Calculating the return-on-investment from social media efforts such as blogging is something of a thorny topic. Some agents argue that any online marketing activity that doesn’t result in more customers is a waste of time, while others emphasise the importance of more long-range factors such as reputation and influence.
If you’ve managed to miss this debate so far, here’s a run-down of the main points from each side:
By the numbers: Visitors, subscribers and dollars.
For these agents, time spent blogging is only worthwhile if it leads to more people visiting their website, sharing their contact details, and converting from leads to clients. They set concrete goals - three blog posts a week leading to a 20 percent increase in leads over three months, for example - and adjust or even drop their blogging strategy if those goals aren’t met.
World of Mouth: Mentions and Influence.
These agents see blogging as a long-term investment that might not pay of this year, but will keep them afloat as the real estate industry becomes increasingly tied to the Internet. Ask them what the ROI of their blogging is and they’ll point to new business contacts they’ve made and the fact that they’ve increased awareness of their business in the local community.
If pressed, we’d have to argue that the best measure of blogging ROI lies somewhere between these two camps. In other words, your blog doesn’t have to be all about lead generation to be worthwhile, but it should be boosting your business in some concrete way. Above all, we want to stress that blogging without some idea of the return it’s generating puts you at risk of veering off course.
So do you watch the numbers, measure your influence, or some combination of both? Let us know your thought on blogging ROI below.
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Blogging does take a lot of work but if you focus on your local area it can really help you to keep abreast of what’s happening. Good to be able to recommend places like cafes or restaurants to clients and know the local market intimately.
Blogging + social media has increased the number of hits to our website, which in turn helps us with google rankings.
So far we have also had one appraisal from facebook that led to a listing, so in dollar figures it can make you money!