Community is the key to accomplishing the cultural shift necessary to move a body of people from "off-line" to "digital," and we expect it will receive a lot more attention in 2021. We know we plan to write a lot more about it and up our engagement.
Online Community Participation Tips from John Reilly and my 26 years of online community participation:
• Build an online persona. Think about your posts…read them twice before posting. Avoiding the use of pronouns will make your post more readable and understandable.
• Be helpful and share.
• Learn to handle and manipulate information from various sources on the web and observe copyright law.
• Learn where people congregate on the Internet and for what reason.
• How do you prospect now? Do you spend time as a member of a club or group? Relationship and referral (special interest, community) based marketing requires a commitment of time, be it in the real world, or online.
• Establish discipline. Spend 1 hour per day participating in online communities learning more about the Internet and technology, and meeting new people. Some of this participation can be delegated to assistants, but you might like it and be good at it so don't rule out that possibility.
• Exercise patience and tolerance and do not view every post as a challenge to you personally.
• Participate in the Online Communities. The more you post and participate, the more exposure and Internet Presence you will gain, and the more likely you will receive referrals from other real estate professionals...all in due time.
There are many "Groups" online these days, but there are fewer "Virtual Communities." A Community is a "Safe Space" where people trust they can post without severe criticism.
From one of my favorite old books, "Netgain - Expanding Markets Through Virtual Communities" from the 1990s by John Hagel and Arthur Armstrong:
"In addition to published content, virtual communities provide environments for the generation and dissemination of member-generated content.
This is perhaps the single most empowering element of a virtual community.
It gives members the capability to compare and aggregate their experiences. which in turn creates for them a fuller range of information and a perspective independent of vendors and advertisers on the resources that are important to the members."
This book is a classic. Remember, People, not Platform.
