Recently, Century 21 announced it would be switching their marketing and advertising strategy from TV commercials to online. I thought I would follow up to see what exactly they have done. In Australia, not too much, but in America they have launched C21 Communities a new social media platform. From their press release:
C21 Communities is available directly from the company’s Web site, www.century21.com, and this new platform bundles a dynamic set of social media tools designed to enable online conversations between its agents and consumers, including:
• Talks, an online interactive advice forum,
• C21 Talk Radio, an online radio channel for consumers interested in real estate, and
• CENTURY 21® social networking sites on Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and YouTube.
Although I am not too impressed with the web design, the foundations of the site are quite good. It centres around a tag cloud for the forum which enables the public to post questions about anything real estate and then view the answer(s) from C21 Agents.
I am not a huge fan of C21 radio as I would never use it but I am sure there are people out there who would. What is great are the social networking accounts they have established. Each account provides a plethora of information about C21, agencies in the brand, events, selling & buying information and lot of other helpful real estate stuff!
You might think WOW this seems like a lot of work and it is probably a full time job for someone in the USA, but this a small price to pay given the reach this online marketing strategy has.
In Summary:
- The forum is great as it allows users to make contact with a real estate professional and have their questions answered without divulging their details. Agents might ask what is the point to this? Well, when a user asks a question, get them to enter the suburb they are located in and then get a local C21 agent to answer the question. If the user is satisfied with the answer then instantly they have a relationship with a local agent in their area.
- They should integrate a blog into C21 Communities which will provide users with instant information and encourage online discussion.
- With Twitter whenever a new article is posted or a question is asked on C21 Communities a tweet should be created.
- Their Facebook account provides them with an unlimited opportunity to tap into a huge audience and is great way to promote the C21 Communities website.
- Their YouTube and Flickr accounts offer a great way for C21 to promote their brand, have a look at some of the C21 agent entries for the most innovative 2 minute house tours.
C21 Communities provides a good example for where a real estate agency, real estate portal or individual agent can start if they would like to commence using social networking to increase their online presence.
What is it with these dark websites. It’s is about as Anti Social as you can get.
I think it is great that they are trying. But this falls well short of the mark.
might be another useful marketing prospecting tool. However, if this is C21-centric then it’s not going to provide gang-buster break-through, is it.