Found on the Vincos Blog this is a very interesting global breakout of dominant social networks. If it’s too small to see, click here for a larger version of the same image.

During a recent conversation, a Realtor friend spoke to me about feeling “vulnerable”. She listed many reasons, most of them you can probably guess, but at the heart of everything was the current real estate market. I have other friends who have privately admitted to moments of breaking down and crying, no sobbing, about their lot.

I thought of my friend when I watched the following ted.com video. While not specifically about real estate, I found myself thinking a lot about the industry, our interactions with clients and our ’social circle’. The feeling of vulnerability is something we all, if we are honest, feel from time to time. I’m no tree hugger but I do think it’s OK to admit, occasionally and not always totally publicly, that we aren’t super heroes.

And so to Brene Brown. In the following video she talks about human connection; our ability to empathize, belong and love. In a poignant, funny talk Brene shares a deep insight from her research, one that sent her on a personal quest to know herself as well as to understand humanity.

Many describe real estate as “all about relationships” or my least favorite description “it’s a belly to belly business”. Considering this and coupling the new social forms of communication we are all adopting to via Facebook, twitter et al, the video is worth a watch if only to make you (and hopefully my friend) realize you are not alone in feeling vulnerable.

Written By: Matthew Ferrara

Matthew Ferrara

Some sales professionals are still struggling with the idea of social media as a sales tool. They complain that Twitter and Facebook are full of senseless noise. They cling to the belief that only a phone call or a personal appointment builds relationships necessary to create sales. The personal touch requires a person, they argue.

Yet success stories continue to pour in. Sales from friends we haven’t seen since high school. Referrals to their friends, and their children. Long distance connections to friends of friends of friends. None of which required a single ad, phone call or in-person meeting. Just people connecting to people by wall, tweet and text.

Can social media selling be high-tech and still high touch? Just ask the Mandarin Oriental in Miami.

The Mandarin does so many things perfectly. From the initial greeting to the charming room service, the high-touch personal experience is everywhere. So you can understand the challenge for a company whose strategy is service takes the leap into social media. It’s no small feat to translate perfect attention to people, by people, onto a Facebook fan page.

The Mandarin makes it look easy. It starts by doing what they’ve always done: Paying attention to people. Consider the beginning of my experience.

After making my reservation, I visited the Mandarin’s Facebook page. It’s what customers do with their trusted brands: join the brand experience online. I didn’t expect much to come from my innocuous posting. Yet the Mandarin’s response was far from simple. It was social networking sales perfection. Surely, they could have just replied “We’re looking forward to your arrival!” But the Mandarin did more. They went beyond the auto-response into the relationship.

They clicked on my name, viewed my profile, saw I lived in Boston where it’s freezing and buried in snow, and tailored a response that targeted my expectations for the weekend.

Simply perfect!

That’s what sales is all about. As Peter Drucker said, the purpose of sales is to know the customer so well that your product or service fits them and sells itself. It took mere seconds for the Mandarin to click and learn all about me, then talk to me about me. Not talk about themselves, their hotel. They immersed the customer in their value proposition: Attention to the customer.

And yet, there was more to come.

After arriving at the Mandarin Friday night, I ordered room service. Within five minutes, my doorbell rang. Thinking it was amazingly fast response time, for any kitchen, I opened the door utterly surprised. It wasn’t dinner. it was something better:

Chocolate sushi.

The man at the door explained it was a complimentary welcome gift from the manager. A nice gesture, but not necessarily one any hotel couldn’t duplicate. I seem to remember one chain offering warm cookies in the past.

Once again, the Mandarin proved it’s no ordinary brand. Accompanying the chocolate sushi was an envelope. I almost didn’t open it, thinking it to be a form-printed “thanks for spending the weekend at our hotel.” I’m glad I did, because here’s what I found:

Talk about high-touch complementing the high-tech with high-touch!

The Mandarin did something very clever: It rewarded me for doing something I didn’t have to do: join their Facebook page. Of course they had to thank me for reserving a room, but they did that upon greeting me at the front desk. Instead, they used the chocolate sushi to complete the marketing circle. They completely integrated the experience – from online to offline – and proved that social networking can be a powerful component to a full service sales experience for customers.

