Steve Hundley of 1 Park Place offered the following concepts about Personal Branding in Real Estate.  This was a good session for Agents and Brokers who are not new to online strategy, but looking to get more sophisticated.  I jumped on the call to get to know Steve and his company better in advance of joining him as a speaker at RIS Media.

5 Myths are :  Personal Branding will build my business; Internet leads are junk; Facebook and Twitter help build business; A website is better than a blog; Consumers want map search

  1. Myth – Personal Branding will build my business – it is not about you
    • it is about thought leadership, not sales leadership
    • Positive information – what is in it for them?  The customer?
    • Hobbs Herder personal branding at $29,000 (discounted from $45,000) is a waste because it is designed to talk about the agent, not about the service or the product that the agent offers
    • Top 5, Twitter, email marketing, informative print farming, facebook, and blogging are good
    • Listing Syndication is Good
    • Craigslist marking is good
  2. Myth – most internet leads are junk leads
    • a lead is an opportunity, not a likely sale – you need to work it.
    • incubate with information that is specific to the interest of the customer
    • requires long term incubation, with regular contact
    • measure your success at conversion
    • be patient
    • 7.3% of a successful agents business come from the web
  3. Myth – Facebook and Twitter will help my business
    • Truth – you are on your own with Real Estate Social Marketing
    • Focus on the 4 P’s of Social Marketing : Purpose, Parts, Priority
      • Build your profile
      • Brand yourself property
      • Hire out to have your facebook and twitter pages done correctly
      • Monitor your online reputation
  4. Myth – A website is better than a blog site
    • Truth – websites are old fashioned, at least to google
    • Blogs have better rank, faster rank, better consumer engagement (start conversations)
    • more flexible – check out http://lasvegasfinehomes.com
  5. Myth – customers want to search by map
    • Consumers prefer neighborhood search
    • Consumers prefer school search
    • Maps with boundaries are the answer – Mapping solutions that do not define these boundaries generate fewer leads.

Thanks to Steve and his team for the informative presentation.  Cool stuff.