At Inman News, we talk a lot about workstyle and how much has changed in just the last few years. How real estate professionals work, has been a fundamental theme of Agent Reboot and Real Estate Connect.Why? There is an absolute fundamental shift in how we do business, that has occurred because of technology, mobile and social media.

I wanted to share this awesome infographic I found on one of my favorite sites, Gist.com. This infographic really outlines so well how we (especially in the real estate industry) have changed how we do business.

Enjoy the infographic and thank you to our friends at Gist! (view the original post here)

Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Facebook doesn’t make many big changes quickly. Since it’s launch in 2004, with each new change comes a wave of people complaining or asking for it to go back to “the old way.” It looks like it may be that time again.

According to VentureBeat, Facebook’s developers are currently in the process of testing a new change that is probably going ruffle some feathers!

What is it?

Facebook’s new site design will prominently feature advertisements.

Who likes ads? Not too many people except for advertisers and Facebook!

However, check out these two key parts of the redesign:

• Static elements. The new redesign would keep the placement of advertisements and the menu navigation window static. As the user scrolls down the page, scanning their News Feed and checking in on friends, these elements would follow them. The navigation bar at the top of the screen and even the site’s footer would also remain static.
• Limit the number of ads. The other interesting change is that it will only allow Facebook to display a certain number of advertisements on each page.

I think this could be a huge game-changer for real estate agents and brokers who invest in Facebook ads. Why? Facebook ads already rock because of the laser focus you can choose when creating them, but this new redesign offers agents better ad positioning, an ad that is more likely to convert, and an ad which could turn more likes into leads.

Imagine an ad that you see (on YOUR page) that is targeted to you, and your likes and interests. Instead of seeing it once as you scroll by it, it follows you where you go throughout Facebook. If it’s done in a non-annoying way, this could be a great way to get your ad in front of the same people but for longer periods of time. Most people when they see an ad don’t react to it – they have to see it over and over and perhaps this new redesign will breathe new life into ads and give real estate agents one more reason to invest time and money into a Facebook marketing strategy.

What do you think? Hate it? Love it? I’d love your feedback, leave me a comment below!

Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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In the last few weeks, Facebook has made some great new updates available to page admins. They are definitely making it easy for page admins to get the help and assistance they need, get their questions answered, and make their page as successful as can be. In the past, when a page owner was looking to advertise on Facebook, or install a certain app, it took a little bit of “hunting and pecking.”

Now, on the new admin panel interface, there are a number of extremely helpful links to help you develop your page.

Here is a screen shot of the back-end of the Inman News page:

Once you click on “resources,” you can see there are 11 links and resources available to page admins. Many of these were available to Facebook users – and were in various places on Facebook – but to have them in all one, organized list just makes sense!

Here are some of my favorite key hightlights out of the 11 links:

The 1st is the top link: “Best Practices Guides to Make Your Page Engaging” – which takes you to this page:

This is a page that I refer to often on Facebook to find out about the latest changes and updates to Facebook pages. This page is chock-full of awesome tips and tricks like the pages manual, the insights guide, bloggers guide, and so much more. If you are a real estate agent just building your Facebook page, or need to spruce it up, I can not recommend enough checking out these resources!

Additional links on the back-end of your Facebook page include a link to set your username, add a social plugin to your site (i.e. adding the “like” button and other options) and the ability to send an update to everyone who has “liked” your page. By the way – are you sending updates to the people who like your page? This is a quick and easy way to send a custom message to a select group of people who like your page (geographically) or to all of the people who like your page.

Overall, I love with the new interface of the admin panel. I can find what I am looking for quickly and easily.

Facebook is smart – I’m a lot more likely to engage and add on additional resources to my Facebook page if they make it easy for me! This is a great tip for real estate agents – make it easy for people to contact you, to navigate your site, etc. Keep it simple, right?

What admin tools do you use the most from Facebook? I’d love to hear your thoughts – please post a comment below!

Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Foursquare just surpassed the 10 million user mark. Facebook Places has become extremely popular quickly. Whether you “get” it or not people like checking in. A lot.

Quora has recently exploded onto the scene as a new breed of Q and A site with a social and transparent approach. People go to the web with questions, Quora has answers, from real people.

What if you wanted to ask a Quora type question to someone who is checked in at a specific location RIGHT NOW?

Possibilities abound.

