Real estate agents, too, can gain much exposure and status through social media. There are literally dozens of social media sites, and new ones popping up every day. By developing a social media strategy for your real estate business and choosing the sites that suit your needs and interests, you can improve your online presence.

Have you ever been to a cocktail party, or even to a networking conference? You probably met new people, exchanged opinions, and even gave out a few business cards, right? That’s a boiled down version of what social networking can do for your real estate business and exposure. It gets you in touch with people who are interested in what you do and what you have to say.

Twitter for Real Estate Agents

Twitter is a microblogging social media site. With a simple account you can post updates in 140 characters or less. That’s about a sentence or two. But you don’t have to say much. Write a short teaser sentence and a link to your latest blog post. Provide a link to your latest online listing. Gather followers through Twitter and the information you share can build your exposure not only to them, but potentially to their followers, etc.

How Facebook Can Benefit Real Estate Agents

Facebook has proven to be a tremendous benefit to businesses. Facebook allows commercial enterprises to create a free “fan” page. You can upload photos, write a detailed profile about yourself and your services, and include links to your website, blog, and listings. Encourage your clients and web visitors to follow you. Find others on Facebook who might benefit from your services. Then use your Facebook fan base to share your expertise and build your online reputation and exposure.

Social media doesn’t have to be difficult, but it does take effort to build a community and a following, keep regular updates, and monitor your results.

Newspapers and radio spots used to be the source of most marketing efforts; however, today’s customers are found nowhere near newspaper ads; instead, they are on the Internet, connecting socially, conducting business and making financial decisions.

The best place to head if you are in search of leads is to the social media sites. Even if you’ve never heard the term “social media” you likely know exactly what it is: Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, and that’s just for starters.

But how do you take social media and turn it into a great source for real estate leads?

Here are some tips for guiding you through the social media sites:

• Develop a network on a social media site and encourage current, past and new clients to add you to their network. Once you have an audience that is following you, or an audience that has named you their “friend,” you can offer a plethora of information and also add links to your marketing materials. A social media site provides you with the opportunity to create a profile that others can follow, so it is important to take full advantage of this online exposure!

• Create groups on social media sites that will allow you to provide others with helpful information. These groups are also a prime place for potential clients to ask questions and ask for advice. Becoming an expert in a group that you have created is a fantastic way of broadening your image and showing others that you have expertise in your field.

• Don’t forget about business networking groups, as well, as you can exchange ideas and information with other real estate professionals. An open forum on the real estate industry can help everyone gain valuable information to further their real estate business and careers.

• Pay close attention to the “next best thing” when it comes to social media sites, as this area of the Internet is constantly changing and evolving. Make sure you are prepared to stay relevant and to be where the excitement and action are.

The RealtyRankings community section is stuffed with features that can help you network, learn, and share information. Here are a few good reasons we think you should join the premier real estate community at RealtyRankings.

• Latest Articles – You will have access to the latest articles written by our qualified and expert staff. Each week we post more and more informative articles and blog posts that give you sound advice, helpful tips, and revealing information about real estate topics that matter to you.

• Discuss – As a member you will have access to comment on our articles and all guest blogs. Spark discussion with other members about important topics and news that affects the way you and others do business in the real estate industry.

• Write Blog Posts – Your membership in our community of real estate professionals gives you the opportunity to write and post guest articles on our community blog feature. Got an opinion to say? Have nifty tips and tricks you’d like to share? Perhaps you have learned recent news that affects everyone that you would like to share. Not only can you write and publish guest blogs, but your efforts can help your own online real estate SEO and marketing. Providing a backlink to your own website in your blogs and generating additional SEO content on other sites like RealtyRankings can help you get noticed by search engines even better.

• Network – Through our wide variety of members located throughout North America, you can network with other real estate professionals to promote your business and gain potential leads.

Becoming a member of our RealtyRankings community is free and easy. Sign up today and take advantage of all the benefits that other real estate professionals are enjoying right now.

TWITTER

Twitter has fast become a very successful marketing tool for Realtors. Millions of people have Twitter accounts. Those individuals who are looking to buy homes and commercial property can use Twitter to help them find the perfect location. By following your Twitter account potential clients can get updates on new listings, and featured listings.

On that same token, you as a Realtor can gain a following of people interested in selling and buying real estate, and use your Twitter account to help you sell more properties. How?

• Post a link to a new listing on your website.
• Use your Flickr account to post pics of a listing and share the link on a Twitter post.
• Post a Tweet to a YouTube property video tour.
• You don’t need to write a complete blog post, Just a short helpful hint in 140 characters or less.
• Easily update and check your Twitter status via your mobile device.

