Kim Hughes

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

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3 Top Fundamentals To Consider with Social Media Marketing

As you sit and think about your goals for 2015 I’m pretty sure one goal is how to creatively build a relationship with a larger audience.  For most of you real estate agents out there the mention of social media New_iStock_000031725970_Doublemarketing is like taking a spoonful of medicine that has a terrible taste.

Then there are those agents who feel that posting a photo of a home with a few words about it is enough or to LIKE someone’s post is about as far as you want to go with social media.  But, then you complain that it is not working for you.

So, let’s make this easy….Repeat after me…..

Social Media Marketing is a must and if you do it right you will enjoy it, give yourself some brand recognition and along the way build a great following, which results in sales. 

Sounds good huh?

When you sit down to put a strategy in place you are probably getting stuck.  This is because no matter how much you Google for information there is not a lot of information on how a Realtor® should create a social media marketing strategy.

When working on this part of your business you do not want to create this world-wide brand, but what you do want to do is build a brand that is known in your market.  And, if that becomes a world-wide brand that is just a plus.

You need to focus on your target audience.  Once you have that figured out then you need to understand what they need from you.  Here are some ideas…

1. Just Listed properties – price, community/neighborhood
2. Open Houses – dates, times, details
3. Real Estate Market Statistics
4. Community updates
5. Just Sold’s – unique situations

What does your audience need from you to trust you to help them buy or sell real estate?

Here are my top 3 fundamentals when it comes to creating your strategy for social media.

The power of content is your foundation, which will help you increase your audience, give your brand  exposure.  This results in better clients when it comes to buying and selling real estate.

1. Know what your audience is craving

Everyone is interested in what is going on in real estate, because they will eventually buy or sell property at some point in their life.  The key is to capture their attention before they need you so that you can build a relationship with them.  Show them you are the authority in their real estate market and you have all the knowledge of the area to help them, whether they are buying or selling.

2. Focusing on Being the Leader in your Community

There is more to being a real estate agent than just helping your clients buy or sell real estate.  You should know your market, your neighbors, your businesses, your schools, and the best place to get everything done in your town.  Your buyer or seller will rely on you for this information.  Take advantage of your position in the community to share this information so you can create a strong relationship with your audience.   When you are the authority in your community, you are building a strong brand that offers a higher success rate to be the preferred agent in your market.

3. Quantity vs Quality

When social networks first came on the scene everyone was connecting with everyone.  It was about the numbers of connections we had, no one really thought about who they were connecting with. At the time we thought it was great to connect with someone in another part of the country and to brag about our numbers.  Well, those days are gone.  Social Media Marketing is now a part of your business and you must understand that the numbers are just that – numbers.  You need to focus on the quality of your connections now.  The connections you have on each and every social network means something different and you need to understand what each network offers.  Once you figure that out then you need to determine which social networks work for you and your audience.  Not all markets gravitate to the same network.   You have to determine what they want and if you can meet their expectations.

Remember that throwing it against the wall and hoping it sticks does not work.  You have to have amazing topics, fabulous content, and a lot of patience.  Building a social media marketing strategy is always a work in progress, you will tweak it constantly to find what works for your audiences. Putting in your due diligence will pay off and when it does, you will find that you have a very unique group of followers who will like, share and refer you to their connections.  As you find your audience growing, you will find the search engines will also grow organically with you, which allows more recognition for you online.

If you are struggling with your social media strategy then you need to call and schedule a strategy session with Kim Hughes & Company.  Kim will listen to your struggles and frustration to offer a solution to help you create the strategy that fits your personality as well as your market’s expectations.  We can work with you to create the strategy, implement it, as well as manage it!

Call or email today and let’s schedule your complimentary session and get you started off in 2015 with a plan.

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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 Networking – How Sociable Are You?


As you read this, more than 10,000 Tweets just went out. According to the Social Computing Journal, social media grew more in 2009 than all previous years combined. Social networking sites have rapidly evolved into much more than a way to connect with family and friends – social media has become the channel for interactive, digital marketing and communications that brings businesses, consumers and communities around the world together as collaborators.

