New to Social Media? – Challenges
This past week, Gia Freer and I were invited to speak at a panel for the Master Brokers Forum in Boca Raton, FL. The panel’s subject was “Navigating the Social Media Ocean: Facebook, Blogging and Beyond”. Questions were prepared before the panel, answers rehearsed……but things changed a bit when we arrived at the venue.
The average age of attendees was late 50?s – everyone there was a top producing agent with years in the business and successful businesses at that. So why were these people interested in Social Media for their business? Some were just curious and had no intention to even venture into trying something new, but a lot of them, to my surprise, recognized that it was important to at least get their feet wet and see what all the commotion was about.
The first question – and one I will share because we need to ponder and then ponder some more, was:
If I’m new to social media, what are the three most important things I should do RIGHT NOW?
Some of us have been at this for a while and going back to basics may seem a bit trivial and useless….but guess what?? If you really think about this question, it may simplify your social media marketing strategy today.
Gia answered the following:
- Put up profiles NOW (in Twitter, Facebook and Linked In)
- Start at Blog
- Change your business cards (include your social media stuff)
Denise Reynolds (aka @LuxuryWriter), third panelist and Luxury writer shared 5 stages of twitter acceptance and everyone in the room could relate to at least one of those stages – priceless information, from Influential Marketing Blog:
If this doesn’t help you identify your goals on Twitter….I don’t know what will.
I of course tried to be funny and said:
- get a computer (the crowd burst into laughter….but I saw a couple of nods in the crowd as well)
- stop using 20 year old photos for your marketing – when your client finally engages you online and then meets you in person, you will scare them away.
- drop the “fear factor” – you can’t get started if you are afraid
And lastly, earlier that day, I took the question to Twitter and received the following responses:
Most of you reading this are way beyond the “beginner” point – but some of you may have started blindly and without direction. I think the basics that need to be understood before you can really begin to reap benefits is to understand SM reach (the fact that you have access to your Sphere of influence’s sphere) and the fact that the medium is used to engage and make connections. The most trivial moves in any of the platforms may lead to meaningful conversation and possibly a business relationship. Stop telling people about your achievements and start asking others about theirs, the days of Interruption Marketing are over ….and… the Interwebs have no age cut off!
** original article on www.AgentGenius.com **