Recently, I found myself backstage at a Black Eyed Peas concert courtesy of my best bud, who handles the band. A chair on the side of the stage was offered to me, a few feet away from the action. Below, a tent filled with food was at my disposal.
My friend is very influential in the music business. As a result, I got hooked up. But at no point did his influence really rub off on me.
Influence matters
Last Sunday, my inbox was deluged with new Twitter followers. It continued all weekend. In torrents.
I could have shut the emails off but between spam flotsam and porn jetsam I like keeping track of my account as I regularly remove or block the unsavory.
On Tuesday, I learned Stefan Swanepoel released a list of the “most influential real estate people on Twitter.” I was on that list.
Obviously, Stefan has some influence. He persuaded hundreds of people to take action and follow me. But is that as influential as it gets? Can he influence them to read our blog? Hire us?
I also wondered why, exactly, these agents chose to follow us. Stefan claimed we’re influential. In what way? Under what context or circumstance?
This got me thinking about the various Twitter strategies offered to agents and the crowds of people they’re coached to follow, tweet to and ultimately try to exert their own influence upon.
Finally, I wondered what if any effects there are when 400+ seemingly un-influential people follow me for no reason but never engage me.
I decided to find out. I made two phone calls as soon as I was able to locate an AT&T signal.
Call #1
I spoke to Stefan regarding his list. It was put together as a takeaway during a live presentation for agents and brokers who don’t know where or how to get started. His list offered attendees a starting point. 100 people to follow.
There was no strategy behind it. No guidelines. No advice on what to do once they hit the follow button in order to get these influential individuals to follow them back. Or how become an influencer themselves.
I asked Stefan what makes the folks on the list influential. He offered me his criteria:
- Quality of posts
- Quantity of posts
- Number of influential people they follow
- Number of influential people who follow them
Nothing scientific. These are things he values. I don’t disagree.
A few days later Dustin published his own list of influential people. This list was half the size and ranked by influence based on an API he wrote.
Call #2
Joe Fernandez is a friend of mine. He is also the founder of Klout, a service that measures influence across the social web. We talked about influence, Twitter strategy, popularity and what it means in the grand scheme. I sent him Stefan’s list and asked if he could run all the names through Klout.
I found the results incredibly confusing. At first glance you notice that the number of followers a person has does not directly correlate to how influential they are within the greater context of Twitter. Nor does their volume of Tweets. In fact, some on the list with many followers and many posts ranked much lower than others with less of each.
So I asked Joe to explain his assessment of influence. Here’s what he had to say:
MD: Joe, give me the elevator pitch on Klout to lay groundwork for this discussion.
JF: Sure. There are people who possess great influence. They can use it wisely and can make things happen. The same holds true in social media. Klout measures that influence for each person across multiple topics.
MD: How do you do that?
JF: We use a metric we call “True Reach” which represents the number of followers that care about your tweets. We look at how influential those people who care about you are and then we normalize that data across all of the people on Twitter to come up with a 1-100 “Klout Score” representing overall influence.
MD: What do you mean by “care?”
JF: “Care” is defined by actions followers take, such as retweeting or engaging you in conversation on your post. We’re tracking over 3 million people now across Twitter and measuring “care” across 25 different variables.
MD: In other words, Oprah, Obama and Bono follow me but never react to my posts. That’s an example of not caring.
JF: Right. But if they take action on your post, and their followers take action on their action of your post thus creates a domino effect, Klout translates that as influence.
MD: This explains why some with high follower counts have low scores?
JF: Yes. A large number of followers that are not engaged does not make one influential. Influence is the ability to drive action. People with huge follower numbers but have a low Klout Score aren’t driving actions.
MD: What is the value in amassing social influence?
JF: We’re talking about social capital. Your ability to influence others has currency. Companies are no longer looking at customers and determining their lifetime value based on the volume of stuff they’re going to buy. Companies now think about the “network value” of each customer – their connections, followers, friends and the influence and ability they have to drive others either towards or away from their brand.
MD: Can influence be created?
