Social Media: Huge time waster or useful business tool?

Are you on Facebook and/or Twitter?  Why?  Are you the silent observer, just watching everyone else interact?  Or do you actually spend some time engaging people, commenting on their posts and photos, or retweeting what they say on Twitter?  Now I'm certainly no social media expert, but I really think your level of interaction can make a huge difference in how people perceive you.  

Some agents I follow post nothing but listings or plugs for an open house...and these are on their 'personal' page.  Of course, you want your FB friends to know what you do, but don't you also want to give them a glimpse of who you are, to make some kind of a connection with you?  Connection is such a key element to social media.  Would you say that the more they know about you, the more likely they are to trust your real estate expertise? 

We want to feel connected to other people, to find common interests, and social media is such a great tool for doing just that.  I recently reconnected with a school mate I had not seen since she moved away in middle school.  We were great friends, but lost touch.  Eventually I was able to find her on Facebook and was so excited to be able to 'see' her again.   Now I can keep up with what's going on in her life, see pictures of her newborn baby, and you can bet if I'm ever up in Michigan I'll be planning to visit her offline.  But I feel connected to her again by our interactions on Facebook.

Below is a link to wonderful post by Daniel Beer that differentiates the social networking aspect from the social media aspect, and the importance of blending the two.   If you're not interacting and providing useful and relevant content, you're probably not going to see much return on your social networking efforts.  Interact and be a resource!
http://www.geekestateblog.com/why-social-media-doesnt-work-for-most-agents-and-what-to-do-about-it/

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. --Proverbs 27:17