Personally, I have admired Altitude Real Estate’s fan business page on Facebook. Over the past year, I have been informed, I have been entertained, and I have been kept up to speed with happenings in and around the office in Subiaco. Having followed the brand for a while, I was delighted when Paul Tonich agreed to an interview, given he is a pretty busy guy – running a successful real estate business, and also consulting to both real estate agents and other small businesses on how to build their brand using social media.
If I was asked to describe it, Altitude Real Estate’s business page on Facebook is just like a really cool local news television channel. Interestingly, there are not a lot of posts on the page on anything to do with real estate, or the listings that the office carries.
I start by asking Tonich why this is the case. He begins by saying that it has taken some time to work out what works and what doesn’t. “Really, it has taken us four years of trial and error. We made the big decision very early in the piece that we were going to commit time to social media. We understood at the time we did that there was no history showing other Real Estate brands being successful in building relationships with prospective customers on social media. We knew we were taking a bit of a risk.”
What was your first step? “In the beginning we sat down as a company and decided ‘who’ our page was going to be. We were a very new brand at that stage, and when we sat with our marketing people in relation to our logo, our colours, and the name of the new company, we had to give them a brief. So, we pretty much went through that same process with Social Media. Our social media plans and policies happened at the same time, collectively we sat around a table and decided the company policy, team policy, individual policies, and agreed a course of conduct.”
I ask about the code of conduct on social media and Tonich continues, “I lead by example, and I think my team understand that on social media we are a positive organisation. If there is a remote chance that any item could offend, be classed as negative, or upset anybody – then it should not be posted. We really aim to be a positive light in such an open and public forum.”
But how do you promote your business on your page if you’re not talking business? “The biggest opportunity that social media marketing provides is to let people know who you are,” says Tonich, without any hesitation what so ever. “I make a point of putting myself honestly in front of our followers and build a trusting relationship. I think the fact that I am willing to be transparent shows a sense of honesty about me as a person.
I also have a couple of different pages. If you want to get to know Paul Tonich as a person, then add me as a friend, or subscribe to my personal updates. Doing this, you will rarely come across anything about Real Estate. However, I also have another Facebook business page called ‘Perth Property News – Paul Tonich’, where, if you want to look at all Paul Tonich’s listings, and you want properties showed you continuously, you have the choice to subscribe. I think choice is a tremendously important word. There is a clear, distinctive difference between having one page mixed in with business and pleasure, which can get a little confusing for your audience. I give people the choice to subscribe to property updates, and because they have chosen this option, I then push all of my listings to this audience.”
With approximately 8 pages and 25,000 followers all up, I ask Paul how he manages to find the time to interact with all of them. The answer – he gets up early. “What I would do in the morning is look through all my potential clients and my current clients, and look at all their comments. I keep them organised in a specific group that I have made, called my “A-list”, and I go through and press like, make a comment, write a comment, I can do that in half an hour. I then go to my birthday list and wish everyone of my clients – I don’t miss out on a single day where I wish everyone of my clients “Happy Birthday”, and other people of interest including other agents that possibly may intend to work with me.
Then, I move on to my inbox, which is usually full of favours; ‘Can you mention my company’s page?’ ‘Can you help this, can you help that?’ It actually comes down to again the basic rules of all the great sales coaches, such as Zig Ziglar (and others from 80 to 100 years ago who didn’t have social media). They said, ‘Give first, and the rules of reciprocation will look after you’. You have a tremendous opportunity to recognise occasions amongst people that you know, or people that you have met, or people that you have followed where you see an issue where you can help. You offer help – and it is a story that people will on-tell about your kindness, which allows them to start personally marketing and branding you, and what your company is about.
When you do this, your audience will log onto Facebook, and your name will come up in their feed. You also put up a great post, and everybody has commented on yours. Think about the tangible personal brand awareness this creates! From my point of view, it can never be matched for a similar period of time, with other activities. The question you want to ask is; how much time am I able to dedicate? In addition, like creativity, like a marketing budget, you are the curator of how much return on investment you make.”
