I was quietly writing on a different post this morning when an email or two from my buddy Cal Carter kicked me in the butt and made me switch gears.
One of the first principles of internet marketing (and marketing in general) is that you follow the eyeballs. Preferably the RELEVANT (targeted) eyeballs of those who are mostly likely to use you product or influence those who will. Wherever they are find them. Target them. Starting with the highest ROI and working down the list until you have all of the business you can handle.
Why do we optimize for Google vs Yahoo or MSN?
More relevant eyeballs to be had at the least cost. Simple as that.
Why do we use facebook?
Brian Brady showed us in Orlando that you can HIGHLY target niche eyeballs using it. And those coming to Unchained in Phoenix will hear MUCH more about that I am sure.
Would it surprise you if I told you that for the last month or two, over 30% of the traffic to EricOnSearch has come directly from Twitter? (true story…).
That’s what I get for listening to Teri (thanks Teri!!) and finally trying to make solid business use of Twitter! 2 new customers, and much more traffic every day. (Hint: What’s your Tweet / Follower ratio?) That’s the key metric in terms of ROI in my world.
(side note: Do you have the authority (read: credibility) to send 100 people to your blog simply by letting them know that you posted? Here is the BEST question…when they visit, are they impressed enough to link to it? Maybe even to syndicate it?)
Pat Kitano and friends are promoting Social Media conscious marketing as “online marketing without blogging”. Of all of the things I think Pat gets right, this is a point I (humbly) disagree with. Blog is NOT a 4 letter word (contrary to popular belief).
LAZY is. (I don’t wanna blog is too often code for I don’t wanna put effort in. Time to face that truth and call it what it is.) Own that.
I totally agree with him that a LOT of new delivery vehicles for content are going to come to life. Where we part ways is marketing it in a way that says “No need to blog…”. It takes well crafted and attractive content to attract people AND it takes a distribution system to promote it. One does NOT replace the need for the other IMO. I do agree with MOST of his points…just not that one.
EXAMPLE:
I do believe that crowning your content King in 2009 will involve syndication as well…you are going to see more of RSS words like Homescopes and Scenius et al. These are brilliant ways of Top QUALITY content creators (read: BLOGGERS) working together to create bigger microphones for all.
I quote from Pat at Transparent Real Estate:
“The Focus of News Will be Distribution over Creation
Before the Internet and citizen journalism, mainstream media owned the content it created (news, music and movies) and charged a lot for the consumption of that content. The social media now produces a lot of the online content and is disrupting the media industries by pushing the price for content creation towards zero. Online news sources are now positioning themselves to be the most comprehansive “news re-sources” and in 2009 will start steering their readership to authoritative sources who may or may not be their own journalists. Among citizen journalists, real estate bloggers and Twitterers will benefit from the exposure.”
This is right in line with my commentary about Citizen Journalism from a few months ago. I agree with that 100%. NICELY said.
Again though, here’s where I think Pat goes into slight oversteer:
Does that replace websites with listings? Nope. People who Google are NOT per se the same folks you connect with on social media. It does not replace SEO/M. It enhances it. It is simply another channel on the real estate marketing TV set.
Does that replace blogging? NOPE. It facilitates it!
Does it mean that you STILL have to create the best content? YES! (of course)
Social media IMO does not compete with SEO/M at all…except I guess in some peoples’ view that it competes for REALTOR time and dollars. But in the mind of the consumer, they are two seperate beasts. In terms of building authority, they promote each other. In the marketplace of 2009, my take is that you’d better be prepared to go “all in” on both fronts. They enhance, compliment, and help each other.
And should you blog? Yep. Like your marketing life depends on it. (It does.)
And should you participate (smartly) in social media that ACTUALLY has eyeballs? YES. Like your marketing life depends on it.
And should you build a distribution basis for your blogging? Yes. same as above.
And should you have a web presence that ranks well? Yes. It is and will remain the highest ROI activity you can do.
There is NO room for laziness in 2009. The competition will only get stronger. Here’s wishing you ALL a great year! (You included Pat. Please do not take my slight disagreements with you as a major deal. I really did enjoy the post! 😉 )
J Boyer Morristown NJ says:
All great points Eric. I agree that those who don’t want to blog are mainly exhibiting laziness. I really need to see some good examples of REALTORS using Facebook to its greatest advantage though.
January 1, 2009 — 12:24 pm
Brian Kinkade says:
Great post Eric. I am sure glad I signed up for BloodhoundBlog Unchained 2009 in Phoenix. I am eagerly looking forward to learning more “out of the box” marketing techniques and look forward to meeting everyone there.
