Facebook, Viral Marketing and Real Estate

I love creativity. I never get bored of seeing how people invent (or reinvent) themselves and their business.

Now, more than ever before, there is an opportunity for anyone, in real estate or not, to do that and to own their market.

The new “social” world is the platform yet brands, personal and professional, big and small, continue to struggle with how to do that effectively.

Creating viral content is one method and the following two examples, commercials released by the British division of T-Mobile this year, are really great ones. As part of their “Life’s For Sharing” marketing campaign T-Mobile’s first idea was simple enough; using hidden camera’s they recorded a coordinated yet unannounced dance involving hundreds of people in the middle of Liverpool Street, one of London’s busiest train stations. They hoped members of the public would join in (they did) and that the video would be viral (it was); since it’s January release the video has been watched by tens of millions of people. While it has absolutely nothing to do with mobile phones it has done a great job of advertising the T-Mobile brand:

In April T-Mobile followed up with a mass sing along in London’s Trafalgar Square that was again engaging and viral (don’t ever tell me the English are reserved):

That YouTube (the second largest search engine in the world) and Facebook (with its breathtaking engagement statistics) are free isn’t ‘new news’ but most companies have yet to leverage their enormous global reach. Swedish furniture giant Ikea is a member of a very small group; companies that have created a successful viral and social marketing campaign using Facebook:

The good news is that getting large scale crowd participation doesn’t require complexity; people love to get involved, you just need to work out how to engage them. If you still doubt that check out this next great video “Where’s Rob?” from Improv Everywhere:

So perhaps we should be asking ‘how do you get the attention of a lot of people?’ In the videos above hundreds (and in one case thousands) of strangers got involved and loved doing it. So what about real estate? How does a Realtor or real estate franchise get lot’s of people’s attention? How can you get your name, your face and therefore your listings in front of as many people as possible?

Direct sales are not the answer; no one likes to be sold (just ask a Realtor…) and we all know when we are being sold. That’s part of the reaon why I like Broker/Owner Gerry “Realtyman” Bourgeois (of Towne & Country Realtors based out of Leominster, Massachusetts) use of the wildly popular Facebook game ‘Farmville’. With almost 70,000,000 (yep, that’s seventy million) people playing the game every month it is the biggest thing on Facebook today. Not that Gerry has access to that many people but anyone who is connected with him via Facebook and plays Farmville gets to see several very creative signs for the property he “represents” via the game:

Gerry’s subtle advert isn’t complex but that doesn’t reduce it’s effectiveness especially considering that he has over 1,100 friends.

I feel strongly that now is one of those rare moments when Realtors get a chance to retake their market, to be the ‘go to’ person for their neighborhoods real estate needs. To do this lots of people need to know who you are and social media provides an excellent soap box.

It’s important to note that the T-Mobile ads didn’t directly advertise mobile phones and you don’t have to advertise property; you simply need to think about something that will bring your community together and make it fun. Whatever ‘it’ is you’ll need to think differently and think creatively. Can you?

Tagged as: Creative, Gerry "Realtyman" Bourgeois, Ikea, marketing, social media, T-Mobile, Viral, Where's Rob