Why The Real Estate Blogsite Needs To Be The Central Element Of Your Online Marketing Strategy.

You Just Need To Stick With It

Ask yourself:

1. What are you trying to accomplish with your online marketing?
2. What is your intended audience looking for?
3. What is your contribution to the internet?

1. What are you trying to accomplish with your online strategy?

Generate business is the main goal, of course.
But, the sound marketing strategy for a real estate agent is to:

• First be found.
• Second be recognized as the Best resource,
• Thirdly as the Trusted agent,
• Finally, be Remembered (saved, favorited, subscribed, and most importantly, contacted.)

A well executed real estate blogsite can help you accomplish the above more effectively than any other single online marketing effort.

The agent’s options for being found online are accomplished in 3 ways:

• Show up in the search engines,
• Deliver one’s content to your online sphere of influence (read: social network),
• Or have others ‘talking’ about you.

No longer a secret, the Search Engine exposure that you get from regular blog writing
is heralded as surprisingly effective, and certainly worth the effort.
Related: All You Ever Needed to Know About Blogging for SEO, But Were Afraid to Say So.
Related: Real Estate Blogging and the Search Engines, the News Source Theory
The trick, however, is to plan out your goals of exposure in the search engines and write to them.  What I mean is, wishful thinking and writing about whatever pops in your head as interesting is not going to help you be found for the terms that lead to generating the Right Audience.  Just because you are blogging, doesn’t mean that you are gaining ground on the success you reach for.
I have written an enormous amount on how to attract the right audience (ideal reader, target reader), and the formula is simple: Determine what is keeping your ideal reader up at night and write about that.  If you write to them, they will come.  This is a promise.
Related: How To Approach Real Estate Blogging And Ensure Your Success, Guaranteed

When it comes to delivering valuable content to your social network,
again the blogsite can’t be beat as an effective resource.
A formula to success (when it comes to doing business within a social network) is to work to fill it (the network)  full of members that appreciate you and the content that you deliver, and to find a voice and frequency that keeps them interested in you and your content.
It can be a challenge to find this harmony, so here are a few suggestions that have helped me in my quest to surround myself with ‘fans’ and deliver content that they appreciate, and most importantly, consume.  (Keep in mind that these are things that I have done, and not to be considered the rule.  The only rule I know in social media marketing is that there are none.)

1. Be yourself.  You’ll attract the audience you deserve.
2. Don’t try to please everyone; you end up pleasing no one.
3. Consider what you enjoy about the professionals you ‘follow’ and consider applying these elements to your effort.
4. Don’t over share.  There are things that we don’t need to know about you.  Curiously. those that you attract when you over share are generally not the Right Audience.
5. Be interested before you try to be interesting.  This is a pay-it-forward approach; if you show an interest, people will in turn, show an interest in you.
6. Fans vs Friends.  When possible, treat them as separate groups.  Your friends care less about your business than they show you at cocktail parties.
7. Don’t be boring (read: inane).  People click on, read, ‘like’, comment on, and share things because their interest has been piqued.

There are exceptions to all of the above, of course.  Again, these are the guidelines that I have used to build and connect with a large social sphere.

How does the blog fit into all of the above?

Easy.  Your blogging effort is always one that is based around connecting with the Right Audience; developing compelling content that rings honest and personal.  Condensing your well organized message (the blog article) into a tasty, snack-sized snippet for Facebook, Twitter and the like, will be a perfect example of delivering the Right Message to the Right Audience.
The trend of status updates and pithy nuggets shared through Twitter and Facebook is certainly a way to get your audience’s attention.  However, the effort comes up short when you consider how little Trust you can build with 140 characters.  This is where the central strategy of the blog comes in as the perfect resource to establish authority, expertise and trust.

The breakthrough to social media marketing success is finding that perfect harmony: the Right Audience receiving the Right Content, where your audience starts to share your message for you.
Understanding the needs of the Right Audience, and delivering to them what they are hungry for inspires them to pass it along.  This has become easier than ever before with Tweets, Retweets, FB Share, Google Buzz, ShareThis and the like.  They consider themselves part of a network, surrounded by others that appreciate the same sort of information that satisfies them.
Learn to feed them, and they will do the rest.
No other online marketing effort is going to satisfy this formula as well as the well maintained, and well leveraged business blog.  It begs to be the center of your online marketing strategy.  Just Tweeting, or posting to Facebook, without the support of the blog will have you coming up short in your goals for success.  The blog represents the mother ship for you to be found and to be seen as the expert you deserve.

2. What is your intended audience is looking for?

1. Listings.

Expect that everyone that you attract to your site has an interest in property currently on the market.

2. Trusted Resource

I’ve been talking with a client that is trying to work out a slogan for her new company blogsite.  “No Bullshit” came to mind, and although it made us all laugh, and was discarded for it’s profanity… it was precisely what we wanted to say.

The real estate blog is your chance to be the answers to the questions that your target audience is asking.
You know what keeps them up at night, whether it be excitement or fear… now give them piece of mind, one post at a time.
Related: The Two Most Important Things To Consider About Your Real Estate Blogsite

3. What contribution do you make to the internet?

When you Google yourself, what do you find?
You are in control (most of the time) as to what appears when people start researching you – take it seriously.
The digital age has us all expecting to find answers on any person, place or thing, so we dig until we do.  Websites, LinkedIn Profiles, Facebook accounts, Twitter streams, blogs, comments left on blogs, forum participation, news pieces, Craigslist ads… all of it appears, and is generally pretty easy to sort through.
I can learn more about you in 5 mins online than you could tell me in that same amount of time.  What am I going to find?
Are you taking the time to set the impression that you hope potential clients receive?
Will they find a whimsical effort of social participation? (read: recklessly maintained Facebook/Twitter profile)
Will they find a very outdated, online brochure of your business? (read: limited template real estate site)
Or, will they see your commitment to your clients and their needs?  Will they find a wealth of authority bundled up in a comprehensive and relevant package?  Will they see your accessibility and willingness to help, education and service?
One of the huge benefits of the well maintained real estate blog is the enormous amount of content that you generate over the years.  This content becomes the authority for which you are known, giving off the impression for which you aim.  Turning this content into bite-sized-status-update-snacks on your various professional profiles will also help maintain this impression the deeper they dig.
The bottom line is that the blog represents the best solution for being found, being seen as the trusted resource, and gives off the impression that you care about your business and people’s experience when working with you.  The rest of your online activity should simply support this effort.
If you want to master these techniques alongside a personal trainer, contact us right away to schedule a session.