TEN TWITTER COMMANDMENTS

So, someone who you met at a local business group convinced you that you need a Twitter profile for your business and having handed over £150 to them to spend 5 minutes setting this up for you, they then gave you an identikit social media ‘strategy’ document that alludes to such heady goals as improving brand awareness and engagement, yet stops short of mentioning anything particularly tangible about your business objectives and how your tweeting will help achieve them. You were then sent forth into the Twilderness to find your way to the promised land of opportunity that awaits EVERYONE in Social Media Marketing with a page of notes that vaguely explains what “@” and “#” does without swearing.

Hang on though. You’ve been doing this for a month now and nobody seems to be paying you much attention. This seems worryingly like the time you went into the pub on a Friday night with the loudhaler to see if anyone wanted to sell their house… Perhaps your Social Media ‘guru’ was a false prophet? Perhaps this really is just a place for narcissists to talk about their breakfast? Perhaps you do need to pay your guru to do this for you on an ongoing basis after all…

It’s been about 3 years since I started using Twitter seriously for business and there is a thriving community of those involved in property on there now, but there are also many more doing it badly, or worse still, outsourcing it to someone who’s doing it badly. An entire self-fulfilling industry has grown very quickly around convincing businesses that having 1,000 followers and getting 17 retweets per week (12 of which were from other accounts your guru runs) is a really good result and worth a monthly fee. The seasoned twit, the ones who are most likely to refer, recommend and drive opportunities your way can spot these accounts a mile off. Give it a go yourself first and if you do ultimately end up outsourcing, do it on your terms with goals you decide, not theirs.

My usual mantra for Twitter newbies is that you should seek first to understand, then to be understood. This saying from Steven Covey’s legendary business book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” is a simple concept that so many fail to grasp in modern communications. To realise the opportunities that Twitter can yield, you have to accept the fact that it’s not all about you. You can help and participate in conversation to seek out opportunities through building relationships. It is extremely easy in practice; find people you want to do business with or who influence those who you want to do business with and talk about whatever they’re talking about.

I thought I’d offer a few up to date do’s and don’t's for those still finding their way and perhaps for a few others who may have lost theirs. And so, may I present my TEN TWITTER COMMANDMENTS…

1. THOU SHALT NOT SHOUT
2. Thou shalt not nag thine followers to Like thine Facebook Page
3. Thou #shalt #not #gratuitously #overuse #hashtags
4. Thou shalt not use #ff purely as a name dropping exercise
5. Thou shalt not obsess over follower counts. Remember Dunbar’s Number
6. Thou shalt not tweet in a continuously self-gratifying manner. Nobody likes arrogance
7. Thou shalt not direct message in an unsolicited manner
8. Thou shalt not use the phrase “PLZ RT” unless it is for a very good reason
9. Thou shalt not send @ replies to ply your wares
10. Thou shalt not just broadcast unless thou art the BBC

If you think that you should be doing a bit more tweeting for your business, then you’re probably right, but I would encourage anyone to experience it as a place to learn, to debate and to build business relationships before putting it in a marketing plan. If you’d like more help, just ask… on Twitter. 

 

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The real value of a home

One of the problems with property being considered such a good long term investment is that people become obsessed with stats and house price trends and knowing when is a good or bad time to buy. This factor has become almost a national obsession during the last few years and coupled with the newspapers ability to find contrasting good/bad news on an almost daily basis could have people forgetting the real reasons why we buy a home – to live in it!

In response to this, American real estate agent Coldwell Banker have produced a fantastic television advert about the real value of a home and I hope you will not only enjoy watching it and maybe think of ways that your agency can translate this message to those buying and selling in your area.

 

 

They have also created some shorter videos that talk about some of the things that make a house a home (Kids, Backyards and Pets) and a smart infographic.

You can’t help but smile and admire the style and delivery but I think just as important and relevant is the clever and well thought out message that we can all take something from.

This article originally appeared on http://www.housingdabble.com

 

Are you desperately seeking landlords?

It might not have been an officially sanctioned piece of marketing material, but somebody, somewhere in your agency has probably used the words "desperately seeking more landlords" in a piece of untargeted literature recently.

