ROI of social media [Video]

This video has been doing the rounds on Twitter this week and we felt it was a great follow up to our last post – Some Hard Numbers on Social Networks.

Some Hard Numbers on Social Networks

Everyone is on a social media soapbox these days, ourselves included. But to many, the real benefits of these new media channels are yet to be proven.

In other words, it’s clear that social networks are a huge factor in the new economy. But what is the real value of establishing a presence on these channels?

We need more hard numbers.

Thankfully, as more and more companies devote resources to making social networking sites work for them, these statistics are forthcoming.

Performics (a division of Publicis Groupe) and ROI Research recently released a new study that outlines some very compelling numbers indeed.

Some of the more striking findings:

34% of people have turned to a search engine for information on a product, service, or brand after hearing of it on a social network.

30% of respondents have learned about a new product, service, or brand from a social networking site.

36% of YouTube users have gone to an online retailer after learning about a brand or product on social networking site.

46% of people say they would be willing to talk about/recommend a product on Facebook.*

44% of Twitter users have recommended a product from their Twitter account*

(*This kind of peer recommendation is particularly potent.)

28% say messages about sales or special deals resonate with them.

These are telling numbers. They indicate that brands really can penetrate social networks effectively. When they’re not too obtrusive (which takes some finesse, and time), and when they offer real value, users do welcome them.

As many real estate marketing campaigns look to the longer view, social networks are looking more and more compelling as a very effective way to reach new buyers.

Blogging For Real Estate Developments

Everyone knows that blogs are a credible, viable medium in today’s digital landscape. But the real estate marketing industry has only just begun to show the faintest signs that we recognize the potential of blogs for our marketing campaigns.

Blogs are, in fact, particularly suited to real estate sales programs. This is especially true now, as buyers require more and richer information, and the agility of a real estate campaign (its ability to adjust, on the fly, to both positive and negative responses from the market) is absolutely vital in today’s skittish markets. Blogs serve these needs wonderfully.

A blog keeps prospects engaged with fresh content. It offers a platform from which you can respond, in a forthright way, to objections you might not have seen coming. Most importantly, it allows you to provide the kind of detailed, real-time information that helps buyers feel more secure in their purchase decision.

We have had some real success with blogs as a real estate sales tool. (On one recent project, buyers explicitly referred to specific blog entries as having tipped them into their final purchase decision.) What follows are a few of the things that we have learned about best blog practices for real estate development campaigns.

Choose an appropriate voice, and stick with it

This is absolutely essential for credibility. At the outset, decide on the most effective voice for your blog – as dictated by your content, and the demographic you’re speaking to – and be sure to stick with it. It gives your blog a more consistent, seamless personality. (Which, in turn, makes readers more disposed to believe what you’re saying.)

Be strategic – but don’t oversell

Your blog should be a resource that helps people connect to your development, and fill out some of the texture of living there. They should want to return to it for its compelling content. And this simply won’t happen if they get inundated with a hard sell every time they open the page. Yes, you want to speak to the key selling points. But be sure to provide plenty of useful, friendly ancillary information as well. It will give your sales pitch more credibility when you come around to it.

Keep everyone updated. All the time.

Blogs are a fast, easy way to provide construction updates (with a link to your Flickr account), changes to the product, pricing, or shifts in the neighbourhood. (This is that campaign agility we spoke of above). And once you’re in the market, posting accelerating sales figures is a great way to incite some urgency.

Put your project into a bigger context

You want people to return to your blog out of interest – not just to consider buying your property. Create a backdrop for your project. Speak to the philosophy behind it, and how it was inspired. Post about demographic shifts, financial conditions, environmental features, and other quantitative factors. Relate your project to a bigger picture. It gives your buyers more to relate to.

Introduce people to the real neighbourhood

In real estate, neighbourhood matters – obviously. Specific details and points of interest in the neighbourhood will help people picture themselves there. And when you send people toward small businesses in the area – providing links to their websites – they will support you in ways that will do wonders for your credibility.

