Every 7th person is on facebook and there is about 1400 tweets every second on twitter. About 3452 (unique) searches are getting conducted on google every second. Yes it does sound impossible but that’s the truth and stuff like this is happening all around us. World is now truly a global village where people are connected virtually.
Businesses are spending millions of dollars a year on social networking and media. So just how you as a real estate agent or broker should embrace this knowledge and how can it benefit you and your business. Is your time best spent writing a blog (web log), spending hours on Facebook connecting with your sphere of influence, and others you don’t even know? Should you have your profile on Facebook or MySpace, what about Twitter, LinkedIn, RealTown or ActiveRain?
First, let's take a look at the difference between social media and social networking and a little history. Social networking is not new! You and I have been doing it for centuries. When you mingle with co-workers around the coffee machine, go to a fund raiser, club, party, business get-together, seminar, golf, sewing circle, etc., these are all forms of social networking. Similarly, the new online social networking is a bi-directional mode of communications between people, sometimes a group of people with similar interest. Good examples would include email, Facebook, LinkedIn, RealTown and ActiveRain; places where you are having conversations with your friends and associates.
Social media is also not new. We have all been listening to the radio and watching TV for years. Social media and social networking are very different. Social networking is a conversation, while on the other hand social media is a broadcast of communications and is not typically a conversation of sorts. A good example of the new online social media would be YouTube, Vimeo, Podcast and Virtual Tours. Social media typically would include the use of pictures, video, images and/or sound to deliver a message to a group of people or audience.
So, where did it all begin... well the first mass form of social networking technology was the email or electronic mail, and without going into the techno-mumbo-jumbo of the early days of email on large shared computers back in the 1960's and 70's, the first real commercial and mass use of email came about in the late 1980's and early 1990's with the widely used MCI Mail, CompuServe and AOL applications.
Social networking and social media are tools! And these tools are here to stay. If you don't think so, just check out these facts: Facebook in July 2010 announced they surpassed 500,000,000 active users! YouTube is now the second most used search site, second to Google! And Facebook just surpassed Google in the most weekly hits for the first time ever!
The most recent National Association of Realtors statistics show over 90% of home buyers said they looked online for their home before purchasing!
Businesses are spending millions of dollars a year on social networking and media. So just how you as a real estate agent or broker should embrace this knowledge and how can it benefit you and your business. Is your time best spent writing a blog (web log), spending hours on Facebook connecting with your sphere of influence, and others you don’t even know? Should you have your profile on Facebook or MySpace, what about Twitter, LinkedIn, RealTown or ActiveRain?
First, let's take a look at the difference between social media and social networking and a little history. Social networking is not new! You and I have been doing it for centuries. When you mingle with co-workers around the coffee machine, go to a fund raiser, club, party, business get-together, seminar, golf, sewing circle, etc., these are all forms of social networking. Similarly, the new online social networking is a bi-directional mode of communications between people, sometimes a group of people with similar interest. Good examples would include email, Facebook, LinkedIn, RealTown and ActiveRain; places where you are having conversations with your friends and associates.
Social media is also not new. We have all been listening to the radio and watching TV for years. Social media and social networking are very different. Social networking is a conversation, while on the other hand social media is a broadcast of communications and is not typically a conversation of sorts. A good example of the new online social media would be YouTube, Vimeo, Podcast and Virtual Tours. Social media typically would include the use of pictures, video, images and/or sound to deliver a message to a group of people or audience.
So, where did it all begin... well the first mass form of social networking technology was the email or electronic mail, and without going into the techno-mumbo-jumbo of the early days of email on large shared computers back in the 1960's and 70's, the first real commercial and mass use of email came about in the late 1980's and early 1990's with the widely used MCI Mail, CompuServe and AOL applications.
Social networking and social media are tools! And these tools are here to stay. If you don't think so, just check out these facts: Facebook in July 2010 announced they surpassed 500,000,000 active users! YouTube is now the second most used search site, second to Google! And Facebook just surpassed Google in the most weekly hits for the first time ever!
The most recent National Association of Realtors statistics show over 90% of home buyers said they looked online for their home before purchasing!
