Pat Kitano talks about how social media is changing real estate in 2010.
1) Curation is the new marketing.
At Media Transparent, I called this “Curation is the new Syndication”. Positioning yourself as the community conduit curating local real estate news to your client base is the new marketing. Mass media used to rule syndication, now anybody can curate and present content across a panoply of social media platforms. Curating breaking news is key to readership – it’s the reason why people follow CNN, Marketwatch or engadget. Twitter has distinguished itself as the forefront application for breaking news, and anybody can use Twitter Lists to curate Twitter feeds by topic, geography and industry. Curation tools, like Outside.in Publisher for hyperlocal news, are being developed for local content publishers.
2) Facebook is the new website.
25% of all pageviews in America today are on Facebook.Although writing a blog is the best way to propagate ideas and expertise, it’s only one piece of a comprehensive online presence. More people we will be exposed to and read blog articles through Facebook and their brethren social networks over actually visiting the blog site itself.
3) Posterous.com is the new blogsite.
Principally because Posterous makes news curation easy (see #1 above)
4) Video becomes an accepted media of communication.
Online video has been a tricky proposition for real estate professionals because viewers have consciously (and unconsciously) set video production standards at TV quality levels. Amateurish or adhoc attempts at video production can make a bad impression. The spawning of localized video production companies like TurnHere and more locally, I Sell Boston TV are servicing the need for quality production.
Everybody intuitively knows that video is the perfect media for describing real estate, neighborhoods and local news. Video is easy to post on Posterous, Facebook and Twitter, and in 2010, savvy real estate agents are free to use video liberally to deliver messages without spending resources on production.
5) Local business will be live and die on review systems.
Review systems are the hyperlocal killer app. Why are reviews at the consumer tipping point? Mobile apps like iPhone’s Yelp application make it easy to post reviews on the spot. Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Yelp (see screenshots) all have commercial utility because they contain enough reviews to be credible. In fact, there are now so many real estate agent reviews, that it’s become critical to maintain a 5-star review!
6) Alert systems, like program trading in stocks, become the critical component to any asset transaction.
The real time web is pushing business society into a new value paradigm that rewards those who can react instantly and systematically to opportunities. Mobile devices eventually won’t need “refreshes” to alert; they are always on and by extension, almost coerce its owner to be “always on”. 2010 will be the year consumers demand alerts from their broker/agents, but very few agents know how to set up simple alert systems for their client base. Reason? 99% of agents still focus on the sale over the service they provide to their clients to get to the sale.
7) Webinar ubiquity.
Webinars are social media too. They are already changing the landscape on how people meet for business on the cheap, and worry the airlines. Virtual socializing is the natural evolution to social networking because it’s location independent. The best example in the real estate world are Real Estate Tomato produced virtual REBarCamps that aggregate speakers and audience together in a virtual national conference.
The recession and the death of retail is altering consumer perceptions on how they do business.
It’s a foregone conclusion across the media that commercial real estate will continue to flounder in 2010. The recession has gotten consumers used to searching for deals,and the best deals are now online without the retail markup. Retail is resigning itself to accommodating the online buyer with bricks and clicks models that turn retail outlets into showrooms. It’s easy to extrapolate the business of real estate brokerage to the economic climate of downsizing. The accelerating acceptance of online commerce by the consumer just reinforces the common refrain: “they’re all online, so you should be there too”.
9) A new era of open social media.
Facebook and LinkedIn are closed networks simply because they require confirmation of“friend” status. Frankly, it’s just too much manual clicking to accept a lot of friends. Twitter has distinguished itself as an open network that can amass networks of millions of followers, and is the application closest to a personal broadcast media. Facebook certainly sees the power of massive networks (being the biggest one itself), and in order to compete with Twitter’s broadcast power, will unveil similar broadcast functionality. Simply put, in 2010 Facebook will create an opt-in setting that allows users to open their status updates to anybody who wants to follow them. Becoming a Facebook Fan today is similar but statuses can’t be filtered within the main feed. Once 350+million Facebook broadcast systems are potentially unleashed, they can be curated categorically like Twitter Lists and conversations more conveniently filtered. Yes, Facebook already has Friendfeed as the model, but it needs to be simpler to use, and will likely cede to a new Facebook open network product. Once networks open up, conversations become even more multi-channel than they are today.
10) Social networking becomes a true coffee shop experience.
Just one year ago, people were complaining about Twitter noise and their relevance of its conversations about what they’re eating at that very moment. Then in March, Facebook launched their live news feed that updated conversations in real time. By year’s end, most of the conversations on Facebook are now strikingly personal, with uploaded pictures of that evening’s dinner accompanied by a flurry of comments. I, for one, didn’t see this trend. The “coffee shop” conversation is a form of social intimacy that works to cement relationships. Does it work for lead generation? Generating new relationships is what social media does best, so the answer is likely a soft “yes”. The only problem I see is the time committed to chatting. The message has now become the media.
1) Curation is the new marketing.
