RISMEDIA, July 8, 2010—RISMedia’s official page on Facebook.com has attracted more than 2,000 fans and followers (and counting)—a clear sign that social media continues to make inroads within the real estate industry.
“RISMedia continues to provide timely and helpful information, on a daily basis,” writes Cindy Camerlengo on the fan page Wall.
“RISMedia provides me with so much useful information, I am joining as a Fan,” echoes Lola Walker.
Social media experts believe those fans’ sentiments are evidence of overall industry trends. With public policy playing an increasingly important role in shaping economic activity, real estate agents, brokers, business partners and the general public are turning to sources like Facebook for news in greater numbers.
But while some Facebook users still seek out many of the same traditional, offline media outlets they’ve come to rely on as credible and reliable news sources, many others are simply discovering the increasingly social nature of the Web.
“Facebook is a component of the Internet and the Web itself is becoming more social. People are increasingly discovering information by having it recommended to them or forwarded from their trusted network,” explains Craig Donato, founder & CEO of Oodle Inc., a San Mateo, California-based company that powers the Marketplace section of Facebook.com, the world’s largest social media portal with nearly 500 million users worldwide.
To that end, real estate professionals would be wise to borrow a page from this playbook and incorporate more content-related services into their marketing efforts because Facebook is definitely not a fad that’s going away, says Donato.
“Facebook isn’t so much a cocktail party as it is an unbelievable relationship management tool,” he says. “It’s not just connecting people to people, but helping people discover information.”
RISMedia’s Facebook page provides the real estate industry with a trusted source for relevant news and information as well as a vehicle to collaborate, share ideas, business practices and opinions. For example, anyone who was unable to attend this year’s RISMedia Leadership Conference can easily find coverage of the event from photos to a recap of RISMedia CMO Allan Dalton’s keynote speech.
The page is available at: http://www.facebook.com/rismedia.
A statistical analysis of Facebook’s Page Insight Tools shows the total fan count broke the 2,000-threshold on June 23, 2010, and hasn’t looked back since then. Coming predominantly from the U.S. and Canada (but also from regions as far away as Europe and Asia), the demographics of RISMedia’s fan page are relatively consistent in line with industry statistics compiled by the National Association of Realtors.
Of the total fan base, 60% are females compared with 38% males. More than half of all fans are between 35 and 54 years of age while roughly a quarter are 55 or over. Atlanta, New York, Tampa, Chicago and Phoenix represent the top five U.S. geographic regions while Los Angeles, Wilmington, Dallas, Seattle and Philadelphia round out the top 10. Most traffic to the page (over 60%) belongs to the main Wall area, while 20% comes from the discussion area.
If you’re not a fan yet, what are you waiting for? Visit http://www.facebook.com/rismedia today.
