Our course spends two days taking people through a thorough learning process which discusses a lot of different topics (including communication skills) all aimed at enabling the student to engage in social media in an ethical, responsible, effective and sustainable manner. We worked for months to develop content that would be transportable from social media tool to social media tool, while enabling the student to have a firm foundation on skills that would serve them in good stead as the social media landscape evolves and changes. If it could be taught in less than 2 days, we would have designed a shorter course. If it was so simple as to be unneeded, we would not have designed a course at all – and we are not focused on just teaching tools – for a variety of reason, not the least of which is that the tools have been and will continue to evolve on a regular basis. However at the end of the course the student is familiar with the tools of social media, and has developed a basis for determining how they will use them to engage the community they wish to participate in. We cover a lot of ground from marketing theory to copyright law to social capital, contracts, objects, and proof, the Realtor Code of Ethics, reputation management, monitoring, and measurement, as well as a variety of other topics.

So I don't know that you can boil the course down a one line essential except to say that we have developed content to enable students to create a strategy for their business that enables them to engage in social media in an ethical, responsible, effective and sustainable manner.

Look forward to seeing you in a few weeks – Hope we have a chance to continue talking over the holidays (but only when you have spare time)

So bottomline, boiled down to the essentials, what you and SMMI are teaching is simply “Communications 101″. Together with some technical review of the various tools. I can see that being valuable to a lot of folks.

Is that, in fact, what we are talking about?

-rsh

Our course spends two days taking people through a thorough learning process which discusses a lot of different topics (including communication skills) all aimed at enabling the student to engage in social media in an ethical, responsible, effective and sustainable manner. We worked for months to develop content that would be transportable from social media tool to social media tool, while enabling the student to have a firm foundation on skills that would serve them in good stead as the social media landscape evolves and changes. If it could be taught in less than 2 days, we would have designed a shorter course. If it was so simple as to be unneeded, we would not have designed a course at all – and we are not focused on just teaching tools – for a variety of reason, not the least of which is that the tools have been and will continue to evolve on a regular basis. However at the end of the course the student is familiar with the tools of social media, and has developed a basis for determining how they will use them to engage the community they wish to participate in. We cover a lot of ground from marketing theory to copyright law to social capital, contracts, objects, and proof, the Realtor Code of Ethics, reputation management, monitoring, and measurement, as well as a variety of other topics.

So I don't know that you can boil the course down a one line essential except to say that we have developed content to enable students to create a strategy for their business that enables them to engage in social media in an ethical, responsible, effective and sustainable manner.

Look forward to seeing you in a few weeks – Hope we have a chance to continue talking over the holidays (but only when you have spare time)

So bottomline, boiled down to the essentials, what you and SMMI are teaching is simply “Communications 101″. Together with some technical review of the various tools. I can see that being valuable to a lot of folks.

Is that, in fact, what we are talking about?

-rsh

To me, Bill, this is public relations 101. And it goes counter to the grain of Cluetrain and the culture of the Web, which calls for the natural human voice, as it actually sounds when people are un-self-consciously chatting. I fear that this sort of conscious, intentional focus on “what you want to communicate, perception thereof, etc.” is taking a few steps down the path of the corporate voice, the sales pitch, the ad jingle. And quite frankly, that's how so many realtor social media efforts sound — quite like a sales jingle and quite unlike a normal person talking.

I completely disagree with you – its not at all about “sales jingles” – it is about the problems we all face when we are normal people talking. If that were not a problem, no relationship would ever suffer from mis-communication, and we all know that's just not the case. What you call natural I would call being genuine – in other words, a message without artifice expressing your true feelings, emotions or position. But that doesn't mean that intending to send a natural message without proper thought or training will result in sending the message you intended to. People in general have difficulty communicating because of the three things I mentioned in the earlier comment – What they mean to say – What words they use to try to say it clearly, and the interpretation of those words by the recipient of the message. It isn't counter to Cluetrain's “natural message” to choose your words to accurately convey the message you intend to convey – for example, a Mom who tells a child that they are bad may not have intended to tell the child that they were bad, but they have done something bad. Their choice of words may result in the child getting the wrong message (wrong because it was unintended) So yes, I believe that we can train someone to communicate more accurately with their intended audience without becoming a 'spin doctor.

You go a little further in your statement

If the purpose of social media education is to train individuals how to be “more professional” in the chaos that is the Web… okay, I can see the value in that… but I also can't see it being all that successful in the end because the resulting work product will be closer to what Publicist puts out than what a free individual puts out, and people will feel it instinctively

Our course is designed to assist people in becoming valued members of the communities they desire to interact with – and to become such they must be true to themselves and to the community or it won't work. Not only will the members of any community quickly identify people who seek to prey upon them for commercial purposes, but the individual who tries to sustain a false position will eventually tire of taking a position which they cannot support from their very core. You and I agree that people want to interact with people in a very genuine manner – but I also believe that combining that with some understanding of how social interaction works and what effect different venues might have upon your communication will increase the effectiveness of your efforts. Not everyone is a natural networker, or a great writer, or compelling speaker, but everyone can learn how to share their skills and talents with their community – and everyone can learn how to be better at anything they do – even you and me

I beg to differ with you on this one. The #1 activity a broker has given new agents, repeatedly and consistently, is to write down the names and addresses of 100 people they know. The ONLY thing a new agent DOES have is “a sphere of influence to help them in their business…” What they don't have is the experience and skill level to walk the walk. Brokers know that likely the ONLY people who will hire them with no experience is someone on that list of 100 people who do it FOR the agent, vs choosing the best agent to assist them in the real estate transaction.

