One of the great values that Keller Williams Sonoran Living provides to our agents and partners is access to professional education designed to support your success.

On September 22, 2009, Joan Koerber-Walker shared  Ideas with the team on how to professionally and effectively use social media tools to build your network and your business. 

We’ve asked her to Guest Post here on the on the blog so that you can share in the learning too.  You can also view today’s presentation slide pack by clicking here.

Using Social Media to Build Your Network and Your Business

Joan Koerber-Walker, founder of CorePurpose

I am always incredibly honored to be asked by others how to professionally and effectively use Social Media tools in the business world, but I sometimes wonder… why would they want ME? 

I am not a social media expert. I’m simply a business executive and corporate strategist trying to figure out where all this stuff fits.

I have yet to find all the answers, but one thing has become very clear. 

Social media is simply a tool.

Think about your social media tool kit like a set of screw drivers.  You have different types of screw drivers for different needs.  Sometimes you use them alone or sometimes you use them together.  We use screw drivers as tools to help us…

• Build things
• Take things apart
• Make adjustments
• Fix what’s broken

The same screwdriver can be used to fix a broken electrical socket or to build a nuclear power plant.  It all depends on the the goal you set, the plan you develop, and how you go about executing.

The same can be said about social media.  Websites, Video like YouTube and Vimeo, Blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter are simply tools we use to create conversations, build communities, listen to our customers, and deliver our message.  These tools can help us as business people to do the very same things that the handy screwdriver can do – Build, Disassemble, Adjust, and Fix what’s broken.

Just remember – the tool is NOT the strategy.  It’s simply something you can use to achieve the goals you set.  Your message however IS a key component in any strategy.  It’s how you share what you are trying to accomplish.  That’s where social media fits for business – as a community building messaging tool. 

You simply need to choose the right combination of tools to drive your message home.

Many people’s basic Social Media Tool Box has a selection of tools including:

LinkedIn is for staying connected professionally.  This is were you share your professional credentials, join groups to exchange ideas with peers, and stay connected with professional contacts as they move around during the course of your career and theirs.  Their are two common strategies for using LinkedIn. The first is highly inclusive – you connect to EVERYBODY who asks.  This builds a large list of people in your network, but the depth of  the relationships many not be very very deep.  The second is more exclusive, only connecting to people you actually know well and can honestly recommend to others.  What LinkedIn was originally designed to do.  Either way is fine depending on your strategy, but always keep in mind that your profile on Linked In is directly linked to YOUR professional reputation, NEVER SPAM or sell on Linked In, it’s a great way to ruin your professional reputation.

Facebook started as a place for college friends to stay connected and has expanded to be the place where millions update friends and family on what they are up to .  As Facebook has grown up, businesses have started using it too.  Now there are Facebook Fan Pages that can be set up to share business information.  But it if you are going to use Facebook for business, try to keep any overt selling on your Fan Page and out of your Friend Stream.

Plaxo is your online address book.  While it continues to add lots of new features like groups and connections to Twitter updates, Plaxo is a great tool to invite all your contacts into.  It will remind you of their birthdays, let you know when they have moved or changed their number, and help you stay connected.

Your Blog is where you share information and articles of value to others.  For ease of use WordPress is one of the most popular and easy to use free host sites for bloggers.  Another is Blogger which is owned by Google.  One of my favorite tools for making blogging easier is Microsoft Live Writer.  This free download from Microsoft allows you to create professional looking posts and then easily upload them to your blog with the click of your mouse.

Your Website – Usually the first tool in the tool kit, your web site is your brochure, your resource library – the all in one resource for your business.  Remember, often your website is the first place a customer will look when they are thinking about doing business with you.  Make sure you make a good impression.

Twitter may be last on the list, but it is rapidly rising in importance.  Twitter allows you to expand your reach and connect with more people than ever before.   So if Twitter is the screw driver that can help you link it all together, let’s spend a little more time on this one.

Twitter is a Tool that helps you build connections and engage in conversations with people

Here are some tips for using Twitter as a tool for what it is best at:  Community Building, Customer/Audience Interaction, and Message Delivery.

In any good strategy you start with a goal, develop specific tactics, choose your tools and people resources, establish metrics or milestones, and execute while adjusting as needed.

Twitter, like the screw driver, works best when combined with other tools for more complex projects.  Here is a listing of tools and tips you can use with Twitter to make it more effective.

Community Building:

Twellow is a great tool for finding people with shared interests.  You can search by key words like Information Technology, CEO, Entrepreneur, Leadership…you get the picture.  You can also search by locations (City, State, etc) if you are trying to build community in a specific region.  You can find people you want to follow and if you are offering good content in return, many will follow you back.

Conversely, for the people you might want to avoid – TwitChuck is a good resource.  In a matter of minutes, it can scan your friends and followers to identify known spammers and other inappropriate tweeters like porn sites and bots.  (You can also check your own reputation to ensure that you are considered a ‘Good” person to follow.

As you are getting started, and even after you are well established, Twitter imposes follow limits. These are important to know and understand.  You can read them here.

Be Friendly!  When someone follows you, I believe it is common courtesy to give them a follow back.  If they then abuse the courtesy with spam or inappropriate content – you can unfollow them or even block them so they can not come back later.  To save time you can automate this process using SocialOomph (formerly known as TweetLater.)  This service will automatically follow people that follow you – a BIG time saver.  The service also has a feature for auto replies when people follow you.  This I highly recommend NOT doing.  It is a common practice of spammers and by veteran twitter users is considered very uncool!

And whatever you do – DO NOT SPAM your followers.  The point is to offer helpful information, share ideas, and create value to your followers.  If all you do is talk about your products, your blog, your ideas and never interact with others – people will stop reading your posts very quickly! Even worse, people can block you – ruining your online reputation.

