Business relationships developed through social media can be far more powerful than traditional relationships. With that in mind, there are steps loan originators can take to maximize their social media presence.
During the Elevate Mortgage Summit held in conjunction with the
NAHREP National Convention in San Diego this week, former loan originator Tony Giordano talked about social media practices.
Giordano, a professional speaker, runs
and owns a luxury real estate marketing & advertising agency. The Southern California resident, who wrote The Social Agent: The New Era of Social Networking, says he’s a best-selling author.
For the eight years leading up to the financial crisis, Giordano originated mortgages. He claims to have been a top-ranked originator each year from 2003 to 2006.
The topic of Giordano’s session was using social media to deepen relationships.
He explained that given the same period of time, a digital relationship is a hundred times more powerful than an in-person relationship because new social media connections become acquainted with each other far faster than non-digital relationships established in-person.
“In three weeks,
who do I know a hundred times more,” Giordano asked.
Giordano said that if he’d had Facebook when he was originating, “I would have absolutely annihilated my competition.” It would have saved him “a ton of money” that he was spending courting and entertaining real estate agents.
Social media is a digital identity. It’s the good twin, with the real you being the evil twin because the good twin would never
swear, avoids politics and doesn’t get into religion. The good twin is always politically correct,
The
evil twin, among his circle of close friends, does talk about his political opinions. He might say offensive words. But the good twin doesn’t get to.
Among the platforms he discussed were Facebook, which is “the social network;” LinkedIn, he described as “the professionals network;” and Twitter, which he explained was the news and information network. Whatsapp is an intersection of social messaging and social networking, and Pinterest is the interest network. Instagram is the visual network — self expression,
WeChat is a combination of Facebook and Whatsapp for people in China and Mexico.
Another platform is Google, “the SEO network.” He said that Google should be used for everything possible including as a default search engine, as a default web browsers and a social media platform because “Google knows.”
Youtube, which is owned by Google parent Alphabet Inc., is “the channel network.”
Once the connections are established, posts
on Facebook and Instagram should be heartfelt, funny and reflect personal interests. They should also be educational.
Content can additionally be engaging by crowd-sourcing for answers among your connections.
Giordano recommended that
originators share or repost listings from agents they are courting. Such a strategy uses guilt to get agents to refer business.
Giordano noted that social media links on his website don’t take the user to the social media sites; instead, when they click a social media link, his posts come up on his own website.
Giordano can be reached at 310.990.2301 or [email protected].
