Word of mouth marketing has driven referrals in the real estate industry for decades, and yard signs have perpetuated word of mouth for the home. Today, social media extends this form of marketing even farther, allowing a single message to reach thousands of people instantaneously.

According to the National Association of Realtors®, half of all Realtors® use social networking sites, a number that is growing at a rate of 20% each year. But the NAR also points out that time constraints make it difficult for many agents to promote each individual listing in an engaging manner across even a limited number of social media channels.

A new real estate Web service, DwellWell.com, simplifies social media marketing for home sellers and real estate agents, making it easy for them to quickly share listing information, including pictures and video, with friends and colleagues on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and over 250 other social media websites.

The focus is on saving time while giving users great reach for very few clicks. The service makes it easy for to introduce home listings to the people who are most likely to spread the word: friends and followers.

I’m a North Carolina real estate broker and general contractor, and I came up with the idea for DwellWell.com at the onset of the housing crisis. We recognized the growing preference in social media for information from friends over information from advertisers and configured DwellWell.com to use the word-of-mouth power of social media to promote the sale of homes.

The evolution of new media has created a shift in our culture. It’s given consumers control over marketers. And it’s happened at time when our economy has created some real opportunities for affecting this change in control.

For the home seller and the real estate agent, this change opens up the opportunity to extend the reach of traditional referral word of mouth marketing while promoting friend-to-friend sharing of home listings. You could say it’s like hanging a sign on the Web.

For more information about DwellWell please contact the author of this post

Ian Huckabee
ian@dwellwell.com
www.facebook.com/dwellwell
www.twitter.com/dwellwell
www.dwellwell.com