Ten years ago, print marketing was the Jedi Master at “forcing” your listings out into the public eye.  As times have changed, the world has gone to the dark side & gotten super futuristic on us with internet advertising.  Don’t get me wrong, I am still a HUGE fan of print media, however it seems that if your smart phone doesn’t know what you have one the market, no one does.  Real Estate,  meet Social Media.

According to an article by Brent Leary of Inc. Technology (featured on Wikipedia), “Using social media as a form of marketing has taken on whole new challenges. As the 2010 Trust Study indicates, it is most effective if marketing efforts through social media revolve around the genuine building of authority. Someone performing a “marketing” role within a company must honestly convince people of their genuine intentions, knowledge, and expertise in a specific area or industry through providing valuable and accurate information on an ongoing basis without a marketing angle overtly associated. If this can be done, trust with, and of, the recipient of that information – and that message itself – begins to develop naturally. This person or organization becomes a thought leader and value provider – setting themselves up as a trusted “advisor” instead of marketer. “Top of mind awareness” develops and the consumer naturally begins to gravitate to the products and/or offerings of the authority/influencer.”  Essentially, through non-forceful communication we gain trust, through trust we gain relationships and through relationships we gain clients. Easy, right?

This past Tuesday, we were fortunate enough to have Eric Miller, “The Boss” of Stache Creative come in to both the Tampa & St. Pete offices to give us the 411 on Social Media and why it is so important in business- primarily Real Estate.  Eric went over the social media trifecta that we all may know on a personal level but have shyed away from doing business with: Facebook, Twitter and Blogging.

The seminar was fabulous; leaving agents (and myself) wanting to know more, get started right away and smiling for photos with their snazzy stache laden business cards!  If you haven’t sat through one of his presentations and you’re looking to get pumped up about 1/2 nerdy yet completely cool stuff that will significantly increase your clientele, I highly suggest giving him a call to set something up.

I will leave you with a few crazy statistics (also brought to you by Wikipedia) to think about when debating whether or not you should join Lord Palpatine (Facebook), his first apprentice, Darth Maul (Twitter) and the one and only, Darth Vader (Blogging) and head on over to the Dark Side (Social Media Marketing):
- Social networking now accounts for 22% of all time spent online in the US.
- Over 25% of U.S. internet page views occurred at one of the top social networks.
- The number of social media users age 65 and older grew 100 percent throughout 2010, so that one in four people in that age group are now part of a social networking site.
- As of June 2011 Facebook has 750 Million users.

Crazy, right?!

Whether you spend your days adding old friends on facebook, blogging about your confusion on blogging, trying to figure out the new google +, or tweeting your every thought, congratulations-you are participating in social media!  What is your favorite Social Media outlet?  Are you usting these tools for business purposes?  Why or why not?  Tell us your success stories and while you’re at it, add us on facebook!