Social media is a valuable tool for businesses and organizations. While game-changing in many ways, they are simply the latest in the evolution of tools that allow people to easily connect with one another. Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of social media is to generate interest in your product.
Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, etc… Anyone who has internet is familiar with these sites. Some of these sites have faded (Friendster, Xanga, etc.), leaving decaying individual’s profile. Yet, the fact remains that social media is of essential importance to anyone hoping to expand their brand. So the question is “Should companies focus on one social media platform to ensure success?”
In a blink of an eye, something beyond your control might affect the way you reach your target audience, especially when you just rely everything in just one social media platform. Take for example – Facebook.
Whether you’re a fan of change or not, it’s coming quickly to the social media giant, Facebook. They basically just dropped a bombshell and instantly changed the way we communicate online with their new newsfeed, timelines, subscriptions and a myriad of other enhancements and updates. However, if you have a fan page, you might have noticed a drop off in the amount of interaction you are getting on it. Facebook said they want to make it easier for people to connect on the web. But we have yet to find out what good does the new changes bring to Facebook pages.
See, this is what we have to understand. If our brand just circles around Facebook and if it’s the only way we communicated with our clients because we haven’t diversified enough and use other platforms, these changes could have badly hurt our business. Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Google, SEM, SEO, phone calls, QR codes, texting and prints all need to be used in conjunction with one another to drive people to your home base, which is your self-hosted blog. That is the only thing that you control! And if Twitter goes away tomorrow and you use other mediums to communicate with your clients, you will not be badly hurt & crippled. You cannot afford to put all of your eggs in one basket.
The first step of a successful (and long term) social media plan is to spread your brand everywhere you can and the main goal is to drive people to your site and give them a ton of quality content that will keep them coming back. More than ever, it’s important that you have a web presence. Especially in a Real Estate business, since it’s is no longer a short term -transaction game, but a long term relationship building process, that would definitely be  strengthen by having a web presence. Your own website or a self hosted blog is the only thing that you have a 100% control over, so it is where your time needs to be spent first.
Here’s a pratical takeaway:  Google your personal name and your company’s name. What comes up? If you don’t see anything about yourself or your business, none of the other billions of people online will see it either and you know wha to do.