JF: Sure. In the past it was always about the high school quarterback being cooler than the chemistry class whiz kid or the rich guy being treated better than regular folks and that’s the way it is. Through social media anyone can effectively build and engage an audience.
MD: Why is measuring and amassing influence important for real estate people?
JF: 96% of Gen-Y uses social media. They’re real estate’s next customer. What they value, how they search and how they decide will be guided on their platforms of choice and through the counsel of others across social media. Influence matters. An agent will one day matter to those consumers who themselves have built up social influence.
MD: What’s an average Klout Score?
JF: 15.
MD: Really? That seems awfully low.
JF: We’ve seen people with 2,000 followers who Tweet all the time but have a Klout Score of 3. Some of the people on both lists you referenced have scores that rank low. Some don’t even rank yet.
MD: But yet they’re considered influential.
JF: Well here’s the thing – all told, influence is still relative and personal. A person with a score of 3 could be considered very influential to one person – Stefan or Dustin in this situation. In that context, that’s all that matters. Klout does not attempt to detract from that reality at all. We measure some things, but not everything.
MD: What would be an unnaturally high score?
JF: 60 and above is bordering on influential royalty. One person on Stefan’s list scored an 80. That is unusually high.
MD: Any advice for real estate Twitter users?
JF: Don’t waste money buying followers (which I can prove a few people on that list did). Don’t waste time following people just so they will follow you back. Don’t be noisy with your tweets. Create saved searches (on Tweetdeck) for your market area so that when other people talk about it you can jump in the conversation and provide useful answers to their questions. Tweet like you’re an expert on your community and other people searching will inevitably find you. Engage in real discussion, not just @ message your followers one by one to tell them “good morning.” Also, consider who you follow. We notice that many real estate agents are following other real estate agents and that’s their entire strategy. They need to reach outside their category and create reactions across a wide band of topics. Become the person people turn to when they have a question and you will be truly influential.
MD: Last question: The 400+ people that followed me in two days. Did that decrease my Klout Score or diminish my influence?
JF: No. But they did little to increase your influence. Here’s your challenge: Research who these people are and adjust your Twitter strategy to engage a portion of them. This will increase your score.
MD: Great. Just what I need – homework.
JF: You asked.
Theory of influential relativity
While Klout measures social influence across 25 different variables, it missed at least two: Stefan and Dustin’s variables. And they matter too.
While there is no perfectly constructed instrument to measure influence, it is clear that attending to a sound methodology and strategy regarding who you follow, what you say, how often you say it, and how much value to bring to multiple communities is the clearest path toward building influence.
And however you measure influence, that just makes sense.
Here are the Klout Scores for everyone on Stefan’s list:
- Davison
Twitter: 1000wattmarc
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You’re right ATT sucks.
All this analysis and the lists are fascinating (to me anyway). I was on Stefan’s but not Dustin’s, my Klout score is 46.
One thing that shines through all the smoke, haze and hype is that if you want Twitter to have impact for you, engagement is key.
Thanks for the reminder, the thoughtful analysis and letting us listen in on your conversation with Joe.
Good stuff.
Great insight, Marc. I had only heard of Klout before, but I went to try it out. Unfortunately, I’m not indexed– yet. Weird, since everyone else in my family is.
I guess something like this could kinda help you pick people to follow, if you were just starting out now. When I started a few years ago, there were so few real estate folks on twitter, that it was pretty easy to find good people. It is becoming increasingly harder to separate wheat and chaff.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jon Sterling and Ryan & Stephen. Ryan & Stephen said: Measuring influence on Twitter: Who “cares?”: Recently, I found myself backstage at a Black Eyed Peas con.. http://bit.ly/mXEmu ^Ryan [...]
Great stuff, Marc. As I Tweeted to you the other day, I think ANY method of measuring influence on Twitter is highly subjective.
Having said that, Joe’s metrics make a lot of sense intuitively. Klout has some really sophisticated analytics which have already had an impact on my overall Twitter strategy.
