I often say that social media can be overwhelming if you don't have a plan. However, sometimes without specifics, this might not make sense. So instead of blogging about the theory of planning, I am just going to lay out my personal plan. This is just what works for me, I am sure others have very different strategies and I would be interested in hearing them.
My goals: 1) Reach and educate real estate professionals about Zillow and internet advertising in general. 2) Keep in touch with my sphere of influence 3) Keep abreast of current real estate topics and 4) Keep abreast of local happening in my neighborhood.
Target: Real Estate professionals and Locals
Twitter- This is turning into my favorite business tool because of my short reading and writing attention span. 95% of my tweets are business related and 5% personal. I'll follow back anyone who is in the real estate industry. I won't follow anyone that hasn't uploaded a picture or whose profile description isn't real estate related. I use TweetDeck to sort out those who are particularly interesting to me and any direct messages or replies. I also use TweetDeck to follow these keywords: Zillow, Wicker Park, and the combination of "anyone know" & "Chicago". Finally use the service to follow the hash tags for any conventions that may be happening. (One exception to this is I have a column in TweetDeck that I track Celebrity Tweets, guilty pleasure). I have TweetDeck on constantly throughout the day and just consider it an extension of my email. I believe the quality of the people you follow and who follows you is more important than sheer numbers. I also use Twitter to broadcast my new blog posts.
Facebook- I use Facebook mostly because I personally enjoy it. If I never got business off of it, I would still use it because I enjoy knowing what people I don't regularly hear from are up to and seeing their pictures. 90% of my status updates are personal, about 10% are business or cause related. I don't post anything I wouldn't want my mom to see (she is now a friend of mine!). Since the "groups" function on Facebook is so easy to use, my policy is that I'll follow anyone that has uploaded a picture and some information about themselves and we have at least two mutual friends. The "groups" function then makes sure I don't miss any of the people I really care to know about. I have groups for: good friends, work friends, high school, college years, and family. The main reason I'll 'friend' anyone is that I will use Facebook to broadcast new blog posts and I want to make sure I reach as far as possible. (tip: don't auto post your blogs to facebook, go create a custom link and message). On average, I check Facebook 5 times a day for about 5 minutes each time.
LinkedIn- I probably could do more here, but I use the site in a very passive way, mainly as a Rolodex or resume. I will only connect with people that I would feel confident giving a personal recommendation about. In other words, I must actually know you. I keep my profile as up to date and complete as possible. I occasional will check my Inbox, but not regularly, as most of the stuff that comes thru this site isn't time sensitive. I probably spend an hour a month on the site.
Blogging- Blogging is my home base to get information out. When I first started I thought- I want to reach real estate professionals, where are they hanging out online? So having my blog hosted by Active Rain was an obvious choice. With so many other professionals using the site, it was an automatic audience. Writing for me doesn't come easy and it takes effort for me to post, which is why I don't post as much as I like. My goal is twice a week. I will also occasionally blog on the Zillow Corporate Blog, when there is something to say that affects the real estate community. I guess I average 3 hour a week here.
Commenting on Blogs- Google alerts here are priceless. Whenever my name is mentioned in a blog post, I will leave a comment. I also try to leave at least one comment a day within the Active Rain community. This is an area I wish I was better at because I think commenting can be a huge play. Without commenting on other people's blogs, authoring your own loses something I feel. I guess I average about 2 hours a week leaving comments.
Reading Blogs- As blogs become more popular, there is so much more to read. I have about 40 blogs to which I subscribe to their RSS feeds and new posts go straight into my Inbox in an RSS folder. This way I don't have to constantly go to blogs to check for updates. I can also catch up on my blog reading when I am on planes by setting these feeds up, as I can read them offline. I will scan the featured blogs on ActiveRain daily and just do a few random searches each day. Finally, I find myself more and more just reading blog posts that people Twitter about. Reading blogs takes up about 45 minutes of my day.
Forums- Again, think about where the people you want to reach are hanging out online, and get there. For me, this means Zillow Advice (obviously!). In the Professional section of Zillow Advice, many professionals leave posts about things they need help with, so this needs monitoring if I am going to be of help. I am also interested in what is happening locally, so I subscribe to get alerts whenever anyone leaves a post that is tagged to my neighborhood and Chicago in general. I like to interact with these people as well. The auto alerts are great because I can just click on an email, and give an answer that usually takes me about 2 minutes to type.
YouTube- My goal this year was to get more into video and I am starting to creep into it. At Zillow we have been working this year to create training videos for various parts of the site, we now have about 25 that are hosted by YouTube. I then use all the tools mentioned here to get these out.
Yelp - 100% personal. I admit, I am more of a taker than a giver here. I read reviews for just about any place I go to eat and professional service I use. I try to do a review here about once a month, more because I feel guilty about not giving back because I use the site so much!
