5 Reasons Why Brokers Should Require Agents to Write Blogs

1.  Writing Blogs will make agents learn more about emerging technology and real estate 2.0.  There will come a time when all the buyers of homes will do all their research online.  They will find their home online, they will find their agent online and they will handle almost all aspects of the transaction online including the settlement.  The ease of setting up a blog is the most logical first step for the agents "afraid of technology".  It takes about 5 minutes and here is a wiki to get them started.

2.  Blogs will keep agents engaged in the business.  In order to write even the most basic post on a blog, a person must somehow be thinking about the topic they are writing about.  Hopefully, they would want to write meaningful, thoughtful, creative posts because it will be published on the web for all to see.  This will also allow a broker to follow what an agent is doing during the week instead of having one on one meetings to "go over our business".

3.  Blogs can be used to make Tuesday meetings productive.  Every Tuesday, most real estate office hold a Tuesday meeting.  Most agents will tell you it is probably the most unproductive hour every week.  The agenda is set by a Team Leader or the broker or someone else who is probably not selling much real esate at all.  Relevant topics that are of interest to the agents could be pulled straight from the blogs.

4.  Blogs could be syndicated and used for marketing the brokerage website.  Not that all the blogs would be of high enough quality to syndicate but you should be able to put together enough posts to generate a decent rss feed on a website. Here is an example.

5.  Blogs would increase the level of communication in an office.  Imagine going to a blog reader or your igoogle page and all the blogs for all the agents in your office were loaded up.  You could see all the new listings, any new deals that other agents come across, trends in the area, upcoming events, association events, etc.

Any other reasons I left out?

And here are 5 reasons brokers won't do it:

1.  Most brokers are more afraid of technology than the agents.  And they definitely don't want to have to learn something new and teach other agents how to do it.

2.  Most brokers don't want to know what all their agents are doing.  Most brokers spend time talking to the agents they like and these are usually the agents that have been in the office the longest and these agents are least likely to blog.

3.  Tuesday meetings are for rules and regulations and announcements and are supposed to be boring and unproductive.

4.  What is syndication?

5.  Emails are for communication, not blogs.

Comments

[Craig Mische]

I agree but lets keep this quiet, okay? ;)

[rudy]

hi guys!

you bring up some great points. but, blogging is not for everyone. brokers and agents who blog are a unique breed. compared to the vast amount of agents out there, as a group, we are in the minority - which gives us an advantage. as early adopters, we are open to learning about new technologies. we embrace communicating openly with are audience. we cherish our credibility.

i applaud those who take the blog plunge. it's not easy, but it sure is worth it.

- rudy

[Jack Payne]

When the ARM resets kick in, to help push the RE market further downward, it will be a moot point about new real estate bloggers.