Earlier today I got my hands on a survey that the Institute of Luxury Home Marketing (ILHM) did of their members around how they are using social networks.
One of the reasons I really like this survey is that the number of emails and calls I get from luxury agents and brokerages has ramped up lately, and yet, I haven’t had a great source of data to at least anchor the conversation in terms of social media presence within the luxury market. This survey will definitely help me jump-start many of those conversations.
ILHM asked their members questions like:
- Which social networking websites do you use?
- If you had to choose just one social networking site for the member networking group, which would it be?
- Have you ever given or received a referral, or generated business via a social network?
The answers to these questions and more from the 473 members who responded can be found within their survey results document (PDF), but I’m gonna summarize what I think are some of the more interesting findings:
- LinkedIn (30%) and Facebook (28%) about equally dominate the mind-share of luxury agents
- Over 80% of the agents said they were using social networks
- When asked where ILHM should have a member group, people were equally divided between LinkedIn and Facebook
- 20% of respondents said they had generated business out of social networks
- Non-real estate social networks like Twitter and MySpace didn’t register much interest, while ActiveRain was the only real estate specific site mentioned that had any real traction
- The social networks offered by Zillow and Trulia didn’t even hit the radar on the survey. I’m not sure if this is because agents think of Trulia and Zillow as search sites and the idea of Trulia Voices or Zillow Advice being social networks didn’t occur to them or because the agents surveyed simply aren’t using these services.
I’m a bit surprised to see Facebook register just as high as LinkedIn only because LinkedIn seems like such a natural fit for luxury agents, but with so much buzz around Facebook in the press lately, in retrospect I shouldn’t have been surprised.
I’ve been telling agents for a long time now that they should be using LinkedIn to market themselves (that article is over 2 years old already)… and that advice rings even more true in the luxury market where it seems like agents are often extremely concerned with their image. Especially if you have years of experience, then you really have to try to look bad on LinkedIn.
And, by the way, if you’re looking for one more person to connect with on LinkedIn (or better yet recommend!), I’m always looking to connect up with interesting real estate people!
Update: I hadn’t noticed before posting, but John C’s comment prompted me to check out ILHM’s blog: Luxury Insight, where I see that they also posted information on the survey.
Leave a Reply