An artist must be a reactionary. He has to stand out against the tenor of the age and not go flopping along ~ Andre Maurois
There are a plethora of Question and Answer forums and websites real estate professionals (and any other pros) can use to showcase their expertise to (hopefully) attract clients. [Let’s leave aside the issues of real estate agents (or their contacts) leaving set-up questions, agents from other markets answering questions in yours, and any point system.]
Here are two general real estate Q&A forums:
- TruliaVoices
- Zillow Home Q&A
These are great, but the main problem I have with them is they are in “red oceans”(instead of blue) — you are competing with hundreds of folks in the industry. At the RISMedia Leadership conference yesterday, Trulia said it gets 1,000 questions per day. Now, if you figure each question generates between 10-20 answers, that translates to 10-20,000 responses per day! That’s a big red ocean, my friend.
I am not suggesting you abandon these Q&A sites. Quite the contrary. Use them, but also leverage them in creative ways to stand out from the crowd and enhance your own brand. Look, you gave them the content to help enrich their brands — why not take advantage of YOUR content to build YOUR brand, on YOUR home turf?
Here are a couple of ideas:
Use Their Q&A on YOUR Website or Blog
Select Questions from these venues and write posts about those issues on your own blog or website. (of course, leave your answers on the other sites too)
Advantages:
1. Traffic to your website or blog.
Google search engine traffic will find YOUR Q&A post and YOUR blog or website, as opposed to TruliaVoices or Zillow’s Q&A , with all the other agents’ answers. To help your SEO, use your market keywords in the post title and first sentence.
TIP: Trulia Voices questions may not contain your market keywords and be kinda boring. Turn them into compelling headlines with Googleicious market keywords. Outrank the Trulians. You can do it.
2. Focused audience (captive, in marketing lingo).
On Zillow or Trulia, you have to share the page with others– and you may be way down the page. Visitors to your post or website ONLY see you; they cannot be distracted by other agents answers, ads or other “eye candy” on those sites. What’s more, they not only see your Q&A post, they see everything else you have to offer– like listings. They do not have to click to go your site from Trulia Voices or Zillow– they’re already there!
3. Greater added value to the consumer.
The Zillow and Trulia Q&A sections are somewhat limited in space and lack the functionality for you to communicate in-depth, multimedia-rich answers. The answers there are usually short, with a “contact me if I can be of further help”. Kinda weak. If you bring the Q&A home to your blog or website, you can give a detailed answer PLUS you can use images (you know I love images to communicate ideas effectively)– such as charts, graphs, market studies, etc., and multi-media (slide shows, video, etc) to convey a lot more information. You can’t use charts or multimedia in the Trulia Voices or Zillow Q&A.
Overall, your blog post will provide a better showcase for your answer, which is of more value to the consumer.
4. Take general Q&A and make them market specific
Many questions on Trulia & Zillow are general: what’s the difference between pre-qualified and pre-approved or the difference between a co-op and a condo (geez, that question must have been asked and answered on TruliaVoices a gazillion times). By taking this Question to your home turf, you can relate it to your market, your neighborhood. And you can build on it to provide added value to the consumer. Maybe there is a new condo development where the sponsor is offering financing at great rates and no closing costs. Or maybe you have a listing with a motivated seller who will finance without pre-approval being necessary.
5. Avoid censorship/moderation for marketing & self-promotion
In the example above, you’d probably be prevented from sharing that information with the consumer on Trulia or Zillow. They have policies against self-promotion/ marketing. [let’s skip the issue that it is advertised as a marketing tool]. While this censorship/moderation policy is understandable in their venues, the “transactional visitor” misses out on this information. On your home turf, you can provide this added value to the consumer freely.
6. Links to all your other Trulia or Zillow answers.
From your Q&A blog post, you can link to your other answers on those sites– heck, you spent so much time answering a zillion questions. But do it one better. Trulia provides you with a Q&A widget. Imbed the widget on your blog or website so your visitor doesn’t have to leave you to go to the Trulia red ocean. Note: The Trulia Q&A widget used to list everyone’s answers but I think they fixed it so only YOUR Q&As appear on the widget. See comments of Laurie Manny and Mary McKnight.
