Carolyn Mantia

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Plaxo, Linkedin and the list goes on and on and on. These sites can cause complete overwhelm as well as take users careening off in unproductive directions, leaving them wondering what did I even accomplish today.

Myspace used to be the "IT" place to social network but it was quickly gobbled up by the power of facebook. The largest growth group for facebook is the 50 year old female out there diving into the socila networking scene. Facebook like Myspace offers mini games and social applications suck as buy a round and send a hug. There is PLENTY on facebook as well as myspace to grab your attention and suck the minutes and hours away from you.

Twitter has a completely differetn dynamic. You are allowed only 140 characters total including spaces for your post. You aren't buying rounds of drinks or kidnapping each other but instead a small snippet of what is going on with those that you follow.

It could be the thought at the moment, what they are doing, something that just hit the news, a quote or simply one of those amazing insights that we tend to get in the grocery line and MUST share with someone. In the blink of an eye it is posted and shared with those who think you are interesting or worth following.

I have to admit when I first signed up for twitter I was a little freaked out when I found someone was following me. CREEPY! Now after I have used the service and done the research I can see the value of these short little blurbs.

Here are some examples

"Mary" Real Estate Agent is on twitter, she invites past clients and friends to "follow" her. Mary really wants referrals and we all know the best way to get referrals is A- Remind the people we know we sell real estate and B- Show them we are experts in the area so that the people we know will trust us with thier friends and family.

Mary posts about the $8000 tax credit, Mary posts about new municipal changes that effect buyers and sellers, Mary posts about construction and improvements impacting the area, Mary posts housing figures for the state or city or what if Mary posted a summary of MLS activity such as # of new listings, # of price reductions, # of listing sold. All of this is valuable information positioning Mary as the go to person in the mind of her followers.

Now here comes the big trick, GETTING the followers. This blog is really a work in progress and where I call on you to help. I have seen and tried a few ideas for building my follower base, here is what I have done.

I have the twitter link in my email signature, I sent an email to all of my linkedin connections asking them to join me on twitter. I have posted it to my facebook and myspace. I emailed a twitter buddy today asking her how she improved her follower count and she said be sure to treat the people who follow you right and more followers will come. Tweet the names of the people you like to follow on twitter to your follower's suggesting they follow this fellow tweeter.

So I am empowering the non-twitter users to log on and create an account www.twitter.com

Link together and share ideas and referrals

Step two I am banding together this group of individuals to together build our tweet empire so we can effectively service the needs of those who want to follow us. Let this blog be the place where we can share ideas and successes and be looking for more information from me on future blogs as to what works and what does not. (feel free to subscribe to my blog for updates)

In the mean time you can find me on twitter.com/carolynmantia waiting to connect with YOU!

I am still a long time supporter of the open house. I regularly encourage my agents to hold open houses touting all the benefits. Below is a list of the benefits that I can see and I would appreciate your inout and ideas about why you hold open houses and what benefits you see from it.

Face time- Nothing beats a first impression, an open house is the perfect time to make a connection with a prospective buyer who has been hold up in front of a PC doing all they can without a Realtor. Share tips that only seasoned Realtors know and show them the value of not doing this alone.

Practice makes perfect- Knowing just what to say that is going to be effective to a prospective client is hard to simply get right the first time. Through the exploration of dialogs and monitoring the reactions you can build your own SUCCESSFUL collection of dialogs and scripts PROVEN to succeed.

Be the expert -My ritual was to view EVERY home I could in the neighborhood or area where I was holding the open. (Even FSBO's) Knowing all the pricing and interior and exterior features and flaws can help you position yourself as the "Go To" person in that given area

Know the neighbors -Another lost art is getting to know the neighbors, walk around inviting the neighbors to the upcoming open house, ask permission to put your open sign in the yard. These are the "influencers" of the neighborhood and you would do well to have them in your corner. Who best knows the next house in the neighborhood to come up for sale in advance then the nosy or gossipy neighbor.

Get the information- This is the place to get that VALUABLE contact information for those who attend the open. Name, email, phone, mailing address... everything and anything can. Now how you do that requires skill and again trial and error. My favorite technique is to have an OUTSTANDING handout displayed. I can mail you this...... If they refuse to give you a mailing address or contact info.. so be it. If they are working with an agent I ask them to register the agents name so I can contact the agent directly for feed back.

OK those are my tips and ideas from my little mind. I look forward to your posts of what works for you and any new ideas I can share with my team.

Thanks in advance

floow me on twitter http://www.twitter.com/carolynmantia

Sure I consider myself a tech-fan. I enjoy exploring what is new and improved out there and then bringing it back to the agents who work with me and share.