Those agents that acquire skill and knowledge while helping their friends and relatives in the first year, go on to be good agents. Those who simply run out of favors and make no effort to learn anything during and in between those personal sphere transactions…quit the business.

This is HUGELY important to new agents and social media. Those that use the word “ROOKIE” in the blog title (not post title but the actual name of the blog that lives on for years and years) OMG! Please train them NOT to DO that. New agents who blog about the disasters that occur in their 1st and 2nd and 3rd transactions…OMG! Train them NOT to do that.

Tweet: I felt badly to tell my clients today that the one house of the 5 we saw that they liked, was overpriced by $100,000

Tweet: YAY! Writing an offer from 5 houses I showed today! I think it's WAY over-priced, but I didn't tell them because they liked it so much.

Which agent would you hire? Social Media training may not be the silver bullet to the agent who always tweets in the latter sentiment and format. They need to learn that, and someone needs to teach them that. I think that someone is you.

In many ways Social Media has become the new Open House as to being an effective tool with multiple purpose.

1) Open Houses

a) Held primarily for the seller's benefit to provide more exposure for their home (pretend it's 15 years ago for this one) and possibly sell that home to someone who comes to the Open House.

b) A secondary consequence is that the agent may interact with a home buyer who doesn't want that house…but does want that agent to assist them in buying a different house because they were impressed with his knowledge and skill level.

On Any Given Sunday, some agents will repeatedly and consistently return after 3 hours work with either having sold the Open House to one of the visitors OR acquire a new buyer client. I was one of those agents. 2/3rds of my business came from Open Houses back in the 90s. Yet you will hear over and over again sad tales from agents who never, ever acquired clients via “sitting” Open Houses. The difference is the agent in the room and what they do in that room for 3 hours…not the tool itself.

Still…I would say education regarding how to do Open Houses, and how to do them more effectively, is a warranted activity for any Brokerage Office when training agents. Part of that training is how to be the agent who does get chosen, vs. the ones who do not. Clearly the agent watching the football game for 3 hours during the Open House, may go home with his Sunday paper having been read, and not much else to show for his 3 hours of time.

c) A smaller % of the time a neighbor comes to the Open House and is so impressed with how the agent is representing the seller at that Open House, and the agent's knowledge in answering questions, that the neighbor hires that agent to sell their house.

2) Social Media

For any agent who would have been chosen by people at an Open House, Social Media will produce the same result. For any agent who is never chosen by anyone at an Open House, Social Media will likewise produce the same result.

Agents who “hard sell” at Open Houses rarely return with any clients who actually end up buying a home with that agent. Same will happen with agents who “hard sell” using Social Media.

Interacting with people, and how to do that effectively, is NOT a new concept in real estate. We are simply moving the Open House (often sans house) to the web where people can come at their convenience vs. 1 – 4 on Sunday. The agent can write posts every Sunday from 1 to 4 as their total weekly effort to social media, vs sitting in an Open House or even while AT a quiet Open House.

Some agents learned after doing many Open Houses how to conduct themselves more like the agents who did a mega business from Open Houses…others simply said “Open Houses don't work”. Social Media will be the same.

Social media is not different, except that your 3 hours of writing blog posts (vs. sitting in an Open House) will likely produce many more clients than 3 hours at an Open House ever could (though 3 times ZERO is still ZERO). Your work product from the 3 hours spent will live on the web for years to come, and possibly bring you clients over and over again, and years later.

Social Media training is clearly MUCH better time spent by both the trainer and the trainee than Open House training. The net result will be the same. If the agent does not convey at that Open House that they are knowledgeable, and have something to offer, and only say “I can help you buy ANY house!” they will not do as well as an agent who has something to offer. Agents who write blog posts saying BUY THIS! BUY NOW! YOU MUST USE A REALTOR! will have the same result as having said that in an Open House.

Back to the Sunday football game. Agent is in Open House watching the football game until he sees a car pull up. He shuts the TV off. Couple comes in. wife is all over the agent and the house, and the husband is looking pretty darned grumpy. Agent says to the husband “the Hawks are up by 7″. Husband perks up. Agent says, would you like to watch the game while your wife and I go through the house? Husband LOVES that agent That's the “social” part of Social Media. It's OK to tweet that the Hawks are up by 7 ONLY being social is just as bad as NEVER being social, be it at an Open House or on Social Media.

No result at all, ZERO result, is never about the tool used, Rob. It's about the agent “in the room”. The “of value” is NOT that he IS simply AN agent. The “of value” to the consumer is the “take-away”. The agent's ability to GIVE something…and by doing so convey their knowledge and skill level, is the same art of communication whether it is via Social Media or an Open House.