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.
Zillow "Guess-Idiots" appear to rely on public tax records that in some cases haven't been updated in twenty-five years. The zestimator is a sketchy tool to rely on. I believe it's best to use a Professional Realtor when appraising property.
Posted by: Ron Asteak | August 10, 2007 at 07:56 PM
I am very intersted in this subject and would be interested to read your article whe n you finish writing it.
As many of us become totally emersed in the ways to reach the Internet Empowered Consumer, it is still a wide open field that most REALTORS have yet discover the answer to.
Viral marketing comes to mind and real lack of ideas of how best to interact with the IEC.
I am currently looking to discover ways mayself that would make me stand out against competitors, and it is not as easy as one would suppose.
Posted by: William Johnson GRI CRS e-PRO | August 15, 2007 at 10:55 AM
Getting a recommendation from somebody you trust & know will always hold a lot more weight than an advertisement. We've been brainstorming on how to make this work with real estate sales for awhile now. Very tricky, but possible. Maybe allowing people to rate real estate agents?
Posted by: Oahu Real Estate | August 23, 2007 at 05:55 PM