Guest Post: Social Media Redefines Networking

During the dot-com era, I remember reading about this Los Angeles-based tech guy who claimed to be the most networked individual in America. He landed articles on some national business weeklies, expounding on his success tip of always making e-mail referrals across his networks. The fact that I couldn't find this guy on Google today (anyone remember this guy?) validates the fact that this kind of intensive, but superficial uber-networking just didn't work because his network was too diverse. Today's online social media has made networking much more efficient because they are self-marketing forums that can be targeted to building a community of like-minded individuals.

Real estate agents don't realize that "playing around on MySpace will hone the online social networking skills necessary to develop their online presence. Once an agent "graduates" to blogging or to social networks like ActiveRain that are more attuned to real estate, they begin to understand that these venues foster and facilitate introductions between like-minded people that can turn into leads, business opportunities or jobs.

Social media facilitates the initial dialogue between networked individuals, but the face-to-face meeting is still critical to establishing the relationship. At the risk of sounding promotional, next month's Real Estate Connect will be the venue for the first official face-to-face congregation of the real estate blogosphere at Bloggers Connect. It's a unique social experiment... everyone knows each other but will finally meet in person, like pen pals.

At Transparent Real Estate today, I briefly discuss the evolution of networking and how the online social media is providing transparent paths to talented individuals once relatively inaccessible.

--Pat Kitano, Transparent Real Estate

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