Generation Y, also referred to as the as the Millennials, use communications, media and digital technologies in their everyday life.  They connect with their world online, through social media and they are very aware of what their "friends" are doing.  Marketing to this group obviously means connecting with them through social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter, etc.

"They are the first generation in human history who regard behaviors like tweeting and texting, along with websites like Facebook, YouTube, Google and Wikipedia, not as astonishing innovations of the digital era, but as everyday parts of their social lives and their search for understanding." said the Pew Research Center.

In an article on The Next Web.com, Ekatarina Walters gives us the statistics of Gen-Y's brand awareness and how they connect to their world through social media:

Facebook:

• 40% visit Facebook more than 10 times a day and 76% spend over an hour a day on it.
• 43% have liked more than 20 brands on Facebook. 71% reported liking a brand just for the free offer.

Twitter:  58% use Twitter "all the time".

Foursquare:  66% would look up a business after learning that their friend checked in there.

Buyers seem to be getting younger and younger!  In 2011, the average age of a first time home buyer was 30, according to the National Association of REALTORS®. The oldest members of the Millennial generation are reaching 32 now.  Make sure that your marketing includes social media to keep in touch with younger potential clients who will soon be looking to invest in the real estate market.

Read the full article at TheNextWeb.com

View the Highlights of the NAR Report.

photo credit: AlvaroArenas

Posted in Internet Marketing, Gen X-Y, Technology And YOU

Don't jump into technology until you've decided on a strategy, says Inman News. 

"Real estate agents are often eager to adopt the latest technologies without thinking about who they intend to target with those technologies." said Chris Smith, Inman News' host of the one-day Agent Reboot, a real estate marketing seminar presented by Inman News and coming to Denver soon.

First, figure out your strategy.  Evaluate what worked in 2012 and what didn't.  What areas should you focus on?  What type of client should you be marketing to?  Decide who your audience is.

"Without a strategy you are just throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks," said Katie Lance, Inman News' social media director and the co-host of Agent Reboot.

Social Media should be a big part of your strategy.  Facebook has over 800 million users worldwide. So regardless of how you feel about Facebook or Twitter, you need to be utilizing these tools.

In a survey conducted by Real Simple Magazine, 49 percent of their respondents spend at least three hours a week on social media sites and 59 percent of respondents use social media for both personal and professional reasons.  That's a lot of potential leads! 

Lance offers solutions to organizing your Facebook Business Page.  She suggests creating a grid featuring four categories:  local real estate, national real estate, local and community and personal interests.  "Local real estate information, for instance, could include a story about a past client, local market statistics, or features of a particular neighborhood." she says.

Post photos and articles of things to do and places to live in the area.  Post articles about home prices, the economy and repost interesting news from other real estate sources. Have you seen Pinterest yet?  This is a great site that organizes your interests similarly.

Smith says you don't want 5,000 frivolous friends who don't mean anything, you want to engage your "friends" with content that is relevant and their friends will hopefully see it too.   According to Real Simple, 49 percent of their respondents have more than 300 Facebook friends.  This is the best "word of mouth" advertising!

"Create a Facebook list of prospects," says Jimmy Mackin, a Facebook Trainer.  "And then group them into a smaller category, such as those who live (in a certain area.)"  Interact with these people in small ways, keying in to their interests and hobbies, it doesn't always have to be about real estate.

"You can make more friends in two months by being interested in other people than in two years by trying to get people interested in you." says Mackin.

Read more about Social Media Strategies at Inman News.

Image from Google Images

Posted in Technology And YOU

Clients slipping through the cracks?  Client Tickler is a calendar software program that helps you keep up with the tasks and deadlines you need to do to keep up with the demands of real estate.

One of the great things it does is help you keep track of past clients who need a little TLC, just to let them know you are still out there, doing great things and would love to help them in the future.

"Have you ever had a past client purchase their second home from another agent because they haven't heard from you since they bought their home?" asks Blake McCall from ClientTickler, Inc. 

Each time you close out a task with Client Tickler, it requires you to set a new one for every client. "You can always make a client inactive if they never want to hear from you again, but hopefully that's not the case." says McCall. This ensures past clients never fall through the cracks.

Other great features of the program include:

• Task tracking software that allows you to easily juggle all your properties, clients and the entire escrow sales process.
• A postcard feature that allows you to customize your emails with a different template for thank you's, birthdays and every occasion.
• A snapshot view that shows previous tasks for each client.

You can test Client Tickler for free for 30 days to see if it works for your business, if you like it, it's $150. The company is working on an app for the iPhone, iPad and Android. 

Learn more about Client Tickler.

photo credit: Sharon Drummond

Posted in Lead Generation, Gen X-Y, Technology And YOU

The first step to success when starting a new Facebook Business Page, is to name your page correctly.  

Stacey Harmon, author of Strategies for Real Estate Facebook Pages, a new book with 125 content strategies for using Facebook to grow your business in 2012, says that it's time to switch to a Facebook Business Page.

Are you still using a personal profile page to market your business?

Did you know consumers cannot search Google for your personal Facebook page but they can search Google for a Facebook Business Page?  Consider the following important facts when creating a business page.

1.    The first step is to choose the correct name for your Facebook Business Page. 

When you choose your page name, take into consideration that you cannot change the name after 100 people are connected to your page.  So, for real estate, your name is very important, but the brokerage you are with might change, so you should be cautious about including that in your name.

2.      You must be the "authorized representative" of the branding concept of your page.

Facebook's terms of service says that you must be able to prove that you, alone, are the authorized representative of your business page.  If your page is named after you, such as Joe Black Real Estate, then it is obvious this is your page, but if you try for a more generic page name such as "Denver Real Estate", Facebook may change your status and administration access to make it more of a public page where anyone can post.

Choosing your Facebook Business Page name correctly will allow you to keep control of your domain name in the long term.

Harmon outlines a few of her steps from her book on the Real Estate Coach Radio program, hosted by Bernice Ross.  Ross offers a 5 Minute Daily internet show for real estate professionals and is hosting a 5 part series for Facebook strategies for 2012.

To hear more great strategies for Facebook in 2012, go to Real EstateCoachRadio.com

To buy the book, go to Harmon Enterprises.com

Posted in Technology And YOU

The battle between Faceboook and Google+ is just getting started.  Experts agree that these two social networking giants are poised to go head to head in 2012 to see who will rule social media in the next decade.

"This is a fight for survival for Facebook - and for relevancy for Google." says Rob Enderle of the Enderle Group, a technical analyst and writer.  "What happens in 2012 will make the difference between whether there is a Facebook by the end of the decade and whether Google can become truly relevant outside of search."

Competition between the two may potentially shift away from the end-user and towards the advertisers, predicts Nancy Messieh on The Next Web.  Advertisers will be watching the competition closely, so the two social media sites will be developing more features to attract new users and keep their current users engaged.

Facebook announced that it will be going public, offering a $100 billion IPO, which will mean new investors and a possible advantage over Google.

Twitter has also embraced advertising with sponsored tweets and small advertisements in 2011.  "In the face of pretty fierce competition with Facebook and Google, Twitter is going to have to step it up." writes Messieh. "2012 has to be the year that Twitter figures out once and for all how to interact with advertising and with brands."

"Google+ has its work cut out for it," says Messieh, "but with the company releasing very little information on the social network's growth, something it certainly isn't obliged to do, it leaves us with quite the guessing game as to what the coming year will bring."

Read the full story at The Next Web.

Read more by Rob Enderle at IT Business Edge.

Posted in Technology And YOU