And, they benefitted tremendously. I’m writing this blog, spreading the positive experience to my sphere of influence. That’s the whole goal of social network selling. Getting people who trust your judgment to trust your favorite brands. The Mandarin’s sphere of influence is surely expanding.

Alas, the one thing the Mandarin could not control is the weather: It’s raining in Miami today. So, no day by the pool or snoozing in the beach hammock. Yet I’m sitting here on the balcony, enjoying room service and smiling ear-to-ear about my experience with the Mandarin. Who knows – maybe I’ll spend a few dollars at the spa? Won’t that be a wonderful experience!

Makes you wonder if the Mandarin, who can manage the customer experience from online to offline, can control the weather after all.

The following brief but entertaining video provides recent data on Facebook and it’s user population. Be warned, some of this information is scary Is anyone doing anything other than checking Facebook?

There are leads out there, you just need to know where to find them. One rarely used service is twitter search:

It’s easy to use and it’s free. Simply go to the search section of twitter and type in anything you think people would ask to find a Realtor. I ran some searches yesterday morning including “looking for a realtor” and “need a realtor” and found lots of people looking for help.

As you read through these tweets ask yourself this; people are talking online all day, every day and they need real estate help. Can you help?

Launched in 2009, Google Social Search has been updated. The improvements enable you to get even more information from people you are connected to, whether they’re publishing on Twitter, Flickr, Blogger or other publicly available sites. When you sign in to your Google Account, you can get ideas and recommendations from people you trust, right in your search results. The following video provides more information:

We’ve covered TED.com videos several times before; each video features one of the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).

In this funny and insightful talk from TEDxHouston, builder Dan Phillips tours us through a dozen homes he’s built in Texas using recycled and reclaimed materials in wildly creative ways. Brilliant, low-tech design details will refresh your own creative drive.

Written By: Matthew Ferrara

Matthew Ferrara

You get the point. Sales means getting to know people; building a sphere of influence. Earning their trust and their referrals. It’s about listening to their needs, being in the right place at the right time. And that place is no longer on the doorstep, in the mailbox or on the land line.

The location of sales has moved to a virtual address.

Even if you believe the cliche of getting “belly to belly” with customers (an unfortunate image), you’ll have a hard time finding bellies nowadays without searching a hashtag, tagging them in an update or geocoding a video. Confused by that last part? Buying an iPad won’t help. Neither will sticking your head in the sand.

Modern sales requires – demands – you befriend your clients on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn.

And anywhere else they may go online in the future. It doesn’t matter what you sell: homes, cars, or coffee. In the social networking sales matrix, product specs don’t matter as much as personal cred. Trust is the currency. Referrals are the only way. Trading happens in shares, re-tweets and tags. Self-centered monologue gives way to share-centered dialogue.

And nobody worries about privacy, because everyone is all-in.

How do you sell in such an environment? Is the risk going too far – or not going far enough? Actually, neither. Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter didn’t change the game just the rules. And Facebook isn’t anything more than the modern consumer’s expression of their frustration with the old rules of the game.

So here’s a social sales primer, with six ways to sell using social media:

1. Build relationships, not presence. Sales happen one-to-one. Even companies that ship thousands of books, computers or tickets do so on a person-to-person basis. So stop trying to be a big voice to thousands who don’t care. Start trying to be a trusted voice to one person who does. You can do a lot with a well-placed ‘like’ or a single ‘happy birthday!’ When you abandon advertising and embrace prospecting, this makes sense.

2. Talk shop, not shopping. Social media isn’t a Sears catalog but a salon. Sometimes there’s polite chatter, the currency of relationships. Sometimes a business question, the opening of opportunities. Forget about violating the Facebook Terms of Use by posting products on your personal page. You will have already violated the terms of engagement with your friends, of which you will now have fewer.

3. Share more, sell more. Smarter customers make smarter decisions. Brands aren’t shapes and colors, but people. People who act on behalf of their customers best interests. Share yourself – answering questions, offering advice, being available – building your customer’s competence. Smart customers will choose you.

