This post is in response to a great article from Sarah Yaussi at Big Builder Online.

Read her post - Social Networking: How Housing Might be Missing the Boat

Sarah recapped the Big Builder 2008 conference. In her article she talks about how a group of 40 sales and marketing professionals got together to discuss challenges in the industry.

Forgive me for copying so much of this from her article, but it’s vital to understand the rest of this post:

“This group of professionals saw an opportunity to move the needle on SG&A by reducing marketing and advertising expenditures. However, participants agreed that any reduction had to be strategic; remaining dollars in the budget had to be thoughtfully deployed to return the greatest number of serious rather than just curious prospects.

The consensus was print advertising was dead–it was deemed expensive and ultimately lukewarm in its effectiveness–which left the Web as the go-to source for fresh blood.”

If the web is the go-to source for fresh blood how are home builders using it?

Sarah goes on to say, “not a soul in the room had any sure-fire ideas about how to use these interactive tools to drive builders’ businesses.”

Social networking isn’t a magic bullet. You can’t just create a Facebook page or upload your marketing videos to YouTube and expect home buyers to visit your model homes. Writing a blog doesn’t build trust with consumers if you’ve disabled comments and only post marketing fluff.

Social networking works because it’s honest and because it creates a two-way conversation.

If you use social networking to broadcast your message but not to listen…you’re going to offend more people than you attract. These tools will only be successful if used to help people talk with you and about you.

If you are just looking to join social networks to broadcast your message to a new audience I’d suggest staying home. It won’t work. In fact, don’t be surprised if it has a negative effect on your efforts. Why are all forms of traditional marketing struggling? Because people have become conditioned to ignore your messages. If you think that these new tools can be used to do business in the same old way…think again.

Instead, try using these tools to engage in conversations with your buyers. Here are some ideas that could actually leverage these tools to bring buyers to your models and get people talking about you:

• Help them upload photos of their new home to Flickr.
• Encourage your sales associates to create profiles on sites like ActiveRain and engage in real conversations with Realtors and buyers.
• Record a video of every willing homeowner at closing telling people why they love their <insert builder name> home and post these videos on YouTube.
• Join Twitter to communicate with buyers, employees and the press. Here’s an article about builders using Twitter.
• Give your homeowners their own website to talk about you with our URBaCS Referral Builder application.

The bottom line: If you’re going to use social networking…make sure you listen more than you talk. Oh…and keep the marketing fluff out of the conversation or you’ll only be talking to yourself.

Check out what these builders are doing:

• Martell Home Builders
  • Blog - http://www.themartellexperience.com/
  • YouTube Channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/martellhomes
  • Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Moncton-NB/Martell-Home-Builders/6263063060
  • SmugMug Photo Albums - http://martellhomes.smugmug.com/
  • Twitter - @martellhomes
• Jeff Click Homes
  • Facebook Page - http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jeff-Click-Homes/9010458261
  • Twitter - @jeffclickhomes
  • Flickr Photos - http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffclickhomes/
• Estridge Homes
  • MyEstridgeHome.com - every homeowner gets their own website to share their building experience with friends and family
  • The Estridge Blogs - Estridge uses a company called Compendium Blogware to manage a dozen or so blogs like this one about Home Decor and Furnishings

What about you? Do you know any builders that get it? What about builders that have missed the boat entirely?

Every morning I hear Rob mumble under his breath, “No…I meant URBaCS.” At first I didn’t know what he was talking about until I too discovered his problem.

His frustration stems from Google. When he searches ‘urbacs’ in Google their genius application suggests that maybe he misspelled his search and really meant to search for ‘urban.’ I’ve explained to him that because we haven’t spread our message yet (on purpose) that we shouldn’t expect Google to recognize our application.

Last week we started marketing URBaCS online and joined many social networks. You can connect with Rob and I on our bio pages.

Before we started…when you typed ‘urbacs’ into Google you would get 669 search results. In less than a week that number has moved up to 727. I’m excited to see our sphere of influence grow and I know Rob is eagerly waiting for the day when Google stops asking him that dreaded question. But until then we will continue to blog, comment and network in various places.

Connect to Jayson

Connect to Rob

This is a big weekend for the city of Indianapolis. In addition to the new Lucas Oil Stadium opening (home of the Colts), we are also playing host to the largest gaming convention in the world, Gen Con. Although I’m thrilled about both I will be spending most of my time on the campus of IUPUI for Blog Indiana 2008.

Rob and I are working very hard to grow our business and want to make sure we go about this growth in the proper way. We have made an internal commitment to blog more often and have brainstormed a series of cool topics to talk about. So when we heard about this conference we felt like it would be a great to hone our skills.

I hope to learn about legal issues with blogging as well as ways to drive traffic through social media and I’m hoping to get tips on SEO and writing. I’m also eager to attend the panel discussion about how social media impacts elections with Barack Obama’s National Blog Editor. This election has been affected by the Internet and the personal blogger more than any in history and we should only assume that this trend will not go away.

Register for Blog Indiana:

I hope to see you on campus! (Or at Gen Con or at Lucas Oil Stadium)

Rob and I both joined Active Rain today. It is a free online Real Estate Network to help real estate professionals grow their business. As we continue to expand our online presence we feel this is a great way to link-in with other like-minded professionals. We have included links to our Active Rain profiles on our blogroll and we will update this blog with our findings as we grow in our new community.

Rob’s Active Rain Blog: http://robwagoner877.activerain.com/
Jayson’s Active Rain Blog: http://urbacs.activerain.com/

You can find great local Indianapolis, Indiana real estate information on Localism.com.