By Linda Day Harrison, theBrokerList, Chicago, IL

Whether you like it or not, online marketing is here to stay. Don’t think that tomorrow you’ll wake up and not have to deal with it or worry about it, like a fad. No such luck. Burying your head in the sand and hoping that it’ll go away is not likely to help either.

So what is a person to do who doesn’t want to do anything, but deep down they know there are some minimum things they should be doing for the “greater good” of their company and future generations of that company?

Well, my first rule of thumb is to advise the person in charge of the company to protect the brand. Okay, so what on earth does that mean? What it means is to get your name secured in the top online marketing platforms out there, and if you don’t have a domain or blog, get the name registered as well.

What sites am I referring to? The major sites include Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest. All of these sites offer customized URL links and, depending on your business, there may be others as well. Again, you ask, what does that mean? It means these labels or URL links are a pattern of letters or numbers or whatever your name is composed of. If someone else in another geography, company, or industry has a similar name, they may beat you to it, so grab it now.

For instance, if your company name is Markington Real Estate Services, you will want to secure the following URL customized names:

http://www.facebook.com/markington-real-estate-services

http://www.youtube.com/markington-real-estate-services

http://www.linkedin.com/company/markington-real-estate-services

http://www.twitter.com/markington

http://www.pinterest.com/markington

These are only examples, and whether you wish to use these services or not depends on your business. However, the names are going quickly, and those with more common words or names will not have much of a selection when they do decide to select a name to match their brand.

If you’re a new company, it’s strongly recommended that you do your homework before you start your new property management company. Research the name and find out if the name is available across the various social media platforms. Do not select a name until you determine the availability of these sites, as well as the domain name for the company website and blog.

I have seen so many companies make the mistake of selecting a name, incorporating the name, and then later determining there is no chance to obtain a cohesive name across all customer touch points. What does this mean? If your name is Markington, people are going to search Markington. That’s it. The letters are the online link back to you and your content. If you are marketing apartments, offices, and retail, and you’re looking for new building owners, they are going to search for Markington.

If you think it’s easy to get good SEO for three or four different variations, you’re mistaken. It’s hard enough to build your SEO with a single name, let alone a variety of configurations.

If you are set on a name and there’s no other way around it, think of creative ways to abbreviate or create acronyms with your name, again, being consistent and creating a brand with the abbreviation or acronym.

So if your company name is Markington Real Estate Services, consider MRES or MarkRES, etc. The other way to do it is with a geographic reference, say MarkingtonAZ, etc. Use caution, as the letters you are permitted may be limited. For instance, with Twitter, the number of letters is defined on their support pages for the real name, different than the username. Also note, with Twitter, the real name can change as often as you wish, but the username is fixed. Click here for more information.

How long can real names and usernames be?

• - Your username can contain up to 15 characters.
• - Your real name can be 20 characters long.

The bottom line is that all of the sites work together to let customers find you. It’s important to plan and think ahead. At present, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube are not going anywhere. Based on that information, it’s prudent as a company executive or business owner to protect your brand and get your URL before somebody else grabs it and makes it that much harder for you to have the name that is so near and dear to you and your customers.

By Linda Day Harrison, theBrokerList, Chicago, IL

Absolutely! Why, you ask? It’s not a bunch of boring legal stuff that is neither cool nor sexy. Heck, it’s not even about marketing, technology, social media, or anything current or trending, as they say. Or is it?

I think it’s very cutting edge to act ethically, and above all, with the highest respect for your employer, clients, and customers. It’s not an easy track to maintain with all of the examples we see and hear about every day. Other people did it, so why not me? So-and-so was able to do this and they got away with it. Why should I walk the straight line? If they don’t know it, it won’t hurt them. Hey, I can e-mail documents, take files, and share information about my properties or clients freely! What’s the big deal?

Today more than ever, the world is becoming more and more transparent. Documents, information, and actions move so fast. You can’t hide, run away, or conceal your actions. There is e-mail, tweets, LinkedIn, and many other virtual business networks where your trail of activity exists. Use extreme caution. Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to this vital aspect in our roles as property managers, leasing agents, or company executives.

No matter what segment of the real estate industry you’re in, finance, marketing, management, operations, facilities, et cetera all require an intimate knowledge of ethics and how ethics work. Many of us belong to organizations such as IREM, NARPM, BOMI, REALTOR, CCIM, SIOR, and scores of affiliations that all carry a code of ethics to which you must adhere. If you don’t adhere to these codes, you may be sanctioned.

