Are you getting the most out of Realtor.com? Or how about a better question, are you even aware of all of the absolutely FREE and amazing features the site offers that can help you grow your real estate business? On last week’s episode of my weekly real estate talk show #OfficeHours, we welcomed Rhett Damon of Realtor.com onto the show and we got down in the dirt and really unmasked some of the features that every Realtor should not only understand but should be taking full advantage of right now!
If you subscribe to your local MLS, then you need to know that you have a profile ready to go for you on Realtor.com. Think about it, when you list a property for sale and place it in the MLS – it is automatically syndicated to Realtor.com. This is one of the many advantages to your client wisely choosing to list their home with a Realtor. However, it is amazing to me how many Realtors have not even claimed their profile where their very own properties are being marketed all over the world! In this post, we are going to break down some of the important – and free – features of Realtor.com that you should be using right now in your real estate business.
(Full disclosure – for all features included in this blog post you must be a member of your local, state, or national Realtor Association to have them free)
Watch the Full #OfficeHours on Realtor.com with Rhett Damon Here
Claim Your Realtor.com Profile
First and foremost, let’s make sure you have claimed your Realtor.com profile! If you are a member of the Realtor Association, then it is important to know that you already have a profile setup (or saved) on Realtor.com as a member. However, it is just a shell that sits there blank and empty unless you decide to do something with it!
Remember, you don’t want possible clients or customers to Google your name and find an empty profile on Realtor.com. It just plain looks bad, and a potential lead or potential client might think you went out of business or are not really in the real estate business in the first place!
Claiming your Realtor.com profile is quick and easy, and will instantly add huge credibility and visibility to your real estate brand. If you have already done so, make sure you have the profile completely filled out with a professional picture, backdrop, contact information, and other essentials so that your profile looks as serious about real estate as you are.
Click here to see how to claim your Realtor.com profile on #OfficeHours.
Build Your Brand with Client Testimonials on
Realtor.com
According to a recent study, about 88% of people admit that they trust online reviews as much as they trust reviews of any other source. 88%! Which means potential clients and customers 
are definitely considering what others say about you before they decide if you are the right real estate agent for them.
Think about yourself as a consumer, think about the last time you were about to make a big purchase or possibly hire a professional like a contractor or a doctor – I’ll bet reviews and testimonials played into the equation. Whether you saw them on Yelp, Facebook, Amazon, or even the Better Business Bureau’s website – if you see reviews from others (good or bad) it absolutely factors into the consumer’s decision. Therefore, another great feature included within your Realtor.com profile is a testimonials feature built right in that you can use immediately to add instant “internet cred” to yourself and your real estate business.
Make sure that you follow our advice and get clients and customers to submit reviews about their experience with you! If you treated a client well, and they are happy and satisfied, you might need to prompt them to leave a review for you in order for that to get done. We all know how easy it is for someone to find the time and energy to post a BAD review, but let’s make sure the good ones are making their way onto your profile.
Click here to learn about the testimonials feature on Realtor.com
Your Secret Weapon – The Content Sharing Hub
If you have a website, blog, Facebook page, or any other web presence already then you probably already know the importance of producing and presenting content to the world as a way of generating leads and building brand presence. (If you don’t have a website, please watch this episode of #OfficeHours). This is what we call “content marketing,” and it really is king in this day and age of the mobile device and social media. Heck, what you are reading right now is a type of content marketing! It is key, and it should be employed by any real estate agent looking to build their brand and become a presence in their local marketplace.
But what about content? I have heard it all before. “I am not a writer Chris!” “I can’t shoot professional videos and make my own commercials Chris!” “How in the world do you expect little old me, the local real estate agent, to compete with these content giants?” Exactly. That is why you need to check out a really cool feature from Realtor.com which is called the Content Sharing Hub. Again, it is FREE and could be employed by you right away.
What is the Content Sharing Hub? Well, to give you an idea there are a series of videos and commercials featuring Elizabeth Banks which aired on television or were produced specifically for social media. And the Content Sharing Hub is built and designed so that you, the Realtor member, can take this content absolutely free and employ it on your personal sites. You can literally copy and paste from the site and have a professionally shot video about new home buyers and it will show up on your Facebook page. How easy is that?! Want videos that you can include in a listing presentation or possibly include in an interview with new home buyers? Done! Again, there is no additional membership fee it is included with your membership to your local Association of Realtors.
How’d I Do That? See Below
Click here to see us discuss the sharing hub on #OfficeHours
Integrating the .REALTOR Domain with Your Profile on Realtor.com
Another fantastic way that the National Association of Realtors is working to help its members is by the creation of the .realtor domain. Just as it looks, rather than having a .com or a .net – if you are a real estate professional you can establish a unique presence on the web as a real estate professional by using a .realtor as your domain. Pretty cool, huh? Now the .realtor domain does come at a cost, as all domain names do, and you can find out more information about this topic specifically here.
So with one last shameless plug for #OfficeHours here, one of the reasons I enjoy the show is that we do live Q&A to finish off each show. In this episode discussing Realtor.com, we had a question from the live internet audience about integrating your Realtor.com profile with a .realtor domain. Of course, Rhett had a great answer for this and obviously the two are designed to work beautifully together. Without saying too much on the topic, I think it is best if you just watch this short clip on how it all works.
Market Reports and Research for Realtors
If you have ever been in a training session with me, you know one of the big questions I like to pose to you as a real estate audience is “what makes YOU an expert?” It’s a fun discussion because if you have never been in a session with me before, the simple proposition makes some people uncomfortable. However, most real estate agents get it and what I am trying to remind us all is that we must become actual experts in the field of real estate if we intend to continue having clients pay us for our service!
One great way to display your expertise is by knowing your market. Think about it, if you sit down with a seller to discuss the possibility of listing their home what do they want to know most from you? They want to know how much their home is worth, they want to know about the market, and they will probably want to know if the Zestimate they pulled down from Zillow is right! So we already understand the importance of the CMA, and knowing our market, is one of the important displays of expertise that our seller is depending on.
Therefore, as a company which caters to real estate professionals Realtor.com has a unique page built just for you which is run by their team of Economists and Researchers. This fantastic site provides data, research reports, trends, graphs – you name it all in the name of providing YOU the real estate professional with free information that you can use to help build your expertise or stay on top of the market. Heck, you can even pull local market data and graphs and use that as a part of your listing presentation! See what I mean? The possibilities are endless. Make sure to take advantage of this research and data, and make sure that the next time you are discussing the market with a potential client that you actually have the data to back up what you are telling them.
Here is the section of #OfficeHours where we talked about the research page
As you can see, without payment of your hard earned dime to your local Association or the MLS you have a ton of features that you can take advantage of to help build your real estate brand. Your web presence can get an instant shot of juice simply by ensuring you do the basics that we discuss here in this post. If you are a Realtor, make sure you claim your page and fill it with testimonials! Use the Content Sharing Hub to help produce content for your personal website, and of course don’t forget about the research reports page which was built for you to keep up on the marketplace and display your real estate expertise.
My goal is to see you all succeed, and I will help you in any way that I can. Please share, like, and engage with me and this post and let me know that you are reading! You can also email me anytime at chris@christalks.com and I would love to here from you. Until next time, go get em!!
I do not work for any Realtor Association nor am I officially endorsing any product or service with this post. Any information here is simply for informational purposes in our mission to help real estate agents succeed. There are absolutely no paid product advertisements in this post whatsoever.
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