Thinking of going to the DMV and want to know how long the wait is? Heading to Applebee’s on a Friday night but don’t want to even think about stopping by if the wait is over an hour? Have a plane to catch and wondering how traffic will be along your path?

Localmind has created an app for that. There is an iPhone/iPad version as well as a web app [iPad version is AMAZING]. By accessing the location based data available via check in sites like Foursquare and Facebook, Localmind can actually connect you with people who are currently at a venue so that you can ask them a question in the moment. Questions can also be left at locations and will be pushed to the next patron to check in where the question is waiting. The video below gives a great visual explanation of the practical uses of Localmind in under 40 seconds. The quote below is by Localmind’s co-founder and upcoming Inman Connect San Francisco speaker Lenny Rachitsky:

Anytime I come across a new technology like this I immediately try to wrap my mind around the possibilites within the real estate space. Shiny object or viable platform moving forward?

My first thought is that the early adopters in the real estate industry on Foursquare/Gowalla/Facebook Places may see some reward here. Being checked in all over town is great, but many would argue that just isn’t enough to generate legitimate business. Especially in a relationship business like real estate.

Where Localmind can be of additional value to the already geo location savvy is that it REALLY encourages engagement with strangers (some would call those leads/prospects/etc). By asking and answering questions you are not only interacting with potential new clients and being helpful, you are also doing it in the moment they need it most while at the same time sharing your local expertise. There are a lot of unanswered questions on the map in Localmind right now in most metro markets.

I can see some genuine connections being made through Localmind and I know that I for one would be much more inclined to want to be connected on the social graph with those that bring value versus those who simply shout about where they are all the time.

A Foursquare check in is talking, Localmind shows that you are listening.

Seems to me that the listeners are winning at the social media game right now, even though most folks are just blabbing away.

Would love your thoughts on Localmind below and the possible uses for the real estate industry.

Written by: Chris Smith, Chief Evangelist, Inman News, @chris_smth

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I received a really exciting email in my inbox this week – there are some awesome new developments that just rolled out for HootSuite.

As you probably know by now, I am a huge HootSuite fan. In my opinion, it is the best product, hands down, for managing multiple social media streams, for managing your social strategy, for monitoring multiple conversations, and so much more!

Here are two of the cool new highlights HootSuite announced:

1. HootSuite Publisher

One of the best features of HootSuite has been the ability to post social updates to multiple streams with the click of a button. With one “copy and paste,” you can post a comment to Twitter, then re-work the verbiage a little to post it to Facebook, then re-work it again to post it back out to Twitter a second time the next day, and then post it to LinkedIn. Of course you could just post it once and have it go everywhere but to really be socially smart and savvy – you won’t be posting the exact same post to every social network!

According to the HootSuite blog you can now:

“Slice and dice the destination profiles for each message and drag-and-drop your updates into timeslots to match your editorial plans. While the whole power of daily/weekly/monthly calendar view is available with Pro and Enterprise plans, everyone can take the advanced scheduling functionality for a spin to see how calendar views can manage complex campaigns.

This publisher tool takes the place of the former Pending Tweets column – to get started, click the paper airplane in the Launch Bar and plan (and edit) your posts across networks.”

So instead of seeing all your pending tweets in separate streams, you can view them all at once; see how they overlap, and if you have any gaps anywhere. Great idea!

As a real estate pro you live and die by your calendar right? This new format makes it super easy for a real estate agent to view what posts they have scheduled, write additional posts, move things around as needed, and then move on to selling more houses and closing more deals. This new tool will definitely help you be more efficient with your social media planning and execution.

By the way, HootSuite does have a free plan, but I really recommend you look into their $5.99 a month plan – with extra tools and the analytics available are worth the extra expense. You can’t even go out to lunch for $5.99!

2. Limited Profiles

This new feature allows someone on your team to write social media updates and then save them in draft mode for you or an authorized team member to approve. I love this idea for real estate agents who want to hire an assistant to help with social media updates. This way, the assistant can write the posts and the real estate agent or Broker can review them before they go out to ensure they are in line with their brand, their voice and the message they want to get out. It also offers you an opportunity to give that assistant (or intern) guidance on what you’d like to see posted. I think this is a great new option for real estate agents.

What do you think of these new updates? Are you using HootSuite? I’d love to hear your feedback, post your comments below!

