The Intersection of Online and Offline

I was listening to a recent “For Immediate Release,” aka the “Hobson and Holtz” report, and listened with awe that frequent contributor Dan York pulled off a Craig’s List miracle.

For those of you who are regular listeners to FIR, you’ll know that Dan often reports from the “picturesque countryside of Vermont.” Well, Dan is relocating to Keene, NH, as he describes in his blog. Here’s where it gets interesting: Dan listed his house on Craig’s List at 8:30 am and had a signed offer by 4:30 pm - THAT DAY. As the cheesy commercials say, “your results may vary,” but this is an incredible testament to the power of Craig’s List, which has already punched a hole in traditional advertising and is now making its way into new venues.

First, congratulations, Dan.

Second, I had a similar experience a couple of years ago. I got a serious steal on a house in a very desirable neighborhood outside of Washington, DC — with a huge caveat that we settle and move in 13 days (this is not a typo). Two sleepless weeks later, my family and I moved and I was faced with selling my own house in a market that had just begun to slump.

I went with a real estate agent who had never heard of Craig’s List, but knowing that I was tied into a 90-day contract with him, I cross-posted the MLS listing on Craig’s List. What happened was that two I-can’t-sleep-at-night-because-I-am-carrying-two-mortgages months later, my old house sold. But what happened in the meantime was interesting.

When I posted my house, I was getting inquiries from interested parties who were going about the traditional route through their agents. Then after hearing all of the wonderful things that real estate agents say, the prospective buyers would email me questions. And I would answer. And they would email more. And I would answer. And I would subtly let them know that I was pleased at the attention that my listing got on Craig’s List (read: competition).

So what happened? My house sold the good, old-fashioned MLS way, but had that not worked out, I had two interested parties with whom I had already developed a good relationship waiting in the wings.

Had I had more time, I would have (like Dan did) listed my house exclusively on Craig’s List. With a six percent commission on a average house value of $500,000, I would say that a Craig’s List posting is definitely worth a $30,000 real estate commission fee.

Sorry, National Association of Realtors.

Mark

POne of the main challenges that public relations and communications professionals face is that when something new comes out that we “get” as a legitimate way to spread the word, we often face at best, blank stares, and at worst, derision.

Hence, Twitter.

The first time I heard of Twitter, I too thought that it was someone describing my stereo speakers that play treble. Not so. Sure, a lot of people use it to talk about what their cat had for dinner, but it is undoubtedly a tool with legitimate business applications.

Marketing Vox says it better than I can:

Enterprise blogging has been lauded for its ability to “humanize” a company and make distant executives feel available to ground-floor customers. Twitter can serve the same purpose much more quickly.

Twitter spearheads the “microblogging” trend, where people air thoughts and share information in real-time while observing a 140-character limit. Here are tips for getting the most out of it:

Subscribe generously. Twitter is among the only social media brands where the subscriber:subscribed ratio is reversed. Most users follow a higher number of people than the number following them.

Don’t just be casual; be personal. Enterprise blogging works best when a blogger is frank about what’s happening in his company. But it is generally understood that the blogger will not discuss his personal life.

There’s a lot more to learn about Twitter (and I am still learning), including Dan York’s blog post about how Twitter needs to deal with its outages.

But for those of you who are pushing a new media rock up an old media hill, remember that making the case for business applications is critical.

Mark

P.S. You can follow my Twitter page here.