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January | February | 2010Commercial Investment Real Estate

Linda Gerchick, CCIM,

associ-ate broker or Keller Williams NortheastRealty in Phoenix, was skeptical when herkids showed her how to set up a Facebook account. She knew that social media siteslike Facebook and Twitter were becomingmore popular among her peers, but shedidn’t see much potential beneﬁt or herbusiness. Soon thereafer, however, a ellow

broker and Facebook user found Gerchick’s

proﬁle and sent her a message asking i shehad any investor-owned multiamily prop-erties available. She had three. “By the nextmorning, the contracts were in my inbox,”she says.Gerchick eﬀectively stumbled upon whatmany business-oriented newcomers see associal media’s ideal return on investment: adirect sale. Platorms like Facebook, Twit-ter, and LinkedIn now play a key role inmany proessional marketing programs,and, understandably, business users want

by Rich Rosfelder

Social

Media

Savvy

How are CCIMscapitalizing on thisWeb revolution?

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January | February | 2010ciremagazine.com

a quantiﬁable ROI. But in social media, traditional hard-sell cam-paigns ofen have the opposite eﬀect. “Te social media audience is very sensitive to push-style marketing,” says Bob aylor, director o

strategic business development and social media programs or DDM

Marketing & Communications in Grand Rapids, Mich. “I all they

ever see rom you is advertising or messages about how great you are,

they will block you or stop ollowing you.”aylor worked or a commercial brokerage firm beore becominga social media expert. He knows that industry pros can’t afford toalienate potential clients right now. “Te core asset any real estateproessional has is his or her relationships,” he explains. “Yes, socialmedia platorms offer Realtors another place to promote themselvesand their listings, but more importantly the sites oster new relation-ships and help maintain current ones.”Gerchick and other CCIMs are making these connections — and

maximizing the ROI — by carving out their own unique space in the

ever-evolving social media landscape.

Get Out There

Afer her initial success, Gerchick began working on her Facebook

proﬁle at least eight times a day. “It changed my business lie,” she says.

Now hosting more than 300 million active users, Facebook oﬀers a variety o ways or commercial real estate proessionals to connectwith colleagues and clients. Proﬁles and groups, which are distinctrom business-only an pages, are the most popular options amongCCIMs.o increase her virtual reach, Gerchick started a group called“Want to Buy Real Estate in Phoenix, Arizona?” Te page includes acompany logo, business and e-mail addresses, and a brie statement

o purpose. While surﬁng Facebook, a Canadian investor ound Ger-

chick’s group and sent a message expressing interest in purchasingan RV park in the Phoenix area. Tanks to her expanded Facebook presence, Gerchick currently is putting the ﬁnishing touches on theapproximately $3 million specialty transaction.Michael K. Houge, CCIM, SIOR, chie executive oﬃ cer and man-aging partner o Chie Real Estate Co. in St. Paul, Minn., sees simi-lar deal-making potential in witter, a microblogging platorm thatlets users send and read messages composed o up to 140 charac-ters. In addition to industry news and events, Houge disseminatesproperty listings via weetlister, an add-on or creating and sendingwitter-riendly real estate listings to ollowers and their ollowers.But Houge, like aylor, knows it doesn’t pay to be too pushy. “I don’tthink my ollowers would appreciate me blasting properties to themevery hour or even every day, but once in a while is OK,” he says.“Who knows, you might end up making a deal, afer all, and that isthe ultimate goal, isn’t it?”

Find a Balance

he question o etiquette becomes more

pressing when a social media account serves

both proessional and personal unctions.Facebook and other platorms let usersdetermine what content other peoplecan view, but these settings can becomeunwieldy, especially when accumulatinga large number o connections or proes-sional networking.om Rohde III, CCIM, vice president o

Rohde Ottmers Siegel Realty in San Antonio

has approximately 1,000 Facebook riends.More than two-thirds o those riends arecolleagues, clients, and other business users.

Instead o crafing a proﬁle that appeals only

to this segment o his network, Rohde mixesproessional and personal elements without

sharing too much. “I don’t post what I had or

breakast,” he says. Alongside photos o his

real estate development projects, or example,

Rohde’s Facebook riends see pictures romhis latest ﬁshing and hunting trips. “When I

riend other CCIMs, [this personal inorma-

tion] helps open up a dialogue,” says Rohde,who has secured at least one lease throughhis Facebook activity.In a orum that’s essentially public, doesa line between personal and proessionalcontent really exist anyway? I somethingshouldn’t be said at work, it probably shouldn’t be posted on a Facebook proﬁle.But as aylor notes, “What’s wrong i oneo your clients knows, or instance, that ‘My son scored two goals today — so proud?’ Ithumanizes you and engages your riends orollowers in a new way.”

