Using Social Media to Convert Online Audiences

to Sales Office Visitors

Shaydon Armstrong

Why Use Social Media? Engagement

• Creating a dialog between you and your audience that is engaging while staying top-of-mind

Increased relevant visitor traffic • Engaged visitors that are familiar with or know your brand

are generally more valuable that those that are not

Improved online conversion performance • Social media can contribute to improved conversion

performance

Managing Your Social Media Presence Creating Your Social Media Profiles

Promoting Content

Reporting and Analysis

Social Media Don’ts

Summary and Conclusion

Creating Your Social Media Profiles: Blogs

• WordPress

• Tumblr

Facebook Page

YouTube Channel

Blogs WordPress

Tumblr

Sharing Your Content

Turning Your Blog Into a Lead Conversion Machine

Examples• The Open Door by Lennar• Traton Homes• S&A Homes

WordPress WordPress is the largest self-

hosted blogging tool in the world

WP Greet Box Plugin• Show a different greeting

message to your visitor depending on the referrer URL. Ability to auto-insert greeting message to the top or bottom of the blog post.

• Ability to detect the visitor's search keywords from major search engines and automatically display related posts under or above the greeting message.

• Ability to set rules to exclude some referrer URL’s from seeing greeting messages.

• Ability to set welcome message for any referrer URL.

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting Google

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting Yahoo

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting Bing

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting StumbleUpon

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting Reddit

WP Greet Box – Custom Referrer Greeting Delicious

Tumblr Blog Micro-blogging

platform that allows users to easily post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio

Customizable layout and theme

Sharing Your Content Facebook Fan Box Widget

• Allows visitors to “Like” your Facebook page without ever leaving your blog• The Like button lets a user share your content with friends on Facebook• When the user clicks the Like button on your site, a story appears in the

user's friends' News Feed with a link back to your website

TweetMeme Follow Button Plugin• Enables you to build your Twitter followers without taking visitors away

from your site• It also brings up an overview of your presence on Twitter, including your

followers, whom you follow, and recent activity

Feedburner Plugin• Enables visitors to subscribe easily by email or RSS• When visitors subscribe through Feedburner, they will receive your blog

updates automatically

Turning Your Blog Into a Lead Conversion Machine Provide great content

• Engages audience• Helps maintain top-of-mind awareness• Helps attract a larger audience due to the virility of online content

Keep audience on the page• If you link your visitors away, your opportunity to convert them to leads

decreases dramatically

Ask for the conversion and make it easy for visitors to register• The audience visits your blog to consume content. Once there, provide ways for

them to continue the conversation • Blog Subscription (by email or RSS)• Register email to respond to call to action (such as download brochure)

• Consumer provides email address in exchange for content

• Include social plugins so users can become a fan/follower of your Facebook and/or Twitter accounts without leaving the blog

• Provide registration form and links to your website(s) in your blog

The Open Door by Lennar (http://www.theopendoorlennar.com/)

Lennar launched a blog, www.theopendoorblog.com, that offers a round-up of the latest positive news about housing, contests and sales promotions Lennar is offering and has deep social

media ties

Traton Homes(http://www.tratonhomesblog.com/)

S&A Homes(http://www.sahomesblog.com/)

Facebook Pages: 6 Must-Have Tabs Customized Welcome Tab

Video Tab

Photo Tab

Events Tab

Notes Tab

Call-to-Action Tab

Customized Welcome Tab

Makes a great first impression

Basic welcome pages include:

• Photos of the new home communities

• Information about the home builder

• A call to action to “Like” the page

Video Tab Each time a visitor has to click to

a third-party site to view a video, you risk losing them

Include a call to action in your video that invites buyers to download a brochure, tour the model homes or fill out lead generation form

Videos of:• Gardening/landscaping tips• Home decoration ideas• Customer testimonials• Addressing first-time buyer

concerns• Home maintenance and repair

Photo Tab Photos of:

• New home community events

• Happy homeowners• Neighborhood • Model home interiors• Exteriors• Floor plans

Create albums for different plans (each album can include a floor plan, exterior photos, interior photos by room) and specific standing inventory homes or specials

Events Tab Event marketing can be a

powerful tool for driving online shoppers to in-person visitors

Events can include:

• First-time-homebuyer or designing-on-a budget seminars

• Homeowner appreciation events

• Broker events, mixers and more

Notes Tab The notes tab can be

used for updates such as:• Home builder blog posts

• SEO press releases

• Other timely messages that provide more information about your community than shorter Facebook posts

Call-to-Action Tab Include a conversion tab

with a specific call to action that buyers can take to move forward in their buying process

Visitors can register to:

• Download a brochure

• Contact a sales agent

• Schedule a tour

• RSVP to an event

• Download a buyer guide

YouTube Design a Custom Branded Background

• Creates a unique experience for each community

Built-In Social Media Sharing Capabilities

Engaging Buyers Through Video

Home Builder Video Examples

Custom Background and Social Media Sharing

Engaging Buyers Through Video Videos engage buyers by directly addressing their

concerns

Video provides one of the most powerful tools to communicate empathy and credibility

Real estate video has been used to show homes online with video tours and photo slideshows • Today we have an opportunity to move beyond these

“moving brochures” to videos that provide real value for buyers

Buyer Expectations

Martell Builders

Financing a Home

Lennar

Addressing Buyer Questions

Ivory Home

Managing Your Social Media Presence Creating Your Social Media Presence

Promoting Content

Reporting and Analysis

Social Media Don’ts

Summary and Conclusion

Promoting Your Content Email Your Database and Brokers

Optimize for Search Engines

SEO Press Releases

Facebook

Twitter

Integrate Web Presence into Offline Advertising

Sales Office Handouts

Email Your Database and Brokers Reach out first to the people

who are furthest along your sales pipeline

For the brokers that you work with regularly, consider asking them to distribute your content on their website, to their email lists and through their blogs