Also, unless you are intentionally forming a closed group – DO NOT protect your tweets.  This is counter to the whole principle of building a community.  Plus for many third party tools, they will not be able  to see them and people will not find or follow you!

Customer/Audience Interaction

OK – you may be thinking – I am looking at this as a BUSINESS tool.  What do you mean it’s not all about me and my product or service! 

Think about twitter as a giant focus group.  As you build a community you have an opportunity to listen to what current or potential customers are tweeting/talking about.  People who follow you have shown some level of interest -  their opinions count!

You can even use Twitter Search to find people who are talking about your company or your product – or your competitors.  Talk about a great market research tool!  Then you can choose to follow them and join the conversation.

Interacting with customers means listening, starting a conversation, and engaging them.  To do this – think about what you want your Twitter brand to be before you start.  It may be that you need multiple profiles for different customer groups, products, or for you corporate message as opposed to that of your CEO for instance.  That was appropriate for me over time and in the end I developed FIVE different Twitter profiles based on the type of information I choose to share.  This post helps explain it.

The first rule of interaction is always – You get what you give.  Follow people, share interesting content, and offer value, and that’s what you will get in return.

Message Delivery

Now we get to the important part – message delivery.  The point of Twitter for business is that you want to START a conversation that can be continued.  Sometimes you can do that exclusively in the twitterverse, but more often that not, you want to be more expansive – that’s where your website, blog, Facebook page, LinkedIn Group, or other social media tools come into play.  You can use Twitter to invite people to view your other content platforms.  Does it work – Absolutely.  Here is an example.

I have two blog sites for my company.  One on TypePad and one on WordPress.  They have exactly the same content and have been around for the same amount of time.  The TypePad Blog gets promoted on Twitter.  The WordPress blog using simple SEO.  Now the real test.  Does Twitter make a difference?  YES!  The TypePad blog has 100 times more RSS subscribers and 500 times more visitors after only 9 months! Oh and my website – CorePurpose.com gets more traffic today that it ever did with managed SEO alone.

How much time does all this take?  I can’t be on  Twitter ALL day!

This sounds like a lot of work and  a lot of time.  But after you get things set up efficiently, it does not have to be.  Personally – my ‘Twitter Time – is less than 2 hours total each day – and that includes all of the reading of the articles and other tidbits I share that I would be accessing anyway.

Here are some of the tools that help me be more efficient.

Twitter itself is not the most user friendly interface for day to day management of large communities.  If you are managing multiple profiles – Seesmic is my tool of choice.  For single profile users, TweetDeck is also a popular alternative.

Going to be away from the computer and want to schedule tweets for a different date or time?  Both SocialOomph and my favorite HootSuite can allow you to put your tweets on autopilot cleanly and professionally.

It’s up to you to determine how much time you give to Twitter.  Just remember you get back what you put into it.

Lastly – if it turns out that Twitter is a key tool for executing your strategy, there are lots of professional out there that can be hired as in house community managers or outside consultants.  These people can help you fast track your Twitter experience and in the long run save you time and hopefully get you towards your goal  faster – plus they can help you stay on top of the latest developments.

This may be one of the longest posts I have written to date- but now you have what you need to get started.  If you want to learn more about my personal journey in trying to figure out how  all this stuff  fits, visit the category section of this blog.  You will find a section on social media and more musings  there.

So does this work for business?  You decide.

For me, my community – between my five Twitter profiles is over 22,000 after 9 months.  My followers are focused on the areas I want to focus on.  My website and blog traffic is up and so is my business.  And, I have made new partnering contacts I could only have dreamed of before.  So for me – It’s been worth the ride.

Thanks for stopping by.  Stay Tuned…

Joan Koerber-Walker

Technorati Tags: Using Social Media for Business,Twitter for Business,LinkedIn for Business,Facebook for business,Blogging for business,Joan Koerber-Walker,CorePurpose

Reality Realtor Trailer from Sarah Bandy on Vimeo.

In times like these, sellers are nervous.  Between what they hear, see, and read in the media plus the economy in general it can be pretty scary.  They need help – qualified help.

The job of a Real Estate Professional in to help the seller understand what the best steps are to be successful their home in in any market.  (Or to assist the Buyer in finding the right property from them based on location, amenities, financial reality, and future resale potential.)

That’s where Real Estate Professional shine. True professionals understand that success is a process.  Follow the process and you get good results.  Cut corners and you may be disappointed.

To stay at the top of our game, we, as Real Estate Professionals, need to follow our own processes and procedures to ensure that our clients get the best service possible.  When we deliver great service, our customers appreciate it and tell their friends.  That leads to referrals, more opportunities, and more opportunities for our businesses.

We All Need Support so We can Support Our Buyers and Sellers.

Anybody who has been in this business for a while will tell you, Shift Happens.  Markets cycle up in good times and down in others.  The trick is to do the right things at the right time to adjust and to have a strong support network of well served clients, a knowledgeable broker, great training resources and a strong support team for your business needs.  Gary Keller, founder of Keller Williams Realty, has a great new book out called SHIFT with lots of ideas that we, as Real Estate Professionals, can use to continue to build our business even when the markets shift down.  You’ll hear some of these ideas in SHIFT Rap, but you also might want to read the book!

SHIFT explores 12 proven strategies for achieving success in any real estate market including:

• Master The Market Of The Moment:
  • Short Sales, Foreclosures, and REOs
• Create Urgency
  • Overcoming Buyer Reluctance
• Re-margin Your Business
  • Expense Management
• Find The Motivated
  • Effective Lead Generation
• Expand The Options
  • Creative Financing

Check it out, follow the process,  and SHIFT your business back into high gear!