The short answer is no. The detailed answer is simple. Real estate professionals spend thousands per year to get in front of clients and potential clients. Having a heart to heart or wallet to wallet conversation with a potential home buyer or seller is why you get out of bed each morning.
If a home seller asked you about listing their home, would you print off some article you read online and and shove it in their face and walk away? No, you would talk to them for as long as you could, you would attempt to earn their trust, and you would ask for the appointment or go all in and ask for the listing.
Many attempt real estate blogging and take advantage of canned content, and I would relate this activity to the above- shoving a so-called piece of content in their face and walking away. There’s nothing to it, there is no attempt at anything, and your potential client walks away.
As I said, you spend thousands per year on the the off chance of meeting a potential client, yet somehow an hour or two a week to sit down and have a heart to heart with buyers and sellers escapes even those with the best of intentions.
In great market conditions, writing may have seemed more complicated when all you had to say was how easy it is to buy and sell a property, but today, that’s all changed. This economy has given way to virtually thousands of topics impacting all local markets around the country. One great example would be the downward pressure of banks wanting 20% down minimums. Don’t copy a news story, rather, if you’re truly the expert, or have them at your disposal, this is one of many many opportunities to engage both buyers and sellers looking for answers.
Many argue that because you blog doesn’t mean consumers or Google will come, but I would argue that sitting it out and doing nothing insures that fact. It takes a few hours a week to get a great blog humming, but approached with the intention of sitting down with potential clients for a one-on-one chat via your blog has value and meaning, and it’s your best foot forward in this new social economy. It’s conversation for your Twitter fans, as well as your Facebook fans, it’s genuine targeted traffic, it’s real and it’s meaningful.
If sitting down a few hours a week to discuss issues that impact home buyers and sellers is a time suck for you, then I’m not sure that a communications tool like a blog will help you.
However, if you do get this, and you understand the fundamentals of the conversation I’m having with you right now, then I applaud you and wish you well. I hope you’ll drop me an email and invite me for a visit to your real estate blog. Should you have questions you’re shy about asking, I certainly invite you to drop me an email- otherwise, drop us a comment and let AG readers help…
