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Colliers International Nashville
The Importance of Social Media and Social Networking

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Definitions:
-According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition Social Media is:
-“websites and applications that enable users to create and share
content or to participate in social networking.”
-According to Oxford English Dictionary, the definition for Social Network is:
-“a network of social interactions and personal relationships”
-“A dedicated website or other application that enables users to
communicate with each other by posting information, comments,
messages, images, etc..”

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So What’s the Difference?
Social Media Social Networking
-One Way Communication:
-Transmission of Information and
Content through a message to a
broader audience.
-Two-Way Communication:
-Relies on the interaction and dialogue
of individuals.
-The root of social networking and
establishing online relationships
depends on individual
communication.
-Can target specific audiences however it
does not directly engage in individual
conversations.
-Allows users to specifically target certain
individuals by directly engaging in
communication.
-The payoff of social media is more timely.
Establishing a foundation and following
takes time.
-Since social networking is direct
communication between individuals, a
person’s following is directly correlated to
the amount of effort he/she puts in.
Conclusions: In order for Social Media to function effectively, it depends on the
process of Social Networking.

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“Evolution of Social Media” (20th century)
1969: Creation of technology known as dial-up
1971: First Email
1978: Invention of the Bulletin Board System (BBS), a system that allowed the sharing of announcements and information
through postings. This was the beginning of virtual communities and the precursor to the World Wide Web (WWW)
1985: AOL opened
1988: IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
1993: CERN’s donation of “WWW” technology to the world. As a result, more than 200 Web servers were online.
1994: More than 1,500 Web Servers online.
-ICQ is developed. Responsible for abbreviations such as LOL, BRB, LMAO, etc.
1997: The Web had 1 million sites.
-The Beginning of Blogging
-Six Degrees
-AOL Instant Messenger
-Blackboard (Education Online Course Management System) is established.
1998: Google
1999: The first online social network is created “Friends Reunited.” It was created in Great Britain to reconnect past
classmates.

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“Evolution of Social Media”
(21st century: 2000-2007)
2000: By now 70 million computers are connected to the internet
2001: Wikipedia established online
2002: Friendster (3 million users in 3 months)
-AOL is up3 million to 34 million users
2003: MySpace is introduced
-LinkedIn -first social media site devoted to business
-web pages
2004: Facebook is launched
-Flickr
-Podcasting
2005: Bebo “Blog Early, Blog Often” was founded
-Youtube
-8 billion web pages
2006: Twitter is introduced
2007: Release of Apple’s iPhone

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“Evolution of Social Media”
(the past 6 years: 2008-2014)
2009: More than a quarter of the Earth’s population used the internet.
-27 billion web pages
2010: Google launches Buzz
-Internet is now the most popular source for news surpassing newspapers and TV.
2011: Social Media is a major component of our daily lives
-550 million people on Facebook
-65 million tweets sent daily on Twitter
-2 billion video views daily on YouTube
-90 million users on LinkedIn
2013: 2 billion people using at least one form of social media on computers, tablets, internet enabled TVs or smart phones.
-Top Ten Social Media Sites: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Google+, Youtube, Snapchat, Tumblr,
Instagram, Blogger
2014: Social Media has exploded- not for just for personal use but also for business related use.
-72% of all internet users are now active on social media
-80% of marketers used Social Media to gain new customers
-Most users access Social Media sites via mobile devices

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A Glimpse of *Some* Social Media Sites
AOL Myspace
Bebo NING
Blogger Ping
Buzz Pinterest
Caring Bridge Prodigy
Classmates Second Life
CompuServe Six Degrees
DevanitART Stumble Upon
Digg Snapchat
Earthlink Talify
Facebook Tumblr
Flickr Tripod
Foursquare Twitter
Friends Reunited Usernet
Friendster Vine
GeoCities Wikia
Google+ Wordpress
Instagram Yahoo!
Hootsuite Yelp
LinkedIn Youtube
MyLife *This is only a sampling. There are hundreds.

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Social Media for Business:
77% of the Fortune 500 have corporate
Twitter accounts in 2013 (+4% from 2012)
70% of the Fortune 500 have a corporate
Facebook page in 2013 (+4% from 2012)
35% of the Fortune 500 have active corporate
Google+ accounts in 2013
59% of the Fortune 500 include links to their social media
sites
on their company website homepages

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The valuable social media sites for B2C an B2B

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So why do CRE Professionals need to be active on
Social Media Forums?
Social Media, like Commercial Real Estate, is all
about commUNITY. Part of your job as a broker is to
be a relationship builder between your clients and
the city which they live, develop and invest in.
“Social Media is like a digital cocktail party that
allows you to communicate to more than one person
at a time.”