Also, I think Stefan’s list was valuable because (1) even though it was subjective – which he freely admitted – he does have a basis for an opinion based on the position of authority he has established within the industry by virtue of his writings and teachings, and (2) it ignited this firestorm of debate and conversation within the real estate community about influence and how to measure it.
Thanks to you, Stefan and Joe for advancing this issue and making all of us think more and more about what, how and why we do what we do on Twitter.
Great post Marc. It has been fascinating to see all the dust fly about this very subject over the last week. I think it is especially fascinating to me because I too started a monthly list back in June called the “Roost 50 Real Estate People to Follow.”
But I purposely excluded the words best, most influential, top, etc. because I knew that would be impossible to try and justify. Like Stefan, I was trying to provide a starting point for real estate people that were new to Twitter. I was choosing people that were engaging, smart, funny and real.
My reasoning for starting the list was from my own personal experience starting on Twitter a year and a half ago. But I also made the list monthly because as we all know, great people on Twitter are not stuck in time. It is constantly evolving.
I’m also glad you brought Joe and Klout into the discussion. Having met Joe through Twitter and having the opportunity to have a Klout account from almost the very beginning, I find their methodology much more believable than some of the other influence trackers.
Will we ever figure this out? I don’t think so. But in the meantime, I’m just going to continue to do what I do and engage the people that engage me back. It seems to work for me.
What a week we were having! The conversations on Twitter last week about this topic were what Twitter is all about. Not on anyone’s list (but my wife’s) I’ll continue to develop business contacts, friendships and life opportunities using social media to the fullest; and use the analytics behind Klout.com to measure how my current ’48′ rating climbs higher as I provide a positive contribution to the communities I engage with.
Marc, Thanks for a very interesting article. I found myself on the 2nd list that was posted, and like you was slammed with people following me. My practice with Twitter is to always thank everyone that is not clearly a spammer by sending a direct message back to them once I was followed them. What was really surprising to me is how few acknowledged my direct message with any response.
Engagement for me is the key to Twitter and why I love it. I guess my point for all those reading your article is get in there and engage with your favorite people, have discussions, exchange ideas, and conversations. It will make Twitter a better place for us all.
Thanks Marc, now I have this image of you boppin’ to /My Hump/ while cruising a sprawling cheese plate buffet and a bowl of M&Ms with the green ones removed.
How’s that for influence?
Like Derek I also purposely excluded the words best, most, top, etc. when I published my list.
Way to many people have had their ego bruised for not making it onto my or any other list. Sorry, I had a role to play in that – but really, it’s not important to be on any list – it’s just interesting.
What is however great is the many discussions and debate these lists have generated. Hopefully we have all made new contacts, new friends and shared our opinion on a very complex and subjective topic.
Thanks to everyone that contributed and especially to Derek, Dustin, Marc and Klout. Great research and work by all of you.
I am sure we will chat again soon when the next list is published.
Whenever I consider using a tool I ask myself several questions among which are:
Will this reach my consumer?
Will this benefit my business?
What ROI can I expect?
For most of the people on these lists their consumer is the real estate agent. Several of the agents on these lists use Twitter as an Instant Messaging service with a small group of friends.
Given the amount of time Twitter requires, both in posting, reading and interacting one must pose the question: “Is the return on time invested worth the investment?” for real estate agents?
The value for vendors is real, the agents are there.
Recently at REBarCamp Pasadena I posed several questions to a large audience of real estate agents.
1. How many people use Twitter? Most
2. How many have had consumer contact? Very Few
3. How many closed sales from those contacts? None
The same questions were posed for Facebook with the same outcome.
I’ve asked agents why they continue to use tools that provide no ROI, their answer is usually “For the referral business from other agents”. Further conversation usually reveals that the referral business they receive is minimal and also provides few, if any, closings.
High ranking web and blog sites with good IDX continue to drive convertible consumer traffic to real estate agents. These sites provide tangible business and ROI. There are no referral fees to be paid on business earned directly and if you earn enough you have no need for referrals.
