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The real estate industry seems to be moving away from the initial hysteria engendered by social media and skepticism seems to be setting in. The enthusiasm that Peter Taliangis‘ speaking tour generated for all things social has resulted in lots of agents setting up Linked in profiles, but very few listings.  I get asked all the time how social media should be set up and I thought I’d explore my thinking in a series of posts.

I wanted to start by throwing some water on the whole “revolutionary” aspect of social.  Firstly, there are very few long-term, sustained examples of service businesses using social media to gain competitive advantage.  Secondly, Australian real estate is unique unsuited to exploiting social media for a number of reasons.  Let’s explore each of these points.

Social media doesn’t have a track record. Facebook is rapidly trying to measure and quantify the value of the Like button for marketers, but the information that is trickling in from large scale campaigns suggests that Social media is not the panacea for marketers looking to change consumer behaviour.  At the end of the day, we’re here to change peoples’ preference sets and once we’ve done this, keep said consumers loyal.  Social media might be OK at the latter, but there’s little evidence that it can do the former. 

This is particularly important to the real estate industry.  We’re lucky if we work with our customers once every 7 years.  Each time we do work with them, chances are we don’t have an existing relationship and we therefore need to engage them as new customers.  If you’re selecting a new bank, would you friend all  of the major banks on Facebook before you became a customer?  Of course not, you’d do all your research in traditional channels (including websites), make your choice and only if you’re satisfied with the service, would you engage further with the brand.   In the same way, real estate agents need to focus on traditional channels to develop business, then attempt to use social media to hold onto customers.  You then need to ask yourself is Facebook better than a great CRM campaign?  I’m not so sure.

Australian Real Estate isn’t suited to Social Media.  There are a number of success stories coming out of the US that show how US agents are using social media in a similar fashion to a CRM.  This doesn’t work in Australia for a number of reasons.  Australian agents are highly centralised and much more “corporate” that their US counterparts.  American agents are about the cult of personality, whereas Aussie agents are much more associated with strong brands (think McGrath, Jellis Craig, Marshall White and the franchises in Sydney).   The US model allows agents to develop their own personal brand.  If a US agent has an online melt-down, the affects are limited to their personal brand.  In Australia, the marketing departments of our major brands are focused on building long-term brand equity and go to great lengths to avoid any brand contamination.  They are therefore severely limiting agents’ ability to publish online. 

Don’t let this post fool you, I do believe that there is a place for social media in our market, but it requires some strategy and careful implementation.  I’ll explore the possibilities in my next post.