A year ago I had a vague understanding that there was something out there called Blogging that was creating a stir in the real estate world.
I’m a pretty techie type of guy so I found Blogger and created a small Blog that I named MovePhilly, but frankly, after a couple of posts I felt like a guy in a room talking to himself and I stopped writing. I guess without positive feedback, and no road map to eventual success, I just wasn’t interested enough to support the time and effort it took to think of things to say in print on a regular basis.
At NAR’s Professional Standards Committee, we had been discussing the applications of the Code of Ethics to internet marketing, and Blogging kept being brought up. There was a substantial amount of writing going on out there , and it seemed that there was little understanding of what , if anything, we should do to keep the Code relevant to this new method of communication. At a meeting in Chicago earlier this year, the Interpretations and Procedures sub-committee of the group listened to a presentation by Liz Luby and Jim Duncan who made a presentation about the real estate blogging community. They showed us their sites, and national opinion sites like agentgenius and NarWisdom.
We left the meeting and I began to read some of the blogs. Soon I was commenting on what I considered inaccuracies on some statements. Soon I was involved in a lengthy argument with another commentator, and the next thin I knew I was writing. Through this journey I was being exposed to a whole new world of interactive websites populated by large numbers of real estate professionals and consumers who didn’t move in the larger physical circles of meetings and association groups that I had become accustomed to over the years.
As I traveled back and forth to visit with my son and daughter-in-law in California over the next few months, I began to evangelize about this new marketing medium and its immense impact on my business. After 37 years in the business I had less then 500 mentions of my name on Google. After less then six months, I had over 15,000 mentions of my name on Google. In addition, I had been hired for several consulting opportunities (that came directly from social media marketing), had re-connected with a friend from 35 years ago, had consumers contact me to list and buy property, and had been interviewed by local and national media about real estate and social media. In addition, I had the oportunity to participate in several potential business arrangements. This was an astounding amount of results for a very short period of time.
I had found a new type of world wide web – the web effect created by linking interactive sites where an online presence could be built quickly and inexpensively. The world of WEB 2.0 (or in our industry the RE.NET). This was a place where every professional needed to be in some manner.
So why weren’t there more people in this arena? The effort to do the research on where you wanted to be, how you wanted to be presented to the public, and how you wanted your online presences to interact and support each other was immensely time consuming.People just didn;t know how to bridge the gap between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, or what to do when they go there. The time to find all the sites, let alone register on all of them can be immense. Busy agents have the time to teach themselves even if they had the inclination.
It was when my son Hal broached the idea of creating a free lance marketing company to serve the real estate community that BuzzBuilderz was born. We created a short cut to insert agents and companies directly into Web 2.0? We designed an interlacing relationship of Web 2.0 sites to give a turn key solution to the agent? BuzzBuilderz was a simple concept. For a nominal flat fee for we provide an agent with a ready to utilize Web 2.0 platform. An easy to drive marketing program that they could operate at whatever speed they desired. I knew it worked from my own experience.And I knew that it didn’t take much time. All I needed to do was to learn some simple short cuts that had huge impact – things anyone could do while they searched the MLS, or read their daily industry news.
Instead of spending lots of time and money on the same marketing that real estate people had been doing for the last century, I now had a free marketing machine that created signs pointing at my business, that never go away. every time I did something, I wasn’t sending out something that was being used once by one customer, I was creating a perpetual marketing machine that kep tgetting larger and larger and larger.
Not only had I received referrals, earned, consulting fees, connected with old friends ,clients, and consumers in only 6 months, I was enjoying myself meeting new people and learning about new applications of technology! And I had access to all of this for little or no cost.The experience was terrific –
So now we’re prepared to share that experience. Please visit us at BuzzBuilderz as we try to mesh the world of real estate I grew up in with the newer technology being adopted by agents and brokers all over the country. Maybe we can enhance your online presence a little.
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