I was in a social media training class provided by my brokerage last week and the trainer said somthing that has stuck with – and bothered me – ever since.  I didn’t write it down, but here’s a rough paraphrase of what’s been echoing around in my head:

You must have an online presence. It doesn’t matter what it is or how good it is, it only matters that if someone goes to search for you online they can find you.

And in one sense, I agree. Being online is absolutely imperative if you want to keep up with the current market and how buyers and sellers are using the internet to educate themselves about it.

But I’m not about keeping up. I’m about getting ahead

Slapping up a canned website with your picture, contact info, and a home search is going to make it easier for someone to find you online, but only if they are looking for you.

If they are looking for any agent, or more likely, information about your local real estate market, they are never, ever going to find you. They are going to find the agent who is regularly updating his or her blog with sales statistics, neighborhood info, local events and anyting other valuable tidbits that are worth sharing with the community.

An online presence that is not targeted and valuable, that has no part of you – your expertise, your personality, your personal insights – is, to me, no more than the online equivalent of putting a business card up on a bulletin board in a coffee shop where there are 100 other agent business cards.

Yes, someone can find it if they’re looking for it, but otherwise, you’re just going to get lost in the shuffle.