First in a series

At first glance, I bet a lot of real estate companies can’t figure out what they’re supposed to do with social media. That’s probably why so many have sat on the sidelines.

But many are starting to reconsider, and it’s because of articles like this one recently on Mashable: How Real Estate Pros are Using Social Media for  Real Results.

Just look, for example, at all the tools Corcoran Group uses – and very successfully: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, FourSquare, Tumblr, Vimeo and even an iPhone app for finding properties.

OK – so your firm isn’t a Corcoran Group (who is?). You can still learn from what they are doing and how they are doing it. Let’s look at their different social media platforms one by one.

Corcoran on Twitter: Corcoran actually has two twitter accounts. This one is primarily about the “brand” or company and is devoted to local news – much of it fun and interesting. Not just real estate news. This is very smart. If you want to position yourself as a trusted source of info, you have to demonstrate your knowledge of the area. But where are the listings you say? Corcoran has a very new Twitter account for listings only, updated every 30 minutes. I like the idea of two accounts – but for smaller real estate firms, one account to do both is a better idea.

Corcoran on Facebook: 9,655 fans on Facebook for a real estate site? It’s possible. Corcoran uses their Facebook landing page as basically a portal to all their areas of real estate and media. This is smart – with 400 million Facbook users (and soon 500 million), they know this is where many visitors to their brand may land first. They created this page using static FBML. This is Facebook Markup Language and it makes your Facebook page look like a web page. Find out more about it here.

Corcoran on YouTube: Look at one of their most successful videos on YouTube in the last few months – a 35 second post on conditions on the local New York real estate market that garnered over 1,120 views. Thirty-five freaking seconds. The point is, talk about your local market – and do it on video if you can. You don’t need the resources of Corcoran to do it either. Can’t do video yourself? Use a servce like Wellcomemat.com.

Corcoran on Tumblr: This one is a surprise. Tumblr is an easy to use blogging platform. It is a community in the sense that the tool lets you connect easily with other Tumblr bloggers, who seem to be college age. Corcoran on Tumblr is a brand that’s emphasizing just being social and fun. And it looks like they’re succeeding.

Corcoran iPhone app: How great is this? Use your iPhone to find a map of all open houses and listings. Granted this is beyond the reach of small real estate firms, but it is a look at things to come. This is how people will search for real estate more and more.

And there’s more. If you’re thinking your firm isn’t a Corcoran-sized company so you can’t do these things, that’s … wrong! OK, maybe an iPhone app is out of your league, but the strategies they use on these platforms is what you should aim for.

It’s not as hard as it seems – it ain’t rocket surgery!