A Real Estate Social Media Reality- Tweet: Jane Doe agent is a moron and her broker is “teh suck”

The backstory on AG & Social Media

We’ve been talking about social media for real estate for what seems like an eternity now. We’ve hashed out the how to get started all the way up to beginning the conversation about what is and isn’t marketing and ROI. Many feel it’s been beaten to death as they have come down on one side or the other as to its value- you either are or are not convinced, but I want to give you a tangible reason that you should at the very least take it seriously.

HP, thanks for doing the right thing?

If you follow the antics of those in the real estate space on Twitter and Facebook, then you may know that recently I held HP’s (Hewlett Packard) feet to the fire on a known issue repair. They voided a repair ticket created in warranty because the machine became out of warranty during the process. Their resolution offered was a repair price of nearly $300.00. It might seem like not such a big deal, but when you consider this is the third laptop of ours to die of the same fate within two years, we’re now talking thousands of dollars in useless laptops that lay wasted around our home and office.

I was pissed to say the least and quite frankly, we weren’t going to take it anymore. I gave HP a call, and along the way informed each member of support that I was Twittering about the call along with the outcome.

Here’s the point (maybe your client isn’t telling you)

Whether you enjoy the use of new media or not, in many cases, our clients do. They’re not on the sidelines, in fact, they’re out in public, living in public, sharing in public, and quite frankly, they’re using tools to broadcast their life without cause- I know, I happen to be one of them.

The sad reality is that you may not- you’re still left searching for a reason to even bother to care, and if I may be so bold, it may be your client that gives you that reason.

“teh suck”

Imagine tweets such as “My Realtor Jane Doe is a windbag.” Or even worse, “My Big Broker agent won’t call me back and these flyers suck!” Or how about a fat link to Jane’s website titled, “Jane Doe agent really sucks!” Depending on their sphere of influence (followers and friends), you’re on the outside if you’re not at least listening to all spheres and know how to combat serious problems such as these… imagine a client smiling to your face while the entire day Twittering every single thing you say and every lousy property you’ve shown them and about the lousy agent you’ve turned out to be, or even Twittering about how they perceive you as overcharging them on a listing all while smiling to your face and refilling your tea glass.

If you’re so stubborn as to intentionally remain on the other side of the fence (out of control), that is your prerogative, or you could at the very least take the time to learn how to use these communities to your advantage.  As the economy gets tougher in many areas of the country, you can bet frustrations will equally be on the rise as will frustrated socially media oriented clients (finally they feel someone is listening to them).

While the only real cure to incompetence is an apology, there are ways to handle these sorts of situations in a proactive nature- you need to take your ability to confine, repair and rebuild client confidence from offline to online and back to offline, before you experience this sort of retaliation to your lameness.

Tips to get you started: (a process with a purpose)

• Ask your client in conversation what social media sites they use.
• Ask your client if they mind if you follow them (and invite them to follow you).
• Once you follow them, engage them and make it fun (keep it light).
• Define upfront how you would like to engage problems and in what manner.
• Agree to those terms and never fail at being responsive in the manner you’ve selected.
• Ask your client if they’ve tweeted about the new property they’ve just made an offer on.
• Share property pictures with them and ask them if they would like to share them online.
• Invite them to share their experience online.

There is no debate on the issue of self-promotion in the online space- by doing so you will be shunned by a greater audience, rather, your goal in using social media is to create fans that rave publicly about you, thus doing the marketing for you… what’s so complicated about this simple process?

You can’t control everything or even try unless you understand the potential for success and for failure.  Executing a simple conversation, establishing simple rules to handle dissatisfaction, and keeping those rules are crucial.  By overcoming problems during the transaction in the manner you’ve laid out in advance (and in turn executing a great buying or selling process and encouraging their enthusiasm online) ultimately sends your digital calling card as wide as their sphere of influence online and then some.

What happened with HP?!

In the end, I praised HP for repairing the laptop on their dime and with little argument or convincing- in fact, they had a plan for this exact issue, it simply took a savvy support manager to isolate the correct process- needless to say we were thrilled, and even though HP never engaged me online over this issue, SprintPCS did (but that’s a whole other story).

Do yourself a favor, stop being stubborn and at least learn how to engage your critics (and fans), because now days, everyone’s a critic (or a fan) with a megaphone (the sharper lazier version of blogging that is microblogging), even your clients– don’t be ‘teh suck.’