4. Stop worrying, get exposed. Modern customers demand genuine people. They hate spiels, and can smell a phony a tweet away. Stop being afraid to be genuine online. Be a person first, salesman second. Your tattoo pics might create a connection your scripts couldn’t. As for last-gen worries that your mobile number will get out: How will next-gen customers text you otherwise? (They aren’t going to call).

5. Get assimilated, then lead. Influence requires trust from within, not authority from without. Old-model marketing declared, postured, positioned. Next-gen marketing inquires, shares, collaborates. Stop trying to be loudest, biggest, bestest; the attempt only fractures your networks. Real influence is done softly.

6. Be quiet, to hear. Great social selling is done by searching. Status updates reveal more than focus groups or surveys. Consumers willingly divulge all, frequently. Simply learn translate. Nobody likes being qualified; incubated; treated like a lead. Besides, they already told you everything you needed to know, if you were listening.

Social network selling requires rethinking; and abandoning ideas of the past. None of these suggestions is much different from the days of cocktail party and golf course networking. But the comfort of telemarketing distance is gone; the passive aggressiveness of the postcard is past; the door knocking assertiveness has been medicated. Today’s customer won’t play that game any more. From Do Not Call to DND, they have set new rules for the game.

It’s still a chase: They’ve just shifted it to warp speed.

With a little bit of thought it has to be possible to create a deal to get someone to walk into your real estate office. What do you think people will react too?

From social media to major real estate sites such as realtor.com, the Internet has played a major role in the evolution of real estate marketing.

We be flippin’ castles! “The Agent” (a new comedy web series about life, love and real estate) is proud to present “Makin’ Money: The Real Estate Rap!”

The upcoming series, produced by David Winans, kicks off later this year. Enjoy the song and find out more at http://theagent.tv!

In the following video Facebook takes A deeper look at two of the 2010 top global status trends on Facebook; the Chilean miners rescue and the new acronym HMU.

The U.S. may have housing problems, but the global luxury home market is booming. CNN’s Jim Boulden reports.

Written By: Matthew Ferrara

Matthew Ferrara

Are times so tough in real estate that we’re reduced to calling in the witch doctors? Indeed, the ritual use of religious statues, astrological furniture arrangement and power-color sales tactics have long been a pet peeve of mine. I’ve blogged about it many times over the years. Admittedly, I live in the state that burned quite a few women accused of witchcraft: But that was in the 17th century.

Today we’re hiring witches as real estate consultants.

Is it all good fun? Apparently not, considering news organizations as prestigious as the Wall Street Journal are covering the story and the seriousness with which the real estate agents in the article profess the efficacy of their arcane arts:

“Residue, residue, residue is in this house. It has to come out,” shouted Ms. Bruno, a 70-year-old who claims to be a descendant of 16th-century Italian witches. “Lord of fire, lord flame, blessed be thy holy name…All negativity must be gone!”
…
Taking her cleansing agent of kosher salt in a bowl of water and lighting a candle, she led the group—including the buyer’s agent—up the stairs. Arriving at the upstairs kitchen, gutted of its cabinetry and appliances, Ms. Bruno yelled into the air: “You will not hurt anything I hold dear. I am the exorcist of your garbage!”
…
In Sacramento, Calif., realtor Tamara Dorris also used feng shui to help speed the sale of a property that had been on the market for more than a year. She placed a jade plant, believed to bring good financial luck, in a “prosperity corner” and waited.

“Within two weeks, I had two offers,” she says. “Most homes have at least one or two prosperity flaws. Foreclosed homes have five or six flaws.”

Makes me wonder if I’ve wasted two decades of my life doing my little part to raise the professionalism of the industry. I feel sad (I’m sure there’s a spell to cure it) for all of the hard-working agents who think properly staging, pricing and promoting a property is the appropriate way to sell a home. How foolish of us not to burn incense at open houses and sacrifice goats on the porch!

If this stuff is so effective, why don’t we add some new fields to our MLS systems? How about “Last Exorcised Date” or “Astrological Alignment Factor” fields? Let’s update REALTOR.COM to offer a search by negative residue or prosperity level. Our maps could plot the known paths of evil spirits touring the neighborhoods (no GPS needed).

