This post was written and contributed by guest blogger, Jim Lillig, President & Chief Revenue Strategist at Synergy Intermedia LLC. Although it deals specifically with realtors, think about how you can apply these strategies to almost any offline business.
Social marketing sites are proliferating at an accelerated rate today, but do you have any idea how to use these types of sites if you’re a real estate professional trying to get the word out about your business?
Social networking sites can be an invaluable way to attract buyers and sellers if you know how to use them effectively. Looking at how they operate will give you clues on several ways agents and brokers can use social networks to uncover contacts that have com
Let’s take a good look at how to use LinkedIn.com, a social network that is almost completely dominated by business professionals.
LinkedIn.com offers a terrific opportunity for both commercial and residential agents and brokers to find new clients. The main benefit to being on LinkedIn is aiding in people finding you when they type in your name.
Agents and brokers give out a lot of cards and send direct mail pieces to potential clients. Your name is your business, so it only makes sense to ensure search engine users can find you when they search on your name. LinkedIn results usually come back as one of the top results in searches. For example, my blog, www.jimlillig.com and the many articles I have authored since going online in 1997 do not come up first when you type in my name “Jim Lillig”. The first listing is my LinkedIn profile.
So, let’s get you started with LinkedIn. You need to set up an account. Be sure to fill out your entire profile using many local keyword references pertaining to the areas you sell in and the markets you service, such as residential and/or commercial. Thus, using search engine friendly text for the Your Professional Headline input area, such as “Cook County Illinois Commercial Real Estate Broker” or possibly “New York Queens Residential Real Estate Agent”.
Now you need to fill in the Primary Industry as Real Estate. Doing this also helps with being found within LinkedIn when someone does a search for real estate.
Next you will complete the Professional Experience and Goals section. This is another area you can also pack in keywords that will aid in getting you searched. Ensure that you use all the city names and regional names you are able to work in and if possible list the postal/zip codes as well. Thus if you are a real estate agent in Chicago, you might write “I am a Chicago residential real estate agent serving the Chicago real estate market (60602,60630, 60601, etc…)”. In this section you use sentences, the next section is more or less for just keywords.
The next area to fill in is the ‘What specialties do you have in your industries of expertise?’ section. This is the spot where your keywords will really make a difference in searches coming from other LinkedIn members as well as external searches in engines like Google and Yahoo. It will pay off big time if you know what keywords are working well for your area in terms of real estate. If you are not sure, use the Google External Keywords Tool to research the best terms.
LINKEDIN TIP: Search Google for keywords you want potential clients to find you for, and see which listings are at the top of the organic (left hand side) results. Right click on the web page it takes you to, and click on the View Source of the page. Examine the meta tags for “keywords” and “description” in addition to “title”. You will intersperse those same words and phrases in your LinkedIn profile. Using the Keyword Tool to cross check them will make doubly sure that these are the best terms to place in your LinkedIn profile.
The next area is for your Current and Past Positions (Job History). Once again, pack this with keywords as well. For sure use the name of your Agency, such as Century21 or ReMax. For example, when I type in the name of my own company in Google: “Synergy Intermedia”, my site comes up first, but then the following entries are for Naymz (a social network of professionals like LinkedIN) and then my LinkedIn listings. So having your company or agency name appear in this section makes it very visible to search engines as well.
Now that you have filled in your basic information, you will want to upload your contacts from Outlook, Gmail, MSN, Yahoo or whatever email client you use. Once your list is uploaded then you need to invite those contacts to join your network. THIS IS ESSENTIAL, AND THE WHOLE POINT OF THE ARTICLE. Since social networks are just that, a network of social ties, or your social graph.
I love Linkedin. It’s a great network to keep track of friends, and like you say, it’s mostly business people. You have given some great tips in this article. I really appreciate it.
Thank you for the comment. Watch for LinkedIn’s “Company Profile” feature coming in Q4. Although it will be part of their paid services, it may well be worth it if your company does mainly B2B. Regardless, there are not many people picking up on this right now.
Linkedin is great and many people are are discovering the power of it. It’s nice to see you talking about it and I prefer it over other some more popular sites.Thanks for the info you provide in your articles, great site!
I am a big fan of linkedin. It is great and lets me to connect with like minded people.
Great article. I totally agree. LinkedIn is the obvious choice when using social networking to promote your business. It’s really only used by serious business people which is what you want.
I have been using LinkedIn for just over 1yr. I found it most useful for finding new B2B contacts. I run an online surplus type website. I was able to find an awesome contact with an offline business who meshed perfectly with my niche. My business revenue has since tripled just because of one contact from LinkedIn, no joke.
Interesting article. I haven’t been a big fan of Linkedin however, I will start to make more of an effort. It seems to be a much portal to network on a professional level. Thanks for the advice Jim
Great article I am pretty new to social networking. Gonna use it with my business
I also love and use linkedin.All peoples in linkedin are professionals and businesswomens/womens
I havent yet started using linkedin, but after this article I really started considering it, thanks for guiding me, hope I have the time to make my linkedin profile soon and start my own experience, hope its worth it.
I must say linkedin has really helped me to find great staff members. Between that and someone’s facebook profile you can really find out if they’re the right person
Beautiful beautiful service… about time.
Thanks for sharing wonderful and lovely article with all of us. Best Regards
“LINKEDIN TIP: Search Google for keywords you want potential clients to find you for, and see which listings are at the top of the organic (left hand side) results. Right click on the web page it takes you to, and click on the View Source of the page. Examine the meta tags for “keywords” and “description” in addition to “title”. You will intersperse those same words and phrases in your LinkedIn profile. Using the Keyword Tool to cross check them will make doubly sure that these are the best terms to place in your LinkedIn profile.”
This is a GREAT tip. It never occurred to me to do this, yet it’s so simple and effective. I have a LinkedIn profile that’s been a bit neglected for a while so I’ll certainly be trying this out. Thanks for such a great post.
Briany
My only concern is, how many people actually use Linkedin? I have a profile, but I ignore most of the requests I get, and I never use it
Wow, that’s a nice tip. I guess meta tags still have _some_ purpose.
Kidding aside that’s honestly something I wish I thought of earlier. Time to edit my LinkedIn.