How Not to Use Social Media to Network in Real Estate

Every once in a while I run across an article or post that is so blatantly misguided that I have to make sure nobody else does the same thing.  Below is once such effort by a LinkedIn user who used the LinkedIn Answers function of that social network to make the follow solictitation:

In an effort to increase the pagerank of our website, I am looking to exchange a few links with some other real estate related sites. I will be choosing about 10 links on different pages of my site. If you want to exchange links, your site must have a PR of at least 3 and the page you will add my link to must be indexed by google. Finally, your page must be related to real estate. Send me a message with the URL for your site and the URL for the page you would add my link to.

This solicitation is exactly what not to do if you want to build a long term relationship using Social Media.  It is exactly the kind of thing that will turn off anyone who knows what Social Networking is and how you should use it to build a sustainable, rewarding and profitable real estate business.

The main problem with this solicitation is that it is cold, judgemental and elitist.  There is no relationship building, no connection.  It talks down to other members who don't qualify for inclusion in this individuals link building efforts. 

I personally have no idea what my Page Rank is.  Nor do I care.  Therefore, I don't qualify for inclusion.  But to be honest, based on this solicitation I would not even want to be included.  Not even if his Page Rank was 9. 

My advice to you is include links to websites of people you know and respect.  Add links to sites that will further aid your readers in continuing their research efforts.  Don't add a link to your site in the hopes of getting a reciprical link.  Don't share links to increase your Page Rank. 

Comments

[Pat Kitano]

Real estate professionals new to the social media have used blanket solicitation as a lead qualification filter. They need to understand how different the social media filter works, which actually disqualifies this kind of solicitation.

[Tony Arko]

Pat, many RE professionals have spent so many years using blanket solicitation methods in advertising, they have no idea how to ask permission or build relationships first and ask for business later.

[Heather Rankin]

Tony - I went to a training session a couple of weeks ago for our company. I almost fell off the chair, when, you guessed it, one of the pieces of advice was to do a watered down version of Link farming. I did interject about bad ideas :)

[Dan Terry]

Web 2.0 and social marketing is such a buzz word in todays real estate world and most RE professionals are not up to speed yet. Soon they will grasp the benifits of this type of marketing and things will be better.

[real estate philippines]

Hi,

nice article.. I agree with you and the others.. even if you so, social media is a really help in real estate business..

-david