January 1, 2009 — 1:05 pm
Brian Brady says:
“I am eagerly looking forward to learning more “out of the box” marketing techniques”
Brian, I’m excited you’re coming but I want to clarify something. Nothing we do is REALLY “out-of-the-box”. All we’re really doing here is applying time-tested principles of marketing and salesmanship to new media.
I once said that I joined LinkedIn, back in 2003, as an “end around” to the “do-not-call-legislation”. Let that sink in.
Everything we do is “in-the-box”; it’s just a different box.
January 1, 2009 — 1:15 pm
Todd says:
“…Would it surprise you if I told you that for the last month or two, over 30% of the traffic to EricOnSearch has come directly from Twitter? That’s what I get for listening to Teri ( @TeriLussier )and finally trying to make solid business use of Twitter! 2 new customers, and much more traffic every day.”
Awesome!!!
Flashback:
“Twitter is useless.” – Greg Swann
🙂
January 1, 2009 — 1:31 pm
Pat Kitano says:
Hi Eric,
I agree with all your points. We particularly believe (and always have stated so) that the blog is the most fundamental and important component of a social media strategy. Our approach in promoting a “non-blogging” solution is to get real estate professionals comfortable with social media without the pressure of blogging. After experience with the social media, everybody then understands how critical a blog is to centralize their marketing efforts… and they then have the confidence to start one.
By metaphor, it’s like getting agents to eat their vegetables.
January 1, 2009 — 1:36 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Flashback:
> “Twitter is useless.” – Greg Swann
Never said it, of course. Or, at least, I can’t find a cite.
I might well have said something like “Twitter is a waste of time,” or, “Twitter has replaced the bullpen as the zero-productivity hang-out space for loser Realtors.” If I haven’t, consider that I have now.
The traffic Eric claims is meaningless to me, since, as with Google analytics numbers, bounce rate is everything. But I promise you he could have pulled more than two new clients with more target-focused direct marketing.
New is new, but better is always better. If you want to be sociable, it doesn’t matter very much what you do. If you want to make money, it were well to focus on better.
FWIW, it’s honorable practice to quote verbatim, when you’re disputing with something someone has putatively said, with a link back to the source of the quote. If you’re going to try to undermine me on my own property, at my expense, you might at least do it honestly.
January 1, 2009 — 2:22 pm
Cal Carter says:
Wow Eric, I did not realize twitter had been such a great source of traffic and business for you. It seems like only 5 or 6 weeks ago we were trying to get you on board and we were all trying to figure out what to do with it. I noticed your blog now has a “follow me on twitter” icon, but honsetly did not know what kind of success you were having.
I was getting so distracted twittering with my great networking friends that I was not getting anything else done and coming in to the holidays I quit checking my tweetdeck regularly. That was only 3 weeks ago!
I guess it is time to start tweeting again. Perhaps @gulfshoreslife will get a few more followers from the Bloodhound world and amplify his megaphone as well.
Thanks as always for your great insight and friendship!
January 1, 2009 — 2:57 pm
Susan says:
Eric, I am also amazed at the amount of traffic you get from Twitter. Is everyone really doing alot of twittering and facebook from your ‘smartphone’? I find that a little tedious…call me lazy. 🙁
January 1, 2009 — 6:24 pm
Teri L says:
Eric, here’s what I’m curious about, and you are just the data-wonk to answer this: Is the 30% twitter traffic new? Or just your usual suspects clicking over in a new way as many people use twitter in lieu of a reader.
2 clients? If I had anything at all to do with that, I’m so happy to have helped in that tiny way.
January 1, 2009 — 6:41 pm
Eric Blackwell says:
@Teri L- Not all of it is new..but MOST of it is. Some were people who were “in my sphere” (read: who know me or of me), but had not shown interest before and had not come to my blog before. Providing them a link to a directly relevant post was the ticket. Once they came over for a visit, the conversation started in earnest.
@Susan- I do not use Twitter from my phone and I only tweet once in a while. Most twitterers might find my use of the tool wierd.
@Cal- Yes. It was just a short time ago…and I was pretty anti-Twitter..just like I was anti-registration on websites too…but that is why you try things sometimes, to keep testing where things are at today.
@Pat – I’m a more “Eat your vegetables, doggone it!” sort of coach when it comes to blogging. (grin) It has been my experience that the aversion (vegetables) is to effort as opposed to “blogging”. I know that is a tough thing to say (and some might take offense-I hope not), but as a Technologist in a large real estate office of 110 agents…and as an SEM coach, I feel qualified.
