It’s no secret that suddenly real estate professionals all across the country are touting the importance of social networking.  In fact, after blogging, social-networking has been the major topic of conversation in real estate circles for the past six months or more.

In these tough economic times, real estate agents are getting back to the basics – gone are the days of “spray and pray” marketing.  Relationship marketing has always been one of the fundamental real estate basics. Relationship marketing is all about targeting your marketing efforts to people you already know – you know their likes, dislikes, needs, life situation, etc.  Real estate professionals lost sight of this during the boom years of the early 2000’s because it seemed everyone was buying and selling real estate, the secret was hitting the consumer at the right time – it was a numbers game and spray and pray marketing worked to that end.  In the “old days” real estate professionals fostered their relationships through phone calls, dinner parties, email and direct mail.  Today, savvy agents are utilizing social networking sites in order to achieve the same results.  And it’s working!

The beauty of social networking sites is that you can foster a far greater number of relationships equivalent to the amount of time invested. LinkedIn, for example, automatically calculates the number of people in your Network of Trusted Professionals – for every 100 connections in your “trusted friends and colleagues” category, you will see close to 4,000 “friends of friends” within two degrees of separation.  With that being said, thousands of potential clients, or referral sources, are privy to the message you present through your online profile.

Given that there are so many social networking sites, here is a breakdown of some of the more popular sites to help you get started:

• Facebook – Although Facebook is primarily a more personal, rather than professional, site, its advantage is in visibility – meaning more people are going to see what you are up to.  By keeping your message professional you will get noticed above all the prevalent mindless garbage. Another advantage of Facebook is that you are privy to the daily goings-on of your sphere - this knowledge provides you instant conversation topics for the next time you see them or talk to them on the phone.  Don't forget to taut your successes (without being too boastful), over time this will have an impact on your FB sphere.
  
• LinkedIn – LinkedIn is considered the professionals network.  It’s been said that members will browse other members connections in order to understand someone’s reputation – thus your clout comes from who you are associated, or “connected,” with.  LinkedIn is also advantageous in that it provides the members with slightly more personal anonymity than Facebook.  After you've established your profile and contacts, you find that there is no need to update your status every day, or even every week, because your profile isn't visited as frequently as on Facebook and your past statuses aren't visible anywhere.  Instead, take advantage of Group Discussions to get noticed. 
  
• Twitter – Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to stay connected through the exchange of frequent answers to one simple question: “What are you doing?”  We've all seen that Twitter use has exploded in the past couple months.  Twitter provides greater transparency and more timely information. Again, keep your message professional and you will get noticed.  My experience is that there is a direct correlation between the number of people you follow, and the number that follow you.
  
• ActiveRain – Specific to real estate professionals, ActiveRain’s real advantage is in its blogging capacity.  Because of its size, the search engines love ActiveRain, thus the general online public will see conversations you have within the network to a greater extent.  Good news for those who made a blog post on ActiveRain before 3/16/09 - you will be grandfathered on the free platform as ActiveRain moves to being a paid blogging site.  I've noticed recently that ActiveRain salespeople are monitoring usage - so don't be surprised when you get a 'random' phonecall from one of them while using the site trying to upsell you to RainMaker.
  
• Inman – Being part of Inman Real Estate News, the Inman community provides its members with continual relevant news from top real estate professionals around the country.  Like ActiveRain, Inman has blogging functionality built into member profiling.  Also keep yourself informed on the latest trends in real estate by signing up for the Inman News feeds.
  
• Trulia - The Trulia Voices Community is a place to share what you know with other expert agents.  It encourages you to participate with other community members by blogging and answering questions.  When the public stumbles upon your profile they can judge your credibility by your blog entries, etc.  My experience is that blog posts on Trulia receive the most readership of all the real estate blog sites.  Don't forget to link your listings up to your profile by entering in your MLS ID number.
  
• Realtor.com - Did you know Realtor.com offered blogging capabilities?  You'd be foolish not to publish your blog on the number one visited real estate website in the world!
  
• MySpace – Don’t dismiss it as just a site for teenagers and college students, there are currently 2,500 results under “Denver Real Estate.”

Obviously, there are many other social networking sites gathering momentum these days (Bebo and Flickr to name two more) all of which have their own nuances. I hope this article gives you the courage to dive deeper into a social networking platform that suits your individual style.  Remember, it’s all about relationship marketing – same concept, different venues.

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P.S. I participated in a panel discussion with Jim Walberg and Bruce Hiatt which was moderated by Victor Lund of the WAV Group entitled “The Power of Social Networking: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogging Tactics of Top Luxury Professionals” at the 2009 7th Annual Luxury Real Estate Spring Retreat. 

Click here to see the FACEBOOK&LINKEDIN TIPS from the Panel Discussion.  Click here to see the BLOGGING TIPS and here for the TWITTER TIPS.  Read the conference attendee’s Reviews of the Panel.