Bridging the Gap in Realtor Technology Education

Last Friday, we discussed how broker owners and managers are behind the curve in offering their agents training in new technology. As Old Guard Realtors themselves, brokers consider technology tangential to the art of selling and network marketing, and thus optional coursework. They are not yet sold on the idea that technology for real estate has advanced to a stage where ignoring adoption will have adverse impact on their business. In other words, they don't sense the fear of loss, which has proven to be a more urgent motivator to action than the opportunity for gain.

At Transparent today, I discuss how real estate blogging poses a very significant risk of loss to those who decide not to blog - it's the loss of future search engine traffic. The reason this threat is overlooked is simply academic... no one is advising and teaching agents why this condition exists. And it's far more complicated a story than the "you should blog" hype that agents are beginning to hear, because this is an "education" problem.

In ideal education, students learn the basics and build on these precepts to successful learning. The application of technology into a real estate practice has fundamentals that are ideally learned concurrently with the act of blogging. For example, the new blogger should understand the search engine optimization ("SEO") implications of blogs and how the Long Tail concept works in driving search engine traffic. Both SEO and the Long Tail are examples of arcane academic concepts that are difficult to explain to agents with no previous working knowledge. That educational channel bridging real estate and tech needs to be developed; here's an example of a simple explanation of the Long Tail that agents can relate to.

And there is a lot more that needs explaining... the fundamentals of technology and Real Estate 2.0 - blogging, SEO, social networking, internet marketing, widgets - pose a huge learning leap for agents. Brokers don't seem to be doing the training, so there's an opportunity for organizations working with Realtors - title insurance companies, real estate marketing and settlement service firms - to create and provide value add technology education services.

Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

Related posts:

Agent Recruitment and Technology
Agent Recruitment Challenge (from the Broker perspective)

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