I’m seeing more and more REALTORS jumping on board the social media bandwagon of late. More invitations to connect, more followers, more comments on blogs, more requests to join groups. It would seem that many are listening to the news stories hyping social media as the next great frontier. Or maybe they’ve heard their friends and relatives sharing their experiences on social networking sites or talking about their personal blogs. I’m wondering how many got involved simply because one of their prospects asked them, “Are you on Facebook?” (Answer: “Um, sure!” — Sound of car speeding off to race home and register for Facebook —)
Regardless of the reason, I’m happy to see it starting to take hold. Glad to see so many moving outside of their comfort zone, willing to try something new and different in expanding (or maintaining) their real estate business. But I recognize we’ve got a long way to go before we can say that most real estate professionals are using social media. And even further to go before a sizeable percentage are using these tools effectively. Still further to see that most will have moved beyond the overt, in-your-face, leading-with-a-sales-pitch approach to using social media. But hey, we gotta start somewhere.
The culture and rules of social media are going to take time to percolate through to new users. The platforms and navigation are the easy parts. Learning the etiquette of social media is something less formalized and will take trial and error to find its way into the daily practice and thought process of many. Guidance and patience will be required by the “old guard” of social media, allowing the uninitiated to falter and make mistakes.
