I’m a fan of silly things – they usually make me smile , but sometimes I end up just scratching my head and wondering why people do silly things when they don’t intend to. And more and more frequently I see people doing sill things in social spaces.

Your community ( or audience, or market) needs to be the prime consideration when you write or say things, so I am stunned  by many real estate people who  think their audience needs to be interested in the things they want them to be interested in. I reserve  ReReflections for the comments on the real estate industry that are so peculiarly mine that I ‘m not sharing them over at AgentGenius. My social media thoughts are either published there or at www.smminstitute.com or www.buzzbuilderz.com. My blog posts that might be of interest to consumers find their way to either MovePhilly or C21AgVoices. Not because I want my writings to be hard to find, but because I want to be saying things that are relevant to specific readers.

It not a new phenomenon but before the advent of social media, we needed to be present to hear real estate agents say silly things. For example, an agent might tell a client whose listing was expiring “You can’t list your property with someone else – I’ve really spent a lot of time working on it”.  Why does the seller care? Their property isn’t sold and their needs are not being met. and they still needed to sell the property.  A more relevant tactic would have been to give them a reason to stay listed that made sense. Perhaps a discussion of their pricing and marketing position combined with a comparison of the marketing efforts  of the current and prospective real estate companies.  It might not have convinced the client to extend the listing, but at least the conversation would have been relevant instead of simply self-centered.

Today, poorly informed  agents who use social networks to broadcast commercial messages make their lack of thought a public spectacle. The “Facebook listing” is an iconic example of abuse.  With listings reiterated in thousands of places through IDX feeds and listing syndication, putting listing information or open house information in a social environment demonstrates not only a lack of concern for the other members of your community, but a lack of respect for your “friends”.

By demonstrating lack of relevance in your content, and a disregard for the social context, you demonstrate disrespect for your ‘friends’  that results in a dismissal of your message and a reduction in your online relevance .

Recently, I saw an interchange on Facebook that went like this:

When I read this he sounds like a multi-level-marketer talking about “income potential” . No one cares what you make (unless you’re paying their bills) – they care about things that impact them or your relationship with them. Not to mention the fact that the whole response might have been better placed as a message rather than a wall post.

And while we’re talking about advertising disguised as social interaction – how about this;

Where is the engagement in this blind solicitation? Who could be silly enough to think that this person cares about their career ? This could easily have been lifted from a bus bench billboard – is that what we perceive our social network values?

I think that talking about work in social settings can be appropriate , just as it would be in face to face settings. For example, you might say in a social setting that you had a tough time working with sellers to obtain a listing, but you probably wouldn’t whip out a flyer for the property and give it to the guests.  If we could just take a moment to think about whether we would do something in person that we’re about to do on-line, it might really improve the quality of our communications, and the bonds we have wth our communties,

There is a lot of conversation in the real estate industry about print advertising being overtaken by on-line alternatives.

There are surveys that show that most buyers start their search for homes on th Internet, and obviously it is better for the consumer to see more photos,in color, with amps and statistics,then it is to read a classified print ad.

When I was young, the real estate section of the Sunday paper was thick, bulging with ads and articles about neighborhoods, new construction,mortgages and more. And of course there were just tons of ads- and it was because of that concentration of ads that the real estate section existed.

Over the years, the ads became more expensive,covering smaller areas, and real estate professionals worked to find alternatives to print ads. And as that happened , the real estate section got thinner and thinner.

Even so, the real estate section is such a tradition that one would have thought that its demise lay far in the future. At least I would have thought that before I read this in the LA Times real estate blog.

In case you missed the announcement today in Real Estate, because of reductions in staff and space, the Sunday Real Estate section has printed its final edition.”

With some much information available to the consumer online from photos to maps, to street views, and demographics, people just don;t need to sit with the newspaper to get their information. And as the sources of news expand electronically as well, the competition for the attention of the consumer just became too great.

Obviously, the amount of real estate print advertising was no longer concentrated enough to warrant generating articles for the consumer. The Times will continue their real estate blog which will have the same quality writing that the paper is known for, but this may be the most obvious signpost to date that consumers want to find their real estate information on-line, and the providers of that information will need to be where the readers are if they wish to remain relevant.