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A few common complaints include:
 “I have a great network already, why do I need
this?”
 “I don’t have time!”
 “Social Media is irrelevant to my line of work.”
Yet, the reality is that CRE’s clients, corporate
America, have embraced social media — which
means that CRE needs to as well. Effective use of
Social Media will allow those in the CRE industry to
strategically build a brand and grow businesses.
So why has the commercial real estate industry has
been slow to adopt social media?

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The Benefits of Social Media :
While you may be still be hesitant to adapt Social Media for a
number of reasons (time, lack of interest, etc.), the benefits are
undeniable:
1. It allows you to form and maintain relationships with clients, potential clients,
employees, and other businesses.
2. It allows you to build identity, brand awareness, company awareness, web traffic
and increase SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
3. It’s a valuable communication vehicle
4. It quickly heightens your awareness of what’s going on locally and in the world
5. It facilitates identification of new opportunities
6. It’s affordable.
7. Facilitates learning, sharing and meeting…

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1. Form and Maintain Relationships
Social Media presents individuals an opportunity to connect and influence clients,
current clients, past clients, and other businesses all at once.
Maintain Current and Recruit Prospective Clients:
-The goal when building a social media page on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or
Google+ is to give prospective clients insight into who you are as a broker, or
agent, and why they should work with you ( mainly how you differentiate yourself
from others.) It also allows you to continue connections and foster previous
relationships for the future.
Connect with other businesses:
-A major advantage of social networks is that it allows businesses to foster
connections and align the skills of people working all over the world.

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2. Build Identity, Brand Awareness, Company
Awareness, Web Traffic and SEO
-Social Media is great from a professional standpoint because users can easily
promote the services they offer and what their specialties are. By actively
engaging on Social Media you can easily create a brand identity in the eyes of
your followers.
-It benefits you to align with your business because it in turn solidifies your brand
identity. When an individual aligns with a business, it not only increases their
company’s visibility and brand exposure but simultaneously solidifies their own
brand.
-As a result, participation on social media is proving to be an effective way for
companies to increase visibility and brand exposure resulting in increase in brand
awareness, following, website traffic and marketplace insight.
-Actively engaging via social media also increases “Search Engine Optimization”
(SEO). Participation on social media accounts increases your visibility and
therefore makes it easier for you to be found online based on Google’s latest
algorithm.

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3. Communication Vehicle :
-Users are not limited to those within their job site. Participants are able
share ideas and brainstorm with employees in different states or
countries.
-Collaborating across geographical barriers has proven to be highly
effective for employees needing advice on how to effectively do their job.

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4. Heightens user’s awareness of what’s going
on locally and in the world
-Your news feed exposes you to news and happenings in the world around
you.
-BUT! It’s a two way street- you can and should use social media as a way to
keep your audience updated on the news and trends your the market place, as
well as deals big and small that have closed in the marketplace.
You can and should communicate
-settled listings
-ratified leases
-available properties
-changes to available properties
-client success stories
-CRE research trends
-team updates and successes
-conversations regarding CRE interests, both local and national

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5. Identification of new opportunities
-Social Media allows users to engage with industry influencers
-Companies can use this to their advantage because they can immediately
respond with new products or services based on customers directly voicing
their requests or concerns.
-Another advantage is that businesses can receive tip offs as to what other
companies are offering in terms of products and services or what other
companies are planning to offer in the near future.

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6. Affordibility:
1. Marketing on social networks is affordable when
compared to traditional advertising such as
television, magazine, and newspaper which is
very expensive and does not reach as big of an
audience as social networks. You are able to
spend very little on advertising online and you are
able to get your message across to your
customers directly at no cost.

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7. Learn, Share, Meet
a. Learn what your clients are interested in and what they care about. Learn
what is going on in the community. Follow news channels and sports pages
to get information streamlined to you.
b. Share marketing reports, relevant articles, blog posts, etc.
c. Look, “Creep”, people up on LinkedIn or any social media site and see if
you have mutual connections or find out some things to talk to them about.

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“Utilizing social media as a personal branding tool
has dramatically raised my profile in the industry. As
a result, I have seen the volume of referrals, the
lifeblood of my business, more than double. Real
estate has always been a social business, and
using the speed and reach of online social tools to
expand your network will only become increasingly
important.”
- Coy Davidson
Colliers International Houston

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Key Sites for CRE:
1.LinkedIn
2.Facebook
3.Twitter
4.Google +

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LinkedIn:
-Company Participation gives potential and current associates a place to
network and connect with others.
-Within LinkedIn, you can join professional Groups where you can find tips,
discussions and links to reliable and useful information.
-LinkedIn is important in terms of referrals. You can promote skills for others and
they often do so in return.
-Since referrals are a major source of business in CRE it is recommended to
take advantage of it.
-The resume format allows you instant access to clients and potential clients in
terms of their business history. Facilitating “Business Stalking”.
-Likewise, it allows others to look you up and see your areas of expertise.

