I’ll likely need to hire someone in the near-future to redo the blog entirely.

-rsh

You mention that blogging is one of the most powerful marketing tools. I think it might be better for your users to display the whole conversation on the post instead of hiding most of the conversation from your users unless they find this small
(« Older Comments) link. Not very good experience for the user. I was sent a link to this conversation and didn’t realize there was more to read Not every one is a blog expert.

There was a good conversation going on and I could not find it.

I asked for proof because I know that what works in one industry doesn’t mean that it translates to a different industry. This is especially true when we are talking about selling services, which is what the real estate agent does.

“IMHO, there is a piece of technology missing from SM. It is the ability to seamlessly drive eyeballs back and forth from SM to WEB for information and conversion.”

That isn’t a technology issue. It is done all the time. The challenge is in driving the right eyeballs, and enough eyeballs. My contention is that SM like twitter and FB have limited reach beyond one’s existing SOI for a service based industry.

“Only a portion of our SM success is coming from direct response. Another portion is from our ability to drive traffic. It was this piece that made the difference for us..”

Now we are getting down to brass tacks. It is all about the ability to drive traffic. The issue is what kind of traffic can one drive via SM for a specific industry? Selling a product (shoes on Zappos) is different than selling a service, which is what agents do. If real estate was about just selling the product, then Ebay and Craigslist would put us out of business.

The questions ultimately are:
1) How can an agent drive traffic that converts to either a buyer or seller lead via SM, and

2) What is the ROI, both in money and time, for that strategy.

Armed with that info, an agent can then compare against other proven strategies and make intelligent decisions on what strategies to invest in and employ.

That is why I ask for evidence or testimonials from those who can provide it.

-rsh

I agree entirely with your post and have to admit that my SM analytics pale in comparison to my Web analytics in all aspects. The amount of data is certainly not significant enough to publish and if I wasn’t closely involved with the agents using SM on a daily basis, and seeing cause and effect, I am not certain the numbers would be convincing as a stand alone study. I will certainly continue on with the hope of producing number 3-7.

IMHO, there is a piece of technology missing from SM. It is the ability to seamlessly drive eyeballs back and forth from SM to WEB for information and conversion. Only a portion of our SM success is coming from direct response. Another portion is from our ability to drive traffic. It was this piece that made the difference for us..

I am quickly coming to the realization that i am not ultimately ready to share and should poilly acquiesce from this conversation. Statements such as “Rather than hear “trust me it works”, I want to see proof” raise my blood pressure. Each and everyone in this conversation knows my reputation. I will certainly show and tell in private to the individuals that matter to me, but really, I didn’t hear anyone state, “Marc, I want PROOF that you stood behind people who use your websites and asked them questions..” Why, because if Marc said he did… he did. ’nuff said.

I have very little to gain here, and with the risk of Bob’s next post using the words, “neener, neener” I will submit that my opinion stands firm and I am certain that by ReBarCamp-SD, I will have a firm set of analytics that will prove out my strategies ROI…. to a select few.