The past few months I have been training agents in our company as well as in organizations I frequent, the benefits of facebook. At first I thought some of the participants simply were not wired to work with new technology, others I found to be argumentative and FILLED with objections as to why not use these technologies. It only occurred to me today why!

"FEAR OF FACEBOOK" The objections are similar every time. I don't want to be friends with old high school cronies, I want to keep my privacy, you could be on Facebook all day long, I will never get this stuff, what is the benefit to me. You get the point! These are objections not to the service or system but instead convenient excuses as why not to embrace something new.

Here are some statistics

According to the US Census Bureau at the moment of writing this article the following is the population of the US and World

U.S. 306,799,913
World 6,768,123,269
18:55 GMT (EST+5) Jun 30, 2009

OK get out your calculators 1/5th of the US is on Facebook

If you are NOT one of those people what are you waiting for????

Create an account, log in and click around and explore. You cannot break facebook! It will not infiltrate your pc and take over. Do not fear it embrace it! I found this wonderful website that even offers FREE step by step Facebook training www.gfclearningfree.org/computer This is not a site simply for our children it is the site for savvy professionals to collaborate, mingle, meet and learn. Learn about others, learn about what is going on in the world and in your circle of acquaintances.

With the revolution of Cell phones, Internet, emails etc we have slowly weeded out the time we once had to be social. We drive our cars into our garages close our doors with the garage door opener, close the blinds and stay inside. We screen our calls with our caller ID etc etc.

Social networking including Facebook has given us the social part of our life back to some degree. So go be SOCIAL, you can do it from your home with the blinds drawn (-: A quick log in once or twice a day to glance at what has been posted and make comments followed by creating your own post can be done in no time at all.

So let me help you overcome some of the "Facebook Fears"

1. I don't have the time- Facebook can take as little or as much time as you chose to allow it to take, you control it, it does not control you

2. I do not want to be friends with the people I went to high school with - Yes you actually do, many of them have become incredible individuals who's life path does cross in some way with yours. Especially if you are in sales, they should know who you are today and vice versa

3. It is too complicated - It is only as complicated as you make it, you cannot break your PC or facebook by simply clicking the links and exploring all it has to offer. Reference the training link above for help

4. What is the point? Social networking is NOT going away, it is here to stay, embrace it now before it gets so big you are really SCARED of it. Search Facebook success stories in google. Countless articles on how someone found the perfect partners, increased sales 80%, raised money for a bone marrow transplant or even reunited with a lost loved one. The point is ANYTHING is possible if you continue to inquire and experience what is around you.

OK I have babbled on enough, let me just summarize. No one is too old or too out of it to embrace and experience the possibilities of Social Networking. If you have to start some where I strongly recommend the user friendly top rated facebook. Make a commitment to log on daily or every other day for a set amount of time. Before to long you won't be afraid of it anymore and the value of using the site will be Crystal clear!!!! check out my page at www.facebook.com/carolynmantia

"Fear makes the wolf bigger than he is." ---- German Proverb

Don't you wish you were provided with the things YOU want and YOU need instead of provided tools you don't use or want, tools that don't even help?

Well here is your chance to be heard. I am looking for AGENTS or Sales People ONLY input PLEASE!!!!!! No Managers allowed!

What is your wish list of what you need to help you be more effective, better trained or just something that you are missing.

What are the road blocks you are hitting in today's market?

What stops you from being more productive or effective?

What is your biggest battle in the Real Estate Business?

Is it not enough time? Not enough motivation? If you had to list the 5 things that hold you back from success what would they be.

I will enter every person who posts to this blog's name into a drawing and the winner will receive a $50 Gas card. Is that enough to get you to put your thoughts into words?

I look forward to your honest input!!!

Yes I do live in the self help section of the book store it seems. I would like to know what are some of your favorite business or personal development books. Mine are also attached...

Tuned In.

Good Luck.

QBQ - The Question behind the question (ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVORITES).

The 5 people you meet in heaven. (More personal than business).

If you do not have big breasts put ribbons in your pig tails.

The Richest man in Babylon - (I made all of my teenagers read this too it is terrific).

Letting Go of your bananas. - Letting go of your bananas really applied both personally and professionally. Again I insisted my family read this book as well since in part it was about letting go of those negative things to move forward. This book was good enough my children then passed in on to their friends etc.

There are many many more ut these helped me and my team grow and be on the same page with like minds in the office. There are a lot of other GREAT books out there but I didn't want to bore you with too long of a list to choose from. The bottom line is feed your mind daily even if it is only 10 minutes a day.

What are some of your favorite business and personal development books?

PS I would love you to subscribe to my blog to keep up on other topics coming soon.