Social Media & Commercial Real Estate: Don’t Be Left Behind!

I had the honor of speaking at CREW Orange County’s (www.crew-oc.org) luncheon on Social Media and Commercial Real Estate. Had the privilege of having Coy Davidson as my fellow presenter, who made the trip from Houston to speak with me about how to leverage social media to build your brand and grow your business. Coy is a Senior Vice President for Colliers International and is considered one of the experts in how to use social as a broker to grow his business. Check out his national blog The Tenant Advisor www.coydavidson.com.

I promised a blog post highlighting some of the info I shared, so here it goes.

Want to understand the stats or convince a colleague or co-worker? This video by Eric Qualman, author of Socialnomics does the job in under 4 minutes. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUCfFcchw1w

For some reason, the commercial real estate industry has been slow to adopt social media as part of their business strategy. Well folks, you are late to the party.

In 2009, I went to a PRSA conference in Newport Beach and walked out realizing everything about marketing and communication was going to change and it was time to pull up my sleeves and dive into learning.

We have made an earthquake like shift from “push” marketing to “pull’ marketing.

We no longer “talk at” our clients and customers through our marketing, we engage in a “conversation” online.

People are inundated with marketing messages. They will turn off email subscriptions and follow companies and brands that engage, educate, help and delight them through social media.

It is already happening.

Currently the four key social media sites you should be exploring include Linked In, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. There are more, but let’s start with the basics. Want to learn how to use them? Google it. All of the information is there. These sites were designed for the average person to figure them out. Resources are plentiful online about how to use them.

Feel overwhelmed? Use a dashboard tool, such as www.hootsuite.com or www.tweetdeck.com to help you be strategic and leverage your time.

Want to learn more about social media trends? Visit sites like www.mashable.com , www.socialmediaexaminer.com and www.socialmediatoday.com.

Ruth Brajevich
CMO
rbrajevich@waremalcomb.com
@WareMalcombCMO