Corporate profiles, social media and websites branded to the individual are all being used today by agents to promote themeselves online. When building an online following, Lisa B answers the questions ‘how much is too much?’ and ‘who should pay?’
A LOT OF real estate agency principals are understandably nervous about their staff engaging in self-promotion online. But I believe it’s actually a good thing! If staff are building their online profile and linking their social media to their corporate presence, they are helping the brand in many different ways by building status, trust and recognition with Google. Also, it becomes much harder for them to leave the office at a later date because they have a strong association to the brand. It might sound difficult to manage, but that doesn’t always have to be the case; there are a few ways that your staff profiles and websites can be organised.
I’m a believer that all real estate agents should have a website in their own name. The ‘About us’ page is not enough. Ideally, the aim is to have a professional personal profile on a dedicated website on a personal domain name. It’s a resume that can be continually added to and improved upon.
A personal website doesn’t have to be anything expensive or complicated; it can be very effective with the right details.
If you are the principal of an office and you are concerned about staff having their own websites, you can set up a subdomain on the main company site. The domain name would look something like this: johnsmith.yourwebsite.com.au. It would be a separate website, but on the same server as the main business website.
The website would remain the property of the owner of the business, who would generally pay for the set-up and maintenance of the site (or as agreed) as it would remain the property of the office whilst the staff member is employed. If the staff member left, the website would be removed from the internet.
I would suggest that if the office is paying for a personally branded website for the salesperson, the only phone number on the website should be the office phone number, not the salesperson’s mobile number. As the office is paying for the site, they want every enquiry to come into one central location. Of course this is to be negotiated between the parties.
In this scenario, should the office supply a website as a subdomain, the salesperson could also buy their own name as a full domain name and ‘point’ their domain name to the office subdomain website (this, again, would need to be in consultation with the office principal).
Alternatively, if your staff members buy and own their domain names and create their own websites; for example, theirname.com.au, this should be at their cost. Using corporate branding and logos is fine, but if they were to leave it would need to be removed. Some principals can get nervous about this arrangement, thinking that if things turn sour with the employee the employer would have no control over the site. As an office principal, assess your own situation and have clear agreements with staff regarding your online policies for websites as well as social media. As a company, protect your brand and always buy .com. and .com.au domain names if you can, for your company and personally. If you do not own your own name as a URL buy it now, as a personalised website will form the foundations of your online resume. So if you don’t own yourname.com.au and yourname.com, go to somewhere like godaddy.com and buy them now. If you don’t own both the .com and .com. au domain names, for your own name and your agency, your competitor could buy the .com domain and forward it to their website, or anywhere else they choose. They could effectively steal your traffic or damage your brand.
For a salesperson’s individual website to be effective, they should have links to the company website, personal Facebook page, company Facebook page, Twitter page, LinkedIn page, and so on. Potential customers should be able to click the links on their website and be taken to Facebook or any other social media pages that are associated with your agency so they can get to know you all a little bit better.
