The Changing Rules of Online Marketing
August 20, 2008
The MLS, long the crucial center of a healthy, functioning real estate brokerage industry, now finds itself in the center of controversy and a fight for survival in turbulent times. More than just data warehouses, MLS systems are marketplaces for inventory and a proving ground for consumer access to the MLS. In the competitive climate of Internet service providers and increasing regulatory scrutiny, some type of reform is a certainty.
So the time has come for agents to widen their net, meaning how and where you promote your clients’ listings. The MLS is no longer enough. The Internet offers so much more. Here are some tips on what to do:
Make sure that your website is a highly-trafficked website and that you enjoy a high ranking on Google, Yahoo and MSN for whatever search term you deem appropriate. Ensure that you have a legal and effective way to manage an email drip campaign and that you become the neighborhood expert for your area; offline and online.
Establish your credentials on the Internet as a professional real estate consultant by actively building a virtual trail of bread crumbs. When consumers go looking for properties or real estate information online - be it on Zillow, Realtor.com, Real Estate Wiki or any of the increasing number of consumer real estate websites - make sure that they will also stumble upon your online postings, bio, comments and articles (your virtual bread crumbs).
And, by the way, it’s well worth mentioning. When consumers read your posts, comments and articles, make sure they don’t see a “smart ass” or “raging lunatic”.
Remember, when laying your trail of crumbs, most posts and comments on the Internet are archived for the entire world to see (for a long, long time). So make sure that when you are adding an article or posting a comment, you do so professionally.
Stefan Swanepoel is a member of the faculty of the New World Order Interactive Real Estate Business Training Program. If you have not had a chance to find out information on the program please be sure to check out the information page on the real estate industry’s most revolutionary and comprehensive real estate business instruction.
About the Author:
Stefan Swanepoel is widely recognized as the leading visionary on trends and change in the real estate industry. He has penned 14 Books, Whitepapers and Reports including the 1998 Amazon.com bestseller, Real Estate confronts Reality (1997) and the annual Swanepoel TRENDS Report.
His academic accomplishments include a bachelor's in science, a master's in business economics and diplomas in arbitration, mergers and acquisitions, real estate, computer science and marketing.
Today Stefan serves as CEO of the RealtyU Group, one of the largest career development companies in the real estate industry.
His writings can be viewed at http://www.retrends.com/ and to reserve his as a speaker visit http://www.swanepoel.com/.
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