Aaron Hoos

Earlier this week I was writing an article about real estate investing and the value of using location-based search and location-based social media for real estate investors.

As I was clicking around to link to relevant sites, I noticed something quite interesting: On the location-based social media side, only Foursquare survives as a strictly location-based social media. Two other sites — Gowalla and Loopt — both shut down in 2012:

• Loopt shut down on March 9th, 2012, after being bought out.
• Gowalla, which was bought by Facebook in Dec 2011, shut down on March 10th, 2012.

In very short order, the race changed. There is a a big marathon of location-based social media and Foursquare, Gowalla, and Loopt were far ahead of the rest, with sites like Facebook and Twitter also offering some aspect of location-based social media as well.

But now Gowalla and Loopt are gone and Foursquare remains as the only real pure-play contender against “consolidated” social media sites like Facebook and Twitter. (And the other location-based social media sites are so far behind right now that they don’t really count).

One pure-play social media site that owns the industry right now. That’s a HUGE opportunity. So what’s going to happen next? All the elements are in place for new competitors to step up and do something exciting in the location-based social media space: Social media is hot, gamification is hot, EVERYONE has a smartphone now and that is driving change in mobile search and mobile marketing.

So I think the location-based social media space is ripe for MORE competitors not fewer.

8 OPPORTUNITIES IN THE LOCATION-BASED SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE

1. Facebook has an opportunity to dominate this space by taking its geotagging up a level, perhaps by combining some of the concepts that Foursquare uses — like recommendations and lists based around the places you are visiting.
2. Twitter has an opportunity to do what Facebook decided not to do — buy a location-based social media site and integrate it. Maybe people can tweet to check-in at locations, and businesses that are ‘registered’ with the location-based side of Twitter can auto-DM deals to the people who have checked in. (Hello! Possible revenue stream, Twitter).
3. It seems to me like Groupon also has an opportunity to extend its reach by offering daily deals to people based on where they are. Groupon can offer more deals and customers who are at a specific location can take advantage of specific relevant deals rather than relying solely on whatever deals are offered that day.
4. Yelp has a similar opportunity as Groupon to invest in a location-based social media site to leverage its database of reviews.
5. What about a time management system that uses location based social media to prompt you to do stuff? (“Hey, you’re at work: Here’s a list of the things you need to do”). Foursquare does this to some degree but it’s not really that cool to check in at work or at home so you miss out on an opportunity to use lists in a meaningful way (and Foursquare’s list system is rudimentary to the point of barely being useful, IMO).
6. Foursquare encourages check-ins and makes it possible for people to see who else is there but it’s not a communication tool like Twitter or Facebook. (You check in on Foursquare and then you text with the people who are there). So there’s an opportunity for existing communication platforms (Facebook and Twitter were mentioned but also texting platforms/smartphones/BBM/etc.) to leverage the location-based aspect to strengthen their service.
7. There’s an opportunity here for the next big location-based social media to own whatever happens after check-in. Ordering? Shopping? Exploring? Working? Socializing? Oh, that reminds me of another idea…
8. Paying. Location-based social media does not need to always be about checking-in. (Yeah, that’s a nice thing but there’s more). Mobile payments are on the horizon and this is an opportunity to help make that happen. So an opportunity to innovate in the location-based social media space might not be to create a new social media site but to find a way to safely integrate mobile payments into a location-based social media so that people who are all together in one place can all spend money at the same time. No, that’s not as weird as it sounds: People split the bills at restaurants all the time; churches take up offering and don’t always need to pass around a plate anymore; timeshares use a group-selling method; seminars can leverage the mass-buying phenomenon to encourage everyone to check-in and buy the “back-of-house” sale, musicians can offer special deals to people who are checked-in at a concert, etc.

When there’s only one pure-play company that is the clear forerunner in an industry, they have a huge target painted on their backs. And, from what I’ve observed, the risk isn’t from businesses that are doing similar things and are farther back in the race. Rather, the risk to those forerunners is from innovators who join the race late and do something surprising and different.

Watch out, Foursquare! Your competition may have disappeared for now but soon you’ll discover some new competitors and they WON’T be the ones you’re expecting.

Disclaimer: This is an unsolicited recommendation. I received no compensation or promotional consideration from the company described below.

Compliance is a sticky issue and a lot of professionals (especially those who work in larger investment firms) are discouraged or even forbidden from participating on social media because of potential compliance issues.

But we live in a socially connected world so those professionals who want to generate leads from the web need to find a way to connect with prospects but ALSO keep the compliance department happy.

I’ve seen a couple different ways that companies do this on social sites:

• There’s the blanket disclaimer that is jammed into the tiny character-restricted profiles on Twitter or Facebook. They all say something like “Historical performance does not guarantee future performance” and “tweets should not be taken as advice”… or something like that.
• There’s the link to the disclaimer in the profile, although if you only have one link it’s kind of disappointing to use only URL to link to your disclaimers instead of anything else!
• I’ve even seen an attempt to jam disclaimers into a tweet in brackets or hashtags. Disastrous!

