Are you on Facebook? Do you do business through it? If so, we want to hear about how you’ve leveraged this social network.

Specifically, we’re looking for your personal experiences with and insights on the following:

• What are the most important steps to take in creating a Facebook fan page for your business or brokerage?
• How can real estate pros be good “friends” on Facebook?

To share your ideas on these topics, contact Online Editor Brian Summerfield at bsummerfield@realtors.org.

Online community building expert, Chris Brogan wrote an interesting article last week on what he would do if he was a REALTOR®. I disagree with his strategy not to talk about work, but that’s another post for another day. What I really like about his post is its focus on building online communities hosted by a REALTOR®

I’ve often been quoted from a presentation I did at SPARKt a year ago with regard to the rules of participating on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I compared them to church. Why do you go to church? Is it to play bingo? Do you go for the free crackers? Do you go so you can talk with your friends about football? What about this: Do you go to sell real estate? If you said yes to any of the above, you’re going to hell. You go to church to worship. If all that other stuff happens secondary to worshiping, great! But worshiping is why you’re there.

Online social networks are like any other social network (church, the Rotary or an Elk’s Club…). The key is to identify the rules for that network and work within them.

Consumers don’t turn to Facebook to find a new home. They might use it to find an agent. But if you did your job outside of the sales cycle, that consumer will already be connecting with you on your own social network when they’re ready to buy a home.

The most important social network to participate on is your own.

You make the rules on your own social network. You decide how many times you will ask for their business. You decide how much or little you will talk about work. On your own social network, you don’t just participate in conversations, you shape them.

Do you have your own social network? I see some people using Facebook pages as their own network. I see agents using hosted services like Active Rain and RealTown as their own network as well. But who makes the rules on those networks? Who creates and manages the TOS? Who establishes the unwritten rules? Think about it. It’s probably not you.

Building you own network online.

Blogging is the original gangster of online social networking. Yes, it takes a lot more work and expense than a Facebook page. Yes, it takes a lot more work to draw readers to an independent blog, than it does on a hosted network like Active Rain. But on your own blog, YOU make the rules. In my personal opinion, independent real estate agents using a self-hosted blogging platform to create their own social network are the ones most likely to succeed in social media marketing.

Their are several good platforms for this, but WordPress is fast becoming the standard. You can start blogging for free, easily move to a more robust self-hosted platform, and eventually integrate tools like an IDX or education.com API’s into your site. There’s no practical limit to what you can do with the platform, and most important, you make the rules. WordPress powers this blog. We used an affordable predesigned theme from Brian Gardner, who also designs WordPress real estate blog themes.

As you develop your social networking strategy, concern yourself less with the latest tools like posterous, or Facebook fan pages, and concentrate on developing a strategy where all of your efforts on other social networks eventually lead consumers to your own.

Our review of the top real estate developments in this decade rolls on with a look at the eighth-ranked entry:

#8: RE.net

Recall, for a minute, what the Internet was like at the beginning of the ‘00s. Many of today’s most popular sites, including Amazon, Craigslist, and Google, were still trying to establish themselves online. Several others hadn’t even been launched yet. There was no Facebook, no Twitter, no LinkedIn, no YouTube, no Wikipedia, no Flickr … you get the picture.

Throughout this decade, though, the Internet got social. New tools were developed that allowed people to find each other, have conversations, and share ideas online. They could form groups based on their line of work, lifestyle, location, and hobbies, or just connect virtually with their existing network of family, friends, and colleagues.

Not surprisingly, many real estate professionals realized these Web platforms offered an incredible array of opportunities for marketing and prospecting, personal development, and transaction assistance. They also realized that others like themselves were flocking to the Internet to try out these new tools, and they started talking to each other via online social networks.

The result of all this is RE.net, a term that encompasses the various nodes of real estate-focused networks spread across the Web. It includes practitioner blogs, individual profiles and groups on large social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn, and real estate-specific social networks like RealTown and Active Rain.

One of the best things about RE.net is its diversity. There’s something for everyone here. You can find real estate news and commentary that’s fresh, irreverent, tip-filled, humorous, cutting-edge, interesting, tech-oriented, design-focused, local, national, and idiosyncratic.

It appears to be a long-term trend as well. Many of the developments in real estate on this list may not be major issues in the coming decade, but RE.net will probably continue to be very important for the real estate industry in general. We may not be using the same platforms and technologies that we are now, but my sense is that the online networks that comprise RE.net will only grow in significance over the next 10 years.

Other Major Real Estate Developments of the Decade

1. Housing Goes Boom and Bust

2. The Fall of Fannie and Freddie

3. Government-Led Recovery

4. The Practitioner Explosion

5. Commercial Crash

6. HVCC

7. Record Lows in Mortgage Rates

9. Real Estate on TV

10. Going Green

If you want to become recognized as your neighborhood’s real estate expert, you should create a fan page for it on Facebook, advises Max Pigman, vice president and national speaker at REALTOR.com®. Pigman talked about how to get some marketing traction via social media in a Friday morning session at the 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo in San Diego.

