Keeping track of your favorite pastimes and activities is a cinch where the internet is concerned as people congregate around their individual passions and draw like-minded web surfers to them. This fact is only exemplified by the unleashing of social media upon the world, helping newsgroups, forums and other online groups to blossom into powerful communities embracing a particular topic and leading to better results for everyone involved, no matter the goal.
When it comes to real estate, interest is skyrocketing; between home owners, home buyers, home sellers and real estate professionals, the real estate market’s online presence is growing like no other. Whether you’re looking to connect with a real estate pro, meet other housing market enthusiasts or simply to come upon the latest DIY tips and tricks, here are four real estate social media communities to check out:
1. ActiveRain
Boasting more than 320,000 members, ActiveRain is a well-established networking site for professionals in the real estate industry, allowing them to share tips, blogs and other information through the intuitive interaction that social media platforms are known for. Membership with ActiveRain is absolutely free, giving you instant access to blogs, news, private groups and many other features, each intended to help you to meet the best of your colleagues while connecting with new potential customers, as well.
2. Zillow Advice
Functioning as a platform similar to that of Yahoo! Answers, but aimed exclusively at those involved in the real estate industry, Zillow provides a platform for those in the know to share their expertise, helping many agents to line up their next client simply by being helpful. So long as you avoid overt spamming and instead work with the flow of the site in order to contribute content, you’ll find an excellent opportunity to share who you are, what you know and what you do with the world at large.
3. Flipping Pad
Focusing its attention on real estate investors, Flipping Pad is a social network that aims to serve as a base for creating relationships with other like-minded people from around the world, helping you to easily create lucrative new business opportunities with minimal effort. All personal data is searchable by location, allowing anyone to connect with interested clients, agents and partners in specific cities and making Flipping Pad one of the premiere real estate social media sites on the web today.
4. Facebook
It may not offer a particular focus on real estate, but no social media platform compares to Facebook as far as its vast user base and ad targeting opportunities. Used by almost one billion people from around the world, you can be sure that there is a large group of people local to you already on the site, no matter where in the world you hail from, and this presents a pool of potential business deals that simply cannot be passed up by any serious real estate agent.
Indianapolis Real Estate representative puts it very well:
If Facebook were a country it would be the 4th largest country in the world. How can you ignore such an opportunity?
Facebook can be used to connect with clients in a personal way via your main profile page and also allows for fan pages that can be used to generate interest in your business at the same time. Perhaps most importantly, Facebook allows you to narrowly target the public with your marketing material at reasonable costs, making it possible to reach only people who will have a genuine interest in your localized services.
About Aimee Sway
