There is no doubt that real estate forums are enjoying a noticeable upward trend in growth and that means that you have an opportunity to reach a wider audience and make more connections with buyers and sellers.
Here are some pointers on how to approach this potentially viable marketing channel and what approach you can take to create a following and even become a valuable online resource.
Make yourself useful
When marketing your real estate you will quickly discover that there are a growing number of internet forums where you can become a useful presence and there are specific forums operated by hosts such as Yahoo that are there just so that people can talk about all things real estate.
The big attraction here is that you have the chance to develop a reputation as a go-to person when someone wants an answer to a question about a real estate issue.
You will need to commit some regular time to the online forum so that you can answer questions quickly and offer some guidance based on your own real estate experience.
Another key point is that if someone posts a comment that they are looking at selling my house quickly you can answer with some general information and even direct some traffic back to your site when answering their question and offering more help.
Be selective
The danger with spreading yourself too thinly across too many forums is that you can end up not being effective or useful on any of them if you don’t have the time to focus on responding promptly to any discussion or general real estate chat going on.
It is well worth being selective and taking the time to find the right forums for your market niche and where there seems to be a decent community that you can tap into.
A good guide would be to find a forum or a section of that forum that is all about real estate.
In addition, you would really want to see that the forum has an absolute minimum of 1,000 members and there have already been upward of 10,000 posts. Using these basic guidelines often help you weed out the forums that aren’t worth your time and finding one that meets this criterion will mean that you are joining in with a community that is large enough and enjoys a healthy online debate about real estate topics.
Check the community guidelines
It is also highly relevant to check the community guidelines on each forum before you start submitting any posts.
You will want to know that you are allowed to post links in your posts or not and whether it is permitted to promote or market your business while using the forum.
If you end up violating any of the rules, even if you do it unintentionally, you could quickly alienate the real estate community you are trying to get to know, which would be bad for business and wouldn’t be great for PR either.
Play by the rules and be prepared to help for free as well as promote when appropriate and you could find that online communities are a great way to grow your contacts and drive your business forward.