Consider a broker email distribution service to increase awareness of your community to brokers throughout your area

Optimize for Search Engines Optimize content with

relevant search terms that potential buyers are most likely to type into a search engine and include these terms in your title, description, tags and category

This can increase your visibility in the search engines and reach beyond the current audience of your blog

SEO Press Releases Why you should write SEO-

optimized press releases• Appears in organic search results• Distributed to the news feeds of people

looking for content to share with their network

Writing the press release• Keywords in the title, description and

body of the press release• When the keywords: Google, Big

Daddy and ranking are searched for the first result is Google Big Daddy Searchquake About to Rock Your Ranking?

Distributing the press release • News releases are submitted to online

submission sites for distribution across the web

• PRWeb and/or PRNewswire• Updates should be posted to existing

social media channels as a tool for nurturing existing leads

Facebook Create a regular

posting schedule for content, focusing on different aspects of your community: • Floor plans

• Buyer testimonials

• Phase of the sales cycle

• Builder story

• New promotions

• Industry news

Twitter Design a Custom

Branded Background• Creates a unique

experience for each community

Promote content via your Twitter post to increase click-through to other social media channels

Integrate Web Presence into Offline Advertising With a few clear exceptions, people

still do most of their living offline

Physical space can be as good of a place as any to advertise your social media presence• QR Codes

• Two-dimensional codes, readable by mobile phones with a camera and smartphones

• The information encoded can be text, URL or other data

• Publish Links to Your:• Blog• Facebook• YouTube• Twitter

Sales Office Handouts If prospects leave your

sales office, send them home with as many tools to continue “selling” long after they’ve left • Include social media

links on your sales sheet

• Send a follow-up email containing links to your online content

Managing Your Social Media Presence Creating Your Social Media Presence

Promoting Content

Reporting and Analysis

Social Media Don’ts

Summary and Conclusion

Reporting and Analysis WordPress

Tumblr

Facebook

YouTube

Twitter

Reporting and Analysis - WordPress Blog Google Analytics for

WordPress allows you to keep track of:• Who visits your site

• What they do when they are on your website

• When they visit your website

• Where did they arrive on your website from

• How they interact with your site’s content

Reporting and Analysis - Tumblr Blog StatCounter provides

free customizable hit counters, visitor tracking, web analytics and website stats for Tumblr

Reporting and Analysis - Facebook Interactions:

• Number of comments• Wall posts• Likes

Page Views Unique Page Views Photo Views Media Consumption New “Likes” Total “Likes Impressions Post Feedback

• Number of Likes/Comments per post divided by number of Impressions for that post

Reporting and Analysis - YouTube YouTube Insight

• Views & Popularity• Examine both an interactive graphical trend line and a heat map of

where video views are coming from

• Demographics• See the age and gender of your audience

• Community Engagement• Observe how many times viewers rate, favorite, or comment on

your videos

• Discovery• Understand how people discovered your video

• Audience Attention• The "Hot Spot" feature tells you which parts of your video are hot

and which are cold by looking at bounce and rewind rate to videos of a similar length. At any time point in the video, you can see if more or less viewers are dropping off than on average

Reporting and Analysis – YouTube Continued

Reporting and Analysis - Twitter Total Followers Retweet

• The number of times a users tweet has been shared by other people

Potential Reach • Total followers plus the

sum of followers for any user retweeting any of their tweets during the previous seven days

Managing Your Social Media Presence Creating Your Social Media Presence

Promoting Content

Reporting and Analysis

Social Media Don’ts

Summary and Conclusion

4 Social Media Don'ts Send automatic direct messages on Twitter

• 3 tenets of social media are (1) Authenticity, (2) Transparency and (3) Honesty• Having a robot send out automatic messages violates all three

Stream your Tweets into Facebook• These are two different mediums, each with its own distinct audience

Start a Twitter account and immediately begin following 500 people• It’s a slow process to grow followers and there are no legitimate shortcuts• In social media it is very much quality before quantity

Ask to be my friend on Facebook if I’ve never met you • There are some people who use their Facebook for meeting people, but the

vast majority don’t • Facebook itself claims its number one focus is connecting people online who

already know each other offline

Managing Your Social Media Presence Creating Your Social Media Presence

Promoting Content

Reporting and Analysis

Social Media Don’ts

Summary and Conclusion

Why Use Social Media? Engagement

• Creating a dialog between you and your audience that is engaging while staying top-of-mind

Increased relevant visitor traffic • Engaged visitors that are familiar with or know your brand

are generally more valuable that those that are not

Improved online conversion performance • Social media can contribute to improved conversion

performance

Summary and Conclusion Why Use Social Media?

• Engagement • Increased relevant visitor traffic • Improved online conversion performance

Creating Your Social Media Presence:• Blog Development• Facebook Profile• YouTube Channel

Promoting Content:• Email Your Database and Brokers• Optimize for Search Engines• SEO Press Releases• Facebook • Twitter• Integrate Web Presence into Offline Advertising• Sales Office Handouts

Summary and Conclusion Continued Reporting and Analysis:

• WordPress• Tumblr• Facebook• YouTube• Twitter

Social Media Don’ts:• Send automatic direct messages on Twitter• Stream your tweets into Facebook• Start a Twitter account and immediately begin following 500

people• Ask to be my friend on Facebook if I’ve never met you

Questions?

The End