Today we released the results of our “Living Green” consumer survey. The survey has been nine months in the making as we had it done in conjunction with the Better Homes and Gardens “Living Green” 15-city home show tour. At each stop along the way, we had pollsters interview visitors to the exhibit. As you can see in the video above, there were some pretty savvy people hosting the exhibit. Steven Whittle did an outstanding job “representing” green and all that the exhibit had to offer people in the way of raising their awareness regarding this important issue.
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So here’s another argument for social media…
In this year’s Edelman’s trust barometer results, they stated that, globally, trust in a “person like me” is 58%, where as only 20% of respondents trust corporate or product advertising. (ouch!)
Well, can you think of a faster way to connect to “people like me” than Facebook? Or MySpace? Or LinkedIn? Etc., etc., and so forth?
The Edelman report goes on to talk about how social media is on the rise. As expected, it is also more highly used and trusted by 25-to-34-year-old “opinion elites.” The very same generation that constitutes the echo boomers that will have to buy homes (like it or not) to house those families they will soon be making. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Sherry Chris
At the upcoming NAR conference in November, I will be speaking about the power of networking and how it can have a profound impact on your business. One of the masters of networking is author and professional speaker Keith Ferrazzi who wrote the bestseller Never Eat Alone. Not only has Keith turned his natural networking ability into a very successful business, but he has managed to stay ahead of the curve by using social networking. If you check him out on Facebook he has thousands of friends and he just launched his own social networking site. Go take a look. We are fortunate to have Keith as a member of our advisory board. His wisdom and insight is invaluable.
Posted by Kevin Doell
This morning I was listening to the August 18th “For Immediate Release” podcast and heard about an interesting UMASS Dartmouth study on the uptake of social media. I thought it was pretty timely considering Sherry’s recent post on “Building a Brand Using the Power of Social Media.”
In the pre-launch days of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, we were very limited in how we could communicate with the industry at large and what we could say. This blog became one way to let people know who we are and what we think about things. It didn’t take long to figure out the important role social networking and social media in general is playing within business, and how it will become even more powerful in the future.
A Fad That Will Pass?
Some people would say that social networking is simply a group of people talking to each other. That is partially true - there is a large group of us on Facebook all connected to the same “friends,” and the same goes for LinkedIn. Ditto for Twitter, and some might say the same for Active Rain and even YouTube.
Posted by Kevin Doell
Podcasts are the silver lining of my 35-mile commute. On a good day, they can erase the trip, making me feel as though I got beamed through a transporter. Recently, I listened to “The Real Deal” podcast hosted by Tom Merritt and Rafe Needleman of CNET (check out the full boat of CNET podcasts). “The Real Deal” claims to help listeners master the “confusing world of technology.” I downloaded a topic that covered off on the technology of email, something everyone in business has a real stake in.
For this topic, Merritt and Needleman interviewed Merlin Mann, author of the site 43Folders.com and purveyor of his Inbox Zero concept. I picked his interview because I had seen him speak at the Inman connect conference San Francisco. Smart guy. Super well spoken. I couldn’t believe I had never heard of him before last month though, apparently, thousands have. Over 23,000 follow him on Twitter. OK, make that plus 1.
“Breakfast with Bloggers” captures the thoughts of the Better Homes and Gardens® Real Estate leadership team as they wrapped up their launch week at the Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. In one jam-packed week, the brand transitioned its first brokerage, launched a consumer Web site and network extranet site, held a press conference, threw a launch party, and managed panel discussions and workshops at a real estate conference. With that all behind us, now the “real” work begins.
Yesterday was launch day for our new brand. We made our debut at Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco. We had a great press conference to kick things off. Check out the link to the video of the Webcast that featured Sherry Chris, Alex Perriello, Gayle Butler, and our very first broker, Tom Wilkins.
There are very few people in our real estate and technology world who are recognized by their first name and “Rudy, the Social Media Guru” from Trulia is one of them. He sent me a message on Facebook a few weeks ago suggesting a visit so he could preview what we were working on at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC. We spent a few hours together Tuesday. Here is a video clip of his visit…
One thing that I do every day is to make sure I am working on building relationships. Real estate is a people-intensive business and could easily be argued that we are actually the business of fostering‘relationships’, as opposed to managing‘transactions.’ As a result, the most critical activity for real estate sales associates, managers and owners alike, is to strengthen their relationships. This applies to both business and personal contacts and needs to be worked on a daily basis. Whether prospecting for buyers, sellers, hiring a top producer, or zeroing in on an M&A opportunity, effective relationship-building is the key to continued success.
Before going any further, it is important to draw a distinction between good relationship building and what is commonly referred to as ‘networking.’I would submit that networking,as it is now practiced,is a passé concept. The implications surrounding some networking techniques almost defeat the purposes for which they were designed. Terms such as ‘speed networking’ and other similarly impersonal ideas almost offend the senses. Stop and ask yourself… how can anyone build a relationship while moving at warp-speed? I always remind myself that the most important thing one person can give to another is their time and thoughtful attention. This is where quality relationships are born.
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