January 1, 2009 — 7:30 pm
Tony Sena says:
I am amazed you are generating traffic from Twitter that has resulted in new clients. Quick question, are the new clients real estate industry professionals that are paying for your seo/sem services or consumers that are in need of representation?
So far from my experience, Twitter seems to be a hangout for real estate industry professionals. So if you are a vendor looking to push your services or products than Twitter would probably be a great tool but I don’t see it being a great tool to find buyers and sellers, but that’s just my opinion.
January 1, 2009 — 8:58 pm
Bob says:
Dead on.
Bounce rate isn’t everything and is a misunderstood and misinterpreted metric, often to the point of being useless.
January 1, 2009 — 9:02 pm
Teri Lussier says:
Bob-
>Bounce rate isn’t everything and is a misunderstood and misinterpreted metric, often to the point of being useless.
I don’t spend a lot of time on google analytics, so I’m not following. Could you explain this a bit further?
January 1, 2009 — 9:14 pm
Pat Kitano says:
Here’s an eye-opener about Twitter’s viral power of distribution. Note at http://tweetburner.com/users/pkitano, every tweet I make with an attached link gets an average of about 50 clickthroughs. It takes me about 1-2 minutes to produce a tweet.
January 1, 2009 — 9:53 pm
Greg Swann says:
> Here’s an eye-opener about Twitter’s viral power of distribution.
What you’re describing is not viral at all. A virus that stops at the second level is not a virus. We have referral trees that are seven and eight levels deep, with some levels stretching out to five or more branches. That’s viral marketing.
> every tweet I make with an attached link gets an average of about 50 clickthroughs.
Bounce rate? Conversion rate? In terms of time spent that leads to a paycheck, Twitter is a suboptimal marketing solution. But: If your objective is simply clickthroughs, you could do a lot better with StumbleUpon. When we kick ass and then get Stumbled, we’ll get over a thousand extra clickthroughs for the day. They’re also without meaning, merit or monetary value, but there sure are a bunch of them.
Eric: My apologies to you, sir. I don’t mean to rain on your parade. I’m sure Twitter is good for many things. But you, Brian and I stood in a room for 45 minutes and made 40 high-dollar sales. That’s target-marketing, and Brian is the hero for setting it up. There’s a difference between fishing for fun and fishing for a living.
January 1, 2009 — 11:09 pm
Cal Carter says:
Greg,
The viral potential is there. For example Matt Cutts twittered a tinyurl of “a year in 40 seconds” yesterday. I received that same link in 2 e-mails.
If a tweet is made and a follower finds the link to be of interest it could very well end up in a e-mail distribution that then goes viral the additional levels you speak of.
Nothing will go viral if it is of no interest. However, if I happen to have 100 followers and 2 of the followers found a tweet to be of some value to their client or friend base, then theoretically those 2 followers could end up broadcasting to thousands of additional people the twithead never would have had access to.
Of those thousands, additional broadcasting could occur the seven and eight levels. The blogging effort (or eat your vegetables) Eric speaks of is already done. The twitter is an additional 140 characters of effort that just might get the message before a whole new group of connections and ends up coming from a trusted source (the ones that rebroadcast the link to clients and friends via e-mail).
I have accessed several twitter post url’s that I found interesting and forwarded to others and from twitheads I did not really have a relationship with of any kind. I through twitter became the distributor of the contagion to the third level via my e-mail distribution not through twitter.
@gulfshoreslife also picked up an additional 4 followers so far from this post, so next time I twitter there are 4 more distribution lists that “may” be the next viral funnel to my content, webpage, blog post, or new listing.
January 2, 2009 — 7:19 am
Eric Blackwell says:
@Tony – Great point. I do not think Twitter is very good at “finding” people as much as getting people who already know me or of me to keep in tune with what I am up to and eventually convert. Point granted.
And you are right that I am not selling homes…but SEO/M coaching. Fair enough. Will it work the same with real estate? I cannot say because I have not tried it. I can tell you that I’d use the same approach and the same metric as a great place to start.
The effectiveness of the tool lies in the ability to get people “who already have chosen to follow me” to take a second and click through to a specific post they find interesting. That generates “relevant traffic” as opposed to “potentially relevant traffic.”
@ Greg – I use stumble for some non RE stuff as well. It can generate tremendous traffic, but more of the browsing kind. I do not disagree that what you and Brian did in 45 minutes was amazing. (and more productive than my efforts with Twitter.) Please note that I did say “Starting with the highest ROI and working down the list until you have all of the business you can handle.”. And the list was not intended to be all inclusive.
