Inman Connect wrapped today and, like most of them, a day’s missing. Thus this post wraps days 3 and 4 together.
Great meetings, but I wanted to be in more sessions. Connect’s a great opportunity to place a finger on real estate’s jugular and catch a pulse. That emerges in conversations, too, but it really steeps on stage. An interplay between the two is best.
I wrote about two trends earlier in the week: the IDX/lead-gen/CRM platform convergence and the proliferation of human real estate concierge services for brokers and agents.
Local media + the future of real estate = community marketing
The dynamic Gary V — who looks like he’s on a serious lean-focused workout program by the way — hit the stage hard on Thursday (like I imagine he hits every stage, his bed, car, etc.). And he didn’t disappoint.
He spilled insights on insights on insights particularly around real estate’s opportunity to grab business as local publishers, aka become “community marketers,” the exact same opportunity I see and anchors HageyMedia’s raison d’etre.
He also preached the importance of mastering distribution, echoing News Corp CEO Robert Thomson’s concerns, expressed earlier in the week from the Connect main stage, around the concerning leverage distributors (Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram) have over content producers.
There’s a war for audience and we’re all fighting it. The answer is smart content — not just RE-focused — smartly distributed, Vaynerchuck said.
Community marketing
A couple weeks ago I profiled the great Marguerite Giguere, a Tacoma, Washington real estate agent, whose community blog + podcast, MoveToTacoma.com, anchors her business. She called it “community marketing” and I latched on to it.
As soon as she said it during our phone interview, I knew it’d be in the headline, and told her so. Prediction: “community marketing” becomes a common real estate term the latter half of this year and from now on.
It perfectly describes the opportunity real estate brokerages and agents have to provide value, be extremely authentic by becoming local publishers. It’s not easy. No one I’ve spoken with who’s doing it has a 360-degree understanding of how to do it well, efficiently.
Friday morning, with half the crowd, and Brad, fighting hangovers from the innovator award bash the night before, we saw more community marketing profiles.
Audie Chamberlain, founder and CEO of the real estate public relations firm Lion & Orb, interviewed Denver real estate agent team leader Mor Zucker on the Connect mainstage about her community marketing play, The Denver Ear.
Mor from @TheDenverEar & @audiechambrln break down importance of community marketing #icsf pic.twitter.com/ovSqt5FSzA
— Paul Hagey (@HageyRE) August 5, 2016
Portland, Oregon broker-owner, and former punkrocker, Jenelle Isaacson, hit the stage before and preached the same message her firm, Living Room Realty, cooks with: be authentic, create local content that people actually want to read/watch.
Look for profiles soon.
Also, I owe you a Firepoint profile. Met with CEO Chris Tamm — it’s in the works.