I’ve read all the hype about several agents receiving ‘some’ business from Twitter and how it has enhanced their business by adding a few extra sales for their year. If their sites were cranking it out they wouldn’t need this business.
Twitter is just not that valuable for real estate agents. It requires a fairly large investment of time for a very small return.
It is fun though, when you want to just hang out and play. Although I prefer ‘hanging out’ on Facebook. At least on Facebook the local (potential consumers) community is there playing as well.
I guess what I am saying is what value does your Twitter influence have if you are not influencing potential consumers? Is your time justified tweeting about BS, because most of the tweets I see from real estate agents are not directed at, or valuable to consumers.
@Laurie – Dead on!
By the way, I will be speaking at CAREXPO Tech Tuesday in San Jose on October 6, 2009. This is one of the subjects I plan on discussing.
I guess these speaking engagments that I do not pursue mean that I have Klout and some influence. So what value do these lists have?
They have an audience
@Bob………..and a soapbox!
The only thing worth measuring anything, including “influence,” against are your goals. Once you have your business goals set, you want to ask: Can Twitter help me accomplish them? If you think it can, then you need to determine what your Twitter strategy should be. Then you execute it and track it. If it’s working, great, and hey, tell the rest of us about it! If not, make any necessary adjustments or reevaluate whether it is the best use of your time and resources. I think a lot of people are on Twitter without a clear strategy that is in service to their goals and target audiences. I am one of them!
Marc your right influence is not popularity. Dick Chaney influence not popular.
I just re-read Laurie Manny’s 5:49pm comments and I totally agree. I think we are saying the same thing.
Influence is a big deal on Twitter. I noticed that even with under 200 followers, I can increase the traffic to my blog posts by a very large margin. Without twitter, I would have to wait until the post was organically discovered by repeat visitors or by Google search. Now with Twitter, its like real time traffic. I can get 20 hits before the post has even been on the web 10 minutes.
-Tyler
Tyler,
Getting 20 or 40 hits in the first 10 or 15 minutes on Twitter, before your post is buried is nice. If you were getting over 5000 hits a day mostly from consumers would 20 to 40 hits, mostly from peers, really matter?
I agree with Laurie.
Agents fishing Twitter for referral business will be spending a lot money/time on bait. The payoff there is nominal. Following industry influencers is not a bad idea provided you actually follow them rather than hitting a follow button and then wash your hands of it.
But that strategy only goes so far unless these influencers are either poised to buy a home from you or recommend you to someone. But I would argue that the greater someones influence is on Twitter, the less likely they are to follow someone with no influence. Notice how many influential people on Twitter don’t always follow the same amount of people who follow them.
So a agent new to Twitter who follows an influencer will have to work hard to earn their notice and their follow.
Following everyone for the sake of building your follow count is not a good idea. In most cases, you are not even evoking a sense of popularity.
The first question someone (a consumer) might ask when viewing an agent with 12,000 followers is how in the world does this person have so many followers? A quick peek at your list will reveal a lot about you, your habits, and your sensibilities. I have taken those looks myself at many accounts and… well… nuff said.
Follow less. Engage the ones you follow more often. Follow locals. Or those seeking info about you locally. Answer questions that come up. Twittering with colleagues publicly about what you ate today is fine. But answering questions about great restaurants to those seeking to buy homes where you live is far more prudent.
Follow less.
Unless you are pitching a product to the followers, following more doesn’t do you much good. The exception to that is someone like Guy Kawasaki who will follow back anyone that isnt pushing porn, mlm, etc. Guy does that because he wants you feel special and keep following him, so he (via his girls) can blast you with a 1000 twit commercials a day.
Those with influence in other industries to exactly as Marc stated. They do not follow many. They have tons of followers who hang on every word, like Matt Cutts, but Matt only follows those who provide a benefit to him, or where he can use them to spread his own influence.
“Now with Twitter, its like real time traffic. I can get 20 hits before the post has even been on the web 10 minutes.”
This goes to a different issue that relates to agents who blog, but dovetails with what Laurie is saying about twitter. Who do you want in your audience and why?
