Commercial Investment Real Estate is the magazine of the CCIM Institute, the leading provider of commercial real estate education. CIRE covers market trends, current developments, and business strategies within the commercial real estate field.
Issue link: http://cire.epubxp.com/i/504576
33 May | June | 2015 CCIM.com Yes, it's still true that commercial real estate is a face- to-face business. But to get to that face, you need a con- nection. Sales calls used to be way to start the conversa- tion. Today, the conversation starts on social media. But if you're not a big user of social media, it can seem intimidating. Which platform should you use? What should you say? How of en should you post? Unfortunately, there is not a universal, one-size-f ts-all approach. What is universal, says Jennifer Ortado, marketing manager at Compass Commercial Real Estate Services in Bend, Ore., is the need to provide value to clients. "Content is king," she says. "Each platform gives you a dif erent opportunity to share your voice. Within each platform, what type of information are those followers looking to gain?" Social media has redef ned how we communicate and to make the most of it, you have to tailor your message to the platform, not only its own rules and restrictions but also the expectations of your audience. Commercial Investment Real Estate surveyed CRE pros to provide a look at the major platforms and how they use them. LinkedIn: Keeping It Professional Even professionals who do little else with social media create prof les on the LinkedIn site, which boasts 300 million members. It's a good f rst step: "People have to know how to f nd you," says Gant Hill, CCIM, president of Gant Hill & Associates in Louisville, Ky. Once you've set up a prof le, it becomes a showcase for your professional expertise. You can post links to articles or blog posts you've written, news stories that you're men- tioned in, and other articles with sharable professional information. Others share, too, which makes LinkedIn a valuable research tool. "Before I make a call, I go into LinkedIn and pull up the client's bio, résumé, and links to their company," says Ethan Of enbecher, CCIM, a broker at Coldwell Banker Commercial in Austin, Texas. "It's a fantastic tool for researching both clients and companies in preparation for calls or presentations." Especially valuable are its specialized discussion groups. CCIMs have established several LinkedIn groups, but there are almost 3,000 commercial real estate groups available. Participating in just one or two is a good way to increase your exposure, Of enbecher says. "When you post and tag to groups, it gets the word out in multiples," he says. "Instead of just reaching your own connections, it reaches the group members as well." Twitter: News in 140 Characters In the early days of Twitter, "there were no rules," Orr says. "People would tweet out ridiculous things like, 'I had Cheerios for breakfast.'" T ese days, you can still f nd plenty of frivolous Twitter postings, but its brev- ity and reach have also made it a powerful marketing implement. Orr is a big fan of Twitter. He has his own feed and also manages the feed for the Colliers Charleston of ce and for the South Carolina CCIM Chapter. He pushes out content links to his own blog, as well as articles to share. He also posts links to industry news or local happenings af ecting the real estate market. T ere's more leeway in Twitter content and tone, Orr notes. While his professional feeds stick to real estate, on his personal feed, "I'm not quite as strict on myself. It can be a little more fun or whimsical than LinkedIn." He admits to tweeting pictures of Charleston's fantastic sunsets and sunrises as well as posting tweets about hob- bies or other personal subjects. His criteria: "It has to be current, relevant, and interesting." However, his own cardinal rule is that he does not post listings. "It compromises the integrity of the newsfeed when you push your listings out," Orr says. "If I want to see an ad, I'll get your newsletter or subscribe to your email updates, but don't gum up my Twitter account with your listings. T at's not what I'm there for. I'm looking for 140 characters or less of insightful, current, relevant content." While "you can't tweet a deal," Orr notes, you can "create a foundation for the relationship, and then you make a deal from there." He credits social media use for connections that led to numerous deals, including a local attorney who followed him on Twitter. "We didn't know each other, but as it turns out, we were across the street from each other," he says. T e attorney's brother-in-law was opening a restaurant, and Orr found him "one of the coolest restaurant spaces in Charleston." Other Twitter users create their own newsfeeds to follow information on various topics. Robert Zavakos, CCIM, director at NAI Dayton in Dayton, Ohio, decided to capitalize on that. "When I f rst saw Twitter, I won- dered, what is it good for?" he says. "I saw people putting listings on there and thought: Would I look at a listing on Twitter? I don't think so. But I enjoyed reading the brief, condensed bits of information." One day, he saw a ticker symbol and got an idea. He began to collect retail capitalization rates from around the country and started the feed @retailcaprates. Every day, he posts f ve to 10 dif erent rates on current triple net lease of erings. Nothing else. "It is basically snapshot of an existing NNN deal," he says. "Tweet example: Wal- green's 5.5 percent cap rate, 25 year, absolute net ground lease, Austin, TX." To date he's tweeted more than 2,669 NNN retail of erings. "T is is a tool for someone who has an asset