Social media in real estate part 2: what is social media?

'Know your enemy and know yourself and you can fight a hundred battles without disaster'~ Sun Tzu, The Art of War 600 BCI agree that it might appear strange to start a post on Social media by quoting an ancient Chinese military treatise. Think Justin Timberlake might be more appropriate?How many times have you heard a phrase like "we've got a consultant to do social media for us" or "one of the kids has done us up a facebook page". Have you said / done something similar?Ever wondered why you've got a Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter Page? Do you know what any/all of those mean?The biggest problem with most social media strategy, is that the strategy part is usually absent. Sun Tzu suggests that the first part of winning any battle is to know "the enemy". In the present case, our enemy is social media ?.To be successful, you must first understand what different social networks are for, how people use them and how your business goals fit into them. You cannot afford to misunderstand these incredibly powerful tools.Below, we've outlined the 6 major social networks: what they are, who uses them and why.

Facebook

If you're a Justin Timberlake fan, you don't need to read any more about Facebook... Move onto Twitter, do no pass go, do not collect $200 dollars... For the rest of us, Facebook is the most well known social networking website of all time.On Facebook, users can create a personal profile, where they can connect with their friends and other people, join groups and engage with their favourite brands.Some interesting facts about Facebook:

  • 1 in every 13 people on earth have a Facebook account (more than 1 in every 2 Australians)
  • 48% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up
  • 28% of 18-34 year olds check Facebook on their smart phones before getting out of bed
  • Facebook gets more traffic than Google in the US
  • The world spends more time is spent on Facebook than any other site on the Internet
  • 50% of mobile Internet traffic in the UK is for Facebook
  • 10.4 million Unique Australian Visitors (UAVs) / month (June 2011)
Are We Obsessed with Facebook?

Via: Online Schools

Twitter

Those of you who have followed Ashton Kutcher's career since That 70's Show should skip this section... Twitter is another social networking platform that focuses on micro-blogging - each message (known as a tweet) can only be 140 characters long.Some interesting facts about Twitter:

  • There are over 200 million users on Twitter
  • Over 200 million tweets are sent per day
  • 72% of daily Twitter users publish blog posts at least monthly
  • 48% of Twitter users share deals and coupons online
  • 61% of Twitter users write at least one product review a month
  • 23% of Twitter users follow businesses to find special deals, promotions, or sales.
  • 1.9 million UAVs / month (June 2011)
Twitter for business

Via: Zengage, The Zendesk Blog

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a business related social networking site and is best described as the Facebook for professionals. The key functions of LinkedIn are finding business, recruitment, endorsement and communication.Some interesting facts about LinkedIn:

  • There are over 100 million professional users on LinkedIn worldwide
  • Over 2 million Australians are users of LinkedIn
  • 2 million UAVs / month (June 2011)
LinkedIn Infographic

Via: Online MBA

Tumblr

Tumblr is a relatively new player in the social networking world, but is slowly making inroads in the Australian market. Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows users to post text, images, video, links, quotes, and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. A tumblelog is a variation of a blog that favours short-form, mixed-media posts over the longer editorial posts frequently associated with blogging. Unlike blogs, this format is frequently used to share the author's creations, discoveries, or experiences without providing a commentary.Some interesting facts about Tumblr

  • In June of 2011, Tumblr surpassed Wordpress in total number of blogs breaking through the 20 million mark
  • In January 2009, Tumblr was ranked the number 2 tech tool of US President Barack Obama by the staff of PC World
  • 900,000 UAVs / month (June 2011) - Up 80,000 from May 2011

Quora

Quora is one of the newest players on the block and definitely something to keep an eye on. Quora, by their own definition, is "a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it; The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question."Tristan Louis, CEO of Keepskor and writer at TNL.net gives, what I think is, the best explanation of how Quora can turn work for your business: The secret of building your reputation on Quora is to answer questions in which you have a deep level of knowledge. Your own company is obviously a thing in which you have expertise and that's where you could start. You should then look at the area your company focuses on and provide answers to questions related to that area. Remember that Quora is not about self-promotion but about providing the best answer to a specific question. The way you build your business with Quora is by helping the Quora community. Its members will eventually notice you and, hopefully, start using your services."

the wonderful world of Quora

Via: KISSmetrics Web Analytics

The rest...

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of other social media platforms available for you to use. Some you will have heard of, most you probably won't have (trust me, I haven't heard of some of them!) . Of course we here at Rex will be keeping up to date what's new in the social media arena - and in turn letting you know which platforms we think you should be integrating into your social media strategy - and integrating them with the Rex software suite!

Next up...

In the next post: "What does social media offer?" I'll be explaining the benefits of social media and what's in it for you!

If you want to understand more about how our large agency and enterprise customers are using our API, find out here!

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