How to Use the LinkedIn Relationship Tab to Improve Your Lead Generation in Real Estate

Do you struggle to remember how or why you connected with someone on LinkedIn? 

Or the understanding of why LinkedIn is so important to have for Real Estate Agents?

By using the Relationship tab, you can build on the connections you need to convert more prospects, close more deals and grow your real estate business. If you are sick of calling people, this is another way to get your lead gen in.

What is the LinkedIn Relationship Tab?

This is a convenient tool that shows you how you’re connected to someone. You can add information to remind yourself of important details about your relationship or set reminders for future interactions. it is available to all LinkedIn users, both free and premium. You can find this tab by opening a connection’s LinkedIn profile. The tab is not available on the mobile app. Just beneath the profile information are two tabs: Relationship and Contact Info. Clicking on the Relationship tab shows information related to your relationship with this contact. This is visible only to you and is unique to you and each of your connections.

How Can You Use It For Lead Generation With Your Business?

#1: Find Out When You Connected

LinkedIn will populate the date you originally connected with someone in the Relationship tab. This information is available for anyone you’re connected to on LinkedIn. The date you connected may be helpful if you’ve forgotten how you connected with the person. The date often is enough information to keep track of a growing LinkedIn network.

#2: View Messages You’ve Exchanged

If you’ve shared messages with a LinkedIn connection, these messages also appear in your list of automatically populated details. The most recent conversation appears on the Relationship tab, but you can click on the See More link to reveal the full list of conversations and the date you originally connected with this person. Having this quick reminder of how you communicated in the past is a useful way to review your relationship. For example, if you’re developing a relationship with a connection and don’t want to send more than one LinkedIn message a month, you can quickly see how recently you sent your last LinkedIn message. Or if you want to refer to a previous conversation or details, you can quickly access those details before sending out your new message.

#3: Add Notes About Your Contacts

The first personalized section you can edit on the Relationship tab is the Note section. This is where you can add any details or information related to your connecti

on. This information can be personal or professional. It can be any information that helps you organize your contacts and keep track of your relationships. Here are a few examples of how you might use the Note section:

·         Include notes for individuals you know have attended open houses.

·         List the person’s interests for when you meet with them in person.

·         List if they are buyers/sellers.

·         If you have been following up on a cold-call development with a connection, keep track of conversations and progress notes.

·         How the buying/selling process went.

·         What service providers they are using (Marketplace Home Mortgage for Finance, etc)

When a person unexpectedly calls you while you are at home, you can quickly look up his or her LinkedIn profile and have immediate access to all of your conversations, history and details you’ve chosen to list. Rather than having to ask your contact to remind you, you already have all of this information and can impress that person with your knowledge and value of your relationship.

#4: Set Reminders To Follow Up

The Reminder tool is one of the most useful tools on LinkedIn. It allows you to set a one-time or recurring reminder for a connection. Many people don’t even know this exists.  When you’ve set a reminder, you’ll receive a notification via email, indicating you have a reminder. You can also go to your LinkedIn Connections tab, and your pending reminders will appear along the top list of activity for your connections. Once the item is complete, click Mark as Complete, which clears the item from your activity. You can also change the due date if needed. Details of completed reminders are cleared from your activity, so you should add a note indicating when and what task you completed. If you have a hot lead or a cold call relationship with someone, the Reminder tool is one of your most valuable assets within LinkedIn. It allows you to set a schedule for follow-up conversations and information sharing that will help you close that deal and stay focused on the lead so they don’t get lost in the business.

#5: Record How You Met

The How You Met tab is one that you should really take the time to complete for every connection you have on LinkedIn. It can be time-consuming, but in the long run, it’s worth it. As your network grows and you connect with more people, it’s easy to lose track of why you’re connected to people. So take a minute to fill in this section with details about how you connected or met. This information will help you keep track of your network and build those relationships to grow your business. If someone sends you a personalized LinkedIn connection request stating why he or she wants to connect with you, it’s a good idea to copy and paste it into the How You Met section. The initial conversations and messages you exchange when connecting are not transferred to the message list on the Relationship tab. If you were introduced to a contact or referred by someone, you can also include that information in the Who Introduced You field. Just start typing the person’s name, and LinkedIn will pull the list of connections you have that match that name.