Be unafraid. Tell the truth. (It pays.)

People are sick of wading through airy, half-truthful real estate messages. So when you confront them with hard, real, irrefutable facts, they love it. In some of our blogs, we’ve gone so far as to post links to competitive resale homes on MLS. This kind of thing projects confidence in your project, and is seen as an act of good faith. Which converts to a whole new level of loyalty.

Answer possible buyer objections

We’ve used titles for like “For that money, I could get a house.” When you speak directly to the objections people will have about a project, it demonstrates that you see things from the buyers’ perspective. It also leaves less room for a “yeah, but what about…?” kind of doubtfulness.

Provide relevant, targeted information

When you’re selling a community that’s targeted to 50-somethings, it makes no sense to talk about bars, clubs, and extreme mountain biking. Remember who you are selling to, and provide content that’s relevant for them.

Use your Twitter account in tandem with your blog

Using Twitter for real estate is a blog topic unto itself. But of course, your Twitter account should be used to push new blog posts into your network. It’s all about connectivity.

Post videos

Video is engaging. And in the new social media landscape, the more human and personal it is – and the less polished – the more it engenders trust. Clips of developers, environmental consultants, even neighbours give a living face to the development. And search engines love it.

If you use your blog to push a contest, make sure it’s worth it

Online contests have become incredibly popular. So much so, in fact, consumers have become wary of them. If you have a contest, make it either a) offer a prize that people will actually get excited about or b) is only tangentially related to the project, and supports the arts, the local community, etc. There’s a lot more to the whole contest question. But for starters, don’t offer 10% off your product and expect buyers to make you a commercial. It will be a dud, and you’ll look cheap.

If you allow comments, be ready. And respond.

Comments allow feedback and questions to be vented and asked in an open forum. Which can be terrifying (this is in fact ill-founded, as the comments are moderated by you). Just leaving yourself open like this projects confidence and a spirit of transparency.

There is much more to think about, of course. But this should get you started. Basically, blogs offer a way to communicate in a richer, more detailed, and much more direct way to prospective buyers. But they are a new medium. Adjust your strategy accordingly.

Just Die, Will You?

This is a duplicate post from David Allison’s blog on BC Business

Will the dinosaurs hurry up and die already? The future is here.

In several sectors of the economy, hope is on the march. In real estate development, sales are ticking along, with resale volume for July 2009 hugely improved over 2008. The same holds for other industries. Two weeks ago, the Bank of Canada pronounced the big slide over, and said we’re on the road to recovery.

True or not, as a marketer, I am afraid. Some of the old-school brands out there – big banks, car companies, and many real estate developers – put their head in the sand in an attempt to survive the recent troubles. If they were big enough, and well funded enough, they made it through the storm without having to adjust their thinking. And that’s exactly what worries me.

Some dinosaurs seem to have survived the Ice Age. And this is no good.

The economic wobble we’ve all just lived through was a wake-up call to businesses around the world. There is a new consumer on the scene, one that won’t stand for the old-fashioned yell-and-sell approach to branding and marketing. These new consumers want a relationship. They want trust. They want to be heard. They want to know how and where you do business. They want to know everything about you. But the dinosaurs don’t get that. They want it the way it used to be: they told us what to think, we whipped out our wallets.

Active consumers will make our economy stronger. They will make sure that we are honest, straightforward, and real. And, even though she presents new responsibilities, the active consumer will make us merchants better. Nowhere is this more true than in marketing and branding – the interface between company and the consumers.

Some old-school companies managed to survive the recession, and, yeah, I’m pissed about it. But their day of reckoning is nigh. Let them go back to their old ways, feeling self-righteous and smart; there’s a meteorite on the horizon.

My advice to them: use this market correction as an opportunity to clean the cobwebs from their marketing. Think new thoughts. Look around and you’ll see that this wasn’t simply a bump in the road. It’s a brand new road. Get on it.