When I went to my first REBarCamp in Newport Beach in June 2009, I met some interesting people who seemed like they knew the difference between a blog post, a tweet and a meme. Come to find out, I was surrounded by people who now are on the national stage discussing how digital marketing/social media has ROCKED their business. (And many moved on to VERY high prominent positions in corporations and starting their own businesses!)
How they went from explaining Twitter, WordPress, and SEO to a small group of REALTORS in a bar near a beach to being invited to present at national trade shows and conventions, the RETech South conference, Inman Connect and REBlogWorld is amazing. I watched as they became rising stars within the real estate technology industry. And I found they shared some common characteristics.
They focused on doing what they had a passion for consistently and they freely shared their knowledge with others. There is the secret awesome-sauce to success.
1. Passion: Focus on what you love about what you do and make that part of your new media strategy.
People can feel, see, taste and hear passion. Passion puts people in that 10% bracket of greatness. Ginger Wilcox used to blog about her town of Marin, CA. Now she is in charge of Realtor Education and Development for Trulia. When she was writing her blog, you could tell she just LOVED being there. I followed in her footsteps when I began blogging for 365Kona.com and my 365 Things To Do in Kona Facebook blog.
2. Consistency: If you don’t love it, you’re not going to keep doing it. If you hate to write, you will never keep a written blog going. But you may love to take photos…or videos…or love stats and like to share statistical data with people. Maybe you are a storyteller and can consistently share stories of how you loved it when you handed your client the keys to their new home, or you sold a case of your product to a new distributor. To be consistent means you have to already enjoy keeping your eyes open for your next story/photo/view/market trend. I started blogging because I have a passion to share information.
3. Focus: You have to make a decision and stick with it that you are going to do this. Just like excercise, right? If you get out there three days a week you start to see results and then more results as you keep doing it. The people I have seen who are the blogging “stars” out there are people who focused on learning the technology needed to create a presence in the social media sphere. They focused on consistently learning, implementing and tweaking. They are not data heads. They are small business owners (and many of them REALTORS) who saw that internet marketing technology was going to take them to the next level.
(Caveat, they all have a knack or passion for technology or they would not have spent the time needed to be recognized at the level they are at! But again, maybe you are not going to be a star, but you want to be found on Google, right?)
4. Share with others: The reason these folks get asked to speak on the national level is because they have made names for themselves in SHARING FREELY WHAT THEY KNOW! They share what they learn about blogging, social media platforms, getting found on Google and more with their industry brethren and they share market data, inventory, and analysis with the world through their blogs. Look at the success of Gary Vaynerchuck!
Are they successful? Are they making money from their focus, consistency, and passion? You bet.
Openly sharing your expertise and knowledge about what you do and why you love it, along with market trends, customer stories, photos, etc. creates what author Tara Hunt called, the “Whuffie Factor”. Share and you will be rewarded. Social media karma in essence. You don’t have to stand on a national stage to do it,..just post it to your profile, or your blog, or your Twitter stream. Just do it..with focus, passion, and consistency.
(The photo shows my friends Stacey Harmon, Harmon Enterprises and David Gibbons, who used to be the marketing director of Zillow.com, whom I met at my first “social media” conference, REBCOC.) (Looking at the video I see ALOT of peeps who have gone on to be HUGE voices in the real estate tech field-I should put one of these un-conferences on in Kona..)
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