Written By: Frances Flynn Thorsen
The jury is still out on foursquare, the Web’s most recent geolocational rage. Foursquare developers have exquisite timing and engagement design that is the ultimate “fun” smartphone app with great promise for increased visibility for proprietors of brick-and-mortar business. Recent months sees mammoth Google hunkering down to maximize hyperlocal search and other geo-flavored social media sites are expanding. Yelp is blooming as the standard bearer for review sites and users there are weighing in with thoughtful scrutiny about many businsesses, offering very rich engagement.
Foursquare, however, is still more about noise than signal.
“Signal-to-noise ratio” is sometimes used informally to refer to the ratio of useful information to false or irrelevant data in a conversation or exchange. For example, in online discussion forums and other online communities, off-topic posts and spam are regarded as “noise” that interferes with the ’signal’ of appropriate discussion.” ~ Wikipedia
Engagement is so shallow it barely skims the surface of the thinking part of the brain. The real estate space is agog with possibility but there is scant evidence of successful engagement in the din of I-am-the-mayor-of-my-own-living-room fodder establishing this platform as the social media junk food du jour.
Putting present frustration aside, I am confident that innovative real estate agents will devise innovative ways to use foursquare to advance their business in the short term.
In the meantime, social media ethical is leading the pack with innovative ways to clobber the Code of Ethics and Standards of Practice of the National Association of REALTORS ® (COE).
Here are some ethical notes from the COE with bold emphasis in areas that may apply. Foursquare may be the most shallow engagement on the Web giving users the most bang for the buck to clobber the COE.
Article 12
REALTORS® shall be honest and truthful in their real estate communications and shall present a true picture in their advertising, marketing, and other representations. REALTORS® shall ensure that their status as real estate professionals is readily apparent in their advertising, marketing, and other representations, and that the recipients of all real estate communications are, or have been, notified that those communications are from a real estate professional. (Amended 1/08)
Standard of Practice 12-10
REALTORS®’ obligation to present a true picture in their advertising and representations to the public includes the URLs and domain names they use, and prohibits REALTORS® from: engaging in deceptive or unauthorized framing of real estate brokerage websites; manipulating (e.g., presenting content developed by others) listing content in any way that produces a deceptive or misleading result; or deceptively using metatags, keywords or other devices/methods to direct, drive, or divert Internet traffic, or to otherwise mislead consumers. (Adopted 1/07)
Article 15
REALTORS® shall not knowingly or recklessly make false or misleading statements about competitors, their businesses, or their business practices. (Amended 1/92)
Standard of Practice 15-2
The obligation to refrain from making false or misleading statements about competitors, competitors’ businesses and competitors’ business practices includes the duty to not knowingly or recklessly publish, repeat, retransmit, or republish false or misleading statements made by others. This duty applies whether false or misleading statements are repeated in person, in writing, by technological means (e.g. the Internet), or by any other means. (Adopted 1/07, Amended 1/10)
Standard of Practice 15-3
The obligation to refrain from making false or misleading statements about competitors, competitors’ businesses, and competitors’ business practices includes the duty to publish a clarification about or to remove statements made by others on electronic media the REALTOR® controls once the REALTOR® knows the statement is false or misleading. (Adopted 1/10)