If you struggled to answer these questions immediately, you aren’t alone.

Your first step should be to decide how much time (and content) you will be able to invest in this form of marketing.  Remember, these days most people are online, and print advertising is going out of style.  Do you have the time and creativity to keep up with a blog?  If not, do you plan on joining an already well-established social network or forum?  Which one(s)?  Facebook?  LinkedIn?  Twitter?  What do you plan on sharing with these networks? Your own personal experiences, your schedule, available rentals, open houses, articles you’ve read, your listings, reposts of other peoples’ content, local information, or perhaps garage sales?

You need to decide who your target audiences are.  You might choose to operate in more than one these networks — one for people you know personally, and another where you market actively, posting information about the areas you serve, local news, open houses, yard sales — the sky is the limit.  If you have a special niche like HUD Homes, or Senior Housing, take advantage of that.  Become the trusted resource for new listings of this type in your area.

Another aspect of social networking that many people tend to ignore is participating on the pages of others.  Follow/Like other pages about your town, about the latest and greatest tech gadgets, or anything you and your target audience might be interested in.  Participate on those pages, like, share, and repost anything that you think might be of interest.  Don’t be shy. Engage people.  Repost, comment on, or ‘like’ the posts of your followers.  If someone comments on one of your posts, thank them and write back.  You want to create a presence—you want people to get to know you at some level.  Remember that friends of those followers will then see your name, and perhaps they’ll see your page/profile and decide to add you to their network. It’s all viral.

What you don’t post can be just as important as what you do post.  While you might be proud of your politics, lifestyle, or religion, you might want to keep your online appearance more neutral to avoid alienating some of your followers.  You don’t want to give anyone a reason to stop following you if you can help it.

Lastly, be sure to maintain a certain level of privacy.  While your friends and family may decide to follow your marketing/business page, you might want to keep your potential clients off of your personal page.  Remember that your goal is to market yourself and your services so it is likely that everything you post on the business specific page will be visible to the public via a simple web search of your name or town.  Don’t post anything anywhere, if you don’t want it to be seen. There is a risk that eventually it will be, even if it is in restricted areas of your page, such as Facebook.

When you begin the planning phase, you don’t have to have all the answers.  If you think you do have all the answers before you begin, don’t be afraid to change things.  Try to track what works and what doesn’t.  When did you get the most traffic, who are your followers, and did you post anything that caused people to follow or block you?  Your plan will likely evolve over time, even if your original strategy worked when you first implemented it.  This world of technology changes fast, so try to keep up!

So you like Facebook.  You’re on it all the time but you just can’t get enough.  Facebook Places is here for you!

Now, on top of changing your status updates, checking out your friends’ new photos, and seeing what pages you can ‘Like’, you can check-in on your iPhone to Facebook Places wherever you go.  (Only iPhone for now, Blackberry and Android phones soon to come.)

With Facebook Places you can show your friends exactly where you are, and when you arrived there.  This is an application that allows you to show and share your physical location.  Some may call this just another way for others to stalk you, but most of us don’t think about that.  If it’s new, and it has to do with Facebook, we’re in!

Decided to hit up that trendy new restaurant everyone’s been talking about?  Don’t just tell them, show them!  You can add comments about the Places you visit, and view your friend’s comments to see what they thought of the Place.

Now, some people would rather just bring their friends along and discuss the Place in person, but I have a feeling people are going to be checking in and adding comments anyway.  In this day and age, children (yes, children), will text each other even if they are in the same room as one another!  When did texting become more fun than having an actual conversation with the person right across from you?  But perhaps I’m just old fashioned that way.  But I seem to be getting off topic here.

Right now, Facebook Places is available in the United States only.  When you check-in to your destination, a Place page shows you a map of where that Place is located, a list of friends who are currently checked in at the Place, and a list of your friends that have checked into the Place in the past.  You can post a story about the Place to your Facebook profile by clicking on “Share”.