P.S. Shameless plug, but I am SO excited to see Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite onstage for Real Estate Connect SF next month. His company has changed the way companies manage social media and I can’t wait to hear his take on the future of social media. If you can make it down to the Bay Area (my stomping grounds!) – I’d love to see you! Tweet me up or leave a comment below!

Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Guest post by Maura Neill, CRS

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking at Inman’s Agent Reboot in Atlanta. The topic: Facebook Business Pages. The title of my presentation: Your Facebook Business Page is Worthless. It’s a little unnerving to take the stage and to start off by looking into all those eager faces in the audience and tell them that their Facebook Business Page is worthless. But it’s true – most of the time.

The majority of the agents I speak to express frustration with Facebook as a lead generation tool or as part of their marketing plan. But that’s because, to quote one of my favorite (terrible) movies of the 80s, Mr. Mom: “you’re doing it wrong.”

It’s not enough to log in to Facebook, create a business page, upload your photo or logo, and wait for the phone to ring. Like any piece of your business plan puzzle, your Facebook Business Page needs to be monitored, it needs your attention and – at the risk of sounding a little more touchy-feely than even I am comfortable with – a little TLC. In short, it needs your time* – and if you have time to give it, it may just end up being one of the best referral tools in your arsenal.

Here are a couple of tips to help you revitalize your Facebook Business Page and turn it from drab to fab:

1. If you work heavily in a particular area or neighborhood, create a Facebook Business Page for that market. This doesn’t mean create a page for every neighborhood in which you’ve ever sold a home (please refer to paragraph 3*).  REALTOR® Raziel Ungar started his Facebook Page BurlingameBuzz last spring and had an immediate following in the town of Burlingame, CA. According to Raziel, since starting the page just over a year ago, the page has “impacted my business in a huge way.” Though it’s not a huge lead-generator, it has validated Raziel to his clients and potential clients and given him a huge competitive advantage over other agents. The City of Burlingame has even linked to BurlingameBuzz.com, which they would not have done with RazielUngar.com.

2. Consider making your Facebook Business Page be about something not someone (i.e., not you). Do you have a hobby or an interest that you are passionate about? Bobbi Howe, a REALTOR® in St. Joseph, MO, started a page on Facebook to support a running group. Her small town didn’t have a running club, so she started her own – in under three months, she has already had two calls from members who want to work with her as their REALTOR®.

3. Think long and hard before you make your Facebook Business Page about YOU. Keep in mind that the average consumer is looking for information – not just a page that feeds your ego (I can’t tell you how happy I was to see the “Become a Fan” button disappear!). If you start a Facebook Business Page that is named for yourself or for your team, make sure that you still keep it consumer-centric. A great example of a group who does this well is The Corcoran Group in New York City. Their Facebook Business Page is a wealth of information: about New York, about real estate, about technology, about events…but very little about them. Feel free to post the occasional tidbit about an award you’ve received or other personal tidbit – it makes the page feel, well, more personal. But be cautious of posting those items too often.

4. Integrate your Facebook Business Page into your other social media and online marketing platforms. By itself, you will probably only attract people who already know you – and if you work purely by referral, this may not be a bad thing. However, most of us wouldn’t argue with a new client every now and then, so integration is key. Put the Facebook LIKE Button on your blog and/or website, so that people who discover you on the web can immediately like your page and enjoy your updates into their news feed. Post links to your blog posts as you publish them on your Facebook Business Page, so that they appear in the news feeds of those who like your page but may not be subscribed to your blog. Tweet about your page when you’ve posted something new. Post a link to your latest YouTube video on the page so it can be viewed directly from Facebook, without interested parties having to leave the site and go to YouTube. The possibilities are endless. Just remember to be polite and consider your readers: don’t post the same links over and over ad-nauseum – that’s a good way to get people to click the UNlike button. Post once and move on – if they’re interested, they will click.

5. Finally, remember to interact with those who want to interact with you. It’s a two-way street, after all. If someone takes the time to post a comment to one of your posts or links or to ask a question, by all means respond! It’s a great way to connect with your readers, you know, those people who took the time to click LIKE and are now taking the time to write something. Even if you’re just saying “thank you” to someone who wrote “great post!”, you’re still making a connection – and perhaps opening the door to a deeper connection down the road. If a person feels a connection to you, he or she will most likely be back…and they may turn into a client or a referral source down the road.

