Here’s a little food for thought on the possible future of real estate referrals and social media.
A recent article in Mashable reported that Amazon.com has hired key members of Quorus, a service which adds a “social dimension” to online shopping. It’s a move which suggests how we make purchases online is about to get much more connected to friends and family.
From the original Mashable article:
“Quorus software works like this. Say you’re buying a sweater for your dad, but you can’t decide between two different patterns. Right from the product page, Quorus lets you call up a window to contact your mom, siblings and friends to help you out. The connection can be done by email, Facebook, Twitter or even text message.Once you’ve reached out to your impromptu jury, Quorus can facilitate both a live chat and offline discussion. Not everyone will be able to stop what they’re doing to help you hunt down the perfect wool cardigan, so the software saves those messages for you (and yours) to read later. The whole exchange is hosted by Quorus — it’s not dependent on the social networks it uses to communicate.”
It’s an interesting concept, right?
You’re probably asking yourself: What does it have to do with real estate?
Well, when consumers become used to having this option available for their every day purchases, what’s to stop them from expecting the same mechanism for finding doctors, lawyers, mortgage brokers, and real estate agents?
There are some services in place already, such as Stik.com, which is already integrating with Facebook to try and “own” the professional referrals space.
Ultimately, this move is probably a good thing, as it will help people make decisions faster about who they should trust.
But it has a few implications:
1. It should allow you to spend less time talking about yourself in marketing materials and more time working on building real relationships with your clients and prospects.
2. It also means you must have a prominent client-centric profile online, especially in social media settings. Not “what I’m up to” but “how I’m helping others.”
3. If people leverage social media platforms to make decisions about their next agent, it’s likely that who “wins or loses” a referral will become a public affair. You’ll need to be able to put on a gracious face either way.