The timing of this topic is speaking to me as I teach an online BOMI International course, Fundamentals of Real Property Operations.  Chapter 1 is, you guessed it, Ethics! Just today I received a tremendous and timely report of Real Life Ethics Cases from IREM, which is a powerful document that should be required reading for all employees at every single real estate firm, whether it be leasing, property management, or brokerage companies.

If you do not have this IREM Real Life Ethics Cases document, it’s strongly suggested that you obtain it and distribute it for your entire staff to read. Additionally, study your favorite organizations’ codes of ethics and use them as a road map to create one for your company. Today with the advent of virtual networking and conversations moving at the speed of light, it is surely cutting edge to consider the impact of your communication and online interactions, and how they may or may not cross the line of ethics.

Here are some excellent examples to give you a good start on how the various facets of our industry address their respective member code of ethics:

IREM Code of Ethics
NARPM Code of Ethics
BOMI International Code of Ethics
SIOR Global Code of Ethics
CCIM Code of Ethics
REALTOR Code of Ethics

Host meetings or brown bag lunches to talk about what is acceptable within your company code of ethics and what is not acceptable. Make your statements clear and connect the dots to real-life examples of what can happen. Role playing can be fun and create bonds with your teams when working with this subject matter.

Again, I repeat, the study of ethics is truly cutting edge, and I believe it will start to take the front seat and be a hand-in-glove solution to many of our corporate policies as they relate to social media. I told you ethics was cutting edge! I am not steering you wrong!

By Linda Day Harrison, theBrokerList, Chicago, IL

The other day a property manager asked me how one can make money for their company and building, using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or any other online network. It was a great question. I believe so many property managers, leasing agents and real estate professionals are confused about how these tools can be used.

Networking sites are just that: tools. For example, just because you use Twitter, you will not make money. Twitter is a vehicle to carry a message with the potential for your message to be read by many more people without paper, postage or labor to stuff an envelope. So if you want to get the word out about a property you are leasing for instance, the goal is to touch as many people with your message as possible.

How do you do that? Well if you are a leasing agent there are companies with many employees in a given market that you want to do outreach to. It is very difficult and time consuming to create email lists of those contacts and maintain current emails. Those businesses have employees who want to live as close to work as possible. By reaching those businesses, you have a very good chance that the employees at the company also follow their own company on Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIN. By sharing your information through their stream of influence, you are touching a wider audience. Yes, you have touched the company, but they touch many more people as well. Also, you can build up a great list, which is all part of the public domain and much easier to track and maintain than say a single person’s email address.

If you can imagine the postcard, brochure or three fold flyer we all used to market our vacant apartments or spaces in the past, it was a stagnant piece of paper that might be read and maybe shared, but highly unlikely. Also, you needed to maintain actual email addresses as well for each contact. All of that is outdated almost as soon as you collect it. People move around, but company Twitter, LinkedIN and Facebook pages do not!

Today, that postcard takes the form of a “post” hence the term is so closely related to the term postcard! So now you can post to that source or stream and that post does not go away. It is very powerful and lives online forever. So if you send a “post” today on any virtual business network, like Twitter or a business Facebook page or a LinkedIn status or your network du jour, your “post” does not get thrown in the garbage can. It is still alive, searchable and quite possibly being shared.

So the moral of the story is that our fundamentals are the same, but our tools are different. We are greener, using less manual tasks, such as folding, stuffing, labeling, merging, stamping and doing more outreach and online networking. As well as more researching of who to follow and who to reach. There is no difference in the fundamentals that you need to create a powerful, target market list, it is just that when you send the “post” you are pushing a tweet button or a share link, in lieu of the manual labor we are most accustomed to. The plus of all of this is that once you get your outreach system in place, it actually begins to expand as opposed to a paper mailing list or labels which actually becomes stale and outdated. The outreach and contacts you build via your Twitter or Facebook or LinkedIN outreach, if done thoughtfully, can become an extremely valuable and powerful tool for filling vacant apartments or finding new employees, or giving your customers property updates. It truly is about quality and connecting to those people who are your target market and are likely to share your news and help to expand your reach!

