What I Learned at Inman Real Estate Connect: August 2009 Day Two

Jeff Turner of RealEstateShows (I am a big fan of both the product and the person) started off the second day with this simple truth:

Provide a great customer experience.

Jeff then spoke of Tech Tools to Leverage Social Media.

Use the tools that help you achieve your Social Media goals:

1. Look outside the real estate industry. What is happening in other industries...
2. Move Offline to Online (Find other modes to get the message out). Add clients to Facebook (take your client database and put them on Facebook)
3. Care deeply about something. (Don't just give lip service...get involved)
4. Share openly and often. Always be free with your knowledge....
5. Listen with intent. Are you really listening or thinking about what to say next?
6. Target someone unreachable (David Armano). Great stuff on David Armano's Blog.
7. Teach a newbie. Be a mentor.
8. Meet face-to-face. At the end of the day it is all about the face-to-face, the social media is a way of getting there.

Some great questions were asked through the balance of the day:

• Does brand mean anything anymore?
• Are they all the same?
• Does it matter what brand a REALTOR has behind them?
• As "Teams" have evolved within Brands, will they move to be Independents to have more control over the product.
• Are Brokerages and Boards/Associations too numbers driven as a profit model?

Discussion about the use of the Amazon Kindle: Harper Studio led the discussion but it was not geared to potential uses in the future of Real Estate however it is interesting to note that usage is increasing exponentially. As a Kindle owner and user, I await applications that will allow listings to be viewed on the Kindle. Newspapers, Blogs and magazine's are now downloading content to the Kindle overnight.

In another Discussion about Boards and market statistics....it was stated that Boards need to explain the data to the members to explain it to their clients...the Skinny. Short videos about the market down loadable to agents web sites and Blogs for content!

Houston Area Realtors HAR.com is now allowing closed Buyers and sellers to rate their REALTORS and the services they provide. They are also working on a REALTOR production analyzer that will be available to the Public and help the consumer shop for an agent by past success in different areas and price range. When I asked Bob Hale, CEO of HAR.comwhy they were moving to that kind of transparency, he rightfully stated that if the Board/Association did not provide this service, it was their belief that a 3rd party would soon be providing it and the quality of data from the trade association would be better.

In discussing tools for surveys Zoomerang.com, Redfincalculates bonus by surveying their Buyers and Sellers (Redfin's Realtors are paid salary) on survey, the ultimate question, since reviews launched conversion rate has increased 100 fold. Before then, they had a lot of people using their web site to search but not converting to online Consultants/Realtors. At the end of the day however, it was suggested that the most important question to ask is:

"How likely are you to recommend this Realtor's real estate services to a friend or family?"

A speaker from MRIS' Homesdatabase.com had a great top 10 for Consumer Focused web sites:

• 10. Aim for a particular duck: Who is your consumer?
• 9. Turn the binoculars around: What is your consumer searching for?
• 8. The Wine is only as good as the grapes: Garbage in, garbage out...
• 7. Get the big picture and the big pictures...Large photos and lots of them...
• 6. Don't set it and forget it: keep the content up to date and add more applications
• 5. If it's real, it's spectacular: if it is worth doing it is worth overdoing...(my words)
• 4. Build it and they will not necessarily come: make it easy. MRIS describes their site as the most comprehensive Registration-free MLS search.
• 3. Make it habit forming. Consumers will come back if there is always something to come back to...
• 2. Show me the money. Make sure that it is benefiting all your members and their Brokers in terms of leads...
• 1. Stop, look and listen: continuously monitor the site....and ask for feedback...

It was a great second day...and sadly the afternoon was divided into 4 different tracks...try as I might I could not be in all 4 at the same time but...still a great day.

Reposted From: http://torontoism.com/2009/08/15/what-i-learned-at-inman-real-estate-connect-august-2009-day-two/