention to your traffic, but don't obsess

– Look at keywords actually used to find your Web site, and change your keywords accordingly (meta, tags, blog titles)

– Note any trends (hours, peaks, geolocation) and change your content accordingly (time and frequency of posting, locale topics)

Social Media Decorum

• Be authentic• Be transparent• Be kind

Remember, there is NO such thing as anonymous on the Internet. EVER.