I feel kinda silly now. This was my first “Tweeple” list follow. I am fairly new to the industry and wanted to follow you guys for advice and to be honest, motivation in an industry that is rough and very easy to become self-depracating in.
Maybe I shouldn’t have followed the whole list, but I do feel that learning from you all will help. I don’t feel that social media is a good lead resource for any Real Estate agent. It is simply a tool that can be used to keep your name out there. In my opinion, if you don’t stay physically in front of people (open houses, showings, etc.) you won’t ever win. Just my thoughts.
lol…….I stopped following Guy Kawasaki, I found his constant posts to be very annoying.
The things I like about Twitter?
Good resource for real estate related news articles, saves me the time of searching tons of sites myself.
Good resource for new products and reviews.
Good resource for keeping in touch with my Realtor and Online friends nationwide.
I find it entertaining to watch the tweets fly by.
I love the controversy and buzz. These 3 people who created lists are not the scapegoats. They are all good guys. Link baiting aside, they created their list and shared it with the world. Good for them.
What I am more interested in is getting the message to the new Twitter User who happens on these lists and instilling upon them the fact that just because a person is on a list doesn’t mean you should follow them. You the follower have to come up with your own rules of engagement.
Marc – I saw that you turned off monitoring your DM’s. That’s good for you! (not for me)
I chose to go a different way. I follow everyone who follows me (automatically). Of course I can’t really engage with 6,000 peeps. I use Seesmic Desktop to narrow the stream down to 100 that I do care about. If someone outside that stream chooses to engage with me (DM or Reply) I’m listening. Engage with me a couple of times and I may bump someone off my list of 100 and put you there.
There is no right way to do it – it’s what works best for you.
I am surprised to see my name on the Klout list – I’ve never logged into the site and checked – just not important to me to know my Klout score.
Mike Altos – I thought the Peas had extra Green M & M’s trucked in for concerts. ; )
@Ken. Yes. AT&T has taken suck to a whole level.
@Houston – No need to feel silly. Social media is still very much in an experimental phase. We are all trying to figure this out. No one is an expert on this stuff. Part of the experiment requires us to stick our toes in and feel around. But there is also a responsibility attached to it which requires us to not remove the toes but to essentially jump in and add to the process. Which you have. My compliments to you.
So now that you have jumped in – signing up to the whole list – the best thing you can do is what Joe said in his interview. Explore the people you are following. Engage them from time to time like you have with me. Find ways to add value to them. And then all of the work can, might and often times, will. I am pretty sure of that.
Thanks for following me and I will return the favor.
I think you are right, @Laurie; if you don’t have a target audience in mind, it’s like taking a trip without a road map. You can narrow your focus to monitor that target, or maybe easier is to make a place for it to “land,” like the #westernma hashtag, for example.
What might make the lists more successful overall would be to ask the potential group of 50 or 100 if they are agreeable to mentoring new blood. It might be easier for the new ones- who may not even understand the concept of DMing (or know how to check!)- to contact people who are prepared to engage.
Marc, thanks for the research, and Laurie, thanks for your insights. Until last week I was plugging along, somewhat blissfully, with about 175 followers, and following a similar number.
The people I added to my list of friends were mostly ones who I found interesting, plus those who had sought to follow me. I tried to be selective, in both directions, which kept my numbers easy to maintain.
Then, last week, I too signed up for Stefan’s first list, then Dustin’s list of 50, and then Stefan’s second 100 list.
In mere hours I went from receiving tweets in a manageable fashion, to being swamped with more tweets than any normal human being, with a normal life, could possibly scour.
I started using Tweetdeck, thinking that would make things a bit easier, and while it helped, I still cannot begin to keep up with the Tsunami of tweets hitting my inbox.
I have always been more connected to both blogging and to Facebook, and see a lot of the names on my new 250 Twitter BFFs that I was running into on those venues – both of which I prefer in every way, to Twitter.
At this point, even before reading this post and Laurie’s comments, I was trying to figure out how to start to cull my number of Tweeple back down to a manageable level, once again.
