Social media and spaces

A very brief post reporting on my thoughts on how agents should commence using social spaces/media and my experience to date.

It goes without saying that each is different, but I have met many businessmen and women who don’t understand the space and don’t feel they need to. They then ask how can they benefit from these spaces, but not how they can interact with them? Much is written about this and I won’t go over old ground, but here are my thoughts that any agent/business considering entering these spaces may like to consider.

Don’t put the same old blurb in each space and hope for traffic, get a feel for each one. I spent time just reading and interacting with others within these pages and got a feel for the community before entering any content, sometimes as long as a month. I then decided upon a theme for each one, i.e. squidoo was exciting and fun so this is where I write fun stuff and engage in a more light hearted manner (still about my industry, but not too serious), it was an opportunity to be more adventurous than my blog. In digg I will discuss more serious technical matters, news and use as springboard for my blog and in facebook I network. There are a few others I use as well such as technorati, but you get the idea. All link to one another and I grow my presence in each one at a rate I can manage.

Read the old forums and you may be surprised by the amount of venom and bad press agents received and still receive. Social spaces now offer opportunities for agents to show the public (the current and future house buying public!!) that agents are just like everyone else and can be trusted. Interact with your future customers. All agents can benefit from these spaces, especially sole agents.

PS. Have a look at the monkey brain argument in squidoo, it is great fun. Enter an argument subject, back it up with a paragraph and start ranting with others. Great way to communicate and get a message across. See my test one and pick a fight if you dare!!