#6: Assign Tags to Categorize Connections

Tags are a convenient way to quickly categorize your connections and when searching for connections on LinkedIn, there is a filter to sort by tags, which makes this a valuable tool for organizing your network. It’s a good idea to categorize every one of your connections on LinkedIn. You can get as creative or as targeted as you like with your own personalized tag titles. To assign a tag to a connection, click on the Tag tab and select one or more of your existing tags. Choose the Add New Tag option if you want to assign a new category. The contact will automatically be included in this new tag category. Examples: Buyers, Agents, Sellers, Potential Clients, Hot Leads, Family, etc.

LinkedIn is one of the most powerful tools for developing your Lead Generation and growing a network around your Real Estate business. It takes a lot more than just connecting with someone to really foster the connections and value that LinkedIn has to offer. Use the Relationship tab to grow your relationships and capitalize on opportunities to connect with potential clients. If you would like help getting this set up email me for a time to meet or check out my website for more information. 

Do You Want A Fresh Start On Your Marketing? Come To My Classes Starting Monday May 4th 11-12!

To Sign up for the entire series: http://nicoleroycraft.weebly.com/classes.html

Google Update - "Mobile Friendly" Algorithm!

How will Google’s “mobile-friendly” algorithm impact your website?

On April 21, Google will begin rolling out a worldwide mobile-friendly algorithm update that will have a “significant impact” on mobile search results for mobile searchers. If your site does not pass Google’s mobile friendly test, Google will send you fewer mobile search customers.

There is a test that you can put your website through to see if it is mobile friendly or not. The test results page will specify reasons that the page has been deemed unfriendly, such as small text, link spacing, horizontal scrolling, and other mobile usability issues.

A positive test result means your site should retain its mobile rankings or even increase it’s ranking because sites that were higher than yours in mobile search  but now are not mobile friendly will decrease their SEO and push yours ahead of theirs.

To increase and maintain your SEO make sure your website is mobile friendly. The test takes about 60 seconds to find out and it will give a pass-fail response. 

To test your website go to: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly

Bold Tech - Social Media, Blogging, Video

Social Media

On all social media platforms you need to remember the 4 E’s – Enlightening, Enriching, Entertaining and Educational. If your post does not do any of these four things then you should not post it. It has been proven that these four things are what really help you see engagement on your page. Read this blog to understand how to make your posts stand out.  There are four social media networks you should focus on: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.

Facebook is still the #1 social media platform. It has over 68% of the population using it. Creating a business page for Real Estate is essential. There are a lot of rules and regulations within the state of Minnesota Realtors have to follow. You cannot do any sort of marketing for your listings on your personal page unless you are sharing it from your business page. The KW logo has to be visual on your profile picture. In your cover photo you need the KW logo, Realtor MLS logo, and Equal Housing logo (Shown in picture). The business page is where you can create ads for your business. You want to invite people to like your page and make your presence known.  If you need help setting it up, email me.

Twitter is starting to become bigger and bigger. It is great for business and to communicate with your clients. Video on twitter is starting to become HUGE. Do you understand the #HASHTAG? If not read about it here.

Pinterest is a good way to increase your SEO. We did a test on an agent in my office. Before when we would search her listings on Google Trulia, Zillow and the Keller Williams website would show up on the first page. We started her Pinterest account and added every listing as its own Board. We connected every picture back to her website. We also added boards like Home Improvement Tips, Season Changes, etc and linked those to her blog. If you Google her listings the Pinterest board of the listing comes up on the first page.

Google+ was mentioned earlier on how it is huge for SEO. For Google to recognize you as an author of your website you need a Google+ page. Just like Pinterest, if you share your listings on Google+ it will show up on Google when you search the listing.