What do you say to those that think it is a waste of time? “I’d be saying – firstly you don’t understand it; secondly there’s obviously a part of you that’s not creative enough to turn it into an investment. That could be because you have not studied it enough, or got a strategy. Remember, it took me four years, to get to this point; I’m not this genius that went out there and suddenly hit my strut from day one. However, the one thing that I did not do, that others might do – is that I didn’t give up on it. I kept working my plan until I found a result. That is no different to any other strategy we have done in business for the last hundred years. It’s going to come down to your creativity to help you get where you learn about this, how much study you do, how much preparation you do. You can’t expect to walk in there, throw up your top 50 listings, sit back and think that your phone’s going to ring, and then turn around like an idiot – and say that doesn’t work.”
What are some of the common mistakes that you notice other people making? Tonich is thoughtful and chooses his words carefully, “One of the biggest mistakes I think you can make is not keeping your personal profile and your business profile separate. There’s a few people that I know that are really close friends to me – and we all watch them pump properties out into their feeds – and even though I like those people I hide their pages because I have no interest in knowing all about their listings. But as a person, I think they’re great! So you can actually do yourself damage there.
The biggest mistake a company can make, as a brand, is to open a personal profile under the name of the office. Firstly, it is going against all the guidelines set by Facebook so eventually they will be closed down. Secondly, it says to consumers and the audience, ‘I actually don’t know what I’m doing’. I am ‘friend requesting’ and I am not actually your friend, I am actually a brand. You have to open up your account as a business, they are the rules. If you don’t know the rules just read them, it clearly states you can’t have a personal profile if you are a business – and you shouldn’t either – because at the end of the day, why would people accept a friendship from a real estate company they don’t know?”
Very good point. We continue to talk about all sorts of other digital topics and after a few excellent tips on other social media vehicles such as LinkedIn, Google, and Twitter (coming in future issues!). Although I am a confirmed Sydney-sider, I will continue look forward to hearing what my Subiaco counterparts are getting up to. They sound as though they are having a blast.
PAUL TONICH’S TOP 10 SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS
- Have a social media marketing strategy. Like any other marketing strategy you have – be it print, TV, radio or other media outlets, you need to set goals for your social media efforts.
- Make sure your social media “personality” accurately reflects your brand. If you do not know what this is then you need to brainstorm with your team what the guidelines will be.
- While there is no actual outgoing commitment, time is money, and you have to decide what sort of time you are going to devote to social media. Then do it – you will not get a result without spending the time.
- Ensure that your team, business unit, and individual policies are aligned to your corporate social media presence and personality. Do not send mixed brand messages into the market.
- Approach all social media conversations as though you were at a BBQ. You are going to talk to some strangers, some people you know quite well, and some people you know terribly well. Don’t say anything that you think might offend a stranger that you have just met. Likewise, you probably would not show some photos to people you had just met either!
- Remember the five-step formula – Know, Like, Trust, Use, Refer: For businesses your fans need to get to know you and like you, so that you can build trust with them. Once trust has been built you can then ask them to use you, or they will approach you. Once they do use your services, give them the best service you can, and they will refer you.
- Use everything at your disposal to attract a fan base. We run events, giveaways, competitions, letter box drops, radio advertising, we do mail outs to our database, we invite other people to cross-pollinate and send people to our page, and we in exchange send our people to other business that don’t conflict with us.
- Remember FAB – Feature, Advantage, Benefit. What are the features advantages, and benefits to the follower of your page? Sometimes it could be just to make people smile. Do not just ‘rehash’ quotes if you are not going to comment on them. Remember, to mix it up – variety is the spice of life!
- Different pages do different things. Make sure that each page or profile you set up has a purpose and it is the right purpose.
- When people become fans or followers, do not forget to send a personal message welcoming them to your page!
