If you have not noticed, traditional advertising is dying.
We get hit with thousands of messages a day, so it is easy to understand why we just zone out. We kind of TIVO all the ads away.
Our trust of Authority is at an all time low. Not only do we not trust advertisers, we do not trust our leaders. Just when you can feel bad for President Bush's ratings which are 24% for his handling of Iraq while Congress hit an all time low of 3%.(Zogby)
Wow! So who can we trust if not our elected leaders (dim your laughter please)? Certainly a priest. Nope. They get just a trustworthiness of 6.9. (scale 1 to 10 by Univ Mass study). It gets worse. Teachers are only 7.3%. It was only ten years ago that they were at 9.0 and 9.2 respectively.
So who do we trust?
Family and friends.
So how does this help us sell more real estate?
93 % of the 3,400 respondents ages 13 and older indicated that they were swayed to take action because of word-of-mouth persuasion.
According to eMarketer, by 2001 34.4 million Adult Americans will become Internet Word of Mouth Influencers. That means 20% of all total adult web user population.
Some might argue the democratization of the web is upon us. Well maybe. But how does that put money in your pocket?
I intend on writing a white paper soon that will detail the end of the internet as we know it. The theme will be that in order to survive as a Realtor online, you will have to create your own content. If done correctly, your content can catapult you to levels of authority over your market unseen in the past. It is authority that will differentiate you in a very crowded field of competitors. Stay tuned.
