I have no conclusion
I just thought it would be interesting to start the conversation and hear from each of you SM devotees (oh, how social media of me!).
They didn’t call your baby ugly
This was sparked by an excellent post by Ines. There were several fantastic responses, and some interesting reactions where folks seemed put off that someone dared to call BS on SM activities and predicting it will die out as a fad. To the point of questioning the intelligence of the person with the opinion.
I recall another post questioning broad stroke advice on SM that got some interesting feedback. But, opinions are like noses. Everyone’s got one.
I’m not saying I agree with the author of the article Ines sited. In fact, I think it’s reckless for anyone to make broad sweeping absolute statements, particularly with no data. Again, opinions and noses.
One hypothesis
Do SM devotees feel almost part of a cult? Not a cult as in “The Hale-Bopp comet is coming, grab your Nikes, put your money in your pocket, eat the pudding and wash it down with vodka” type of cult.
Instead the sort of cult that is purposefully and specifically built by brands, such as Apple or Harley Davidson (I wrote a post about it here) – that makes people believe they are part of a small tribe with a unique common dominator the masses just don’t possess. AKA – the “cool kids club”.
For now, I’m neutral. Since there does not yet exist any absolute hard data that proves to me that it’s a highly impactful tool for agents. Before you kill the messenger with that statement, continue reading.
What I mean is hardcore analytics. Not “I got three listings from FaceBook in the last six weeks”. While that’s certainly a measurable output, it doesn’t take all necessary contributing factors into account when measuring success to an agent.
For example, per Heather Rankin’s comment in Ines’ post, it sounds like she’s got a corner on her local market (yay, Heather) so the density of population and agent SM users could be a factor and measure.
Having said that, nor is there any data to the contrary – that it’s ineffective, or less effective than other measures. So, I’m neutral.
A second hypothesis
Nobody likes to make mistakes or errors in judgment. And when we do, we don’t want to feel worse than we already do if we’ve discovered it. It’s too much a hit to our pride. While questioning social media isn’t outright saying a misstep has been taken, it’s implying a poor choice was made.
Again, that can be defended with a lack of data. And, even with the data, I suspect there will be too many holes to truly determine if we’ve left money on the table by spending valuable time on SM efforts, or earned more as a result. You just don’t know until you know, right?
I will cut it here. But I really would like to know your thoughts. Soon I will dig more deeply into the possible measures for agents and SM.
Happy Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for being a part of this community and for having met (IRL or virtually) so many great people this year.