If you’re familiar with FourSquare, it’s essentially the same thing, but with Facebook running the show.  The big question right now is, how can Facebook Places benefit you.  The Places application gives you a way to promote and grow your business on Facebook.  You can give your customers the ability to check-in at your business, giving them the power to tell their friends about your business.

Here’s how to get started:

1. Launch the Facebook app on your iPhone and click on Places.  Remember, if you do not have an iPhone, Blackberry and Android users will soon have access to Facebook Places.
2. Click on the ‘Check In’ button in the top right of the screen.
3. Facebook uses your GPS location to find nearby Places.  A list of Places will appear and you can click on the desired Place and check-in.  Now if you want to add your own business, click on the + button at the top right of the screen.  This is how you add a Place.
4. Type in your information.  When your done typing in your details and you’re happy with what you have, click ‘Add’ in the top right of the screen.

Your Place is now available for everyone to check-in and tell their friends that they have arrived at your Place.  I mean really, who doesn’t want one person to check in, and now their 482 Facebook friends all see that they are there, at your business.  It’s like letting everyone promote your business just by showing up.

Happy networking!  I think I’ll go ‘check-in’ somewhere with an ice cold refreshment.

by Ryan Martens, Education Specialist

I’m not talking crazy talk – a lot of us do have multiple online presences.  For instance, I have my Myspace …which, admittedly is now stale and probably still says: “Tanis is excited for a resort getaway”…that was in 2008. I have my Facebook account that is mainly for keeping up with my friends and family, my personal website, and I have multiple Twitter accounts, one for work purposes, and one to network with those in my music related hobbies outside of work.  And, on top of it, I have multiple accounts & websites that I maintain for others.

I’ve said this before, but I’m somewhat of a technology stalwart.  Really!  I still own, and even use a VCR!  Truthfully, it’s taken me a while to embrace the whole ‘online’ thing.  I’m not saying that I am opposed to technology.  After all, I do happen to work for a technology company – it is kind of a prerequisite.

However, if I am going to be online, I like to keep things simple.   The less time it takes to complete a task the better!   If you are like me and enjoy minimizing some of the confusion and time it takes logging in to multiple sites, you might enjoy some of these neat tools.  Here’s a peek at my top 3 apps:

Hootsuite

If you haven’t heard of Hootsuite, I’ll begin by saying that it’s one of the ultimate time savers.  Hootsuite allows you to amalgamate multiple social networks including Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all through one location. 

Some of the sweetest features?  The ability to save draft messages that you use often.  I have a habit of often typing out the same thing over and over, so this helps me out a lot.  And even cooler, you can even schedule your tweets.  Do your clients follow you on Twitter?  Pre-schedule a tweet and thank them for the service when they will be around to actually see it.   Pretty nifty, hey? 

And if you really want to know how your Social Media efforts fare – you can also track your link statistics within Hootsuite.  Just think of it like the analytics you have for your real estate website, but applied to all your social media accounts.

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is another one of those convenient one-stop-shops for managing your social profiles.  However, there is more to meets the eye with Tweetdeck.  If you’re anything like me, and lead a double life (the marketing coordinator and the music junkie), you will appreciate the ability to manage multiple accounts.  I can make tweets from any account I want (or even multiple accounts at the same time), update my Facebook, and yes, even my defunct Myspace page – all from one location.   Have a great listing photo?  Drag and drop your photos directly into Tweetdeck and post it to any or all of your accounts.  Have an iPhone or even a fancy new iPad?  You guessed it – there’s an app for that.

Netvibes

As the header on Netvibes site says when you first visit, you can think of this service as “your personal dashboard”.  Not content with merely offering you a means to manage all of your accounts, Netvibes lets you keep an eye on entire subjects you are interested in.  For example, let’s say you really love home decorating… you can create a personal dashboard to keep up with what is new and exciting in the field from all over the web.