About the author: Maura Neill, CRS, is a REALTOR® in Atlanta, Georgia, and the creator of 365Atlanta.com, a hyper-local travel site for Atlanta newcomers and natives which has become a rich referral resource for her business. She is also musical theatre geek, dark chocolate aficionada, lover of dark beer, and shoe addict.

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Many call LinkedIn the “set it and forget it” social media. It’s a great professional network, but not as fast-paced as Twitter, and not as fun and interactive as Facebook. But, we all love LinkedIn for the professional quality it brings to the table. There are however three really cool things about LinkedIn that not a lot of real estate professionals seem to know about.

Here are three of my favorite LinkedIn “secrets” that are ideal for real estate professionals:

1.. Export your connections and add to your database
This is a fantastic feature! Did you know you could export all of your LinkedIn contacts? Go to “My Connections” to view a list of all your LinkedIn contacts. At the bottom of the page click “Export Connections,” which will put all this contact info in a format that works for your address book (Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, etc.). This is an easy way to add 50, 100 even 500 people to you database. Add them to your drip email marketing campaigns, send them an invite to join you on Facebook or Twitter – the possibilities are endless!

2. Customize your URL
This is huge – instead of having a long URL that no one remembers, secure a custom URL on LinkedIn. Visit the “Edit Profile” tab and click “Public Profile” at bottom left. Once you’re on this page, on the far right you will see “Your current URL.” This is where you can customize your LinkedIn domain name so you can better brand your account. Your URL may want to be your name or your business – I recommend staying consistent with how you are branding yourself on your website, Facebook page, blog, etc. You can think take this custom URL and add it to your Facebook page, blog, website and email signature.

3. Check out “Signal” and read relevant news and updates
There is a new feature on LinkedIn called Signal which allows you to monitor updates within your network.  You can also filter information so you can also see what people in your extended network (2nd and 3rd connections) are posting. You can also do the same filtering by industry or location. I could see this as a really useful tool for real estate agents who are trying to build their business and meet people outside of their inner circle. This is the new way to meet “a friend of a friend.”

I know there are so many more great ways to use LinkedIn – I only covered these three lesser-known facts. I’d love to hear from you how you are using LinkedIn. Leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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There are tons of great little tips and tricks to making the most of your Facebook page. Throughout the next couple weeks I will be sharing quick and easy tips that you may or may not know about to enhance your Facebook page.

One of my favorite tricks that surprisingly a lot of people don’t know about is the ability to send custom status updates on your Facebook page. This is an awesome opportunity for a real estate agent. You can send a custom status update to the people who like your page. (Note, I am not talking about your personal profile, I am referring to your business Facebook page.) You can customize your updates based on country, state, city, and language.

For a real estate agent, it is a great opportunity to send a custom update to a specific city – like an event, a listing, a specific neighborhood update, etc. Also, if you are working with multilingual clients, you can customize your posts into different languages.

Here are 2 screen shots that show you how easy this is:

Step 1: Go to your page (facebook.com/pages) and click on your page. Type your custom status update. Click the arrow underneath the status update box and click “customize”

Step 2: Once you click ‘customize,’ this box will pop up where you can choose you country, state, city, and language. You can even choose multiple cities if you’d like.

Once you click “Okay” then your status update will go live. You will see it on your page BUT the people who like your page who are not part of your custom filter will not see it. So you could literally post 5 similar updates but edit them to be custom for a specific city. You will see all five updates on your page, but the people who like your page will only see the updates that pertain to them.

This is a quick and easy opportunity to post custom updates which usually results in higher engagement from your audience.

Have you done this with your page or is this news to you? I’d love your feedback, leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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There has been a lot of friendly competition around the Inman News office lately around Twitter – how many followers each of us has and why. In between the laughter, and joking, it’s made me think – why do some people get more followers faster than others? Why are certain things re-tweeted more than others? What can someone do to “be successful” on Twitter – and what does “success” on Twitter really mean.

Being a social media director, I’ve seen a lot of “social media gurus” who claim they know it all about Twitter, yet when I look at their feeds all I see is someone talking all about themselves – what they have to sell, what product they are pushing or how great they are.

Can you sell on Twitter? Sometimes.

Can you get more web traffic? Absolutely.

Can you build a brand? Without a doubt.

Can it be all about you? No way. No how. Never.

