Marketers who advocate social media marketing at many real estate and construction companies face an uphill battle because few companies in the industry are taking advantage of this new marketing based on information gleaned from the 2008 MorganSullivan Social Media Survey. Let’s be honest, social media marketing represents a change and that’s not easy in many construction and real estate company cultures where traditional marketing has worked for many years. Here are some ways to put pressure on those who resist the new marketing.
small steps. It took years before people started using answering machines, but eventually people embraced the technology. It’s best to start with small increments and understand that people won’t necessarily accept your way of thinking overnight. Start a campaign to communicate the potential benefits of social media marketing and use examples to support your case.
Be sensitive to people who have strong opinions about traditional marketing methods. Many CEOs and senior managers in construction and real estate enjoy seeing their company name in commercials, advertisements, sponsorships, etc. Some of these old ways of marketing still work and asking them to change is probably not a battle worth fighting in most cases. Listen to management concerns and identify areas of common interest when advocating for social media as part of the overall marketing strategy.
Comment on blogs and online media publications and communicate the results. Making blog comments and then taking note of how often your business appears on search engines like Google after making these comments can be very persuasive in putting pressure on people in your business about the potential marketing benefits available through of social networks.
Use social media marketing examples to make your case. Highlighting examples where construction and real estate companies use social media will give you more credibility with management. Perini is a construction company that links to social media sites in their press releases and Century 21 is a great example of a real estate company that benefits when David Meerman Scott wrote a blog post about the company and it created enough buzz to that Century 21 was included in the first list. Google search page.
Start a blog and share success stories with influencers within your organization. According to the survey, most construction and real estate companies have websites, but they don’t have blogs. It’s hard to see any benefit from blogging without having a blog. Start a blog and post regularly. Link to relevant blogs and communicate your activities to key people within your company. Be sure to talk about the results you get, i.e. comments, traffic to your blog, new inquiries, etc. Eventually, people will start to take notice and start building allies within the organization.
Don’t forget to communicate the costs of your efforts online. It’s one thing to communicate success stories, ie posting, increasing web traffic, etc., but having the ability to demonstrate benefits vs. costs can go a long way when making your case for new marketing. Social media marketing isn’t free, but it’s often much less expensive than other forms of marketing like advertising or direct mail. Track the costs required to gain additional web traffic and PR from social media marketing and you’ll start to make a good case for incorporating social media marketing into a companies overall marketing strategy.
Change isn’t easy and it doesn’t happen overnight, but companies that refuse to change risk disappearing. Bennigan’s and Digital Equipment Corporation are two examples of casualties resulting from an inability to change. However, please understand that change is possible and continue to make your case. So he watches what happens. Like it or not, social media marketing is not a fad and it’s not going away anytime soon.
