By: Dana Harris
Del Mar, California
Dana is AREA’s resident Guru on the practical use of the internet. He can be reached at dana@danaharrishomes.com 1-858-442-5423.
Over 95% of buyers and sellers start their search efforts on the internet. Almost 65% work with the first agent they meet. If they are meeting us on-line we want to make sure we are putting our real face on and that is one of quality, competence and character.
We’ve all done it: signed up on a website and created a profile with the intention of promoting ourselves in the best possible light. There are countless sites: Google, Yahoo, Realtor.Com, Active Rain, Post-let’s, your broker’s site, your personal site(s), all the consumer portals (i.e. Trulia, Zillow, Yelp, etc.) we use to accomplish this very serious and important task.
(How many on-line accounts do you have? Do you know them and manage them all? Have you changed companies in the last year or two? Do you know the passwords?)
These accounts become our on-line reputation and if they contain reviews or testimonials (Trulia, Zillow and Yelp), they can make or break us. Someone once said there is no such thing as bad press. That is just not true when it comes to the internet, especially in our business. Just ask any agent who has discovered something inaccurate or untrue published about themselves on the web.
The growing trend of rating brokers and agents makes this topic even more relevant as consumers have a chance to weigh in on your internet reputation with such ease. Just check out sites like Brokur, Mountain of Agents or Home Thinking.
So what do we do about it?
To begin, it can be as simple as seeing what others find by typing your name in Google and observing what comes up. (Please make sure you consider variations so you may have to add “real estate”, “agent” or your town at the end of the search string (i.e. Dana Harris Real Estate Agent Del Mar). Be thorough, and leave no stone unturned. Then consider ways to fix the problem(s)!
This topic was just covered recently in Inman News, which I highly recommend as an on-going source of information for helping all us navigate in this technical world that requires our utmost personal attention seven days a week.
Next time: “Fixing the Problem.”