Blogging

The most crucial piece to really gain SEO is blogging. It shows that you are the expert in Real Estate. You need to make sure when you blog that the content is rich. It needs to be at least 300 words. Use your Longtail keywords. You should use it in the first sentence, last sentence, in a hyperlink, as well as the saved photo you use in your blog. In your blog you need to have a call to action (Link to your IDX search), your phone number, and your email. Make sure to put all of this in before your last keyword sentence. NEVER say CLICK HERE. The new big thing is Vlogging or also known as video blogging.

Video

Videos should always be 1 minute or less. If it is longer then that you will either lose the person’s attention or they won’t watch it. Many people believe video is what will take over the internet. Get ahead of the game by starting now. Eyejot is a great free app to help you get started on videos. You always want to make sure you use your keywords in the title, description, and tags. Make sure in your video you have your contact information. The video on the left is a market report video. You should do these occasionally but a video of yourself is better. When you video yourself don't always stand in the middle of the frame be on 1/3 of it. Also have cars going by or something in the background to keep their attention on the video. 

Bold Tech - Google Apps & SEO

Google Apps

Just like what Gary Keller says: “Get off you’re a** and knock on a door!” You still need to have face-to-face contact with people even if you are using a lot of internet marketing. Google has come out with a million new apps for people to use. You don’t need to use all of them. These are the ones you should really focus on: Gmail, Calendar, Google Voice, Google Hangout, Drive, Blogger, Google Analytics, and YouTube.

I am not going to go into detail of each one but they are all essential in becoming an exceptional realtor. There are only 3 email platforms you should be using: Gmail, your work email, or a domain based email (nikki@nikkiroycraft.com). If you have anything other than these three you need to get rid of them and create a Gmail. Gmail is an easy platform that has become very professional. It allows you to have everything in one place (connected with Drive and Calendar). Use tags to help differentiate work from family. Also use folders to stay organized. At the top they have split your primary tab, social, and promotional emails into separate areas to allow you to see and delete the emails you don’t need and help keep you more organized.

The Calendar you can share with other Gmail user and have their calendar on yours to see when they are free or busy. Drive is a way to share documents. You can have more than one person working on a document at the same time. Google Hangout is like messenger and skype combined.

Google voice is great for realtors who want to keep their cell phone number private. Google voice gives you a number to use that connects with your cell phone to use for marketing. Blogger is a free blogging platform I would suggest to use when blogging about your Real Estate business. Google Analytics helps track who is going to your website. Realtors should use YouTube to upload virtual tours to help with their SEO.

SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of affecting the visibility of a website or a web page in a search engine's unpaid. In general, the higher ranked on the search results page, and more frequently a site appears in the search results list, the more visitors it will receive from the search engine's users. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work, what people search for, the actual search terms or keywords typed into search engines and which search engines are preferred by their targeted audience. Optimizing a website may involve editing its content, HTML and associated coding to both increase its relevance to specific keywords and to remove barriers to the indexing activities of search engines. Promoting a site to increase the number of backlinks, or inbound links, is another SEO tactic. Longtail keywords are very specific. For example: Real Estate, Lofts, Minnesota, Uptown. So if you were to add content to your website and you want people to find you by these key words you would need to put all of them in there quite often. Here are a few other SEO tricks. If you want page authority you should focus on CLIC – C-content L – Links I-Images C-Content. The more content, links and images you have about the topic the more you look like the expert to google. If you want domain authority you should focus on ASAP. A-Age S-Size A-Activity P-Popularity. Google looks to see how long the site has been running and the experience it shows you have. Google views websites that have more pages and are bigger in size as more experienced. Google also looks at activity and popularity. If you are not changing and updating your website regularly Google will notice it and not put your website towards the top. If nobody is ever going to your site Google will also take you away from the top. If you want Author Authority you should focus on SLIP. S-Shard L-Location I-Influence P-Plus. Make sure that Google knows you are the author of this information. Share others information to show that you are learning too. Always have the location of where you are on your websites. Influence others and have them engage on your website. Use Google+. Make sure to put links on your Google+ page to your website to show that you are the expert of that website. 