The truth is – success on Twitter is so much more than how many followers you have. That only tells part of the story. For a long time, I was focused on those numbers. How many followers. How many re-tweets. How many likes. How many unlikes. If you look at those numbers long enough you start to go crazy. Then something pretty cool happened. The more I tweeted, the more I focused less on the numbers, the more people I met, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I saw the tremendous value of it.

I know there are some people that are reading this that may be thinking “Katie, I don’t get it. I’m a busy Realtor. I started a Twitter maybe account a year or so ago. I think I have 20 followers, but really what’s the point?”

Sound familiar?

Let me tell you – being an independent contractor in any business, especially real estate, is lonely.

One of the biggest benefits I have seen with Twitter is the camaraderie and support with people who love this industry all over the world. In my eyes, that is a huge benefit. But let’s face it, we don’t just want to sit around and just tweet with other Realtors. There are people right now in your community, in your town talking about things that are relevant to you – local news, local events, hot spots around town, and yes people who are moving to your city or town. Go into Twitter and type “moving to _____” in the search field and you’ll be surprised at how many search results come up. Does that mean you should instantly Tweet them and say “HI! I’m a Realtor!!!!” No of course not – you wouldn’t do that in real life, so don’t do it on Twitter.

Seriously, don’t even think about it!

The point is that Twitter is like the Chamber of Commerce mixer. Remember those? You went, had a drink and came home with 10 business cards. But now, you get to stay at home, be in your PJ’s, and “collect” followers that you can connect with. It’s the same networking we’ve always done – it’s just done a little differently now.

But let me tell you the BEST part about Twitter for me…

As I go to Agent Reboot events all over the country – the cities may be different, some of the speakers may be different, but one thing remains the same; there is always someone that I had never met “in real life” that greets me with a hug.

Why? Because I haven’t just blasted out tweets. Because I don’t shamelessly self-promote myself. Because I’ve taken the time to notice people.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Don’t people – don’t you and I – just want to be noticed?

That’s the power of Twitter, and it’s one of the reasons I love what I do.

So how do you jump into the conversation? How do you get people to start noticing you and engaging with you? There are definitely a few “secrets” that no one ever told me when I first started on Twitter that can really help jump start your Twitter fame!

1. Don’t use all 140 characters. I was in Seattle earlier this year when my friend Dale Chumbley reminded me, “Katie, I’d re-tweet you more if you didn’t write such long tweets!!” DOH! I had forgotten that so simple but golden rule. Don’t use every single space. I know 140 characters isn’t very much to begin with. So if you fill up that whole space and then someone tries to re-tweet you – there will be too many letters. If it’s a good tweet, some people will take the time to edit it – but most won’t. See if you can keep your tweets to 50 characters max!

2. Re-tweet a lot. We have a joke in the Inman News office – it’s all about the re-tweet! That’s right! You want people to stand up, notice you, follow you, and engage you? Then re-tweet a lot! Re-tweet 15-20 things a day. Re-tweet interesting articles, follow hashtags (like #agentrb or #icsf) and re-tweet things people are talking about. The more you re-tweet, the more people are likely to re-tweet you and take notice of you! Here’s a bonus secret – don’t re-tweet 15 things in a row (unless you want to annoy the heck out of your followers). Re-tweet 15 things but use my favorite app HootSuite and schedule out those re-tweets – once a hour so they “drip” out over the course of the day. Now instead of impacting a few people who happen to be on Twitter at the exact time you are on, you are impacting people at different times of the day.

3. #FF. I love Friday Follow. Every Friday pick 10 people to mention for #FF. Recognize people you enjoy following. Twitter is a very giving medium. You need to give, give, give if you want to receive anything back. Some of the people I have engaged with and talk to the most started with a #FF.

4. Post content you like to read. We all subscribe to email newsletters right? Well before you delete them all every morning, look at one or two in your inbox and make it a point to tweet out a couple things from those emails – interesting articles or tidbits of knowledge.

5. Don’t get so caught up on what to say. Don’t over think things. Post something if it’s interesting to you, but don’t spend too much time worry about everything you post. Be smart, if you wouldn’t say something on stage or in a crowd, don’t say it on Twitter.

So those are just a few of my Twitter keys to success. What are some of yours? In the spirit of Twitter, please share and leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Guest blog post by Daniel Weisman

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be great tools to cost-effectively increase your vacation rental bookings. These services are free to use but difficult to use effectively, so many people give up before they give social networks enough time to yield results.