Spread the Knowledge

As social media usage increases among realestate pros, it is ast becoming an indispens-

able repository o industry inormation.CCIMs who position themselves as experts

on certain industry topics can generate con-

nections through even the most restrictive

platorms. “I tweet regularly about what I’m

EXPLORETHESE SITES

To view the Facebookprofiles and groupsmentioned in this article, visitwww.facebook.comand create an account.After providing thenecessary information, youcan friend fellow users andview their page content.But first you need to findthem. Because Facebookprofiles often containnicknames, it’s best tosearch by last name andlocation or some otheridentifier. For example,Tom Rohde’s Facebookprofile name is “TommyRohde.”Twitter users also canbe difficult to find, butyou don’t need to create aTwitter account just to viewtweets. Here are a fewexamples:Michael Houge: www.twitter.com/1031propertiesJerry Anderson: www.twitter.com/Anderjer

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January | February | 2010Commercial Investment Real Estate

doing with distressed assets,” says Jerry Anderson, CCIM, executivemanaging director of Sperry Van Ness in Edgewater, Fla. “Last week an attorney from California who had been following me on Twitter

asked if he could chat with me about his new job — managing theother-real-estate-owned department for a Midwest bank.”Tough witter and Facebook are gaining momentum, business-focused sites like LinkedIn are still the best places for CCIMs to estab-

lish themselves as industry resources. Inaddition to Twitter, Andersonhas had success withCRE-Advice.com,a directory of industry experts

that receives 200,000 visitors every month. “I wrote an article titled‘Group Investment Is Now Hip’ and posted it on the CRE-Advice.comblog,” he says. “I received seven inbound calls from investors lookingfor an opportunity to invest with me based on my approach to themarket.”Last summer, Rod N. Santomassimo, CCIM, president of Mas-simo Group LLC in Cary, N.C., generated a similar buzz when heuploaded his white paper“oday’s BrokerageStrategies for omor-row’s Market Leaders” toCRE-Advice.comand several LinkedIngroups. Te document was discovered by David A. Morris, CCIM,senior vice president of Grubb & Ellis/Gundaker Commercial in St.Louis, who sent it to several colleagues, including Henry W. Hagen-

dorf, CCIM, vice president of Grubb & Ellis in Houston. “Henry sent

me an extremely complimentary e-mail, informing me that he and

his partner were now using some of the tactics suggested in my white

paper,” Santomassimo says.Social media has made it so easy to access expert informationthat some real estate pros have started bypassing the Google searchengine altogether. “Tere’s only so much time in the day to learn

what’s happening in the commercial real estate market,” says Kurt R.Gies, CCIM, senior investment adviser for Smith Equities Real Estate

Investment Advisers in Orlando, Fla. When Gies was curious aboutthe status of the government’s Public-Private Investment Program afew months ago, he posted a question in a LinkedIn group. CCIMsfrom around the country sent him links to the most relevant andup-to-date PPIP coverage. Instead of wasting time culling searchengine results, Gies found the exact information he was looking for.“It didn’t provide a ﬁnancial return, but it helped me become moreknowledgeable about the market,” he says.

Optimize Your Exposure

Despite social media’s increasing pervasiveness, many commercialreal estate pros and their potential clients are not updating theirFacebook status or tweeting. Some of them may not even have a

How CCIM Institute Uses Social Media

Through national advertising, marketing, and public relations campaigns, CCIM Institute promotes the value of the CCIM brandand the benefits of working with designees. As part of our designation promotion and member outreach efforts, the institutealso actively participates in social media and provides a central place for members to exchange information on the three fastest-growing sites — Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. By monitoring these and other social media platforms, we can spotlightcontent that promotes CCIMs as industry experts and respond to inaccurate information. Theinstitute primarily uses three free services —Icerocket.com,Socialmention.com,and Google Alerts(www.google.com/ alerts)— to listen to online discussions relating to the CCIM Institute, its members, and elected officers. Those services help usfind blog posts, comments, tweets, or other items written by CCIM members or about CCIM. Because the institute has a largeraudience than most individuals, we use that reach to promote CCIM members’ industry expertise. When we link to members’blogs in Facebook or retweet chapter events and career announcements, the information reaches the thousands of fans or fol-lowers on our social media sites.The institute also shares useful information on how to use social media effectively with our members. Last July, Twitterpublished “Twitter 101,” its first attempt to guide businesses in the effective use of Twitter. Theinstitute linked to that publication in a tweet and received more than double the number of hits than any other posted link. Since then, we’ve shared information about how to live tweet,upcoming Twitter trends, and more.In 2010 members will see more video messages on CCIM’s YouTube and Facebook pages,including regular updates from President Richard Juge, CCIM.

— Dennis LaMantia is communications manager for the CCIM Institute.Contact him at dlamantia@ccim.com.

Linda Gerchick’skids introducedher to Facebook.

CCIM Links

Facebook:web.ccim.com/fbTwitter:web.ccim.com/twitterLinkedIn:web.ccim.com/linkedinYouTube:web.ccim.com/youtube