Unlike Hootsuite and Tweetdeck, you can also customize the look and feel of your Netvibes dashboards and take advantage of their expansive widget bank should you want to add additional functionality – such as local information or weather.  Oh yeah, and the whole thing is drop n’ drop – so don’t worry about being overwhelmed – it is as simple as using your VCR

Those are just a few of my personal favorites.  There are plenty of great programs out there to help save you time and prevent social media burn out, depending on your unique needs.  

Have some favorites of your own?  Feel free to share them here – I’m sure I’m not the only one looking to save some time!  Especially now that it’s finally summer here in Saskatchewan…the less time on the computer and the more time outside, the better!

Point2 Agent has had a presence on Facebook for quite a while now, but we confess that even with our preaching the benefits of social networking via Facebook in previous blog posts, we hadn’t done much else with it other than add a few posts to the Wall here and there and let the followers do the rest.  Despite that, over time we have been able to gain over 900 followers on our Facebook Group.  (Note: The Facebook Group for Point2 Agent is now closed to new members.)

Now that we are taking a more active approach to our social media efforts we are making some changes to our Facebook presence.  We are making the change from a Facebook Group to a Facebook Fan Page.

So, what is the difference?  Well, I am not going to go into great lengths about that here because others have written blog posts on the very same topic and explained it so clearly that I don’t need to.

The fact is, Facebook began providing the option for Fan Pages for use with promoting and connecting to brands, bands, famous people, etc.  The creators of Facebook found that the Facebook Groups weren’t serving this specific purpose quite right, and we found the same problem when trying to improve our own Point2 Agent Group on Facebook.  So, we decided to make the switch over to a Fan Page.

Come visit us on Facebook and please become a Fan!  Point2 Agent on Facebook

To help us celebrate this new endeavour we are offering a free Spotlight Ad for your listing on Point2Homes.com to every new Facebook Fan between now and April 16th.  All you have to do is become a Fan here, and we will keep track and give out the Spotlight Ads at the end of each week.

There’ll be many more exciting and fun things happening on our Facebook page, so make sure you become a Fan to stay in the loop.

Do you ever find yourself struggling to find enough time in a day to accomplish everything?  Perhaps you feel like you can keep up with what you currently know, but feel like you are falling behind on what’s new.

If you feel this way, you’re not alone.  I know I do.  I would wager a guess that almost everyone does at some point, in any field of work.

The other day I was talking with a co-worker about how difficult it can be at times to ‘keep up’.  We work for a software development company.  It’s almost a given that we should be hip to the newest tech gadgets, gizmos, and applications.

How does one keep up with what is new and how do we know which of the newest of the new is going to be something we can actually make use of, benefit from, and even help us save or make money?  Because, let’s face it, no matter what the economic situation is, we could always use a bit more money in our pockets.

This led me to consider some practical ways that we can manage our daily lives to prevent information and application overload.

The whole world in your hand

Well, almost.  If you haven’t already taken a look at the amazing features, tools, and apps available with most of the smartphones these days, it’s probably about time you did.  Judging by a recent informal poll we did on the Point2 Agent blog, we see that the majority of real estate professionals feel that their smartphone is the one gadget they simply could not live without.

And for good reason.  Consider that in most cases a smartphone provides you with web access, email access, an address book, a cell phone, a lockbox remote, a GPS, and a digital camera in a pinch.  Then think of how you’d ever manage to carry, let alone remember, all those individual gadgets at any given time – usually 24 hours a day.  (Note: this isn’t to say that your smartphone camera should replace a decent quality digital camera for listing photos.  We wouldn’t want to endorse less than the best for listings at Point2.)

Also becoming a more compelling reason to use a smartphone is the ever-growing list of neat, useful, and sometimes not-very-useful-but-quirky apps available from various application stores.  Of course, if you have an iPhone you can download a variety of apps for your phone from the Apple App Store.  If you have a BlackBerry, you can also access apps for your smartphone from BlackBerry AppWorld, including some of the more popular ones orginally made for the iPhone.

