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.

What separates a blog from a web page?

It isn’t RSS feeds or the author interface, but tone. If you want a real, organic audience you need to set your blog apart from your site’s standard copy. People read static web content for raw information, but they read blogs to learn more about people. If you use the same third person “corpspeak” that you’d put on any other page, potential readers will lose interest. There’s a time and place for aloof, formal business language, but in most companies, a blog should represent a chance to loosen your virtual tie, so to speak.

The key to projecting a relaxed, exciting attitude is sociability. A sociable blog puts a human face on your firm and highlights its busy, dynamic nature. There are lots of ways to add social qualities to your blog, but I’ll concentrate on five:

1. Use Collaboration: Unless your company’s a solo operation, get as many employees posting as possible. Encourage them to talk about their jobs in a friendly, first person present style – but here’s a secret: You can give them a little help. Not everyone is cut out to write. Assign a head blogger to edit articles to conform to a high standard – or ghostwrite them from another employee’s point-form notes.
2. Make Authors Visible: Instead of lazily letting everyone in on the same author account, create separate user IDs for each contributor. Develop a public profile for each user. A couple of sentences and an avatar should be fine. You’ll still need a “generic” user for press releases and other company-wide announcements, but whenever possible, give readers the chance to follow individual bloggers.
3. Write in an Informal Tone: Use the first person present tense to speak as an individual and let readers feel they’re following the action as it happens. Indulge in a little slang but unless you’re trying to let everyone know you serve the bleeding-edge youth market, don’t overdo it. (If you’re over 30 and aren’t sure, then yes, you’re probably overdoing it). Engage the senses, and don’t be afraid of a little trivia. A sociable blog is the place to write about the great idea you got after finishing a really good cup of coffee.
4. Integrate Social Media Tools: Well, you want to be sociable, don’t you? Add a Twitter feed and buttons for Sphinn, Digg and the rest. The more you add, the more interactive “handles” readers can use to respond – and when they take an action, they commit to your blog in at least a small way. Just don’t add elements to the point of clutter. In Twitter’s case, make sure you regularly update the feed. Old tweets make you look lazy.
5. Don’t Forget the Basics: Okay, you’ve loosened your virtual tie – but keep your pants on! You still need to write well. Don’t neglect grammar, target keywords or search-friendly coding (strong, not bold, etc.). Unless your business warrants a little extra naughtiness, keep your content G-Rated, and check it for conformity to your policies. That’s why you need someone who bears ultimate responsibility for the blog.

These steps should help bring your blog out of the shadow of your company’s static web content. Instead of bumping up against a wall of impersonal marketing text, readers learn that your business is a busy, living entity – and something they want to get involved with.

About the Author: Malcolm Sheppard is a writer for GILL Media, an internet marketing firm with offices in Florida, California, Texas, Georgia, Ohio and Ontario.

Congratulations! TIME Magazine named “YOU” Person of the Year for 2006. Why? According to the December 2006 issue of the magazine, “In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter.”

Jeremy Palmer and I also identified user-generated content as one of the most significant growth areas in 2006 during our GotoWebinar “Affiliate Marketing in 2007: The Outlook” call last week.

Also significant was the growth in API’s for affiliate marketers such as Amazon.com Webservices, the eBay Developer Program and Commission Junction’s free Web Services for Publishers and Advertisers.

Are you using the tools, contributing more to the webscape and branding yourself as a source of great information within your market? If you feel like you could do more in that regard and you missed the call, not to worry. Although the call won’t be posted, we’ll have much more information to help you build your affiliate marketing] business in the next few months. That’s a Hint.