In addition to optimizing your real estate website, setting up Twitter and Facebook accounts so that you may engage potential clients via social media marketing, blogging, and sending e-mail newsletters, a great way to market your real estate services is through forum posting.
Posting on forums is free, by the way.
Forum posts often come up in search engine results as people search for information on a product or service. Literally hundreds of thousands of forums exist online and cover millions of topics. Real estate is one of the more popular topics.
Naturally, some real estate forums are geared just for Realtors
and other real estate professionals, some are for homebuyers and sellers (consumers) and others are for both.
We recommend you opt for forums where consumers congregate.
To begin, do a search on Google, Yahoo! or other search engine of your choice and look for “real estate forums.” You also should search for a forum that’s geared for your geographic region (“real estate forums Pennsylvania,” for example). Aim to find a forum with a good amount of traffic. You can check out Alexa.com, place the forum’s url in the form at the top and see how Alexa ranks it. The lower the ranking number, the more people visit it. For example, a site with an Alexa ranking of 7,500 is visited much, much more than one with a ranking of 955,000….
Register as a member of a couple of forums you think will be worthwhile. Write a short description or bio of yourself/your business carefully. Forum participants may check it out.
Yet one of the most important things you’ll do is the setting up of your “signature.” This is the information that will appear at the bottom of each and every of your forum posts. It is this signature that will generate leads to your real estate website.
If the real estate forum allows your signature to include your picture, by all means, include it. Your picture need not be a photo of yourself — it could be your company logo. But we highly recommend that you avoid placing one of those animated avatars, cutesie cartoons of yourself, etc. You want to come across as professional and knowledgeable, yet approachable, as possible.
You’ll want to be sure to include a link to your blog and/or website within your signature. If there’s room, include a link to your Facebook and/or Twitter pages. Place your branding tagline, as well. Keep it short (two to seven words) , but make it memorable.
Aim to post to the forums you’ve chosen at least two or three times a week. The more you post, the more your posts’ readers will see your signature and the better chance you have of getting the link to your website or blog clicked upon (and the more people will visit your website/blog).
The most important thing you can do (or, in this case not do) is “sell” on these forums. For one thing, forums usually don’t allow this. For another, blatantly offering your services, or claiming you can sell a home at full price in 30 days in a down market, or even just coming across as “I’m here only because I want to get clients,” will brand you as a forum spammer. It may even get you banned from the forum.
Instead, read posts by others that ask questions. If you can give an answer that adds to the conversation, one that is thoughtful and which offers good information, then answer it. Give solid advice, great tips, useful anecdotes, be helpful. People who read the forums will soon look upon you as a stand-up kind of person, one who knows his or her “stuff.” You’ll be seen as someone who can be trusted. They will click in your signature to your website/blog; you will start getting people asking you if you can help them buy or sell a home.
In addition to answering questions, you also can start your own forum conversations. Start a conversation by stating your opinion on something (whether housing in your area is poised for a comeback, for example), and then asking forum members for their opinion. Or you could ask if anyone has any experience in home staging, and ask for tips.
The reason you want to start conversations is simple — you have a better chance of getting your posts read than if you just reply to someone else’s post.
Posts sometimes can have upwards of 10, 25, 50 or even more replies. Not everyone will read all replies, but they almost always will read the original post. In addition, you should comment on other members’ replies to your original post — again, this gives you even more opportunities to get your signature seen.
In addition, as the person who starts a thread, you’ll soon be seen as an authority and a leader in real estate. You’ll really know you’ve become such when someone starts a thread by asking “Hello [your name]. Wondering what you think about the new housing start stats.”
Read your forum regularly. If possible, try to be one of the first people to respond to someone else’s thread/question.
If you’re ready to start a forum marketing campaign, contactRealtyTech.com. We can help you find real estate forums that cover your areas of expertise, as well as those that focus on your selling area. Contact us today.
