Melissa Riley

I stumbled upon another interesting tool last night via a fellow realtor's posting on Trulia: Twellowhood. It gives you the ability to do a geographic search of people using Twitter.com. While it has taken me some time to see the value of Twitter to my business, with use of Twellowhood, it might begin to serve some purpose in zeroing in on local news or networking opportunities. There is also a feed site that works with Twitter called Monitter.com. This site enables you to get "tweets" directly from twitter by narrowing down the entries based upon key words that you choose. I think this is an interesting concept, due to the massively overwhelming, and sometimes ridiculous entries on twitter. Being a "micro blogging" site, Twitter allows for no more than 140 characters in any message. Quite frankly, I don't think I will ever be interested in someone's minute-by-minute feeding schedule. If you have ever experienced twitter, it may make you question the statistic that only 5% of the population has some type of mental illness or personality affliction. Anyway, finding value in social networking sites, such as Twitter, through tools such as Twellowhood and Monitter, does interest me. As I experiment with these sites, I will pass along any great business-related ideas. By the way, I had oatmeal this morning.

What do these animals have in common with the future of newsprint? Extinction. Many times, the reason for extinction of animals is their inability to adapt to changes in their environment. Newspapers were at their height of distribution and readership in 2004. Since then, the impact of the internet has made newsprint virtually irrelevant. Consumers (including us) love the internet for the control and anonymity it gives us. It's 24/7, updated, and interactive. It's global, includes tons of information and gives us the ability to PARTICIPATE. That's the main reason why print is failing...consumers want to participate instead of being marketed to through PUBLICATION. We want to create and comment on blogs, and be able to share photos and videos. We want to give a thumbs up or down on products and services that we love or have issues with. 22% of all Americans use Social Networking Sites: 67% of 18-29 year olds (34 million), 21% of 30-39 year olds (8.5 million) and 6% of those who are 40 years old and older (8.2 million). If you have any doubt about the impact of the internet, watch the mercurial rise of social networking sites such as wikipedia, facebook, trulia, twitter, flickr, digg, squidoo, twitter and youtube. With the increase in popularity of web 2.0 (user-generated content and sharing) and involvement of millions of us online, print will continue to slide into the abyss.
Many of our newspaper in Connecticut are struggling for revenue and many of for sale. It illustrates the challenges that many newspapers (nationwide) are facing and the strong sense of the desperation they are feeling. It's the tip of the iceberg and another unfortunate example of an industry that has been slow to adapt and will go the way of the wooly mammoth, dodo bird and dinosaur.

As an adjunct to my entry on "Agents for Sale", I feel compelled to add an entry called "Lemmings Off The Cliff". In referencing "Agents for Sale", I was referring to ONE broker in particular that has absolutely ruined our market. Unfortunately, TWO large brokers have followed suit, just like lemmings off a cliff. They are now offering inflated fixed splits, guaranteed for years and agent sign-on bonuses (yes, big cash in the sum of tens of thousands of dollars). Again, given market conditions, why would any broker give away their company equity so readily to agents? This market is here to stay for a least another year. The broker has NO hope of even breaking even in a situation such as that, let alone making money. Brokers, like any other company, need profit to reinvest in their company and develop products and services that benefit the broad base of agents. Since they are not capturing this profit, they are forced to charge (their other loyal, package-less agents) additional fees to offset the loss. Following this recruiting "strategy" stems from a desperate need to build their market share in artificial ways. I would have concern as an agent to be affiliated with a company that is making incredibly poor financial decisions based upon their big egos .

I would say to all of the brokers: level the playing field again, by going back to ethical recruiting strategies such as building relationships and selling the true value of the company.

SAVE A LEMMING and stop the ridiculous recruiting tactics!

The phrase "death rattle" is not a pleasant one, however, it may describe the current state of print advertising, specifically, as it relates to real estate. Print advertising has been the main venue of real estate advertising for many years. For some papers, it accounts for 30% of newspaper ad revenue. Brokers have historically relied upon print to market homes and create a presence for their company in the market. Agents loved print from a promotional standpoint, sellers loved seeing their homes and buyers frequently relied upon it at the early stages of their home search. The most recent National Association of Realtors (NAR) statistics point out the severe decline in readership of print and the expediential growth in the internet. According to the 2007 NAR Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers:

• 84% of recent home buyers used the Internet in their search, up from 80 percent in 2006. Those statistics indicate that of the 84% of buyers who used the Internet, 99% of them found it to be a useful resource.
• Of the 51% of people who look in newspaper ads, about half of them found the ads a useful tool.
• Only 31% of buyers even used them, and of those, only 34% of them found home books to be useful.

At the heart of this evolution are the changing habits of our consumers (buyers and sellers). Our consumers want to see multiple photos, video tours, the latest listing information, mortgage payments for the listing and mapping. They want it to be interactive based upon their profile, lightning fast, global and real time. Print doesn't accommodate any of those consumer needs.

In meetings with many local newspaper publishers to renegotiate our print advertising contracts, it's clear that they are either in denial about the value of print or are hoping that brokers will continue to ignore how buyers are searching. They are sheepishly willing to admit their print revenue dollars are declining, and are scrambling for ways to recapture their revenue through on-line venues. In some cases, they don't even have a web strategy or know how to go about it. In one negotiation, a publisher attempted to entice us with additional print venues, stating the standard line in publishing..."But, your competition is here."

There was a recent announcement and significant blow to print media when the century-old L.A.Times ceased to print its weekly real estate section. Staffing and production cuts are being made to offset a "continuing slide in advertising revenue", according to the newspaper.

So, they need us (really our revenue) but haven't figured out exactly how to provide the value. While they are thinking of how to do that, real estate brokers are smartly adjusting their strategies. The leaders in the industry are tracking their consumer habits, and understand that "marketing" versus "advertising" is necessary. They are quickly establishing aggressive internet strategies and beginning to shift marketing dollars to the web. They also have specific plans in place to reduce print significantly and take control of the change.

Like anything else, it's a process and things will evolve with time. In this case, the evolution is happening rapidly and the prognosis is not good for print. Our consumers are demanding more interactive ways to get involved in the real estate process. If newspapers don't adjust to the change they will go the same way of travel agents. Remember them?