by Matthew S. Gerchow, Sr.
There is a new market that investors have to learn to stay competitive in this market and that’s the internet. More specifically it is Web 2.0 and social networking.
After the initial internet businesses of the early 2000’s, people have been reluctant to say the least with regard to investing time and money into any internet strategy. Free email like Gmail and Online fax services like eFax and ringcentral are two of the only business models to survive in into the new generation.
Web 2.0 has shifted the attention away from big businesses and returned it back directly to the personal user. Web 2.0 gives the person with a laptop and an view a voice on the World Wide Web.
Are you clear about Web 2.0 and what it is?
For most people, Web 2.0 is a vast unknown with many questions and few answers. Let’s see if we can clear some of this up for you. In general it is a broad concept that covers the new user content driven websites we see like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace.
What that signifies is we now have the ability to communicate with 1000’s of people quicker than ever before. Content can be passed along throughout the web with an ease of publication that has never before been experienced. Investors can make a few clicks and all of the content from one writer is put out on your site each day without any extra time invested. Copy and paste a couple of lines of computer code and you now have YouTube videos playing on your site rather than on YouTube.com.
Many, many strategies and sites fit the Web 2.0 description but the basic necessities are creating a personal blog and having profiles on the various social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Real-Estate-Investing.com. You can also do social bookmarking, article writing like the one you are reading now, download mobile phone applications and so much more.
Let’s bring this back around to Real Estate Investing. How do you use Web 2.0 in your real estate business? First, networking is now a breeze. You build a twitter profile and people all over the planet start following you. You join a few of the REI social networks and find other investors to chat with in your area. Finding other investors with more experience can often pull you through to the next level. You can make a video of your property and distribute it to 100’s of video sites at one time with TubeMogul. The possibilities are really endless. Just like in the marketing days of yesteryear, the creative bird usually gets the worm.
Establishing yourself as an expert in your market will bring tons of opportunities your way. At the end of the day, more exposure means more money. The nice think about web 2.0 is it levels the playing field once again. If you are working the internet side of things harder than your competition, you stand a pretty good chance at moving ahead of them.
Maybe you are thinking, “Great, something more to spend money on.” Hang on, that’s the best part of Web 2.0, the majority of it is free. It will take you a few hours every week to make your posts and whatnot but there is very little to no out of pocket expense. A small price to pay for an equal voice in the real estate investing world.
Once you have been at it a while you will become better and better at creating new content in less time. Keep in mind, once you produce the content you keep getting returns on the information long into the future. But also keep in mind that you need to watch what you put out there as it will probably be around for years to come as well.
The last real estate downturn has left people searching for answers and a new plan of action in their investment businesses. While the Web 2.0 strategies might not be cut and dry, Web 2.0 is definitely the direction investors are now headed.
About the Author:
As we all know
Real Estate Investing can be a tricky business. You have to network with the very best to get the best deals. Before they start a membership fee, sign up for a free lifetime membership with
real-estate-investing.com and start a blog, take a look at some articles and meet a few investors in your area.
Matthew Gerchow, Sr. on July 31st 2009 in Real Estate