He said that real estate pros can “take over” their neighborhoods if they create a fan page, invite residents to join it, and post updates regularly about community events and local real estate and development trends.

“This becomes the perfect place to assert that you’re the real estate expert for your area,” he said. “Every time you send an update, everyone can see it. If you get strategic with this, you can connect with your sphere at an unbelievable level.”

Real estate professionals might be tempted to use this page to churn out listings. This is a mistake, Pigman said. While you can create a fan page for your business and post listings there, it’s not advisable when you’re trying to build a sense of community via a neighborhood fan page.

In general, conventional marketing techniques don’t work well on social networks, he added. This can be problematic for many real estate practitioners, who are accustomed to “interrupt marketing”—i.e., regular advertising breaks in TV shows, radio programs, and print news.

“I still see REALTORS automatically shoot their listings into the status feed,” Pigman said. “We’re really missing the boat here. We’re not thinking about engagement, we’re thinking about advertising. We think, ‘Hey, it’s free eyeballs.’”

When it comes to social networking, you should convey authenticity and passion with regards to your personal and professional interests and be genuinely interested in learning about others, Pigman said.

“Be willing to share some personal information,” he explained. “People want to know that you have a life outside of real estate. I’m not saying you can’t ever talk about real estate. I’m just saying you need to turn it into a conversation.”

Social media should be used to create communities and not to push listings out. You wouldn’t go to church to hand out your listings, and therefore, you shouldn’t do it through your Facebook page.

That was one of the main arguments presented by Ginger Wilcox, GRI, Kelley Koehler, and Mariana Wagner—all experts with the Social Media Marketing Institute—at the Introduction to Social Media session at the 2009 REALTORS® Convention & Expo this morning.

The panel advised real estate pros to think about using social media to connect with people to build relationships that will eventually lead to communities. If you show an interest in the people you serve, they will refer back to you. It’s also important to work on quality of your sphere and the information you are broadcasting, instead of the number of Facebook friends or the number of Twitter followers you have.

The trio came up with some best practices to follow for the different social media applications:

LinkedIn.Com

1. Build a Profile – “If you don’t put a profile up, it’s like having a listing with no photos or information,” Wilcox said.
2. Personalize Your Requests – When you ask someone to join your network, write a short note to remind them of who you are.
3. Get Recommended – After you finish a transaction with a client, ask them to recommend you.
4. Join Groups – Seek out groups in your community, such as the local boards of organizations you serve on or non-profits you work with.
5. Make Two Recommendations a Week – You have to give a little in the social media world to get back.

Facebook.com

1. Connect with your Community – Listen and engage your network in a way that establishes trust.
2. Create Awareness – Build a business fan site.

Twitter.com

1. Talk to People – Use the @ symbol in your tweets to reply to other users.
2. Re-Tweet – If you think a tweet is good, then send it out with the letters “RT” before it.
3. Hash it – Use the # and word or phrase associated with a particular subject when you’re making comments about it (for this event, it’s #nar09).
4. Tweet Up – Arrange for a group to get together for cocktails just by sending a message through Twitter.

Blog

1. Establish One – 92 percent of all local Internet searches eventually result in a sale.  Every blog post you create is one more way a customer can find you through the Web.
2. Use a Template – No need to start a custom blog. REALTOR.com®, wordpress.com, and ActiveRain.com all have easy-to-use blogging formats.
3. Write – Often practitioners struggle with what to write about. Wagner recommends answering frequently asked questions by consumers, posting market reports, adding neighborhood profiles, and giving buying and selling tips.
4. Keywords – In order to help your search-engine ratings, it’s important to use key phrases such as: (Your Area) Real Estate, (Your Area) Homes, and How much is my (Your Area) home worth?
5. Keep It Short – Write small, digestible posts, with bulleted lists, photos, and links.  Make sure you ask questions and call your readers to action (they will respond).

More REALTORS® are using social networking for their business than ever before, according to data in a recent report released by the Center for REALTOR® Technology (CRT).

The study, conducted in June, found that 84 percent of 1,189 respondents use some sort of social networking tools, a significant increase from 33 percent in 2008. Twenty-eight percent say they are comfortable with it and another 27 percent are somewhat comfortable.

The most popular Web site was Facebook, with 76 percent saying they use the site, followed by LinkedIn with 58 percent. Other popular sites include Twitter, ActiveRain, RealTown, Flickr and Talk.REALTOR.com.

The vast majority –76 percent of those surveyed — say they are looking to engage with consumers through social media sites. The report also shows that REALTORS® use social networking to connect with other REALTORS®, REALTOR® organizations, real estate vendors, and family and friends.