None of these options are ideal so I was pleasantly surprised when I heard about CMP.LY, a company that is innovating in the compliance space. (If ever there was an opportunity, this is it!!!)

They’ve created a compliance framework — a group of disclosure services specifically designed for different compliance needs.

CMP.LY works like this: You (or your firm) sign up for the level of compliance disclosure you need. You get a unique page where you can place your disclosures. Then, when you post on social media, you can include the short http://cmp.ly/XXXXXX link that alerts readers to your disclosures. (Here’s a generic example specific for finance and here’s another generic example specific for an agent).

I think this is smart: You get a link that is consistent across all of your media but also fairly transparent that it is for compliance purposes. Plus, you can measure the data.

To learn more about the different compliance codes in their framework, and to get some at-a-glance details about how to deploy it across different social media, check out their compliance framework page.

I haven’t seen it widely used. However I appreciate their innovative approach and I think it could become a standard in social media compliance. Could this be the tool that will help your compliance department finally agree to allowing its agents and brokers to use social media?

I was talking to a prospective client late last week. He’s a real estate investor and he was asking me about different sales funnels that I thought were particularly effective for real estate investors. Here’s the answer I gave him:

There are two sales funnels that I really like for real estate investors right now. Each one is perfect for a slightly different audience.

SALES FUNNEL #1: THE BLOG SALES FUNNEL

Sales funnel overview:
Drive traffic > Blog > Newsletters > Become client

Driving traffic to your site: In this sales funnel, you drive traffic to your website through some fairly standard online marketing techniques. Right now I really like press releases and social media for driving traffic. I like articles, too, but because of the recent Google Panda update, I’ve become far pickier in recommending articles as a solution. I’ll only recommend them in certain situations.

Once a visitor is on your real estate investing site: On your website, visitors are greeted with a blog. You blog regularly about topics that are of interest to your audience and you build up your credibility and authority on the topic. You can present yourself as a solution but it needs to be a softer sell. You also prominently feature a newsletter subscription.

Once a visitor is subscribed: Here, you provide even deeper content that makes your subscribers feel like they’re part of an inner circle. You also present more clearly your ability to as a solution to their problem or need.

Buy from you: This is the action that your subscriber takes to contact you so you can help them.

SALES FUNNEL #2: THE SALES LETTER SALES FUNNEL

Sales funnel overview:
Drive traffic > Sales letter > (Newsletter) > Become client

Driving traffic to your site: Just like the above sales funnel, you drive traffic to your website through some fairly standard online marketing techniques. But you can also drive traffic to your site through Google AdWords.

Once a visitor is on your real estate investing site: On your website, visitors are presented with a long-form direct response sales letter and a very clear call-to-action. The call to action can be either a subscription to a newsletter or to contact you. (It depends on what you’re selling. I’ll talk more about this in a moment).

(Once a visitor is subscribed): If the call to action (above) was to subscribe to a newsletter, you would send helpful content to them on a regular basis.

Buy from you: This is the action that your site visitor takes at the end of the sales letter OR it’s the action that your subscriber takes at the end of each newsletter you send them.

WHICH SALES FUNNEL IS BEST?

I presented 2 sales funnels that I really like right now because I think they both can work… it just depends on who your audience is and what you are selling. Here are some ideas to help you choose the right sales funnel for you:

• If your audience is highly skeptical, choose the first sales funnel because you can spend time building rapport with them. For example, if you are a real estate investor who wants to find hard money lenders to help you buy properties, a blog might be good.
• If your audience has a very time-sensitive need, choose the second sales funnel and the call to action of contacting you, because a direct response sales letter will help them move forward quickly.
• If you have helpful content that you can divide into “great for everyone” and “great for only a few people”, then the first sales funnel can work because you’ll want compelling content in your blog and in your newsletter. This doesn’t work for everyone, though.
• If you want to measure the success of your marketing and drive traffic more effectively, use the second sales funnel because Google AdWords tools can help you manage the metrics in your sales funnel far better than a blast of online marketing and social media efforts.
• If your audience is already convinced of their problem or need, use the second sales funnel.
• If your audience is facing a problem or need for the first time and needs to be educated before they can choose your services, use the first sales funnel.
• If your message has a certain amount of exclusivity to it (i.e. you do something completely different than everyone else), use the second sales funnel.

Storify.com is a social media tool that enables users to pull together snippets of social media from several sources (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, and more). Users bring different social media together into one “Story” that can be published and shared.

This provides yet another point of differentiation for real estate professionals who want to establish their expertise in a particular town, city, neighborhood, or community. Storify.com can help real estate professionals to sell more homes by giving potential buyers an overview of what makes that particular community so special.

Once you’ve created a Story, you can publish it, share it across other social media, and embed it on your websites.

Check out the example Storify.com Story I created to demonstrate the potential: How real estate professionals can use Storify.com to sell more homes (opens in a new tab/window).

