Ever search for a word but can’t seem to find it?
Or try to recall a fact that won’t roll off the tip of your tongue?
Ever need to buy a vowel from Vanna White?
What’s missing from the online real estate experience?
As part of a brand analysis for an East Coast brokerage, I drilled 10 pages deep into Google’s results for "real estate" in the company’s market area. I explored every result. There were 100 Websites in total. Of these 100 sites:
51 belonged to either associations, media companies, builders, funeral homes (not kidding), or listings aggregators;
37 belonged to individual agents, teams or single brokers;
7 belonged to brokerage companies;
3 were ActiveRain blogs;
1 site was a listing blog with an RSS feed;
1 site was a Naymz profile.
While I learned a bit about search-engine positioning, this exercise revealed something far more concerning: the X that marks the spot where real estate Websites, in general, fail.
Promises, promises
Several things crystallized. The most obvious was the mechanical gunfire of platitudes rat-tat-tatting across every broker and agent Website. The bullet holes murdered my ability to decipher and choose. It’s like the old game show, "To Tell the Truth." Will the real local expert, market specialist, top producer, #1 expert, yada yada yada please stand up?
Next was the realization that what a Website is or could be has been lost among real estate companies. Most of these sites were more closely related to their bus bench and moving-van-ad cousins. I felt like Charlton Heston landing on the Planet of the Apes wondering how this could be happening amidst all the advances in Web features and design standards.
Finally, there were the promises made but not kept on these sites. Ideas like "Find your Dream Home," held a greater promise than what actually delivered. The lead forms and poorly executed IDX solutions covering tens of thousands of homes – a huge haystack in which I am left to find my dream needle that screamed "gotcha!"
What’s missing?
Truth. Honesty. A real voice. Three huge wells to draw ideas from that could carry the Websites from the 1.0 world of cliché.
What is a ""#1 expert"? What does that even mean?
What is a "top producer"? What is it that you produce?
What is a "market specialist"? What is a market anyway? Don’t we live in towns and neighborhoods?
And what makes you a "specialist"? How can I come to believe in that?
If you are these things, prove it. If you want to use these terms, bring them to life. Extend the statement and allow the user to experience these things first hand.
100 Web sites, one unfulfilling experience
Inside and across the caverns I hear the shouts of those who would claim this illustrates the failure of Web 2.0 in real estate. But Web 2.0 has not failed real estate; real estate has simply failed to grab hold of its promise. Consider for just a minute those examples of agents and brokerages who have scaled to the top of their local real estate boulder by digging their crampons and cams dug into the 2.0 sensibility. Proof is there. In the pudding.
It’s been five years since mashups were introduced to real estate. Three since blogging started generating buzz. During this time hundreds of millions of Web users have been exposed to a new way of experiencing the Internet. And while I believe that there are many social aspects of Web 2.0 that make no sense for real estate, I will argue for the ones that do. I will argue that providing proof of the claims on your site hones in on the basic tenets of branding.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe it is.
Web 2.0 is a failure if all you value is the short lived thrill from a lead delivered to your inbox.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe there’s no value in a meaningful online conversation.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you believe conducting local business is not about inviting a global marketplace.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you’re not patient enough to reap long-term benefits.
Web 2.0 is a failure if you’re not willing to learn new skills and jettison the old real estate marketing playbook.
I visited 100 Web sites. Save for the ActiveRain profiles, there was nary a trace of any of the great things Web 2.0 offers. That tells me there’s a big opportunity waiting for the brokerage company or agent willing to cut through that haystack with a shiny new needle that’s different.
- Davison
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I've read dozens of posts and had even more conversations with real estate professionals about the benefits of Social Media/Web 2.0. In nearly every conversation I find that what they have to say is anecdotal and lacking details of any positive "ROI". I think this is changing and hope that the conversations do as well. Social Media can work great…if you work it. But if we look at it as a chance to get "15 pages of fame", the core of our industry and our clients will not be pursuaded to dive-in.
I'm a little surprised that there were no 'other' blogs showing up in that market. The ActiveRain profiles/blogs that you found certainly brings a smile to my face, but the idea that there weren't other blogs leads me to believe someone in that market has a great shot at scaling the ladder with a blog (whether it be their AR blog or their personal blog).
Exactly Bob. That's my point in a nutshell. There was one site – blog if you will. It was a listing blog. Just homes with description. Came up on page 3 or 4 of the results. But it had no vibe really. No point of view.
Seems to me, there's a huge opportunity there for someone to offer the user something other than the same thing everyone else has.
Marc, I love reading your posts. You really have such an insight. As usual right on mark with this. However, there are some areas of the country where the picture is a bit more…say robust. Ok maybe poor choice of wording. But then again what do you expect when the Industry Media PUNDITS, like FAR,(My neck of the woods here in Florida) &
NAR and other so called experts like…oh…Florida Realtor, Agent Direct News and RealtorMag print crappy articles that create even more confusion to the Realtors. When it comes to Web 2.0, as in most advertising venues for it to work well, you have to have a plan and work with someone who gets it. Simply trying a do it yourself approach as most of these media types hype it results in confusion and failure to connect the dots. Stay tuned as I am working on a Real Estate Technology POST over at Virtual Interactive Systems site, that dives into the problem a bit more. I will copy you when I post this weekend. Thanks
You're welcome.
Yes, working web 2.0 is not about getting a word press blog and just going for it. Free doesn't mean easy. Easy doesn't translate to payoff.
I have an email here from an agent who scoffs at this post commenting on how much work is involved in creating a Web 2.0 expression.
Mmm, when did not having to work hard become the path to success? Oh yeah, 1997-2005. I wish we can scroll back time. I wish I could sit around and collect paychecks by doing little or nothing.
Today, hard work is in. It's hip. It's cool. Having something to say, an opinion, a vibe, a point of view is exactly what it takes these days to get customers.
I think too little has explained about what 2.0 really means and there has been too much sensationalism placed on it failures and fleeting successes.
But there are a few diamonds in that rough and sure, it takes some work. But the payoff of hard work is a sound business.
Looking forward to what you have coming up Tom.
Marc…
Very interesting piece. As an agent looking to be as customer centric as possible….and as in tune with the latest web tools as possible…. what Web 2.0 features would you specifically suggest implementing? (Web2.0 seems very generic to many of us…so the more specific you can be…the better.)
Thx. -Vince
Simple things Vince. Start with you website. Remove those things that interfere with the users experience and put things on there that enhance it.
- Simplify your website.
- Get a blog and link to it.
- Write about what you know.
- Engage a local conversation.
- Put SEARCH on your home page.
- If foreclosures are an issue in your area, write about it. Find a feed of foreclosure properties and add it to your website as if it were an IDX feed.
- Shoot video. Post it. Ask for feedback.
- Get a tablet computer and esignature software and remove paper based transactions from your clients life.
- Redo your ads. Make it NOT ABOUT YOU. Tap into ABOUT THEM.
- Make things up.
The great thing about what's available today is that there are so many outlets for creativity.
Exactly Bob. That's my point in a nutshell. There was one site – blog if you will. It was a listing blog. Just homes with description. Came up on page 3 or 4 of the results. But it had no vibe really. No point of view.
Seems to me, there's a huge opportunity there for someone to offer the user something other than the same thing everyone else has.