FACEBOOK

Facebook is also a great place to promote and market your property listings as a Realtor. Like Twitter, Facebook allows you to gain a following of ‘fans’. But unlike Twitter, you can build a more comprehensive profile that tells more about you, your expertise, and your real estate business. Share updates and links on Facebook just as you would on Twitter and allow your leads to view your listings easily on the internet.

So which one is better for Realtors? It really depends on your style. Many Realtors like the quick and convenience of short Tweets via their mobile device. Others like the more detailed information and community built on Facebook through discussion and comments. Either way, you can use these popular social media sites to build and grow your real estate sales.

Called Google Buzz, this social media spin-off of sorts will soon begin appearing in about one percent of Gmail user accounts. The rest of the Gmail community, according to Google, can expect to receive Google Buzz shortly thereafter.

So, what is Google Buzz and what can it do for your real estate business?

Google Buzz, which features a social media outlet, is part of Gmail. There are currently approximately 150 million Gmail users that may jump into the Google Buzz ring. If you are a real estate professional, the numbers are quite impressive, considering the Internet leads you can snag as a result.

Many industry experts expect Google Buzz to eventually integrate with Facebook, thereby opening up the flood gates in terms of users. There are currently over 400 million Facebook users.

How does Google Buzz work with my Gmail account?

A small tab in an individual’s Gmail account will take users directly to Google Buzz. Once inside Google Buzz, users can post and read, updates, photos and videos. Your “friends” in Google Buzz are the 40 people you communicate with most frequently in Gmail and Gchat.

Does Google Buzz work with other channels?

Yes! You can communicate with Flickr, Picasa and You Tube in Google Buzz. You can even pull in tweets from Twitter, although you can’t send your Buzz updates onto Twitter and other social networks.

How do you send private updates to your Google Buzz followers?

Your real estate private updates are immediately sent off to your Buzz followers, or you may choose just a select group. Real estate professionals may find this feature quite attractive, as you can sort your clients into particular categories and then send Google Buzz updates to only those followers that apply to your message (buyers vs. sellers, for example).

What about sending public updates?

Public updates are immediately posted to your Google Profile and are indexed for Google Search. How’s that for getting your word out to the masses?

The word is that Google Buzz may become quite useful for Internet marketing purposes, provided it evolves into a social media site that communicates with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Below are the top 100 real estate and social media sites. Enjoy!

1. Facebook

One of the fastest social networking sites. Facebook is one of the easiest ways of finding prospective customers within any given area. Using Facebook, we can target very specific groups according to our business needs; such a high level of targeting is not a possibility with other social networking sites or community sites. We can find our customers based on specific set of criteria including place, age etc.

2. Localism

This is a very niche based community site. At Localism, we can interact with the local merchants. This is one of the best examples of social networking at a micro level. People of the same place get together to share the happenings of their community. This community site is not only for the merchants and business people but it is also for common people. Neighborpedia is the extension of Localism.

3. Trulia

This is one of the top-rated sites for marketing any real estate related services. It has been estimated that Trulia attracts around 5 million potential buyers and sellers each month that are interested in real estate property in some way. Trulia Pro offers highly comprehensive marketing solutions for realtors as well as for professionals from the other fields who want to market their brand online.

4. ActiveRain

ActiveRain is one of the few networking sites that are exclusively meant for real estate professionals. We can make use of this real estate community site free of cost and its membership counts to 98,000 and still growing. We can post our profile online using the free membership. Making use of their referral service, it is possible to get in touch with the top real estate professionals and leads from both local real estate market and outside. The referral service allows us to search the local markets within each county.

5. RealTown

RealTown.com is one of the top real estate portals, which serves as a perfect meeting place for real estate buyers and sellers. This site offers a lot of useful resources for the real estate professionals as well as for people that are interested in buying and selling real estate properties.

6. FlippingPap

If you are a real estate investor who is interested in building relationship with other investors then FlippingPad is the place to be. FlippingPad provides a unique opportunity for the wholesalers whereby they can find many prospective leads. We will be able to interact with the investors using the forums. We can post our doubts, take part in discussions, which makes it a very interactive site.

7. LinkedIn

Almost all realtors will have an account in LinkedIn. This is one of the most happening places on the internet. Professionals from all fields want to be part of this network. This is a very sophisticated network with many tools and in built tools that we can use to interact with the other members. You can send invitations for others to join your network and send requests to other members to join their network. People can find us by our name or by using specific industry related keywords.

8. Puurple

Puurple is almost like Digg.com. We will be able to find and vote for posts that are related to real estate.

9. Zillow

Zillow allows us to search for homes in any given locality. We will also be able checkout on the homes that are recently sold out and their prices.

10. Zolve

This is another useful platform that serves as the meeting place for the buyers and sellers from the real estate industry based area.

11. Real Estate Webmasters

Realestatewebmasers.com has an exclusive section for realtors whereby realtors can interact with the local as well as global real estate professionals.

