Fun Friday: Top 5 Real Estate Social Media Blunders
I’m sure none of our loyal FOREM member commit any of these ‘blunders’ 
– but just in case… I figured it would be fun to do a little post about it today.
Feel free to pass this onto anyone “not following the rules!”
Top 5 Real Estate Social Media Blunders:
1. Talking about yourself to no end. Enough about me, let’s talk about ME! Yes, social media is social – but at some point, it is NOT all about you! This is tough in real estate, where you learn from every marketing person to ‘sell yourself’ and ‘you are your brand’ – which is true – but many people (especially the Gen X and Gen Y crowd) don’t want to hear all about you – they want to know about the interesting things going on in the community, in their neighborhood, local market stats, and other things that make what YOU do valuable to them.
2. Only posting your listings. Major faux-pas! Luckily I have not seen as much of this lately, but it’s still happening. You can post your listings – but make sure you post other great content. (See my ideas in #1 above)
3. Copying content and claiming it as yours. Big “no no” here. There is so much great content out there – it’s fine to use an excerpt of something and then credit the source, but don’t copy someone else’s material and claim it as your own.
4. TMI. There is a fine line between being social and giving out “too much information” – no need to tell your social network everything and anything!
5. Speaking the same on Facebook as you do Twitter. Maybe this is my own irritation, but whenever I see hashtags and @ signs on Facebook I cringe a little. The language on Facebook is different than Twitter. I think it’s fine to duplicate messages on both channels (especially since a LOT of people are only on one of the channels and not both) – but if you do, take a moments to adjust your language to be more “Facebook friendly”
I know there are a lot more blunders – what’s your favorite one? Or the one you see agents doing over and over again? Leave me a comment below.
Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News
13 Comment(s)
4 Trackback(s)
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Frankly | Feb 19, 2010 | Reply
My pet peeve is when people retweet the same content several times. Hoping more people see it. That also isn’t in the spirit of the “if you are around to catch it great, if not, that thought I long gone.”
RSS feeds are for seeing one person or company’s last 3-10 posts
Oh and I don’t like the “Hello, I just woke up” tweets.
Frank
Salina Washington | Feb 20, 2010 | Reply
Hi Katie, great post! What you wrote about people (especially the Gen X crowd) wanting to hear more what YOU do that is of valuable to them, rather than a play-by-play of YOUR life, is right on point. However, I think the people in the Gen Y crowd are the opposite. They are what I like to refer to as the “All about me” generation. Thanks for sharing!
-Salina (@OMPulse)
Charles | Feb 20, 2010 | Reply
I have to agree about the “I just woke up” tweets. Over posting the same thing is just annoying. Better to have longer periods of not posting then post something original that constantly spamming the same tired old content.
Kathleen Scanlon | Feb 21, 2010 | Reply
I wholeheartedly agree with most of the points in your post. Just a few comments:
1. Hashtags in Facebook – I am not offended by them & understand them. We are all busy professionals and if we can update across the board in one spot it shouldn’t be an issue. What I find ridiculous is those people who have every tweet posted on FB as well. That isn’t what FB is about. Don’t overwhelm your FB friends – let them follow you on Twitter for that adrenaline sharing.
2. Retweeting: I don’t think its a problem if it is spaced far enough apart. If I think something is important to be retweeted, I will usually time according to time zone or at least space at least 2 days apart.
3. Personal Sharing: Everyone should share about themselves but of course, not overdo it. It is a means to connect – often this is how you touch upon some common ground. It is about the conversation.
Thanks for the post & the opportunity to share!
Kathleen @kasesq94
Olathe, Kansas Realtor | Feb 22, 2010 | Reply
There needs to be an emphasis on the first two. I didn’t gain over 20,000 followers and 3500 friends by talking about myself.
No one wants to hear about me. It is how I can help you. Share great content and thoughts.
Myles Weisman | Feb 22, 2010 | Reply
I totally agree with your article that social media sites can be detrimental to marketing yourself. Clients expect to see a business side of their Realtor when they are on your website or social networks. They do not want to see the “I just woke up” tweets or even tweets that have no correlation to the real estate market. I use all my social networking sites to keep clients and users up to date with all of the real estate news and homes for sale in the San Diego area.
Ken Schmidt | Feb 22, 2010 | Reply
As far as #3 goes(posting content that is not your own), if you are trying to rank in google or any other search engine, duplicate or plagiarized content can penalize your site “big time”. Don’t do it.
The most irritating thing to me on Facebook is Farmville, Mafia Wars, etc., etc., etc.
Glen Hellman | Feb 22, 2010 | Reply
Making mistakes is how we learn. I certainly made my fair share of blunders early on. There are many agents out there who are just discovering social media. We with experience need to guide them with articles such as this. Thanks.
Paul Tomlinson | Feb 22, 2010 | Reply
I think if we are talking social media as it relates to real estate, we should listen, use, and take the ideas of others, especially anything to do with marketing. We are long past the times when a property could be posted on MLS and sell in a matter of days.. sometimes with multiple offers. Today, we need to market (social media) ten different ways to sell properties… and I’m a real estate investor.
Jessica | Feb 23, 2010 | Reply
Application updates and requests drive me up the wall.. if you are using your social media network for business it just makes you look like you have nothing to do, and you are annoying everyone else!
RAI | Feb 24, 2010 | Reply
They are looking to clean up #5 a little bit with the ability to tag friends in facebook statuses. Time for the API’s and 3rd parties to get with the ‘program’ (ha! sorry pun).
tony | Feb 26, 2010 | Reply
I agree with #5. The solution I use in my personal tweeting/facebooking is using the Selective Twitter Feed app in Facebook.
I had my Twitter acct linked to my Facebook updates initially but soon realized that my tweets made no sense in FB with the @-replies & #hashtags, etc.
So now if I want my tweet to show up in FB, I just add the #fb hastag in my tweet and only those get pushed to FB.
Josh | Jun 23, 2010 | Reply
I agree with the Facebook vs. Twitter talk. People are starting to put the @ in their Facebook status messages more and more often, and it’s kind of annoying. Another blunder to avoid would be posting too often on either. If I see the same messages from the same people, I tend to stop following them.