Since social media websites began, the conversation among REALTORS® has raged on as to its importance in the business of real estate.  Five years ago, engaging on social media was considered by many in our industry to be a colossal waste of time and resources.

The detractors claimed that viewing pictures of what someone had for dinner last night or playing Candy Crush was never going to help an agent grow their business.  Well, I think we can all agree that if an agent uses social media for those purposes, the naysayers are absolutely right.

However, research groups are now using metrics to assess the importance of social media because we now have a history of how its significance has evolved over time – and the data supporting its impact is indisputable.

In its latest survey of home buyers and sellers¹, the National Association of REALTORS® asked the question of thousands of consumers who recently bought and sold real estate, “How important is agent communications?”  Here is the chart outlining the findings:

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Thirteen percent of consumers now say it is important for their agent to be active on social media.  This may not seem like a big number but consider that when the same question was asked of consumers four years ago, the number was 3%.  For those that don’t want to crunch the numbers that’s a 433% jump in a relatively short period of time.

So now that we’ve determined that there might be something to this social media ‘stuff’, how does an agent use it to their advantage? Continue reading →