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Facebook:
A Social Forum that Fosters Connections: (establishes mutual friends to
initiate relationships )
One of the most common misperceptions is that FB is for personal use,
not business. In an industry as CRE, one built on networking and
relationship building, FB is an important tool.
-Facebook allows for direct communication between business to business,
business to customer, and customer to customer.
-Maintaining a FB account is essential for brand exposure and ability to
increase traffic to website
Tips:
-Make sure professional posts do not exceed 100 to 250 characters
-If possible, utilize photos as humans respond to visual content the best

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Google +
Best describe as a synthesis of Facebook and LinkedIn…(personal user interface without the
resume look)
-Presence on Google+ is essential because Google loves when users play on their turf, and it
rewards those that do.
-Google has the majority of the market share when it comes to search engines. It’s important to
increase SEO search engine optimization in everyway because it directly effects potential clients.
Google + Authorship:
-Google+ Pages and personal profiles can be connected with a website to generate even greater
reach on search engines using Publisher and Authorship markup. As a result, your headshot and
Google+ profile stats can show in the search engine results page (SERP) when content you’ve
authored ranks!
-Google+ Authorship connects a Google+ personal profile to an individual webpage, blog post or
article. It’s great for gaining exposure and building a personal brand, especially if you’re in an
industry that makes you the face of your business.
Tip: Join as many communities as possible to increase visibility

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Twitter:
“Micro-blogging” for Companies
-(Posts are short and sweet – (they must be 140 characters))
-Encourages users to follow companies and people who have the same
interests
-It is estimated that 150 million tweets are sent daily and that Twitter is growing
by 450,000 accounts a day. This massive audience presents huge opportunities
for companies.
-Individuals and Businesses can tweet messages multiple times, re-tweet, and
answer clients, employees or other businesses’ tweets in a matter of minutes.

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Instagram:
An effective marketing platform in that it reaches out to customers in the way they prefer
marketing; the use of visuals partnered with concise messages.
Why YOU should be on Instagram:
-It’s still on the rise. (In the past 6 months, 50 million users have signed up).
A growing user base means more clients and potential clients
for you to reach on the network
-It’s a way to engage your users on a different, visually focused plane.
….You might be thinking, “but we’re not a fashion brand” or “we don’t sell tangible products.” And
that makes your need for an Instagram all the more.
*Sidenote: CBRE’s Instagram has had incredible success.
This B2B powerhouse is an unexpected presence on the network which gives it a competitive
advantage. The untraditional network allows companies to present their businesses in different
ways than they have previously.

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The Importance of Hashtags:
They may be annoying but they are an incredibly powerful social media tool. They’re more than a collection of characters – they’re a
tool to be used to reach new audiences, connect like-minded people, and facilitate streams of conversation
-Once you #hashtag a word with Twitter, Instagram and Google +, etc. all account users can see it. It goes into the “world of
hashtags”. This allows users who are not following you to see your tweets and content that you put out on various social media sites
-Hashtags are an efficient method to find content related to specific topics, as well as the people talking about those topics. People
search every day on Pinterest, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, and other social platforms using words and hashtags with
success as they would on search engines such as Google or Bing. Recently, Google has made #hashtag search queries visible on
their forum as well
-It is recommended that you only use hashtags for 1-3 words per tweet
-If you aren’t sure what to use, do research! If you want to see what’s popular Google+ calls them 'Hot Topics', and Twitter displays
'Trending'. This is an easy way to identify popular streams of conversation that may be relevant to your message.
Recommendations:
#CRE #Nashville #Development #MusicCity #Industrial #Retail #Commercial #Land #Office #Colliers #ColliersInternational

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Tips:
Tips:
-Regardless of forum, content is king. You want to promote quality content that creates a positive
brand for you and your company.
-If you’re not visible, you’re not relevant, so participate regularly.
Resources:
-Hootsuite: Allows users to schedule posts for multiple forums from one central location. It also
allows users to schedule for the future.
-Mention: This site allows you to set certain terms and phrases and then notifies you when those
keywords have been used. This allows you to keep tabs on content and respond timely.
-Google Alerts: Very similar to mention but only alerts you to when your keywords are typed into
Google.
-Bitly: an online service that shortens links

29. Q&A

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Sources:

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Colliers International Nashville