How to Build a Community using Social Media (Blogs/Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn)

by Joe Stampone on January 29, 2009

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I recently made a blog post about personal branding, however I didn’t go into too much detail. The game is changing, so I want expand upon that post with a new weekly series on Building a Community, catering specifically towards real estate professionals. Throughout this series I am going to use stats from my blog, twitter account, facebook fan page, and linkedIn account to follow the effectiveness of my efforts. For this first installment, however, I want to make a comprehensive post outlining how to go about building an online community. First remember that building a community takes time and a TON of work, it won’t happen overnight. You need to be an active member of your community and add value in some way.

Blogs: Your blog and other blogs related to your fieldwordpress_logo1

If you are in the real estate business and don’t have your own blog, what are you waiting for? Start a blog as soon as you can (I suggest using wordpress to begin) and start blogging about your day to day interactions as a broker/agent/investor, about new real estate trends, or about a cool article about social media you read. Your blog will serve as your main outlet to building brand equity. Self branding enables you to showcase your talents, organically getting your name and information in front of people who might be interested in your services, and get networked to people who could help you grow your business. Now that you started your blog and are pumping out quality content, you need to get your blog in front of your intended audience. There are many ways to do this and I suggest implementing every single one of the tactics to optimize exposure. First and foremost, make sure your blog is laid out in a aesthetically pleasing way, and in a format that allows users to easily bookmark your articles and share them with friends on facebook or Digg. As Gary Vaynerchuk says “link it up!” Make sure that your viewers can easily follow you on twitter, friend you on linkedIn and facebook, or follow you on any other social media outlet you use. Become part of the community. If you are a real estate agent in Tampa do a google blog search for “Tampa Real Estate,” read the blogs and leave comments. Establish yourself as an expert in your field. Do this every single day! Also, make a concerted effort to get your blog mentioned on other blogs with related topics. Build relationships with other bloggers and offer to be a guest poster, or extend an offer for them to post on your blog.

From a more technical standpoint, you also need to exploit SEO (Search Engine Optimization). SEO involves making your site more accessible to search engines, proper naming of links, key terms, key phrases, page titles, etc. It also involves getting quality links to your site. While one of the most important factors in search engine optimization is the ability to get linked to by highly trusted sources, other factors include the number of sites linking to your site and words they use in the link to your site, and the context surrounding the link to your site. Each article that discusses your site and what its about adds context to your site link and establishes it as an authority on the subject. The more links to your site and the more sitelinks you garner with targeted context the higher your site will show up on search engine results. All of these factors are important, remember every reader who learns about your service is a potential client or referral to potential client.

Facebook and LinkedIn:facebook_pic

Facebook is no longer a site for kids to post pictures capturing the beer pong they did at this weekends frat party. Your aunt, uncle, and even mom are proficient facebook users. The site is having an increasingly profound effect on the business world. Get involved with facebook groups, the group Real Estate on Facebook has nearly 18,000 members. Start discussions, answer questions, promote your blog. Again, every single visitor is a potential client. I also recommend that each person create a facebook fan page; without getting into a long conversation about pages versus groups, pages are simply better for two reasons, one, pages are visible to non-Facebook members, and two Facebook presents you with visitor statistics, so you can track visitors. As the older generation joins Facebook, it’s going to become an even more valuablelinkedin-logo_580x435 tool.

LinkedIn is much more business-oriented and professional looking than Facebook, but it should be utilized in the same way. First go to the questions area and begin answering questions that relate to your field. Establish yourself as a wealth of information and the foremost authority of your field. Join groups such as Real Estate Connect and get involved with the discussions and begin your own discussion (beware it’s mostly people hard-selling real estate). Start a group similar to your facebook fan page.

Twitter: twitter1

Twitter is the IT thing right now and will only gain in popularity for the foreseeable future (keep in mind 99% of people don’t know what twitter is). You should approach twitter no differently than the aforementioned tools. Get involved! Go to search.twitter.com and search “Tampa Real Estate” follow people and respond to their tweets (to reply type @andtheirname) or retweet anything you find interesting (to retweet type RT @andtheirname). Fill out your bio. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you. Your bio is the only place you have to tell people who you are. Put links to your Twitter profile everywhere. Link it on your Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, email signature, and everywhere else you live online. To learn more about building a twitter following, read this article. I just started using Tweetdeck, here’s the complete guide on how to use it. It has a couple cool features that are worth looking at. Follow me on twitter here.

Comments/Emails:

Reply to every single comment and respond to every single email!! I don’t care how long it takes, this is how you build meaningful and valuable relationships.

Conclusion:

The key to success is being true to yourself, %150,000. You have to love what you’re doing and put your whole self out there, don’t be scared. As Gary Vaynerchuk says, “you have to work your face off! It’s about being Real, Authentic, and Transparent (RAT).” Building a community and brand equity takes time. It won’t happen overnight, you have to work and hustle, every single day! The game has changed, if you’re reading this, you know it, congrats!

I want to leave with one last quote from a recent Gary Vaynerchuk video, he says “do not get caught half-pregnant, if you want to embrace the tools that are out there today, you’ve got to just go do it, there should be no excuses”

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