Real Estate Forum - July/August 2009

update your Facebook status, endorse someone on LinkedIn, create a video, track your online ads, text, tweet…and, if you have any time left over, sell some real estate. With the explosion of web-based tools and applications, real estate agents and brokers have a broad and often confusing array of digital advertising and marketing choices to consider.

Odds are at least some of them are asking, “Wouldn’t it have been easier to just put an ad in the newspaper?”

Maybe. But yesterday’s print ad lacked the potential reach of today’s Internet-based alternatives. So take a deep breath, explore the possibilities and develop a plan that capitalizes on the best of new and traditional media.

“No one expects you to do it alone. Find people and sources you trust, and leverage their expertise,” says Arjun D. Arora, who recently resigned his position as head of business development at San Francisco-based Yahoo! Real Estate to launch Re Targeter, an Internet advertising firm.

There’s no need to abandon print. A combination of ads in local newspapers and magazines, combined with a strong online presence, creates maximum exposure to the widest audience of potential buyers. Print ads can drive traffic to websites and social media, creating more interest in your brand and listings online.

Online media make it easy—as well as cost effective—to target a message to a specific population by geography, interests or other factors. “As we move along, this model will become even more effective, giving every agent and every small brokerage as much opportunity to participate as effectively as large franchisers,” Arora notes.

Ads are important. But the key to an online reputation is effective use of social media, an increasingly important marketing tool. So “share in conversations, comment on blogs and share your expertise,” Arora said. “It can

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create unexpected synchronicities.”

Social media is the equivalent of an online conversation, but the conversations are between large groups of people. It’s a low- or no-cost way to increase brand awareness and get your name in front of potential clients.

Twitter, blogs, LinkedIn and Facebook are the top four social media, according to a March 2009 Social Media Marketing Report by Michael A. Stelzner. The study found 88% of firms surveyed are using social media for marketing purposes, although 72% of them have only been using it the past few months.

Commercial real estate companies, specifically, have had mixed reactions to social media. While many firms still ignore it, others are gingerly exploring the options. Take Facebook, which has evolved from the exclusive online stomping ground of college students to the virtual home of almost every teen and tween nationwide. But in the past few years, the social networking site has also attracted the attention of a growing number of advertisers eager to tap into its tech-savvy audience—and commercial real estate professionals are among them.

They’re accessing Facebook Advertising, which gives businesses an opportunity to reach those users through “targeted advertising to the exact audiences they want,” the company says. And some are creating Facebook Pages, which give users—with an interest in a particular business—the opportunity to interact with it in much the same way they interact with their friends.

Dubai Real Estate and the International Council of Shopping Centers both have a Facebook presence. So do a long list of firms and loosely organized groups, including NY Commercial Real Estate Property Investors; NYC Commercial Real Estate Brokers, Developers, and Investors; Commercial Real Estate, the Ackman-Ziff Real Estate Group; Real Estate Investors; Real Estate Entrepreneurs; Real Estate Investing Network; Commercial Real Estate Gurus; Creative Commercial Real Estate Lending: Office, Apartment, Hotel & Retail Premise International Real Estate and Development; Edmonton Commercial Real create unexpected synchronicities.”

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Estate; Greater Boston Commercial Real Estate; and Commercial Real Estate of North Carolina. There’s even a group that purports to explain “how anyone can buy commercial real estate in 120 days.”

For a corporate Facebook page to succeed, Toby Kilgore, a principal in Deloitte’s financial services group, says, it has to be distinct from the company’s regular website. It has to offer unique benefits—videos and contests, for instance—and it has to allow negative comments or it will seem disingenuous. The goal is to connect and create conversations with clients and customers and carve out a niche on the network.

A presence is one thing. But using social networks to market or manage properties takes that presence to another level. Douglaston Development is using the unar-guably edgy slogan of Williamsburg Edge: Live Here or Die to market its new waterfront Estate; Greater Boston Commercial Real Es Esta tate te; an and Co Comm mmer erci cial al Rea eal Es Esta tate te of

By Noreen Seebacher

condo project in New York City’s historic Brooklyn neighborhood. And in Washington State, community leaders in the City of Bellevue began the Downtown Bellevue Network page on Facebook to offer information on issues such as local construction, condos, shopping and entertainment. The city’s team includes Brian Biege, a commercial real estate broker at CB Richard Ellis.

A few commercial firms, notably Madison Marquette, seem to be using social media as the key to an infinite electronic playground. Nearly two years ago, the Washington, DC-based developer created a Facebook profile for the “Blue Castle,” a former trolley barn located near the new Nationals Major League Baseball stadium in Washington, DC. Kurt Ivey, SVP of corporate marketing and communications, described the move as a “way to cut through the clutter and embrace technology to better understand the best options for redeveloping the site.”