60 | SOCIAL MEDIA WORDS | Roberta Ward
OPP DIGITAL
www.opp.org.uk |MARCH 2011
Making the journey
Successful overseas property professionals use the new world of online social media to help generate awareness for their businesses. Social media is about anything that offers an opportunity for dialogue says Roberta Ward. It’s not about who follows who, it’s about who engages with who. Keep this in mind and you won’t go far wrong. Social media is all about reputation building ... and here is a guide to doing it the easy way.
my niche … which is the property business of course. Initially, this was so we could learn new ideas and techniques that the people in our industry were talking about. Over time, reading the forum
M
posts made me realise that I knew as much, if not more, than those posting and replying. Some of the information given
was factually incorrect or just thinly disguised sales tactics being used to reel unsuspecting newbies into big juicy commissions. Eventually, we began replying to threads and correcting those who were wrong. This led to us becoming known for ‘telling it like it is” and our reputation began to grow. A note of caution here; forums can be aggressive or argumentative places,
y journey started with forums. We began by reading forum posts within
so be prepared for some disagreements. Some forums are not moderated properly and selling frenzies are common place. Remember, forums are public
places, and as such you can’t really get precious about someone stealing your ideas. Along with forums we set up a business Facebook account. Facebook is not my favorite tool because I fi nd it quite spammy in content. However, having said that, one of the biggest deals we have ever done come to us via a Facebook contact, so don’t dismiss it out of hand. Facebook has millions of users worldwide - which is a massive audience to market to by anyone’s standards. You never know what social tool others are more comfortable using, so it’s wise to have a presence on many. What Twitter Did For Me In early 2009 we joined Twitter because so many folks were talking about it!
I must admit it took me a couple of months before I ‘got it’ and began to understand the true power of this amazing medium. Twitter isn’t about numbers at all, it’s about a quality network that you can choose who joins. Imagine being able to directly contact top people in any organisation. This is what twitter can do. A few facts you may fi nd surprising; • 64% of Twitter’s users are aged 35 or older. • 61% of Facebook’s users are aged 35 or older. • Most of the social networks are dominated by the age group 35-44 Twitter connected me to a very
infl uential digital marketing man who is at the top of his fi eld. He understands the way to use social media effectively for business. His was the advice I took when he encouraged me to blog for our business. Twitter combined with blogging has been
This article was written by Roberta Ward who promotes ethical property and wealth investing using a variety of online social media, offl ine media, blogs and free collaborative events. Find out more about her work at:
www.mypropertymentor.co.uk //
www.investorinsight.net
phenomenally successful for us. It gives us the power to connect to those who would not normally cross our path. By connecting to our peers we can seriously up our game, and move into new realms which may not have been open to us before. It’s the simplest way to get right in front of movers and shakers in any business realm. On a personal level I made huge efforts to meet in person as many folk as I could from my Twitter followers. A Twitter introduction led to me being directly involved with Be2camp events, but that’s another story. Some Things I’ve Done Because Of Twitter • Had a radio interview on my County station. • Screen tested as a presenter for a new BBC property program. • Met & worked directly with celebrities in my niche. • Been invited to speak at events. • Been invited to join an international company to help organise quarterly large property/ social media events. • Been asked to write for magazines. • Been interviewed and asked for my opinion for many different web sites / channels. Why Blogging Works A blog should be the backbone of you social media strategy. It’s a place to hang all the other parts which make the whole.
The road ahead | will never be smooth, but it can be more exciting if you embrace the fast-moving world of social media Our blog at My Property Mentor has
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68