Yet investing time and effort in developing a “social presence” can be extremely rewarding because you can use these channels to advertise for free to a highly targeted audience. Facebook boasts 500,000,000+ users, and your guests – past, present and future – are among them. Here are some tips for reaching the right audience and converting “fans” and “followers” into bookings.

1. Your guests already like you… you just have to remind them

Word-of-mouth has long been the best marketing tool for vacation rentals. If I loved my cottage rental on Martha’s Vineyard last summer, then I would be happy to recommend that cottage to my friends who are going there next summer.

Social media makes it easy to interact with a network of supporters who will promote your rental on their networks. If you haven’t already done so, start by creating a Facebook page and a Twitter account for your rental.  Next, invite your past guests to “like” your Facebook page and “follow” you on Twitter. Make it easy for your friends and customers to “like” you by including links to your social profiles in emails and on your website.

Once you build up your fan base, you will have the chance to engage with your customers regularly. Every time they see your content, they will remember the great time they had in your rental.

A great example of a property owner with an awesome word of mouth network is La Casetta del Borgo (@CasettaDelBorgo). This Tuscan villa has nearly 2,000 Twitter followers and receives new bookings constantly.

2. Be more than a landlord… be an expert and a person

Once you’ve started to build your network, you should make yourself a valuable friend. Don’t spam your followers with advertisements – focus on providing value instead. For example, you’re probably a local expert on great things to do, restaurants, and hidden gems in your destination so why not share those on your Facebook & Twitter pages?

Creating valuable content that your audience not only reads, but passes on to their friends increases your credibility. Ruth Shipley, of Social Media Examiner explains,

“if [your audience] gets to know you, like you and trust you, they might just become your customer for life.”

Let people in on local secrets like the best place to buy lobsters in Maine or the location of an amazing hidden beach, and your customers will think of you before looking anywhere else to find a rental.

Check out Cottage Guru Heather Bayer (@cottageguru) for her expert advice on property management, travel and marketing. Her 4,000 followers keep up with her and share her advice, and she rarely advertises her properties directly.

3. Sharing is caring… show that you care

Social media experts will tell you that these marketing channels are all about engagement. So how do you engage your network? Ask them to participate. The easiest way to get someone to share a message or Tweet is to ask explicitly: “share this” or “leave your thoughts in the comments.”

Participation is where you get real value from your social networks. Direct value comes from the network itself: when one of your Facebook friends comments on your wall or shares your content, that action will appear in their friends’ news feeds. Similarly, when someone replies to one of your Tweets, that response is visible to all of their followers. In other words, your shared posts reach your audience plus all of the sharers’ audiences – that’s pretty good reach for free advertising.

Indirectly, shared content can impact your search engine rankings. A recent blog post by the experts at seomoz.org showed significant correlation between Facebook shares and high Google search rankings. Getting fans to share your content could help you move up in the Search engine results!

4. Network… it’s also a verb

It’s often easy to get carried away by the “social” aspect of social networks and forget about networking. In addition to reaching out to past guests and friends, you should also be using Facebook and Twitter to connect with your peers. You can learn a lot from keeping up with folks in related businesses, and you can even engage these compatriots in productive discussion.

How do you find your peers? Start with simple searches. If you rent an apartment in Chicago, then you’re definitely going to have to make restaurant recommendations. Search Facebook and Twitter for “Chicago Restaurants,” then start making friends. Now, if you recommend one of the restaurants that follows you to a guest, that restaurant will know… they’ll also know what vacation rental to recommend when a patron from out of town asks about a great place to stay.

If you want to get more advanced in your networking, then I recommend checking out Twibes. This site helps form twitter groups based on common interests. It’s a quick way to search Twitter for like-minded friends.

Facebook and Twitter are not going to replace conventional online vacation rental marketing. You should also list your rental property on leading vacation rental sites like FlipKey.com to attract new guests. However, with an increasing number of travelers taking advice from friends online, and with search engines using social information to generate results, Facebook and Twitter are great channels to develop relationships and find new guests through word-of-mouth. Most importantly, it’s completely free to start using social media, so you will get nothing but positive returns once you get online and spend some time getting social.

About the author: Daniel Weisman is a Social Media Specialist at FlipKey.com, which features more than 100,000 vacation rental properties around the world.  You can read more of his writing on The FlipKey Blog and connect with him on Twitter @flipkey.

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