5. Link to your branded profile
Yes, you can link to your Trulia or Zillow profiles, but wouldn’t you prefer to link to your own profile page on your branded website or blog? Sure. Your Q&A posts allow you to do this. If you also want to sent them off to your profile in the red oceans, you can still do it. But why would you?
Contribute to “Interest Focused” Social Networks
These are social networks that are built around lifestyle and social interests, which are not necessarily centered around general real estate (but can be for niches).
Advantages:
1. Non-competition from other real estate agents.
There are a lot of specialty forums populated by folks who have an interest or passion for something other than real estate. By participating in these forums, you build a rapport based on an affinity of interest. People like to do business with folks who share the same interests. So, if you are a hunter or antique collector, get involved in these sites. If you are genuinely there to share your interest, hobby or passion (we all have regular lives right?), people will know, either by your link, or in conversation, that you are a real estate professional.
2. Genuine social networking
Real social networks, in my opinion, are those that are in fact, not based on getting business. Let’s face it, people who go to Trulia Voices are not naive enough to suppose you are giving answers without a motive, i.e. to get their business. In fact, that’s how Trulia promotes it — as a marketing technique to get clients. And consumers know this. BUT, in a genuine social setting, where there is a sharing of life interests, that self-promotion notion is out the window. True social bonds are formed. It is from these bonds, that relationships are forged. So when a friend from your fishing forum needs a real estate agent, they’ll call you as their fishing friend, that happens to be a real estate broker. This is social networking in its purest form.
Here is a website that list some specialty Q&A websites. If you know of others, please share them in the comments.
To find niche forums, simple search for “your interest forums” and choose one or more. As an aside, when I embarked on the blog tour last year, I joined a RV forum and made some friends there, one who later reached out to me on a legal matter. That was enlightening.
3. Focused “Niche” advantage
These focused real estate forums and sites are great for professionals who primarily work in a certain housing niche or specialty practice. It makes better marketing sense to be in these niche venues than the general real estate Trulia or Zillow forums, where your niche may not even be represented. More importantly, these sites are used by consumers interested in that niche. It could be anything from historic homes to houseboats to timeshares. Green housing is the fast growing trend if you’re looking to specialize. For example, blogger and Modernist Todd Carpenter recommended Dwell Connect for those real estate professionals interested in modern housing.
Try Face to Face Social Networking: Meetup.com
One of my favorite social networking sites is Meetup.com. I like it because it uses the web to create offline social networks. You actually get to see, touch and hear people with common interests. Nothing builds rapport faster than personal interaction. And at a meetup, you are able to engage people one-on-one.
Advantages:
Besides sharing the same advantages of the Interest Focused social networks/forums, there are added advantages:
1. Face to face interaction builds rapport faster than online interaction.
Face-to-face reality always beats virtual reality when it comes to relationships. While the internet allows you to connect with folks across a wide swatch of earth, the relationship is not very deep. It takes awhile for it to grow. I noticed from traveling the country that when I met a blogger at a meet up, we forged a faster and stronger bond than existed when we interacted solely online.
2. Folks like to do business with people they like and share common interests.
In a one-on one personal meeting, you are better able to communicate your personality. There are qualities of a person that just don’t translate well online– sense of humor, body language, smiles, facial expressions, tone of voice, etc. At meetups, this aspect of one’s personality is allowed to shine. I attended a meetup after the RISMedia Conference, struck up an interesting conversation with a fellow there and we’ll being doing business. I spoke with him today.
3. Easier to reconnect
Because the meetups are in your city or town, the people are local– like real estate. Once you make a personal connection, it is easier to follow it up with other meetings.
So, go ahead and swim in the red oceans of TruZilla but don’t forget to look for your own blue oceans where you can swim alone.
TIP: A real estate agent I met in San Francisco at the Inman Connect told me his little blue ocean was LinkedIn:Answers. (Use the Search and Advanced Search functions to find questions by category and subcategory).
Where’s your blue ocean?
Related Post:
Social Network ROI: What Color is Your Social Network?
Recommended Reading:
Dig Your Well Before You’re Thirsty by Harvey Mackay
Technorati Tags: social networks, web 2.0, trulia voices, zillow, blue ocean strategy, sellsius