The scattergun approach to finding landlords has always been a pretty ineffective method in my book, but in the absence of a better idea, an area of rainforest the size of Milton Keynes has been turned into copier paper for agents throughout the land to door drop desperately for another landlord or three.

My distaste for this type of marketing was tempered somewhat when I saw the results of our Landlord Survey which revealed that over half of those surveyed didn't buy their property with the intention of becoming a landlord. So this gave rise to the idea that there were plenty of 'accidental' landlords out there who may indeed respond to a badly photocopied note through the door alluding to the aforementioned desperation. Indeed, when I've suggested re-investing marketing efforts in something other than "canvassing" to some agents, I've been chastised and told that it does work and they then cite at least 3 occasions in the past 3 years/30 tonnes of rainforest where their flyer was mentioned on a valuation.

But then, The Property Ombudsman decided to upset the applecart anyway with new guidance on...

"INAPPROPRIATE PRACTICES WHEN CANVASSING"

As part of the updated Code of Practice that was introduced last August, The Ombudsman stated the following:

Inappropriate practices when canvassing - to help avoid the consumer experiencing what could amount to harassment or being misled and to lessen irritation resulting from causing the consumer effort or raising expectation.

• Door knocking or cold calling at properties for sale with other agents.
• Continuous unsolicited calls, emails or general junk mail.
• Use of a ‘compliments slip’ or ‘note’ that does not explain its true purpose but merely makes a statement such as ‘contact me urgently’.
• Acting as someone who you are not or using third parties to project your business.
• Specifically targeting tenants by whatever means for details of landlords so that unsolicited approaches can be made to those landlords.

The above is open to some interpretation, but the last 3 words of bullet no.2 kind of cover most of what I'm referring to. 

TEMPTING RATHER THAN TOUTING

I doubt I will tempt many agents to save the rainforest in reality, but I would like to offer one very easy, very cheap alternative for you to consider...

Zoopla have a quirky little function on their website called TemptMe. This is where the owner of any property in the UK can set a price at which they would be prepared to sell their home. Simply visit the "Current Values" section for your area and in the "Useful links for [Your Area]" on the right, you will see the link to "TemptMe" homes in your patch.

The reason I suggest this in a lettings context rather than sales is most of these TemptMe prices seem to have been drawn from Land Registry data for Cloud Cuckoo Land. There is one in my home town of Epsom where the TemptMe price is set at £1.8m, yet it was sold in 2006 for £720k and Zoopla's own automated current estimate puts it at £762k! Equally, there are some more grounded examples like this one posted on New Years Eve.

Some may just be nutters, but they've given Zoopla permission to let you tempt them. You can send them a message through the website too! Nothing unsolicited about that then.

I'm quietly confident that a tempting insight into what sort of rent could be achieved for the property at present will probably float their boat more than the harsh reality of selling it. So when you send the troops out door knocking next week, maybe tell one of them to save their weary legs and do a bit of tempting instead. Let me know how they get on...

Estate Agency of the Year 2011

Congratulations to the all round good guys at Romans on doing the double! Last week they were crowned as The Estate Agency of the Year 2011 having already won Lettings Agency of the Year 2011 in June. Here's a little video of them receiving their award on what was a superb day at EAE Live...

You can also find out more about all the winners and the judges report on them here...

Searching for the Lesser Spotted Seller

We're seeking your help to find that very rare breed of person who has actually sold a property in 2011! For the 5th year, our Home Moving Trends Survey will hopefully deliver key insights to property professionals in areas where other surveys simply do not reach.

It's not about how many surveyors have a good or bad feeling in their waters this month or how wide the gap between notional average prices have become, this is about the choices that the people who keep an estate agent in business are making; the vendors. How did they find you? Why did they choose you? And what was it like to be moved by you? 

It's very simple to help us with this survey. All you need to do is send an e-mail to your current and recently completed vendors asking them to visit:

http://www.homemovingtrends.com

You will also find Facebook and Twitter buttons on the Survey page, so please share with your followers and friends too.

Responses to the survey are used purely for statistical reasons, but we do ask people to name the agent they are selling through, so that if an agent gets a sufficiently high number of their vendors to respond, we can offer them a comparison of how they're vendors responded to the rest.

The survey runs from now until 28th November and the results will be shared for the first time at EAE Live on December 8th.

Thank you for helping us with this important research.