By Linda Day Harrison, theBrokerList, Chicago, IL

When creating an Internet presence and building a new public website, the first thing you’ll want to do is identify a domain name as close as possible to your company or property name. Don’t bother searching in multiple locations for your potential site’s name — you’re too busy for that! Go straight to a search engine like namechecklist.com.

Create your website on a platform such as WordPress. Put in the time, effort, and money to design and plan the site. Consider paying a designer to create a logo and graphics. Add content to the site, such as (in no particular order):

1. About Us
2. Services Properties and/or Listings
3. Team
4. Executive Bios
5. Contact Us
6. Affiliations
7. Blog
8. Testimonials

After all this work is done — content is added, graphics are selected, colors are finalized, fonts, headlines, and widget boxes are chosen — you (and only you, as you spearheaded the project!) can send out an email to everyone in your contact list to say, “Look! We have a new website and blog!” Yippee!

But then, if you’re like most website owners, the site sits, and sits, and sits. From time to time you might add a blog article, or update listings. If you’re smart, you thought to add a live feed of listings from another database service provider that’s integrated into the site. When new employees come and go, maybe you’ll update the site when you get around to it.

Don’t fall into this trap! Your website should be a living, breathing, active representation of you and your company. Make time to promote on social media. Push out your blog articles to LinkedIn and to all of the LinkedIn groups you belong to (maximum of 50 per person!). Encourage your team to tell all of their contacts about your new website or blog. Ensure that the domain URL is on every single thing you publish or post. Place simple share buttons on your pages or blog posts via the admin tools. Anything less, and you’re virtually guaranteeing that no one will ever share anything about you, your firm, or your great content.

While you’re at it, let your employees have access to sites like Facebook, and encourage them to keep an up-to-date LinkedIn profile (the modern-day business card). Your people and properties will be found and links will be out there in Google, where they can be discovered or exploited by new clients. If your website is found, that means traffic! Traffic is numbers, and numbers mean increased chances that you’ll meet a new client, tenant, or even find a buyer.

And get a Twitter page. Twitter is neither complicated nor difficult to navigate. It will bring t-r-a-f-f-i-c to your firm, which is only a problem if you plan to remain under the radar. Remember, you want every client to see your name in the media or an online content stream.

Summarizing the important links for starting your own Property Management Group.

• First research existing property management groups to see if one exists in your area.
• If you choose to start your own group then post ads on Facebook, Craigslist , and/or LinkedIn to recruit other members.
• Find similar groups at MeetUp.com and reach out to them for guidance.
• Join an internet based group at Yahoo Groups or Google Groups to use as a sounding board.
• Communicate with your group using Constant Contact and/orMyNewsletterBuilder.com.

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Property management can be a lonely job at times. And although flying solo may well be your style, there’s still something to be said for the power of collective thought. This is particularly true in a field where so many different elements come into play. Accounting, real estate, legal issues, customer service, marketing—most property managers delve into all of these areas on a regular basis. And this is precisely why a property management group can do so much for your career.

At first it may seem a bit counter-intuitive to share your business ideas (and maybe even practices) with other local property managers. After all, some of them probably represent your competition. But the truth of the matter is, more than anyone else, your fellow property managers truly understanding what your job entails; the type of issues you deal with on a frequent basis; and the best methods, resources, and people available to help you find solutions to these issues in the most efficient, cost-effective way possible.

All of this is not to say, however, that there’s necessarily an existing property management group in your area. So in this two part post are tips to help you find members for and run your group. This week focuses on putting your group together. Trust us—it’s easier than it sounds and will pay off more than you can imagine.

Put your group together.
Chances are you know of other property managers in your area. Don’t be shy—give them a call. If you’ve heard of them, chances are they have helpful information to share. You may also want to generate some word-of-mouth by telling real estate companies, vendors, and service providers who do work with other property managers in your area about your group. Real estate investment seminars and conferences (as well as other industry-related events) are a great way to reach out to multiple community members in one fell swoop.

Also, don’t forget about your online options. Post an ad on Craigslist or do a search on networking sites like LinkedIn or Facebook to identify target group members. If there are any e-newsletters or other mailing lists that you think potential group members are likely to subscribe to—look no further than your own inbox for some ideas—you can also put a posting in there.

In the next post learn to organize, communicate with, and run your newly formed property management group.

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