12. WannaNetwork

Wannanetwork.com is one of the high traffic real estate community sites. Here we can create new groups and also join the existing groups. This community networking site allows us to freely interact with the other members interested in the real estate industry. There is a lot of knowledge sharing here.

13. RealEstateForum.com

You can ask real estate related questions in the forums and get your answers. You can also start a discussion on a hot topic or take part in other discussions. You will be able learn a lot about the real estate industry by becoming a member here.

14. Brokeragentsocial.com

This community site has over 20,000 members. It is totally dedicated to the real estate industry. You will find everything relating to this industry from property talk to mortgage.

15. Inman

If you want to find the latest news about real estate industry, this is the first site you should visit. You can also become a member in this site and interact with the other members who share same interests. This site is again all about the real estate industry.

# 16 – 100 I decided to keep to myself, or we’ll add a second post.

Here are two of the biggest social media markets where you can get the most out of your “social” marketing efforts.

YouTube

YouTube offers one of the easiest ways to add video content to the web. With a small video camera and a little editing you can upload short videos of your new listings with a full walk-through and a voiceover discussing the livability of the home. You can even hire a professional video company to produce your short videos that can look just like it came straight out of the Travel Channel.

Posting to YouTube is easy and setting up an account is free. Remember, web users have little patience so keep your videos short and attractive. YouTube also allows you to copy a code to imbed your YouTube video into other web postings such as blogs or comments on other sites.

Facebook

Facebook has become the new MySpace with even more and better features for the average user who isn’t “twenty-something”. Facebook users grow by the thousands everyday and consist of regular people who just want to keep in touch with friends, family, and other important events and groups. That “other” category is where you can shine. Open a free Facebook account and create a profile. Then you can start gaining “friends” which can be anyone who is interested in what you have to offer. You can invite your clients to join your Facebook network. Then post videos and photos of your listings on your Facebook profile. You can even update your profile “status” to let your contacts know about a new and exciting listing.

There are many social media sites available to use as a marketing tool for your real estate website. Explore some of the others and find ways you can utilize them for creative social marketing efforts

Real estate social media establishes a network of possible customers to permeate network marketing. Numerous possibilities to enable the real estate properties to be marketed and to be recognized are achieved through the different social media sites. With the emergence of real estate social media, real estate agents have discovered the significance of maintaining the longest time possible and harmonious relationship with customers. Due to the increased demands for amusing pictures and videos, media sites can generate voluminous and continuous traffic. One perceptible characteristic that separates it from the customary forms of media like the newspaper, radio, books or television is that is permits its viewers to act mutually with each other by way of forums or discussion boards. Real estate agents can display through the use of social media the various real estate properties he/she is selling online.

Real Estate Social Media implement transformations to optimize your real estate website so that your site will have an increased linkability, and it will become more perceptible in social media searches on usual search engines. Likewise, your website will often be included in pertinent posts on blogs, podcasts and vlogs. You can connect with real estate potential buyers using the social media to your benefit and edge. You have to make use of your available resources and use them to support your demographic into possible sales.

Real estate social media made it possible for you to have an enormous improvement and increase in traffic to your real estate website. You must continually post important comments on similar blogs, such as RealtyRankings . It is also a wise idea to advertise your real estate website and use discussion forums to your edge. There are also social networking sites where you can start introducing the real estate properties that you are marketing online. These strategies will definitely widen the opportunity for you to attract potential investors and most importantly, increase you real estate market sales.

If you have built a savvy and well-designed real estate website that offers benefits to your readers and visitors, you can help direct traffic by the truckloads with bookmarking sites such as StumbleUpon, Digg, and Del.icio.us. These websites have millions of members who design their web searches to find content such as yours. Take advantage and make the best of what these website traffic builders have to offer.

StumbleUpon

Create a user account with StumbleUpon.com and post a link to your real estate website. Although StumbleUpon does not condone self-promotion of websites, you can post a link on your account profile, gather friends, and encourage them and others to view your site. Each time a viewer is directed to your real estate website they can rate it “thumbs up” or “thumbs down”. If you can acquire even a handful of positive ratings StumblUpon’s magical algorithm technology can subsequently send hundreds, even thousands, more visitors.

Digg

Digg.com is another social bookmarking website similar to StumbleUpon, but the content on Digg is submitted and promoted by its members. When your real estate website is submitted to Digg, it will become viewed and rated. The websites that receive the best feedback may also appear on the “front page” of Digg, where potentially millions of viewers can suddenly flood to your website.

Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us also uses the power of community sharing to promote websites. With an account at Del.icio.us you save your favorite websites as bookmarks and share them with your friends and others using Del.icio.us. You can save your best article content on Del.icio.us and promote and direct traffic to your real estate website.