At Media Transparent, I called this “Curation is the new Syndication”. Positioning yourself as the community conduit curating local real estate news to your client base is the new marketing. Mass media used to rule syndication, now anybody can curate and present content across a panoply of social media platforms. Curating breaking news is key to readership – it’s the reason why people follow CNN, Marketwatch or engadget. Twitter has distinguished itself as the forefront application for breaking news, and anybody can use Twitter Lists to curate Twitter feeds by topic, geography and industry. Curation tools, like Outside.in Publisher for hyperlocal news, are being developed for local content publishers.
2) Facebook is the new website.
25% of all pageviews in America today are on Facebook.Although writing a blog is the best way to propagate ideas and expertise, it’s only one piece of a comprehensive online presence. More people we will be exposed to and read blog articles through Facebook and their brethren social networks over actually visiting the blog site itself.
3) Posterous.com is the new blogsite.
Principally because Posterous makes news curation easy (see #1 above)
4) Video becomes an accepted media of communication.
Online video has been a tricky proposition for real estate professionals because viewers have consciously (and unconsciously) set video production standards at TV quality levels. Amateurish or adhoc attempts at video production can make a bad impression. The spawning of localized video production companies like TurnHere and more locally, I Sell Boston TV are servicing the need for quality production.
Everybody intuitively knows that video is the perfect media for describing real estate, neighborhoods and local news. Video is easy to post on Posterous, Facebook and Twitter, and in 2010, savvy real estate agents are free to use video liberally to deliver messages without spending resources on production.
5) Local business will be live and die on review systems.
Review systems are the hyperlocal killer app. Why are reviews at the consumer tipping point? Mobile apps like iPhone’s Yelp application make it easy to post reviews on the spot. Google Maps, Yahoo Local and Yelp (see screenshots) all have commercial utility because they contain enough reviews to be credible. In fact, there are now so many real estate agent reviews, that it’s become critical to maintain a 5-star review!
6) Alert systems, like program trading in stocks, become the critical component to any asset transaction.
The real time web is pushing business society into a new value paradigm that rewards those who can react instantly and systematically to opportunities. Mobile devices eventually won’t need “refreshes” to alert; they are always on and by extension, almost coerce its owner to be “always on”. 2010 will be the year consumers demand alerts from their broker/agents, but very few agents know how to set up simple alert systems for their client base. Reason? 99% of agents still focus on the sale over the service they provide to their clients to get to the sale.
7) Webinar ubiquity.
Webinars are social media too. They are already changing the landscape on how people meet for business on the cheap, and worry the airlines. Virtual socializing is the natural evolution to social networking because it’s location independent. The best example in the real estate world are Real Estate Tomato produced virtual REBarCamps that aggregate speakers and audience together in a virtual national conference.
The recession and the death of retail is altering consumer perceptions on how they do business.
It’s a foregone conclusion across the media that commercial real estate will continue to flounder in 2010. The recession has gotten consumers used to searching for deals,and the best deals are now online without the retail markup. Retail is resigning itself to accommodating the online buyer with bricks and clicks models that turn retail outlets into showrooms. It’s easy to extrapolate the business of real estate brokerage to the economic climate of downsizing. The accelerating acceptance of online commerce by the consumer just reinforces the common refrain: “they’re all online, so you should be there too”.
9) A new era of open social media.
Facebook and LinkedIn are closed networks simply because they require confirmation of“friend” status. Frankly, it’s just too much manual clicking to accept a lot of friends. Twitter has distinguished itself as an open network that can amass networks of millions of followers, and is the application closest to a personal broadcast media. Facebook certainly sees the power of massive networks (being the biggest one itself), and in order to compete with Twitter’s broadcast power, will unveil similar broadcast functionality. Simply put, in 2010 Facebook will create an opt-in setting that allows users to open their status updates to anybody who wants to follow them. Becoming a Facebook Fan today is similar but statuses can’t be filtered within the main feed. Once 350+million Facebook broadcast systems are potentially unleashed, they can be curated categorically like Twitter Lists and conversations more conveniently filtered. Yes, Facebook already has Friendfeed as the model, but it needs to be simpler to use, and will likely cede to a new Facebook open network product. Once networks open up, conversations become even more multi-channel than they are today.
10) Social networking becomes a true coffee shop experience.
Just one year ago, people were complaining about Twitter noise and their relevance of its conversations about what they’re eating at that very moment. Then in March, Facebook launched their live news feed that updated conversations in real time. By year’s end, most of the conversations on Facebook are now strikingly personal, with uploaded pictures of that evening’s dinner accompanied by a flurry of comments. I, for one, didn’t see this trend. The “coffee shop” conversation is a form of social intimacy that works to cement relationships. Does it work for lead generation? Generating new relationships is what social media does best, so the answer is likely a soft “yes”. The only problem I see is the time committed to chatting. The message has now become the media.
Pat’s a friend of mine and I have heard him talk about this and it leaves my head spinning. He’s about 2 years ahead of the curve on this type of new social media. Anyone considering doing a breaking news site should consult with Pat before they start their campaign.
For sure David. What a great person to know personally. I would love to pick Pat’s brain. He is definitely on the cutting edge.
Thanks for the post! It’s very much appreciated.