The reason that a Genius has such a limited knowledge of affairs outside of his special talent, is because the controlling influence of so much thought on the one subject allows him little or no time in which to develop those, to him, less important thoughts, and consequently his mind gets our of harmony with them, and they either come to him no more, or come only as a discord. All intelligence and knowledge awaits to be used. – A. Victor Segno “The Law of Mentalism” 1902
Well, I’m no genius, but I disagree with Victor on the first part while in agreement with him on the last. Of course, you see the first assertion proven daily by those addicted to blogging with so little time left for other affairs (guilty). So, I thought I would reach out to the Facebook geniuses out there.
I spent a couple of hours on Facebook the other other day, and boy do I need help. I’d like a couple of things from you Facebook geniuses:
- Links to pages where you think a real estate agent is effectively using Facebook.
- Suggestions on how you are using Facebook and what features you think are best.
- Any results you have seen, that will spur me on
My interest in Facebook is totally self-serving. I heard a story about a Canadian agent whose last $20 million in sales all came from connections made through Facebook. If I locate her Facebook page, I’ll post it here.
So, let’s hear it for: all intelligence and knowledge awaits to be used. And, I am waiting.
Benn Rosales
October 26, 2007 at 12:02 am
A successful real estate facebooker has a lot of friends that are not Realtors. They simply have lots of friends in their local circle that are referred by default. Pretty simple. jmo I found just such a 20 something re couple the other night, I’ll see if I can reproduce the results and give you a link.
Lani Anglin
October 26, 2007 at 4:24 am
I agree with Benn- it’s the same as any social network- be social and the result is natural referrals. Too many people are guilty of abusing Facebook by placing unnatrual comments on “walls” or sending sales-y messages to “friends.”
My theory is that if you make friends online (or off for that matter) and they happen to know what you do for a living instead of basing your entire “conversations” on what you do for a living, referrals are the natural result of these friendships.
If the connections aren’t natural, I believe it will be nothing more than a waste of time. My point: the subject matter will guide your success… talk about your city with people from your city, join groups of people with similar interests and talk about those interests. If you talk about nothing but YOU and YOUR business, the Facebook connection may be lost.
Jay Thompson
October 26, 2007 at 5:02 am
Benn and Lani are so smart. Seriously.
Most of my Facebook friends are agents or at least connected to the industry. But I do have a current client whose preferred method of communication is through Facebook. Not email, phone or text message. Facebook.
They actually told me, “It’s cool that someone your age is on Facebook.” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or smack them.
Benn Rosales
October 26, 2007 at 5:05 am
haha smack them anyway- but seriously, smack them.
Brian Wilson
October 26, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Smacking aside, we can learn from Jay’s story. It seems nearly all college kids and 20-somethings are either on facebook or MySpace or both or more. This is a great way to tap into the Generation Y networks, and we will definitely need to sooner or later to stay afloat in real estate 🙂
Brian Wilson, Zolve.com
Linda Davis
October 27, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I’m still trying to figure out whether it is good if someone pokes you.
Jim Lee
October 27, 2009 at 12:05 am
Poke back Linda; it’s good, they’re noticing you and letting you know.
Benn Rosales
October 28, 2007 at 12:11 am
Only when no one else is looking linda ;]
Steve Volkers
October 30, 2007 at 2:03 am
I have been on facebook marketing myself for 4 months and have not had closed deals from it but have made a lot of friends and connections. I also have seen a big jump in my website hits coming from my facebook profile. So it’s a good addition to my over all internet marketing.
Bonnie Erickson
October 31, 2007 at 2:20 am
It’s all about the sheep, the flying sheep! Honestly, I’m no genius and haven’t gotten too involved with the social part of Facebook yet. I find it’s easy to spread my time too thin and not get anything done. The more time I spend there the less time I have to read other’s blogs, to write my own blog posts, to update web pages, etc. I have found, however, that the 20 something crowd is surprised when they find I’m on MySpace and Facebook. Now if I could just get all my kids friends to be my friends, I could sit back and live off the cream of the social network!
Jim Lee
October 27, 2009 at 12:04 am
I have a couple of current sellers who love to communicate with me on Facebook; works for me if that’s what they want.
I’ve also got a couple of listings; not the two mentioned above, as a direct result of sellers finding me on Facebook and deciding I was their guy. Works for me too; I believe in always riding your horse in the direction he’s going.