RISMEDIA, September 15, 2010—Network Communications, Inc. (NCI), a leading publisher of real estate information online and in print in North America, including brands like The Real Estate Book and Unique Homes, launched BrokerSherpa, a social media marketing solution for real estate brands, brokers, and agents aimed at creating a significant Web footprint through content creation and social media distribution. BrokerSherpa is the latest innovative suite of services and tools that NCI has brought to market in the past year, having introduced CommunitySherpa in the apartment community market, DesignSherpa in the home design market, and HealthfitSherpa for the health, beauty and wellness industries.
BrokerSherpa provides a robust solution to building and managing a social media marketing program for real estate brands, brokers, agents, mortgage companies, and builders. This fixed-cost monthly subscription service includes the creation of a custom-branded blog, Facebook and Twitter presence for the participating real estate business; regular updates with unique hyper-local content; and monthly reports detailing traffic and leads.
Adam Japko, president of NCI’s DigitalSherpa unit, said, “An effective social media program requires a significant time investment. Our on-going efforts to maximize lead generation for our customers through online content deployment have led us to develop efficient ways to leverage social media tools. This expertise serves as the foundation of our DigitalSherpa initiatives, which advances our commitment to helping our customers, who are busy running their local businesses, save time and navigate a shifting media landscape to reach qualified prospects. We are moving quickly to keep up with the growing demand for social content marketing help and are delivering powerful results. Through our various DigitalSherpa initiatives, we now manage over 1,000 social media programs for businesses across a range of local and global industries. We are excited to now bring BrokerSherpa to real estate professionals to help them execute a social media strategy that will drive online traffic, increase their networking sphere and capability, generate leads, and drive their personal brands.”
Scott Dixon, president of Network Communication Inc.’s Real Estate Division, adds, “Real estate professionals understand the importance of social media as a useful, and necessary, marketing tool, but often don’t have the expertise or resources to leverage it. With BrokerSherpa, we serve as their social marketing team to save them time and deliver measurable results—simply, affordably and effectively. It’s simply an extension of an agent or brokers’ Internet marketing activity that radically increases their footprint and ability to be found on the Web. Its power far surpasses traditional cost-per-click and paid search strategies.”
Unlike other “do-it-yourself” services on the market, BrokerSherpa offers a one-of-kind, full service program for real estate professionals that takes the complexity out of social media marketing.
Services include:
-Creating, hosting, and maintaining blogs with fresh content every week
-Custom programs for brokers and their agents
-Creating social identities on Facebook and Twitter and publishing regularly to these networks
-Driving social networks by building community and engagement
-Connecting social outlets and online marketing
-Increasing search visibility and driving more Web traffic
-Reporting real-time results
-Providing ongoing training
According to the company, with BrokerSherpa, real estate professionals benefit from the valuable experience and knowledge of the rapidly-changing social media space gleaned from NCI’s other Sherpa services. The results across the client roster have been notable. In its first year, CommunitySherpa has significantly expanded the digital footprint and delivered measurable results to its apartment community customers—generating over one million social connections to residents and prospects.
The Real Estate Book has been helping real estate professionals connect with buyers and sellers for over 30 years. Available in print and online in over 400 markets across the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, The Real Estate Book delivers credible, proven results to its advertisers who benefit from a wealth of experience and an integrated media platform that showcases their listings in a variety of ways. With 8 million magazines in print every 4 weeks, The Real Estate Book gets nearly 2 million unique visitors on its website, www.RealEstateBook.com, and features thousands of homes for sale, new home communities, and local information.
For more information, visit www.nci.com.
