4 social sites for Commercial agents
17 December, 2012 | Web design
If you are thinking of trying your hand at a little bit of social media, here is a very quick overview of the big four social media sites that commercial agents could use.
This is a purely business platform and a must for all chartered surveyors and commercial agents. You should at least have a personal account by now, but it is also possible to have a company profile and something that you should consider.
It is all about creating a big network of the right type of connections for you and your business. Make connections with customers and possible partners and use your status update to let them know what you are up to. Most importantly use the platform to start great dialogue and discussion and share interesting content.
With that in mind, make sure that you join the right groups and discussions so you can impart your wisdom and knowledge.
Once only viewed as a social network for you personal life, Facebook is becoming essential to business as well. It is vital to create a great profile page for your business on Facebook – Knight Frank have a nice looking profile although the content is a little too self-obsessed.
The better the page and the more interesting and relevant the content the more likely people will “Like” you and follow you. Make sure you link all your social media activity to your website by having Facebook, Tweeter etc. links and “Likes” logo’s on your own website.
It is even possible to link the activity that you do on Twitter (more below) to Facebook, but you need to be wary. Too many status updates and posts on Facebook could annoy those following you.
It is all about keeping it brief and to the point - 140 characters or less. To get the most out of Twitter, you really need to know who your audiences are and what area of commercial property they are interested in. Use it to post thoughts or questions that you think will initiate discussions.
In your messages, try and use one or two hashtags (#) to mark out keywords as a way of categorising messages. Hashtags then help your messages to show up in Twitter searches.
In addition, make sure that you respond to Tweets, as that will make you more visible to new audiences.
Google+
The new kid on the block but probably the one to watch. The number of users is rising fast. Google is looking to bring together many of its services and some believe that Google+ could eventually become the new Google. Think of the impact that would have.
In some ways, Google+ is a highbred of Facebook and Twitter. As with Facebook you will need a cracking profile page, to get involved in conversations and try and get ‘Likes’ or ‘+1’ as they call it. Yet it is similar to Twitter in that you group your followers in ‘circles’ around interesting content.
So just a quick overview, but hopefully helpful to those of you that are starting to realise that going ‘social’ could help your business. We have many more detailed articles on the website if you would like to find out more or feel free to get intouch.
Philip Burrows, Marketing Consultant