I think that point may have gotten lost once I used the “T” word 😉 I should have bolded that. Twitter does not supplant my other activities.
Stumbleupon will no doubt bring more people if it becomes popular…much like Digg…many are just casual browsers. Valid point. But Twitter traffic is more specific in my view. These folks are “following” me.
One is a finding tool and large scale traffic generator(stumble) IMO and the other (twitter) is a ‘keep ’em coming back for stuff they are interested in tool’…
This is your blog…feel free to bring the rain clouds when you like. Your house = Your privilege. Up until recently, I avoided Twitter like the plague as well. As Cal correctly noted above, I was pretty “anti” it for a long time.
I was just noting some success I found along the way.
The main point of this post was that social media (ala twitter, stumble, digg, etc), and some of the great new thinking in RSS syndication ( ala scenious.net and homescopes ) for created content is not a replacement for blogging…but will rather become more and more of a needed item to get good content the RELEVANT eyeballs (and links…and authority) it deserves…outside of the realm of search.
I probably should not have brought Twitter into the discussion since I think it distracted from the overall message.
January 2, 2009 — 7:31 am
Teri Lussier says:
>I probably should not have brought Twitter into the discussion since I think it distracted from the overall message.
Eric, We don’t call it Twittercrack for nothing. It does distract. Who is making twitter work? the gazillion soc media gurus who’s job is to chatter to and distract as many people as possible. But even a hardcore twittercrack addict like me noticed this:
>”And should you blog? Yep. Like your marketing life depends on it. (It does.)
And should you participate (smartly) in social media that ACTUALLY has eyeballs? YES. Like your marketing life depends on it.
And should you build a distribution basis for your blogging? Yes. same as above.
And should you have a web presence that ranks well? Yes. It is and will remain the highest ROI activity you can do.
There is NO room for laziness in 2009. The competition will only get stronger.”
And it hit me right between the eyes. You are one of the people I listen to most, so thanks for cutting through the hype and the crap and offering some solid advice.
January 2, 2009 — 8:48 am
John Sabia says:
Same here. I think that is the twittercrack addiction
January 2, 2009 — 10:04 am
Richard Mongler says:
It’s pretty odd that twitter has grown so huge. It’s becoming the next livejournal.com. The only difference of twitter is posts must be short, which unfortunately prevents someone from giving a detailed post and letting the drama flow like livejournal or a normal blog.
January 2, 2009 — 11:36 am
Jeff Brown says:
Twitter, at least in my experience, is much akin to blogging as it relates to ultimate success — success defined as skinned cats on the wall.
I began blogging and results didn’t happen for about eight months or so, something many bloggers told me was about par. I suspect twitter isn’t much different. I’ve been using it for several months now, and have begun to see concrete results.
I’m using the Brian Brady ‘Trojan Horse’ strategy. Sure, there are investors that have come into the fold, but my real target is real estate ‘house’ agents and loan officers. They’re the ones who end up building the bridges to their own database of current and potential real estate investors.
It’s working, but took months of consistent effort on my part.
The final verdict should be clear by around 2nd quarter’s end.
The early returns have been gratifying in terms of measurable ROI.
January 2, 2009 — 12:59 pm
Bob says:
“But you, Brian and I stood in a room for 45 minutes and made 40 high-dollar sales.”
Sounds like Mike Ferry.
January 2, 2009 — 2:06 pm
Teri Lussier says:
Jeff-
>Sure, there are investors that have come into the fold, but my real target is real estate ‘house’ agents and loan officers. They’re the ones who end up building the bridges to their own database of current and potential real estate investors.
That’s it. The cats you want to skin, your targets, are actively twittering, and perhaps you’ve met many of them either online or offline, and perhaps you’ve met them prior to twittering. You can be a trojan horse.
Perhaps Brad Coy can say his cats are twittering. My cats are not twittering, so it’s simply a time suck. Fun. Fun. Fun. But alas and alack, no cat’s been skinned from my twitter stream.
ERic said it- SMART soc media that actually has eyeballs. It’s smart for you, not so much for me, and I doubt I’m the only one.
January 2, 2009 — 7:18 pm
Jeff Brown says:
Teri — We’re in agreement. Much like the Corvette is great for the single guy, but gets sold when he’s married and she’s preggers, the utility of each SM site is relative, to be kind.
January 2, 2009 — 7:38 pm
Charles Richey says:
For certain types of service providers, I think twitter is invaluable. I look at it as just another traffic source. You can spend a lot of time there, but I think for most real estate professionals that time may be better spent elsewhere.
January 3, 2009 — 9:04 pm
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January 4, 2009 — 12:28 pm