Web 2.0 Growing Pains
Web 2.0 creates community and participation... it is far more personalized and draws in enthusiastic users. Web 1.0 sits there and spits out data one way, and can't compete with the traffic Web 2.0's interactivity can generate. Yet Web 1.0 has one big advantage - its users don't talk back.
Web 2.0 can be scary to broker/owners. Although a blog-enabled broker website is the next killer app, here's a laundry list of concerns I've heard from brokers about blogging (with responses):
- As a broker, how can we control content being published by our agents?
- Managers can preview articles before posting on a blog-enabled website for legal (i.e., RESPA) liability issues or content quality.
- Very few of our agents want to write blog articles or participate online.
- For a broker website, find the agents (and they may comprise just 10% of the total agent set) who understand the benefits of blogging and want to contribute only one well written article per week...in aggregate, the website will have a lot of localized content, far more than today's independently written blog.
- For a broker website, find the agents (and they may comprise just 10% of the total agent set) who understand the benefits of blogging and want to contribute only one well written article per week...in aggregate, the website will have a lot of localized content, far more than today's independently written blog.
- How do we deal with criticism about our brand name or agents?
- If the criticism is unwarranted or frivolous, it can be previewed and deleted. Any criticism that enhances the transparency of broker or agent marketing may actually benefit the brokerage if dealt with immediately, honestly and properly.
- How do we stay on top of new technology innovations?
- Realtor associations often have tech managers who understand and monitor new technology (i.e., BayEast's Mark Flavin is exceptional). Internet technology will become so fundamental to real estate marketing, a cottage industry of consultants will emerge.
- Forums, like those at Bigger Pockets for real estate investing, are developed slowly and organically, aggregating participants one by one.
- Wikis and Q&A are often "seeded" with content ideas - Zillow and Inman's wikis launched with a variety of wiki starter articles that invited writers to continue the authoring process. Trulia seeded questions from a network of agents and consumers for their Trulia Voices Q&A product so that there were questions to answer at launch time.
In conclusion, brokers and other corporate real estate entities, including title insurance companies and lenders, have a lot to learn about how to operate successfully within the world of Web 2.0. Done correctly, the first movers to adopt Web 2.0 functionality will realize how powerful and appropriate its community building features are to real estate marketing.
Technorati Tags: Web 2.0, real estate marketing, Zillow, Trulia, Inman, wiki, blogging, blog, forums, Q&A, broker
Interesting about the "seeding" of Trulia. I noticed all the realtors throwing softball questions to each other from around the country who are networked on active rain and it made the whole trulia voices arena look like one giant realtor spam click that went against the intended purpose of TV. I was mad as heck about the planned monopolization by those realtors since they are now the main "top" voices on my local areas for answering artificial questions....
Thanks for you disclosure on the matter.
For #3, agents should deal with it
For #4, I believe it
For #2, thank god because I'm a busy realtor due to my website and blog....
I still want to be on your blogroll as I wrote earlier this week directly.
jay
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Ya the Trulia Voices is currently obnoxious with all the co-op sock puppeting going on. Seems like some of the Active Rain group just tore into it like it was an expansion pack for a MMORPG. I'm hoping for Trulia's sake that it calms down smewhat.
Brokers are going to live in medium terror of the agents posting blog articles, specially if they are published on "the brokerage" website. No doubt someone will have to be pegged as final editor of the blog.
The truth of the matter is that good bloggers are really pretty rare finds. To keep posting with decent quality is a real committment. Brokerages need to attract and hold those agents.
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The truth behind blogs is as Athol stated, good ones are hard to find.
Even as an avid REI blogger, it does take effort to get your point across. Web 2.0 may just be the start of Real-Real Estate Investing, a place where it's safe to do so...
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I'm starting to think that with all these Web 2.0 social networking sites everywhere, that the "RE.net" is going to be so fragmented, that by the time NAR does finally roll out a national MLS, it's going to seem like mana from heaven.
Finally everything we need in one place....
(Assuming there is no secret handshake to use it etc.)
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