Embarking on a social networking strategy can be a scary task for some real estate agents.  To blog or not to blog?  How can you effectively market yourself and your listings?  Does anyone ever see real results from their efforts?  Yes, but the key is to take that initial step and maximize your efforts.

Several EXIT Realty agents use the popular real estate social network, Active Rain where you can easily set up a free blog and start to network with potential customers and your colleagues from across town or across the country.   But does it work?  Do agents actually realize a concrete benefit from this activity? 

Andrew Perkins, a Sales Representative with EXIT Realty Metro in the Halifax, Nova Scotia area says, "I have been blogging on Active Rain for about 6 months now.  I have to admit I am no literary genius for sure but I figured if I kept at it I would only get better.  For the first few months nothing was happening but I keep posting blogs.  I like to post on market stats, this way I keep informed of what is happening in our market.

"About a month ago I had a client contact me through the Active Rain contact form.  He invited me to his house to present my marketing plan to get his income property sold.  I was not up against any other agents and signed the paperwork that night and the listing was on the market the next day.  Within 2 weeks I brought a buyer to the property and he wrote an offer.  Just yesterday the deal went firm.  I double ended the property all from the lead form on Active Rain.  I also am working with another lead that is looking to purchase a condo.  Not bad for blogging a couple a days a week.  If anyone thinks that blogging doesn't work I am proof that it does."  

Okay, so some agents are depositing real money in the bank as a result of their social networking efforts.  So now let's take it up a notch and combine two great technologies to maximize your efforts. 

Recently Tom Emmendorfer, Co-Founder of the company behind EXIT e-Listings, Frank D'Angelo, Broker/Owner of EXIT Realty Executives in MN and Susan Harrison, Sr VP Web Development for EXIT Realty Corp. International co-hosted a webinar showing EXIT agents how, in just a few minutes a week, you can easily ramp up your electronic marketing efforts and learn how to marry the cutting-edge technology of EXIT e-Listings with the power of social networking.

EXIT e-Listings creates a suite of marketing tools including narrated internet tours, listing websites, call capture lead generation, webcasting and several other multi-media products with just one online entry. One of these tools is an embeddable flyer. By copying the code for this flyer from EXIT e-Listings and pasting it into the HTML editor of your Active Rain blog you can automatically increase exposure for your listings!  Photos, narrated virtual tour, and more are all instantly available online, and most importantly for buyers searching for properties, regularly indexed by Google® and other search engines by simply copying and pasting.  Here's an example.  EXIT agents can view the recorded webinar and find out more about EXIT e-Listings by clicking here and logging into the EXIT Resource Center. 

After attending the webinar, EXIT On Time Realty Broker/Owner Rondi Lambeth, commented, "I attended the class yesterday and  I applied what Frank taught. This morning my [EXIT] e-Listing viewings have gone up. I had more viewings yesterday than the entire previous month!  [Also] I went into Active Rain where I was ranked 1387 out of 4133 and after one hour of [EXIT] e-Listings blogging I was ranked 113. I then spent a few more minutes putting the rest of my listings into Active Rain as a blog and now I am ranked 88!"

So if stepping into the social networking arena is on your to-do list, take this small step and utilize the tools already at your finger tips.  If you do, you'll find that social networking doesn't have to be scary after all.