Future of Real Estate Marketing » Trulia-Voices

Answers Answers Answers

Joel Burslem — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:19:59 +0000

Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers. – Voltaire

I’m a big fan of engaging consumers online and answering their questions as a marketing strategy (see Impart your Wisdom with Answers). It’s not a new strategy, not particularly inventive, but it is effective.

Really, it’s win-win all around. For consumers they get what they want (i.e. the answers to their questions). Realtors and brokers get to build relationships with potential clients in an neutral forum with people that may never seek them out on their own web sites. And for publishers it’s a great way to build up engagement/stickiness through cheap (read, free) user-generated content.

Trulia figured this out a while ago and so built Trulia Voices (see Trulia Finds Its Voice).

And today there are a couple of new destinations you can participate in.

New this week is Mahalo Answers – which is very similar in format to Yahoo Answers, referenced in the first link in this post. Mahalo is veteran Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis’ lastest effort at building human-driven search engine.

As a new destination, the real estate section on Mahalo Answers is woefully empty right now, but it may be a place to keep your eye on.

A more promising alternative is Zillow’s new ‘Zillow Advice’ forum, a Voices-like platform — which they were promptly called out on by the folks at Trulia (see Rich Barton of Zillow Hearts Trulia).

It’s a revamp of their old Q&A section and it’s functional enough – like Sellsius, I like how you can narrow results down to the State or Local level which should address the problem of out of town “experts” jumping in to discussions just to earn brownie points (see Zillow Advice Provides Local Real Estate Answers to Consumers).

The big problem with this local approach is a lack of content for consumers (granted, it’s only day 1) but a search for buying advice in Oregon revealed a big old goose-egg. YMMV. But it’s not much incentive for me, the buyer, to return if the place feels like a ghost town.

More worryingly to the folks at Zillow long term should be the feedback from the agents who were already participating in the old forum. It has not been resoundingly positive so far… the most popular topic on there right now is BRING BACK THE OLD FORMAT. That sentiment needs to change if this Advice thing has any chance of making it — we’ve been down this road before (see Yourstreet is Now Empty).

Agent 2.0: not-so-clever play on ‘Web 2.0’ or the future of real estate marketing?

Kelly Roark — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 15:35:17 +0000

[Ed. Note] Kelly Roark, of the real estate search site Trulia.com, joins FOREM as a contributing author today.

2.0 is everywhere now…Web 2.0, Real Estate 2.0…heck, I’m thinking about reinventing myself into Kelly 2.0.

So what about Agent 2.0? Whatever you call them, many of us know, manage or provide marketing support to Agent 2.0s—and not your ex-Cisco engineer turned uber-agent. My colleague Pierre Calzadilla, who’s trained agents for years on how to integrate technology into daily business, recently profiled what Agent 2.0 looks like:

Not “tech savvy,” but “technologically empowered”
Highly proficient in marketing, workflow and time management
Aware of and open to new innovations, and how they can fit into one’s business
In tune with consumer trends and changes in buyer/seller behavior (e.g., Gen X/Y)
Appreciation for “old school” techniques but with an understanding of the value in adapting these techniques to new mediums

Agent 2.0s know their customers. In a unique market of home buyers/sellers from four distinct cultural generations – Civics, Boomers, Gen Xers and Gen Yers – Agent 2.0s know how each group thinks, and how to adapt their value prop to win business. (Good generational overview here.)

Agent 2.0s adapt their best offline techniques online. Are the offline and online worlds so different? If I asked a handful of agents what is their best source of business, 80% would tell me “referrals” – from offline business. Agent 2.0s continue to build their offline referrals, but have also adapted their best offline practices onto the Web to increase their exposure and referral business. They:

Hang yard signs online – display listings in high profile “digital yards” where more consumers will see them
Hang sign riders on their digital signs – ensure personal contact information is attached to all their online listings information
Hand out business cards online – Beyond MySpace, they use well-known business networking sites in new ways to connect with a broader clientele at virtually no cost, such as:

MeetUp –Agent 2.0s are joining/organizing real estate groups online and hosting events offline such as home-buying seminars.

Yelp – With ratings on everything from restaurants to real estate agents, Agent 2.0s are rating their local service providers (lawyer, mortgage banker, dry cleaner, etc.) to position themselves as the local neighborhood expert in their yelp community.

LinkedIn – Many of us network here, but Agent 2.0s are also participating in the Q&A section and asking clients for online recommendations and referrals.

Trulia Voices – Agent 2.0s are dialoguing with consumers about real estate and setting up alerts to email them when a consumer asks questions about their local neighborhood. (Disclaimer: I work for Trulia!)

In many ways, this movement echoes Apple’s rebirth. Remember when they embarked on the ‘Think Different’ ad campaign…hanging on at $5/share with an identity crisis in the midst of a crowded, competitive market? Apple transformed ‘Think Different’ into a movement to reposition their consumer value proposition as better and unique. They created products that added something new and different to people’s daily lives. Apple shares are now holding strong around $144, and we can’t get enough of anything iP—–.

Sound Agent 2.0 to you? Let me know your thoughts.

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Spamming Social Media Sites

Joel Burslem — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 17:26:20 +0000

by skypecaptain

Recently I received a tip that someone was spamming Trulia Voices with advertisements for Realtor.com. The allegations which are detailed on this page were basically that a user was repeatedly responding to individual queries with short answers that provided links back to Realtor.com (you can see all the answers on their profile). The Voices community is alleging that this user and others (see Real Estate Pro in Thousand Oaks) are working for Realtor.com – based on the zip code they identified, which just happens to be close to Realtor.com’s headquarters.

Tying an individual’s identity to their Zip code is a bit of a loose connection – though it certainly looks suspicious.

Catching people by their IP range however, is a much stronger case.

Virgil Griffith’s Wikiscanner has already caused a bit of a kerfuffle as it has nabbed some pretty high profile companies making changes to Wikipedia database. Companies like Ford, Dell, Wal-Mart have all made some controversial edits to pages on the wiki and been nabbed. Wired Magazine’s 27bstroke6 blog has been keeping track of all of these changes.

So being curious, I ran a number of Real Estate 2.0 companies through the engine and didn’t expect to find anything terribly interesting. I did find however, that someone from Trulia’s IP range (see Wikipedia scanner results) had been spamming Wikipedia with links to their community profiles. You can see the changes on the following pages:

The changes, which were all made late last year, have all long since been erased by Wikipedia editors.

In both of these cases, I suspect these moves were not officially sanctioned policies – rather the actions of overzealous individuals.

It does raise the issue of the ethics in spamming social media sites and more importantly, the possibility of the PR blowback because of it. In this age of greater transparency, the actions of a single individual (however well-intentioned) can have a negative impact on your corporate image, and all it takes is a passionate community or a simple tool like Wikiscanner to hold you accountable.

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