Real estate agents turn to social media to connect with clients - Business Monday - MiamiHerald.com
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Real estate agents turn to social media to connect with clients
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South Florida Realtors have flocked to social media as buyers have made the Internet a more integral part of the home buying process than it's ever been. BY TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA TOLORUNNIPA@MIAMIHERALD.COM
When real estate agent Sarah Elles Boggs walks into one of downtown Miami's condo towers for a showing, she pulls out her Android smartphone, ``checks-in'' on a GPS-powered web platform called Foursquare, blasts her whereabouts on Twitter, and leaves behind a location-based ``tip'' in the virtual world for the next visitor. It's a social media routine that has become natural for Boggs, who has incorporated micro-blogging, Facebook-updating and app-downloading as core parts of her business. And it's working. Related Content Profiting from `social' skills
``I did pick up two solid new clients off of Twitter just last month alone who have already closed,'' Boggs said. ``And I'm working with a buyer from
overseas who connected with me via Facebook.'' No longer just the hobby of a few tech-savvy agents, social media is being discussed in real estate firm board rooms and at trade group meetings, and companies are tracking their return on investments in various online platforms. As real estate agents look for a leg up in a troubled market, and as more home buyers and sellers make the Internet an integral part of the sales process, tech-savvy Realtors are finding fresh ways to connect with clients online. Anecdotal evidence of social media's results has spread among the real estate community, and Realtors are joining Twitter, launching blogs, sprucing up Facebook pages, and vying for virtual ``mayorships'' in growing numbers. At ONE Sothebys' International Realty, marketing director Brad Nelson has integrated social media as a core component of the company's marketing campaign.
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For Nelson, it's simply a matter of numbers. ``If Facebook were a country, it would be the third-largest country in the world,'' he said. ``I don't know of a single newspaper, of a single television program, or a single radio program that has that kind of reach.'' http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/03/1853054/real-estate-agents-turn-to-social.html
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