Transform Transform March 2014 | Page 16

A Quick Start Guide to Social Media Unless you’ve been in suspended animation for the last decade, you’ve heard a lot of buzz about Tweets, friending, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and likes. As a real estate agent, you are also hearing that unless you become an active user of social media you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to automatically produce a large number of referrals for your business. Still, if you are like most of us, you’re somewhat overwhelmed with the sheer volume of information out there about these tools, and you’re not quite sure where or how to start building your very own social-media machine. This quick-start guide is for the topthree social-media tools -- LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook. The goal is to make it easy for you to find a starting point so you can take action now! 16 LinkedIn: Most Effective for Business Referrals Unlike the other two social networks we are going to explore, LinkedIn is a bit more formal and focuses on creating business-tobusiness relationships. It’s free and easy to sign up for an account and the first step is to upload a profile, i.e., resume. This, in my opinion, is the most important step of utilizing Linkedin’s powerful set of tools. It’s important to take your time, use a professional photo and/ or a company logo [