SarahGray Lamm ~ Chapel Hill / Carrboro / Durham Real Estate Blog ~ Agent Outlier

I have a confession to make; I ‘get’ Facebook. I really do. I admit that when I first heard that I, as a real estate agent, should’ be on Facebook, I was seriously skeptical. But my business partner, whose job it is to market me and my listings, told me that I needed to give it a chance because if it was going to work I would just have to do it and figure out why after the fact. I trust her so I did it.

Here’s what I know now. I am not on Facebook because I am a real estate agent. I am a real estate agent who is on Facebook. First of all, I do not and have never ‘friended’ just anyone who asks. I have my profile page pretty restricted. You can’t read my wall posts or get info about me unless I let you in! Counterintuitive to real estate, you say? Not really. I’m not looking to meet new people on Facebook. I’m looking to stay connected to people I already know!

I signed up, put up a professional profile picture (who knew… if this would become a HUGE referral source I didn’t want to be looking like my cat or my baby self at 5 years old.) Then I started scrolling through the friend suggestions Facebook automatically makes based on my (selectively provided) personal information. The first folks I ‘friended’ were other agents in my company. (Still not seeing how this was going to be a great referral source.) But then some of my sorority sisters from UNC started popping up! Great! I’d find one or two and then scroll through their friends and find more folks I hadn’t thought about in years! Then my high school friends started appearing; the adult children of my friends, my neighbors, people I know in my community. This was getting addicting.

Guess what? Everyone I know has a life, career, family, children, grandchildren and interests they’ve developed since I saw them last. Go figure. Facebook is not a place to hang your shingle. It is a place to connect with and learn more about the people you know. When I run into people I haven’t seen in years now, the conversation is different. Instead of “Hey! How are you? How’s it going?” “Great. Good…nice to see you.” We‘re immediately talking about vacation pics just posted, new grandchildren, new ventures and shared sorrows. I know what you’re up to because you posted it and therefore I’m part of your life again.

You still don’t get how this works for your business? OK, don’t join Facebook. I promise it won’t work if you aren’t interested in your ‘friends’ and their lives. But let me share a few things:

• My oldest friends have kids who need places to live at UNC.
• My college friends occasionally look for investment property in Chapel Hill.
• The friends who find out I still have a family home at the beach want to know how the real estate market is at the coast.
• My real estate friends from my hometown have business they need to refer to the Triangle.
• My clients who became friends and have moved away meet people who are coming to the Raleigh Durham area.
• My young clients ‘friend’ me after closing and I can see how they are doing with new jobs, careers, marriages and children so I know when life is leading them toward a lifestyle change.
• I know which of my friends are in industries I need to connect with, whether for business or personal reasons, and we can network to help each other succeed.

Shall I stop now or do you need me to keep going? Still don’t want to Facebook? Then by all means, don’t. There are many things I will never do because I don’t enjoy them. I would stay on Facebook now even if I never received a real estate related call. If you’ve been avoiding Facebook because you don’t ‘get it’… jump in and give it a try. If it’s going to work you’ll figure out why after the fact.