This post was a little long, but I hope it gives some meat around how I personally have crafted my social media plan. There isn't a one size fits all this! Sites that people have a lot of success with, that I don't use, for example FlickR and blip.fm and fan pages on Facebook. Any other good tools out there?
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Good point about personal vs. professional. It's important that a person draw the line on these social sites and decide early how they want to use them. Your second great point is that you have to have a plan. There are so many sites out there that it can be overwhelming. The key is to decide which ones you really like and then stick with them. It's amazing how much it helps getgin your name moved up in a google search.
Thanks for sharing your social media ouline. I'm still struggling with where, why and when. This helped.
Sara, this has been a great value to the community It has given me inspiration to start the adventure today!
Very interesting stuff Sara!
A clear example of how involving yourself on the Internet these days requires a diverse approach.
Yes, without a plan all these social media vehicles can turn into a huge time vacuum that I have fallen into once or twice. I am going to share your plan with some other folks as an idea of a plan. Great job!
Interesting strategy. I still have to get the Twitter stuff down. Facebook is my favorite, after blogging of course!
Sara: Wow, right out of my bible, chapter and verse... My mix is a little different. I don't use Facebook a lot and more for personal, I comment as much as time allows here on AR. I love Yelp and have really received great 'google juice' from it... thanks for sharing...
Sara - this is so timely for me! As we speak I am working on a class for agents on goal setting and time management of web presence / social networking. I think this important piece gets missed a lot and it is too easy to get of track and spend too many valuable hours on something that you're not quite sure what your ROI is! If thought is put into what your goal is and you create a map for yourself you will instantly be better able to measure your success. I really enjoy your perspective and simple lay-out. Thanks for the great post!
I commented when I wasn't logged in. Woops! Sara - this is so timely for me! As we speak I am working on a class for agents on goal setting and time management of web presence / social networking. I think this important piece gets missed a lot and it is too easy to get of track and spend too many valuable hours on something that you're not quite sure what your ROI is! If thought is put into what your goal is and you create a map for yourself you will instantly be better able to measure your success. I really enjoy your perspective and simple lay-out. Thanks for the great post!
Thanks for all the comments everyone, I am glad this was useful. When I first started I wasn't sure who I should friends and who I shouldn't; where I should post what type of information and when. Having a plan helped me more effectively reach who I was after and be more effective with my time.
Sarah- we are very similar in our social media plan. Besides being effective for biz- social media is a lot of fun. Great post!
Great layout for a social media strategy! I use my sites in a pretty similar fashion as well. The plan is the essential part for people new to social media, since it can seem so very overwhelming when you start.
Sarah... Thanks for this post. I need to develop my own plan and quit being helter-skelter about it. I'm sure it will make for less stress, more productivity, higher quality, and relieve some of the feelings of being overwhelmed. Like you say, I've just got to choose what works best for me, and stop listening to all those SM pundits for "the next great social media site" that promises you have to be there, or be square!
Thank you so much for this post. I have been so hit or miss with my online strategy & I need to get myself focused on it. It is a great start and I appreciate your sharing this with everyone! Good luck to you!
Sara - I am doing just about everything you are doing, but am probably not as organized about it as you. I do feel as though my efforts are starting to generate some results. I just need to learn more and become more advanced with all these applications.
VIDEO
I would record eveything I do. from prospecting to recordingat good listings. even if its just from the outside. Gary Vaynechuck style
Helpful post Sara
Believe it or not, I'm still not on fb
i'm going to change that in the next few days tho...
Thanks for sharing. I guess it would be a good idea to have a formal plan or at least know what my goals are.
Sara,
I longed for a post like this one. So helpful in trying to put everything in perspective. I Will be reading it many times and I can't say enough how thankful I am.
I am bookmarking it and I am flagging it for feature
Sara - this is a wonderful post. Thanks for providing this information for those of us (me!) who tweet and FB for fun, but haven't used it for business.
Thank you - this is so thorough and well thought out. I will have to review several times to really milk all the gold there is here.
Echoing thanks for providing such good information for those of us still getting our feet wet in this new world of social media -- much appreciated!
Sara,
I felt overwhelmed when I began social networking. Still do, but when you can break it out, as you have, it is managable. Thanks for sharing
Good template. Mine is similar. You did not mention a personal web site. A personal web presence linked to a blog is a powerful combination. Do you maintain one? Would you like to?
Orange County web design.
http://www.whiteinkstudio.com
I think it is great that you have defined what you use each site for. I mix personal and professional on Twitter and Facebook and I don't really have a problem doing that but some people do. I think there is no right or wrong it was you personally are comfortable with. I've gotten contacted by people and those contacts created business for me. In many cases people felt they knew me from seeing my tweets and my wall post on Facebook.
I think that in some cases it may be generational. I think younger people may feel more comfortable online and freely sharing their ideas and opinions in social networks. I think those older, which I define as over 35(which I actually am but I'm more like the younger group) seem more inclned to draw a line between personal and professional online.