My criteria before was a feeling of relevance, some reason for following, and for being followed. I am returning to that as my criteria, just as soon as I can figure out who among my new friends, can be considered mutually relevant. That will take a lot longer than it took to add the people of the 3 lists – which was pretty much instantaneous.
Thanks again for your thoughts.
I agree with each of you, to a certain extent. For starters, I totally get Derek and Stefan, et al, and their reasons for publishing their lists. They were created for people just starting out, just trying to figure out how to use Twitter. Following people who consistently produce quality content is a GOOD thing. Whether you’re influenced by it is another thing altogether.
I often teach “Social Media 101″ classes to Realtors and, when talking about Twitter, I frequently give a short list of people whom I feel are informative and provide useful industry information. What the people in those classes choose to do with that list is up to them.
When I first started using Twitter, there were many people I followed simply because people suggested them. Many of those that I followed turned out to be great resources or people whose tweets I enjoy for one reason or another. Those who provided nothing of value to me, I simply unfollowed. The same thing will happen with the people who followed everyone on The Lists of Last Week (which sounds like a sequel to The Bridges of Madison County).
At the end of the day, no matter what Stefan or Derek or Hubspot or even Klout says, the only person who can decide who’s influential is you.
How does influence in the real estate industry help the average realtor sell real estate? Wouldn’t influence in their own community be more useful? How does influencing realtors help me? Don’t say referrals, I don’t pay referral fees.
I don’t know a lot of VERY successful real estate agents—
Let me qualify successful:
AGENTS WHO MAKE A SHI*TLOAD OF MONEY
on Twitter or Facebook.
The only metric of success for real estate agents that should be how much money they make and how influential they are in their market.
When I look at some of these lists, I ask myself “how influential can an agent, who is considered influential ‘in the clouds” be if they have no influence in their local market, IRL.”
Barbara Corcoran is an influential; Dolly Lenz is an influential; Shari Chase is an influential.
There is not one consumer looking for real estate or a real estate agent on Twitter.
Why am I there? It makes me money, big money.
What is my strategy?
I’m not telling. I’m not stupid.
I agree with Melissa and Kevin makes me laugh!
no one takes me seriously. but that’s ok. At least I make some people laugh
Who witnessed the #twitterbrawl between @1000wattmarc and @tyr on Friday night about 8-9 pm est. It was good.
I have to agree with Laurie’s comments. For me, it’s not that I don’t “get” Twitter. (Well, maybe that’s it a little.) It’s a matter of time management and I choose to get clients and influence people in a different way. I depend a lot on Facebook and client appreciation events and my SOI. It just works better for me personally. I’m sure that Twitter works really well for some agents, just not for me.
@Kevin. Yup. Exactly.
thanks for your work and thoughts to all who have contributed to the parade on this one. read some great questions, thoughts and interesting angles taken.
After all of this I know of only one thing everyone might agree on A T & T does suck (unfortunately) do u think apple is saving a t & t?
Last thought: one person asked about ROI for social media. It might be interesting to see what ROI is from both a dollar value & time value standpoint but like most worthwhile ventures the long run is the thing….what little I know about SM points me to the conclusion that twitter could be a fad but the movement in society that shifted to social media avenues of distribution is just getting warmed up…
Loren
You bring up excellent points that I’ve thought about, many times.
What if Facebook goes away? Friendster did. What if Twitter goes away?
Here’s what I know: I’ve met a lot of people—even a lot of influentials from all this “stuff.”
I can pick up the phone and call a techie in Seattle or Jonathan Miller in NYC. I’ve made a lot of very, very valuable connnections. They aren’t consumers but valuable nonetheless.
Ride the wave NOW. Decide on a strategy. Meet some peeps. Engage; Give; Take, while it’s there
AT&T sux bad. That’s why I still have a BB.
Marc–
Blog topic: How much MORE successful could the iPhone have been on Verizon?
I’m so confused right now. Marc, thank you for your kind words. Kevin-I take you seriously!! I want to make a sh*tload of money!!!!!!!! Tell me how, darnit!!