Now all we need is an iPad app that detects Hell holes. Or do we just call those foreclosures?

While there’s always a desperate customer willing to try anything before making the tough decisions, it’s more disheartening to think that ritual rain-dances and spiritual cleansings qualify for continuing education for licensed real estate professionals. We’re talking about people entrusted to guide consumers through the largest financial transaction of their lives. Government regulators charged with protecting the consumer have approved such topics for training in dozens of states. Really.

Even the “Voice of Real Estate” has a field guide of incantations for its members on its website. So the REALTORS in Nevada, Florida and California can thank their lucky stars: their trade group’s power-PDF’s should clear up those distressed markets soon!

Brokers should get into the game as well. Why recruit a newly licensed acolyte when there are plenty of 15th Level Wizards wielding Wands of Mortgage Minimization, burning Dispel Dark Magic scrolls at open houses and wearing a Peaceful Periapt of Pax to ward off sellers behind on their mortgages? It would certainly make office meetings more interesting for the manager to read a few pages from the Dungeon Master’s Guide.

For the last five years, too many people have struggled too hard against challenging market conditions in real estate to see articles like this make the front page of a major newspaper. Trainers, brokers and industry leaders around the world have tried to prepare their companies – and more importantly, consumers – to navigate the real forces at work in the housing market. To manage pricing, monitor inflation, and maintain productivity during real estate’s darkest hours in decades. It’s frustrating – maddening, really – when media lends credence to quackery to sell copies of their paper. But it’s deeply more disturbing to look beyond the headlines and find practitioners whose tools of the trade are more likely incantations than iPads.

Send in the flying monkeys!

This video looks at the future of revenue: Revenue Performance Management, or RPM. The “School House Rock”-inspired animation puts RPM in context of some of the most significant milestones in the history of business (scientific management, total quality management and supply chain management) and explores how early adopters of RPM can become the Fords, Toyotas and Wal-Marts of tomorrow – that is, fast movers who turned change into competitive advantage.

In this short talk, Arianna Huffington shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night’s sleep. Instead of bragging about our sleep deficits, she urges us to shut our eyes and see the big picture: We can sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness — and smarter decision-making.

Written By: Rick Rabideau

Rick Rabideau

• The information is printed, but needs to be digitized to fit into our electronic, mobile lives. Be honest, how many business cards do you have stacked in a recess of your desk waiting for you to enter them into your computer’s address book? A good intention, awaiting diminishing free time.
• The information that you put on your business card changes. Would you like to get a new email address or business phone number, but you don’t because what you have is “established” throughout your network?
• We have a continuously growing number of locations where our contacts can locate, email, follow, friend, connect or otherwise find more information about us. Where does one put web links for a website, email, blog, Facebook, Twitter, Posterous, LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube… ?

A digital business card is an emerging solution. It provides a single address where you can provide all of your current and future contact information. One click and everyone in your network can access your latest information. Oh, they are usually free and always eco-friendly.

Transitions are not easy, there are always consequences. Of course, we all know that leaving things as they are is easy, but there are significant penalties with that approach too. The objective is to make a transition at the tipping point, when it is obvious that a tried-and-true practice is unable to meet the evolving need. The reality is your paper business card can no longer be the only way you share your contact information. We have reached the tipping point when every professional needs a digital version.

Telivant (www.Telivant.com) will soon release a How do I…? Guide that explains how to establish a digital business card, so you can ease the transition to an increasingly digital world. We identified four that are worth checking out… Follr.com, DooID, Retaggr and Card.ly. The Guide dives much deeper and shows you how to set one up.

The paper business card is here for the long-haul, but we can at least make it easy for our network to find the latest contact information. And, wouldn’t it be great if all of your future connections provided you with one address with all of their information… no more stacks of paper business cards to work around and feel guilty about.

DigitalSurgeons.com has put together a fascinating and detailed look at user date for both Facebook and twitter. Personally I think they are very different services, so different in fact that any comparison is of no real value. Independently however, the following couple of charts provide a great insight into the leading social tools.

Google provides some tips for having your business get noticed on the Web.

Each month, This Month in Real Estate provides expert opinion and analysis on real estate trends across the nation.