What a Social Media Strategy is NOT

I'm not posting a ton here at R TEAM... I've been pretty busy keeping up with Mortgage Porter...but something that really gets my goat is when I feel people are being sold a bunch of hooey.   I did not go to Inman's Agent Reboot today...(1) it's focused mostly on agents and the agenda did not seem to have much to offer me, a mortgage originator (2) who's been up to her eyeballs (successfully) in social media for the past for years.  I did, however, follow as much as I could via #agentrb. 

One of the sponsors of this event is a title company who is schlepping social media to real estate and mortgage people who don't want to assert the time or effort.  Let me tell you something, if that person is you, DON'T TO IT...YOU DON'T HAVE TO.  I think you're missing out, but hiring someone to pretend to be you in an industry where you need trust is being A TOTAL FAKE... and guess what, most everyone can tell that you're faking it.

I saw a couple tweets from this title company that just made me want to...well...I won't go there...

"Social media strategy: it's about your time and budget.  Where are you spending your time and money"

I'm not going to include their hash-tag, I don't think they deserve any recognition.   I will tell you this, social media is NOT about your time and budget.  It's about being you.  And if you don't have time to adapt or to be you, if you must hire it out, then please DON'T DO IT. 

If you're just doing "it" to have stuff appear on a Twitter feed or Facebook, fine...but realize that you look like a fool and hardly anyone's reading it.  You've accomplished having "stuff" automated on a Twitter, Facebook and/or blog--but is it YOU? 

Back to this tweet:  your time--yes, please be sure to budget a certain percentage of your time to social media if this is a venue that you want to explore.  I'd say give it six months to a year of YOUR time and decide how much time during your day...can you give up 15 minutes?  How about an hour?  This is up to you.   Your budget:  Social media can be FREE!!  Twitter and Facebook are free and there are many blog platforms that are free. 

You don't need to pay someone to be you.  If you don't have the time and you don't care to put the effort into it (and it does take some effort) then please don't do it because stuff that is not sincere is really just spam. 

Do you want to be a spammer?  I hope not.