I think the name of Stefan’s list is somewhat misleading. What does “on twitter” mean?
In one sense of the phrase, if Gary Keller had a twitter account, but never tweeted and had only one follower (just humor me), wouldn’t he still be one of the most influential people on twitter?
Is he influential? Ahem, yes.
Is he on twitter? Yes, at least in this example.
In another sense, someone may exert their influence through twitter such that it becomes an engine of their influence. In many cases, their actual influence on the real estate space is far less than via social media and twitter.
Am I nitpicking here? It’s at least worthy of exploration, IMO.
Kevin, you can make me laugh and I can still take you seriously at the same time. That is what is taking place right now! Have a good one my man!
I think twitter and popularity “influence” on twitter is way over analyzed. I enjoy twitter when I have time, when I’m not out selling real estate.
It’s always nice to catch up with friends and colleagues this way.
It’s also great to get some link love when I put a new post that I’d like a little more attention for.
Overall, I don’t expect to sell homes on twitter and quite frankly would not want to “influence” people on twitter. Too much responsibility.
Ian, Gary Keller is hot! lol… Ever see him and Mo on stage rocking out?
Great comments:-)
Let’s remember that we don’t how, when or if, Twitter will blossom into something entirely different and magnificent (or it could fizzle and fade). Something we can’t imagine today. If that happens and it might not, but if something like that happened, it would better to have a foot or two firmly planted in the space, rather than having to ramp up and crowd through the door.
For example, I’ve read there’s a new RT function coming soon, even little enhancement like that can turn a VW into an M3.
@Kevin – How much more successful would Apple be if it went with iPhone? They would have the 1000watt account for starters.
@Houstonblogger – Relax. There is nothing to be confused about. Too many people have jumped on the social media bandwagon and are running around singing its praises without ever being asked to present actual proof of how they used social media to drive sales or increase year over year revenue.
Real estate has, over the years, rolled out red carpets to many who make claims about their SM expertise and their results without being asked to present any real proof. It’s not hard to slap together a power point, weave in some key words, volunteer to deliver a “keynote” at a BarCamp and lead an agent down a lonely path of blogging and vacuous Twittering, which in many cases, have led many of those instructors right out the real estate sales business themselves.
This is not what you want to have happen to you.
Want to get unconfused? Here’s what I would do:
- Trust your instincts on this. Completely.
- Ask the most successful agents you know how much time they spend on Twitter or SM in general. Then spend half that time yourself until you are as successful as they are.
- Subscribe to publications outside of real estate on social media.
- The most successful examples of social media, and there are many out there, are spearhead by individuals who are masters of social interaction, passionate about social engagement, have access to many resources and make it their full time job.
- Take advice from someone who has actually built a business using it. Knowing how to set up a Facebook account or having collected thousands of random followers on Twitter does not automatically qualify someone as and expert.
- Be wary of the traveling social media medicine shows. The ones that train then sell product that is often times quietly sponsored by some 3rd part vendor. ASK QUESTIONS! Too many good agents and brokers are being taken advantage of due to their lack of knowledge.
Now, there are some in real estate who really do know what they are talking about. Learn to ask the right questions before you take action. Like I said, 2 influential people got hundreds of agents to follow their friends on Twitter. But what was really in it for you?
@kevin – Then Verizon would suck and Att would suck less. Iphone is a data hog that no network can handle adequately.
Question for all: Twitter aside, who have you seen really influence this industry in the last 12 months?
Marc,
Thank you for the great post response regarding my confusion. If I were to speak with the most successful agents that I know and then spend half that time with SM, then my time using SM would = 0.
I honestly do not know one person who has been successful at utilizing SM to increase their business. I’ve used it mostly to stay in touch with clients, friends and people from other industries that interest me. Unfortunately, I don’t know one person that I could identify as a SM success story. Perhaps I could say some of the people on this blog are success stories, but in my life in Houston, I can’t think of one.
Kinda depressing.
I have a BB and I love it. I use Sprint because ATT is a bunch of dillholes.
Have a great evening!