Walking into spider webs

Social networking and social media – a veritable web of contacts and friends and acquaintances.  Simply put, social media is the way of the future.  To be successful in any kind of business the need to be connected to your consumers is more real than ever before.  This raises the question: How do I know what is important?  And how do I keep track of it all?

Knowing what is important can be as simple as recognizing what is important to you and to your business.  Not all social media or networks will be suitable for every business.  Fortunately for you, the real estate industry is a very consumer-centric, people-oriented business.  This means that for the most part you should want to follow and participate where your consumers will be participating.  If you are able to reach them and connect with them on any level then you can succeed.

It’s true, some social networks have the potential to fizzle out without much success or following.  Because of this, some may be hesitant to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ because they don’t want to invest time or energy in building up a network on a service that may we useless in a few months.  Sound like you?  That’s okay, just take things a bit slower.  If you are interested in the potential of a specific service or tool, give it a few months to ‘prove’ itself in the flurry of all the other social media services.  It’s probably safe to say that if the social network or social media tool has made it into the mainstream successfully (i.e., mentioned in the news frequently, celebrities use it, etc.) then it is likely to remain for at least a little while and could warrant your participation now.

I can’t hear you!

As new services and tools arrive on the scene you’ll probably need to start managing all your profiles and networks.  The whole point of being involved in social media and networking is to connect you with other people, those who may be potential clients, and to help build your brand and reputation.  In order to convey this about yourself, you actually need to participate.  Setting up profiles at every social networking site is not going to net you business if you don’t actively participate there.  The more you have to say the more people will want to listen.

There are applications available that allow you to manage multiple – more popular – social networking services in one place.  Consider testing these applications out to find out which one best suit your needs and your social networks.  One that I’ve personally tried with some success is AlertThingy, where I can manage my Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Yammer accounts all in one place.  It won’t allow you to do everything you could normally do on each of those services independantly, but it does make life a bit easier.

There are also applications and services (such as Ping.fm or HelloTxt) that allow you to update multiple social networks with one post or entry.  If you are truly too busy to add a personal tweet or status update to your individual profiles, consider utilizing one of these automated services.  However, don’t neglect to post and update with real words and thoughts as often as possible.

You are busy.  We all are busy.  Sometimes it feels like we can’t ever keep up.  Hopefully with these few suggestions you’ll be able to relax just a little and feel like you are in better control of one aspect of your busy lives.

What do you think?

I tried to think of this with the real estate professional in mind and barely skimmed the surface of managing time and energy.  No doubt, since I am not out there buying and selling real estate on a day-to-day basis, I have missed some valuable tips or suggestions.  Please join in the discussion and share your practical advice with the rest of us in the comments below.

I anticipated that the results of this survey could be used in the print edition of The Point which came out this month – and you may have picked up if you were lucky enough to attend NAR in Orlando last week.

However, as it turns out, we simply had too much awesome content already scheduled to go to print. Which means that I get the pleasure of sharing the results with you – readers of the blogosphere!

Note: In order to view the results, you need flash!

From the results it is clear that Facebook is easily the most popular service, and judging by the commentary I have read, this comes as no surprise since Canada leads Facebook usage globally.

Another result worth mentioning is the surprising popularity of Windows Live Spaces – I was under the impression that no one really used this platform outside of an extension for MSN Live Messenger – but I guess I was wrong. You learn something new every day!

Finally, I was surprised by the adoption of Flickr amongst respondents. Well, actually, let me clarify. It is not surprising that people actually use Flickr over competing services (they do have over 3 billion images for a reason). But rather the fact that when I followed up with them, a surprisingly majority had Flickr Pro accounts – a paid, premium version of the service.

This signals to me that if you create a focused product, that does one like very well – like our Point2 Agent product does with syndication – people are always willing to pay for it. Which of course makes me one happy camper

What sites/services do you use on a daily basis?