In terms of social networking’s effectiveness for business, 25 percent of real estate professionals surveyed say they find it effective or very effective, 38 percent say the sites are somewhat effective, 11 percent didn’t find the Web sites effective at all, and 26 percent are still unsure.

A total of 59 percent say they seek out new technology for their business through real estate Web sites, and 57 percent say they find value in the technology provided by their broker.

Forty-eight percent of respondents want their broker to expand the technology provided, including training on technology tools, blog hosting, leads, Wi-Fi, and tech support.

To read the entire technology survey — which includes data related to lead generation, mapping, relationship building, and security — visit www.realtor.org/technology/crt_web/crtsurvey.

A friend sent me this article from The Washington Post, which basically outlines how Facebook plans to overhaul its privacy settings. They want to make our information less private and more searchable by Google in order to compete with Twitter and other social networking tools.

Even though I was one of the earlier Facebook users, I’ve been slow to adopt new applications when they launch a new version of the social networking site. In the earliest iterations of Facebook back in 2004, there were no status updates, let alone pictures, or information about my interests and hobbies.

Back in the Mesozoic Age of Facebook history, it was simply a virtual address book. Over time it seemed the Web site wanted more information about me: my hometown, my occupation, who I’m dating, and so forth. I played along, and updated my information when it was only for my close friends. Then more people began to sign up and request my friendship (my parents and co-workers) and I began cautiously updating my page.

Now that my mother and my colleagues can see my status updates, I constantly struggle with the question: How much information is too much information? I know I’m wary of people who upload photos of their Friday night trysts, announce their breakups (or even divorces) through the site, and give updates about playing with their cat.

Social media experts such as NAR’s manager of social media Todd Carpenter advocate for keeping one Facebook page and to create transparency and authenticity about yourself. This means that real estate practitioners shouldn’t keep separate profiles for business and personal reasons, but rather combine those interests into one page. I imagine most real estate professionals are tackling the same question that I am: How much information about your life do you want other people to see?

I asked Tara Hunt, social media specialist, author of the newly released The Whuffie Factor (Crown Business, 2009), and featured speaker at the 2009 REALTORS® Conference & Expo, about this. She explained you should share as much as you would with someone standing in line at the grocery store. She further said that you should share information that could connect and make you relateable to clients: You had bad day, you’re taking a vacation, you closed a big deal, etc.

The Whuffie Factor, by Tara Hunt (Crown Business, 2009)

But that’s where it should stop. Note that she didn’t say to discuss why you’re having a bad day or that you had one too many margaritas on vacation. The information that you make available through Facebook should make you human but at the same time be appropriate for anyone to see (including your mother, my mother, and our co-workers).

How much information do you share on Facebook? How much do you think is too much?

I’m getting a lot of these e-mails lately:

“XXXXXX became a fan of YYYYYY on Facebook and suggested you become a fan too.”

With the advent of fan pages, savvy real estate agents are adopting Facebook as a marketing tool and using these pages to promote their business. I think this is a great idea. However, asking me to become a fan of your page puts the cart before the horse.

What have you done to earn me as a fan? You asked? That’s not enough. I don’t think I’ve ever responded to one of those e-mails.

NAR has a bunch of Facebook pages, but I’m not going to ask you to be a fan. Instead, check out this post from Chief Economist Lawrence Yun about the pressures AMC’s are placing on the market. Or, did you know that our convention department is building out a Facebook page, just for the Annual Conference and Expo?

Do you see what I’m doing here? My goal was to provide you with something you might find useful, and if you do, you’ll likely know what to do next. This is earning you as a fan instead of asking for it.

If I were selling real estate, I would build pages about the communities or activities I market through instead of a page about me. I’d build pages about my market farm, pages about the little league team I sponsor, pages about local garage sales, or for my church. Pages where possible clients find more value than a page about what a great real estate agent I am. That’s earning a following, not asking for one.

Edit – Check out Real Estate Zebra, The Social Media Handyman, and Agent Genius for their followups to this post.

Knowledge Networks, a company that produces social research, recently released a report that shows more than 83 percent of the online population between the ages 13-54 use social media, but less than 5 percent of social media users turn to these sites for suggestions about purchasing decisions.

The study, which can be found here, broke down the things people are more likely to use social media to assess, such as travel services and clothes, and the items users are less likely to seek online advice on, such as groceries. While real estate was not specifically queried, the survey did offer data on other large purchases, including cars and financial services. One could infer that most users wouldn’t make many important decisions about home ownership through social networking.

I sense that practitioners are struggling with how to use social media. From the various conferences and sessions I’ve attended, the presenters are even sending mixed messages. Some experts even suggest that you put all of your listings on your Facebook page.

Yet this study makes a strong case for keeping social media just that: social. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share the fact that you are in the real estate business or even post links to interesting articles regarding the market. But perhaps your Facebook page shouldn’t be a replica of your professional site.

How do you think real estate pros should use social media? More to the point, how do you use it?