A recent article on the web describes this amazing tool, HowSociable.com. This tool is fun, easy and informative. Just enter the brand name of any business you’d like to track (including your own) on the HowSociable? home page. The tool will query a number of the top social networking sites and then display the results for the number of times the brand or business name showed up on each site. To see more detail about the visibility on a specific site, like Facebook People, you can click on the results icon and get additional information, even specific posts or comments.

You can use the tools to measure where you are with your social media plan, or give you a beginning baseline for measurement if you are just getting started. It also provides an easy interface to see collective results. Give HowSociable? your email address and the brand you want to track, and they can email you the results on an ongoing basis.

You can also use the tool to study the success of highly rated brands and check in on how your competitors are faring in the social landscape. HowSociable? is fun, it’s free and it’s a way to measure your social success stories. Try it, we think you’ll like it.

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Protect Your Privacy From Data Mining


By now, we’ve all been conditioned to protect our Internet privacy when we make purchases online. Most people know to only use reputable sites, make sure they use encryption software, don’t give out too much personal information at once, never give out your social security number – the list goes on and on.

We’re even becoming a little more aware (sometimes learning the hard way) that we should exercise some restraint on our social media sites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

What you may not know is that consumer sales organizations, including retailers, insurance companies and lenders, are very interested in your social media habits, profiles, blog comments and your social network of ‘friends’. Many of them are data mining social media sites and blogs to get a full personal profile of you and learn about your buying behavior through your social behavior.

One of the most talked about data mining services is Rapleaf, who claims to give retailers the ultimate in customer insight – by crawling through the most popular newsgroups, blogs and social sites – all unknown to the individual consumer. While lending and credit agencies swear that they only use factual data to determine credit decisions and scores, they still use social data to understanding consumer profiles – even looking at the credit worthiness of your friends or your followers on Twitter. After all, Twitterers of a feather, flock together.

Here are three important tips to keep your social pages from undermining your consumer rights:
1) Absolutely EVERYTHING you put on the Internet is public information. Period. Don’t let strict ‘privacy settings’ give you a false sense of security.
2) Choose your friends wisely. Don’t accept ‘friend’ invitations from random people you have never heard of or know only through friends of friends of friends. Your circle is being watched and mined for your connections.
3) Monitor posts on your account frequently and remove anything offensive.

Social networking and blogging is fun, friendly and here to stay. Just be mindful that your online conversations are big business for big brother retailer.

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Backing Up Your Tweets


Twitter is an effective and fun tool, it can be used for your business as well as personal connections. Some people spend a substantial amount of time and energy into their tweets. So what would happen if all the time that you spent on Twitter, all the great stuff you sent out, all the followers you’ve gathered were to suddenly disappear? For a lot of people who are hooked on Twitter it would be a nightmare.

Have you ever thought about backing up your tweets? If not reading the above statement about what could happen if you don’t may make you change your mind. Backing up your Twitter can be simple and free. Here are a couple different programs that can keep you tweeting even if something happens to your account.

BackupMyTweets.com
Their tagline “Don’t lose your Tweets. Make Them Permanent” and that’s exactly what they do. With this service you can protect your tweets, do daily backups, and they offer flexible download options. The basic service is free but you can also get a Premium Edition $4.95 a year, pretty cheap for all that it does. BackupMyTweets.com also offers a suite of other programs such as BackupMyMail and BackupMyBlog.

TweetBackUp.com
TweetsBackUp is easy to use and it does daily backups but what makes it really stand out is that it’s all web based. No installation of extra programs on your computer to bog it down.

Tweetake.com
Tweettake makes possible users aware of just what can happen when Twitter malfunctions. On their about page under “Why bother to do this?” They state that Twitter may lose followers again like it did in June/July. If you are backing up your tweets you won’t be the one that’s scrambling to get them back.

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