Storify.com is free to sign up for and use (and if you have a Twitter account, you don’t even need to create another account). You can create as many stories as you want. Why not create the following stories:

• Create a Story about the city or town you live in so you can link to it for your out-of-town buyers.
• Create several Stories about the community (or communities) you specialize in. Introduce potential buyers to the area — where all the schools and shopping malls are. Embed videos of a drive down a typical street so visitors to your Story can get a sense of what the area is like. Interview local business owners and residents about the area and post videos in your story.
• Create a Story about yourself, pulling snippets of social media where other people talk about you.
• Create Stories that are linked to target markets like first time home buyers, young families, growing families, empty nesters, retirees, etc. For example, show the top three neighborhoods in the city that are perfect for families with young children.
• … and more!

There are so many possibilities and you’ll discover new opportunities as you mix and match social media in new and interesting ways!

It seems like every time I open my email inbox, I find an invite to yet ANOTHER social network. Most of the time they get deleted.

Don’t get me wrong. I like social networks. But I primarily use 4 social networks – Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and LinkedIn and ignore the rest. (Check out my blog post 13 sites I can’t live without).

I don’t sign up to more social networks because the purpose of social networking is not ubiquity; it’s depth. You don’t have to be on every social network. Rather, you should be an active participant in a few social networks. Signing up (and never using) social networks is a mile-wide/inch-deep problem. You can connect to everyone everywhere but you’re only connected to them; you’re not actually connecting with them.

The purpose of social networks is to effectively connect with them by connecting/following/friending and then diving deep into that connection… that’s the purpose of social media even if you run a business.

In order to effectively connect with people in social media, there are three essential activities you need to do:

3 ESSENTIAL ACTIVITIES: ENGAGE, BUILD CREDIBILITY, ADD VALUE

The three essential social media activities are to engage people, build credibility, and add value. You need to perform these activities in this order. As well, these are cyclical activities in that you need to keep doing them over and over:

1. Engage: Get to know the people in your network. Take time to learn about them. Listen to what they have to say. Take an interest in the things that they are interested in.
2. Build credibility: Without bragging, demonstrate that you know what you are talking about. Connect with industry experts. Quote them. Comment on them. Discuss your industry. Talk about your accomplishments (sparingly and humbly, of course).
3. Add value: Make it worthwhile to listen to you. Provide tips and advice. Be selflessly helpful. Be generous. Share.
4. (Repeat).

By doing these three things over and over, you’ll connect with your audience and become a valuable part of their social network. They’ll come to recognize you as someone who is worth listening to. And when that happens, you’ll have influence and authority and all of the great stuff that comes with being a go-to person.

HOW TO ENGAGE, BUILD CREDIBILITY, AND ADD VALUE

Okay, I’ll be honest: I don’t do these things really well all the time. Sometimes I rock out all three activities, sometimes I’m mediocre at a couple of these activities, and sometimes I suck at them. I’d like to show you a tool I use to help keep me on track so I can focus on connecting with people effectively.

First, you should have some idea about what you want to accomplish with your social networks. Check out my blog post entitled Your social presence map: How to define what to share and what not to share on the social web. Create a social presence map to analyze which social networks you use and how you use them.

Then, create a chart that looks like this with the three essential social media activities listed across the top:

And down the left side, write down the names of the social networks you want to use for business. I’ve listed the social networks/social media sites I use for business (and I included my blog because blogs are considered part of social media even though it may not technically be a social network).

Now, just work column-by-column through the chart to figure out what you need to do in each social network to perform that essential activity.

You’ll see below that I’ve listed “Questions”, “Replies”, and “Retweets” as an engagement activity for when I use Twitter. By this I mean that I want to ask questions, reply to people, and retweet tweets that I think are valuable. Do this for each social network site.

Next, fill out the next column by listing credibility-building activities you can do in each social network. For example, in LinkedIn, I can build credibility by sharing links, answering questions, participating in groups, and connecting with experts.

Then, fill out the last column of ways to add value to the people in that social network. For example, on my blog I’ve made a note to make sure that each blog post ends with a to-do and that I create downloadable content that people might find useful.

Fill out each cell. Some will be easy to fill out and some will be more difficult to fill out, but try to fill them out. See what other people are doing to perform that activity in their social network and look for ways to adopt the same ideas for yourself. Push yourself to go beyond the obvious to discover innovative ways to perform each activity. And don’t forget that you can often link social media together so that an activity in one network can also be an activity in another network!

ONCE YOU’RE DONE, PUT THESE IN YOUR SCHEDULE

I love to use social media. But I have my faults: When I get really busy, I neglect my networks. Plus I sometimes forget to listen to people or to be intentional. I wish that all of the things listed in the chart above were second nature. But they’re not.

Yet.

Until they are, I try to put these tasks (or at least SOME of these tasks) into my schedule so I remember to do them. For example, I make it a point to read a minimum number of Quora questions every day. And I try to make sure that I’m retweeting content. I don’t want to be strict about it (“I must retweet 5 tweets per day”) because it’s not a formula for success. However, I recognize that I don’t always do the things at all I should be doing them. So by adding these tasks to my schedule, I can be more intentional intentional about connecting with my network. And I’ve found that there comes a point when it does become second nature and you can remove it from your schedule without removing it as a habit.