Guest Blogger, Suzanne Roy is Lead Contributor with Tech Savvy Agent and Owner of V.A. Work, and has been working with Real Estate Agents throughout North America since 2002 – initially as a virtual assistant, and more recently as a social media specialist, concentrating her efforts in assisting Real Estate Agents with blog design, content and syndication, custom Fan Page designing, keyword research and search engine optimization.
The World Wide Web (better known as “www”) is described by Wikipedia as “a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet.” Just less than 20 years ago, August 6th, 1991, was the official debut date of the “www.”
More recently, (over the past 6 years) Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Yelp and scores of other social networking sites have taken the World Wide Web to a completely different level; one that, without some strategic planning, can become, overwhelming in a split second.
Real Estate Agents have the ability to market themselves and their specific areas of expertise to millions of people through social networking and media sites – taking their offline marketing (such as recipe postcards and local football team schedules) completely out of the picture – Thank God! Oh, and without costing a penny either…
So where do you begin to create your own social web? Well, the true heart to all your online marketing and social web integration has to start with your blog. No, not your website – your BLOG. And not just any blog – a self-hosted blog – meaning one that you are in control over, you have the complete rights to, one that is a standalone site, and not embedded into another. Godaddy is an excellent option for getting this set up easily, since they have a direct link to WordPress blog hosting and can be linked to one of your purchased url’s. But that’s another post for another day…
Integrating your social networking profiles with your blog allows you to have your own social web of content and information. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIN are what make up the most dense population of eyeballs that will see your content and get traffic to your blog. So with this in mind, here is a step-by-step guide on how to make your own social web and get your information found consistently.
1. Self-Hosted Blog to Facebook Fan Page
Facebook has an encyclopedia full of applications that can be utilized on your Fan Page and, in this case, your blog. NetworkedBlogs is an excellent application which allows you to automatically upload your new blog content to your Facebook Fan Page with a simple process as shown in the video below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW84XruyPTI
2. Facebook Fan Page to Twitter
Utilizing the same Facebook application – NetworkedBlogs – you can link your Fan Page up with your Twitter account simply and effectively:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2JKpbwZtJ14
3. Twitter to LinkedIn
There are probably dozens of different ways to go about accomplishing having your Twitter account linked to your LinkedIn profile, but here’s the easiest route we have found to make this circle complete:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmriAbdGFxs
Now, when you post your daily blog (ok, weekly?!), your hyper-local content will be broadcast throughout these three massively trafficked sites with the simple push of the “Publish” button.
