Many agents are recognizing how much significance the Internet has in buying and selling real estate. Brokers and large franchises nationwide have also caught on to this ever emerging trend and have begun feeding their listings to major home portals like Zillow, Trulia, FrontDoor, and Homescape among others.
What gets me is the number of agents who haven’t taken the steps necessary to customize their listings on these sites, or have taken advantage of the inexpensive branding ads they can launch on them. Zillow is a prime example, wherein agents are capable of going into their listings after they been fed by their broker and update with more information, narrative and photos – PLUS the agents get the chance to take ownership of their listing and let the world know they’re the list agent.
There’s something really wrong with this picture. More and more companies are adapting to the new way, and are spending record numbers on advertising and marketing their inventory online, however, their agents are neglecting that same awesome opportunity right in front of them. With Zillow and Trulia, you can run branded ads featuring you as a market expert, but as I’m scouring the search results in my area, I don’t see a single agent.
Check out the video below explaining how you can maximize on Zillow’s agent branding feature (e-z ads) and get noticed in the same place where over 85% of today’s buyers are finding their next home. For a penny an impression and the capability to geo-target your audience, there’s no reason agents shouldn’t be taking of advantage of this great branding opportunity. Get out there and get those leads you want!!!
I agree- they are all here to stay. So I think the key is to find the one that works best for each client. I have recently started referring people to PropertyMaps which has a really great google maps/mls tool. I think they all have their own unique thing about them…so learn to love the one you want to use.
This is just one of many examples that could be cited about how agents fail to embrace technology to provide clients with the best possible exposure to the marketplace. How many times, for example, have we seen lousy listing photos that create a poor impression of a home for everyone in the world to see. I could go on but the truth is that too many agents think posting a listing on the MLS is all that’s required of them. Brokerage firms need to do more to ensure that their agents are tech saavy and delivering higher levels of service to their clients. And the public needs to be much better educated about what they should expect from their listing agents before they engage their services.