Kim Hughes

Providing solid solutions since 1999 specifically tailored for today’s real estate professional.

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What is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?

Looking for more LIKES on your Facebook Page or maybe more CONNECTIONS on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, Pinterest or Instagram? You SMM-12-13-2014have most likely seen advertisements promising a “magic pill” to get you more exposure, friends, etc. Unfortunately, there is no magic solution, so let’s talk about what does work and what will help you gain quality connections, LIKES, and friends.

Let’s first talk about your market area – you want to focus on your communities, and put a strategy together that works for the market area. For example – if you live in San Diego, CA you are going to have a huge audience that likes surfing, outdoor activities, etc, whereas a community in Austin, Texas might be more interested in music, food and football.

Now make a list of what is exciting about your communities.  If you live in a small community, you may focus on local sports, local businesses, the season, etc.

What about sharing local real estate market statistics? Also consider promoting your just listed properties, or maybe a great property you just sold. You can even help your buyer who is looking for something particular, by letting your community know. Someone may just have what your buyer is looking for. By the way, this is a great way to find sellers.

Are you giving advice on home improvement, educating your audience on how to buy and sell in today’s real estate market?

What about motivational quotes, inspiration, funny stories, sharing what others post that will make them smile, laugh, just plain feel good?

Share funny videos with animals, most of us love these.  Even those who do not like animals will watch if engaging enough.

Share community information…sports, festivals, emergency information, prayer requests, new business openings, students of the week, teacher of the week, restaurant special…who is having karaoke tonight? Become the HUB for information about your community.

Friendship-12-4-2014How you interact with your audience is a reflection on you and your business.  The more involved you are, the more people relate to you.  It is a win-win situation and there is not one reason why you shouldn’t be doing this.

Stop wasting your time on those phone calls or emails that promise you their program is going to get you more LIKES on your Facebook Page – yep, they might get you more LIKES, but are they honest LIKES?  Did you know that most of these programs or apps will ask your audience to register through their Facebook Account? This allows access to your Friends contact database in their account, then guess what happens next…let the spamming begin.  These programs or apps harvest email addresses then start sending unwanted emails, or even worse, will sell their email addresses.

Do you really want to be associated with that type of business?

Take some time to put a strategy together on how you will interact with your audience on all social networks, but also understand what your audience is looking for on each social network.  Put your calendar together on when you will post, taking into account the best times to post to get the most interaction and exposure.

Getting started with social media marketing can be confusing and time consuming, not to mention the time it takes to manage it all. If you are stumbling along with your social media marketing and would like to get a solid strategy in place, give me a call or send me an email. We can schedule a time to talk about your social media marketing.  No matter how small or how large your market is I, a real estate virtual assistant, can help you put together a customized strategy that works for you and your market.

Photo courtesy of  Laurel Papworth and Personalize Media 
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Social Network Marketing for Real Estate Agents

Daily I am reading about new opinions, tricks and new applications with social networking. Sometimes I think “this is consuming my life” – But, really it is the best marketing you can do for yourself and your business, if you do effectively.

Because I work with so many real estate agents across the country in building their social networking presence I find real estate has its own social networking niche. What works for other businesses or industries is not necessarily the case with real estate.

You need to constantly work on re-crafting your talent and message to your target audience. Your audience already knows you help buyers and sellers with their real estate needs, so get creative in keeping them focused on you because you don’t necessarily focus on your real estate marketing, but focus on local charities that need attention, local events, local issues. Ask yourself – Why would the local community connect with you? Yes, you should throw some real estate in there on occasion, but you will receive more positive exposure by focusing on what your audience is craving. Be unique and supportive. Get to know your audience and engage with them.

Believe me – this has a bigger impact and makes your audience want to see what is next or rely on you to have the information about what is happening in the local area.

As for who your audience is. You need to focus on your community. Sure connect with other agents (Keep them private, if you can) and learn from their posts and hopefully build a great network for referrals, but engage your neighbors, local businesses, etc.

I made this suggestion to a client and we re-focused and he even went as far as hosting a social networking event to help his community to involved in social networking. This was unique and a big-big hit!

Another client hosted a church networking event and again – huge hit.

I discovered the principal of our high school was following me on Twitter. I told him I would be happy to build a background page for the high school. He was very appreciative. After I created the background I would get stopped at events by people saying they saw the page. I thought to myself “WOW! Word sure gets around!” So, remember people talk and share information, so do something that gives your community something to talk about and WANT to connect with you.

Social Networking is about socializing. You have a wonderful opportunity to offer so much more than just real estate, but make them remember you when it comes to their real estate needs.

Tip – You might want to have two Twitter accounts – one for real estate connections and the other for your local community. I have two and it is amazing how well this works.

If you are attending the 2009 STAR POWER Annual Conference look for me and let’s see how I can help you make this social network marketing concept will work to your advantage.

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Social Networking – Where You Need To Be NOW

All the buzz among today’s conversations is social networking. Are you constantly being asked “What is your Twitter profile?, What is the link to your Facebook profile? Are you on LinkedIn?” You might answer yes to all these questions, but deep down thinking “I don’t have a clue.”

Everywhere you turn you are seeing the new term “Social Marketing Expert“, but is anyone really an expert? The Social Networking phenomena is just now catching on and those like me who have been at it for months I suppose can be called the experts, but the question you should be asking is “What makes you a Social Marketing Expert?” “What can you do to help me get to the next level?”

The first thing you need to understand is by just setting up an account and a creating a profile does not do all that much for you. Sure, your on the network, but unless you really get involved it does not all that much for you in the way of search engine optimization, exposure, etc.

This is where you need someone that understands how to work each network for you and your business.

As a virtual assistant specializing in real estate assistance I have seen this new way of marketing work, but only if it is done correctly. It can be a very time consuming task if you don’t know what you are doing, so you have to research each network to see how it will benefit you and what steps you should take to make that happen.

Because I am a virtual assistant my job is to stay on the leading edge of technology. As part of my services I offer today’s business owner the help they need in setting up their social marketing action plan and making sure it is implemented to benefit you and the industry you work with.

If I may plug my services here – I think it is vital to your business to get on board with social networking even if you don’t “get it” just yet. This is where I will help you and save you the trouble learning what I already know. Save time by having Kim Hughes & Company put in the forefront with your peers, industry leaders, clients, and more.

You can view my profiles on each one of the social networks in the left column to see I do know what I am doing and I do know how to help you.

So, get on the social networks today! My in-depth action plan is one that I have spent hours putting together and it is exclusively for my clients and know that your return on investment is unbelievable.

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