Advertising

If you want to advertise your websites only focus on two sources: Google & Facebook. These will do the most for you at the least expense. DO NOT do CPM ads. Zillow and Trulia offer these ads a lot which look like banner ads. What CPM means is cost per impression. So if an ad were to show up when you go to a website but you don’t click on it or even look at it at all it would still cost you. What you should focus on is PPC – Pay per click ads. To build a great ad you need to use your keywords, have strong copy, a call to action, and a specific landing page (not just the home page of your website). Google and Facebook help you get very specific in who you are trying to market for. If you want help on how to actually build a specific ad – email me.

Bold Tech Websites & Conversion Rates

To capture a client’s business you need to be the expert on the source. On your website’s you need to look like the expert and give them all the information they need. To be successful you need to have 4 websites: Buyers website, Sellers Website, Hyper local Website, and Niche Website.

Buyer Website:

 A buyer website needs to have an easy search. Typical buyers want to be able to go to a website and search for a home quickly. If there is a ton of information and the search isn't easily accessible they will most likely leave the website. Most people use their EEdge website for their buyer website. It has an easy search right on the home page and also has a lead capture IDX. A lead capture IDX is important because after someone searches a new home it will ask them for their contact information.  Make sure to have your mobile app on this website as well as a way to contact you. You need to choose a domain name that goes along with the search such as the one above: twincitieshomesforsalenw.com.

Seller Website:

A seller website is all about YOU. You need to show them that you are the expert. On this website you should show what you have sold, how fast you have sold something, and any awards or testimonials you have. Always have your phone number right at the top. Also make sure to put your service providers to show that you have connections to everything they need.  This domain name should always be your name such as the one above is: sharonsloperrrealestate.com. Many people use their EAgenc website as their seller website. This website can be totally customizable and you can add as many pages to it as you would like.

Hyper local Website:

Hyper local websites are websites that focus on a specific area and give all the information and events going on within it. You can build this as a blog or as an actual website. Use your farm as your hyper local area to focus on. Make sure to have a home search tool on it but also a bunch of facts about the area such as school information, restaurants, things to do, events, etc. This domain name should be something like: lifeinminneapolis.com.

Niche Website:

This website is optional. If you focus on a certain group of people or type of home you should create a niche website with all of the information. If you do not want to create an entirely new website you could also have it be a separate page on your Seller website. Examples of niche websites would be: lake homes, senior housing, new construction, dog lovers, veterans, golf, etc.

All of these websites will help you look like the expert online. You want to make sure that all of these website are connected. On each website have a link back to the other ones. Times have changed and Google likes to see links out from your page to another, this is a great way to do that but still have them go to something you have created. Always use .com never .realtor, .net, etc. It only confuses people. Don’t use force registration. Use beta – after they see one page then they will have to register. A good bounce rate is 5% less than the last month. You want to improve your bounce rate every month by adding value to your websites.

Conversion Rates

A conversion rate is how to convert website visitors into paying customers. Typically every 1,000 people who visit your site – 50 will be leads – 2.5 closings. A good goal to set is 10,000 visitors to your website in a year – 500 leads – 25 closings. You need to know your conversion rates to be successful. Every client you talk to ask them how they found you and record it on your Commitment to Excellence or whatever platform you use. 

If you need help building your website or figuring out your conversion rates - email me. 

Bold Tech

What does it take to capture a client’s business? 

How do you measure leads from the internet? 

What advertising has proven to be successful marketing? 

What social media platforms should you focus on?

Do you wonder about all these things? The class I took presented by Chad Hyams answered all these questions and many more. I have broken all of this information into separate blogs to help you understand: Websites & Conversion Rates, Google Apps, SEO & Advertising, and Social Media, Blogging, Video.

If in the future Bold Tech comes back to Minneapolis, I would highly recommend taking the class.