It’s unfortunate; size, it seems, does matter. And that is never truer than with social media where too many people focus on the size or number of followers for their twitter account, Facebook friends or business page fans. Certainly the bigger your audience, the better your chance of generating business, but many people seem more focused on the headcount than the result. That’s short sighted.

Social media is like a megaphone which present’s every business with a double edged sword: you now have unlimited access to a huge number of people (Facebook recently passed half a billion users) but you no longer control your brand. And that’s where the opportunity exists. If you are good at what you do people will talk about it, just ask Smitty.

Smitty

As seen in the following short CNN clip, Smitty (a ‘People Greeter’ at Walmart) has his own Facebook page and as at this morning it has more than 14,000 fans or followers. I’m sure I don’t need to point this out but I will; that’s a lot of people. All of this is great PR for Walmart and for Smitty who, at 77, has also appeared on the cover of a few magazines. His claim to fame? A smile, a hello, a conversation.

But how do we apply this to real estate? Realtors often talk about the need for face to face or belly to belly (not my favorite term) communication with their clients. They then, almost always, talk about how they are a ‘people person’, someone who provides ‘great customer service’. Realtors have never had such an amazing opportunity to own their market but you have to do something extraordinary and great customer service simply doesn’t cut it. I often hear people talk about it and for many it’s what differentiates them from competition. To that I always ask “Aren’t you supposed to provide great customer service?”

What’s the alternative?

Social media provides unparalleled word of mouth marketing, you just need to do something that people want to talk about. You also need to understand who your competition is and it’s not a Realtor or other real estate Franchise; it’s everyone.

You compete with the local pizza shop, dry cleaners and car dealership. You also compete with Smitty. Why? Because the person you are talking to might just have come from one of these establishments and if they received truly great customer service, Smitty customer service, they will naturally make a comparison. You might not think it’s fair to compare real estate with Joey’s Pizza but it will happen, it’s innately human.

Seth Godin talks about the purple cow, specifically that to be noticed a product and its marketing need to be remarkable if they are to be seen at all, let alone to sell. So how are you remarkable? Try answering that question without using the words “customer service” and it becomes a lot harder. Unless you are Smitty.