Advanced Access Blog

I recently interviewed Mike Wilton from Life in Corona about his approach to connecting with his local community in Corona, CA through his hyperlocal blog and Facebook fan page. What qualifies Mike to host a site and page like this? Mike has lived in Corona since 1987, and now shares a home there with his wife, Misty, and their two children, Aiden and Cambria. They are quite familiar with the area, and share the duties of research, posting, and responding to comments and questions from their fellow residents.

The funny thing is, Mike is not a real estate agent! He realized no one was filling this role in his area, so he jumped in. Agents, this is a big hint for you – fill the role of local community and residential EXPERT! Mike got started on a lot of his experience with hyperlocal content right here as an employee of Advanced Access in our Website Marketing department, and he is applying that knowledge to his own local efforts today.

I hope you will gain some insight from this interview on how you can begin to connect with your community, and increase your web presence. Remember, social media, blogs, and any sort of interaction with prospective clients online is a great support of your business and main website with Advanced Access.

Advanced Access Blog: As a long-time Corona resident, what inspired you to create the Life in Corona Blog and and Facebook page?

Mike Wilton (Life in Corona): After moving back to Corona from Orange County, the area had changed drastically, and there wasn’t a frequently updated resource for things going on in the city.  After sitting on the idea for a few years and finding that most other local resources lacked regular updates, and quality information I finally took the time to sit down and create the site and the Facebook page followed.

AA: What success have you had in interacting with your local community? Are the other Corona residents responsive?

MW: Life In Corona became a bit of an overnight success once we hit Facebook.  The blog alone had lackluster start due to a lack of marketing and updates, but once we reached out to the community through people we knew, as well as through businesses we were familiar with we saw a drastic increase in site traffic and drove nearly 200 people to “Like” the Facebook page within the first few days.

Corona residents as well as businesses have been very responsive. We have driven new residents who look to us for local insight, old residents who have moved out of the state, but want to keep abreast as to what’s going on in the community, and local businesses are using our Facebook page as an additional outlet for sharing their events and information.

AA: How do you think a real estate professional could benefit from creating a similar site and/or Facebook page in their area?

MW: Launching a similar site could help drive new visitors and links to the agent’s real estate site, additionally it could help to establish the agent as an expert in the community and help build relationships with local businesses and residents.

AA: Why are pages like this, and social interaction so important? Isn’t it enough to simply have a good real estate website?

MW: No, and the reason being, the real estate market is extremely saturated with agents who all have websites.  Engaging in hyperlocal activity can help set an agent apart from the sea of agents that are just keeping up with the status quo.

Social interaction adds a personable element to the equation that a real estate site simply can’t provide. Finally it helps build relationships with not only potential buyers and sellers, but other members of the community that might provide referrals and other business opportunities.

AA: What are the best topics to cover on a page like this? Should it be heavy on real estate listings, or balanced with other community information?

MW: Save your real estate listings for your real estate website.  The only time I think a real estate listing should show up on a site like this is if it has some sort of story behind it, such as a historical property or the home of a celebrity, and even then you shouldn’t be taking the marketing approach. Share whatever you feel is important to your community and your readers.  We have covered everything from road closures, to local concerts and events, to a rundown of what’s included in Corona’s Water Efficiency site audits.

AA: What advice do you have for real estate professionals in reaching out to their community?

MW: Don’t try and sell them. This isn’t a sales platform, this is a means of building relationships and adding value to your community and those interested in living there.  Pay attention to what people really need and fill that void by providing the desired information. Engage your connections.  Don’t just push content at them, interact with them.  Listen, ask questions, be personable.  Finally start with who you know.  Get your friends and family in the area to hop on board and people they know are sure to follow if you can provide something that is truly of value.

AA: What’s the easiest way to get started?

MW: I wouldn’t say there is any easy way, but the quickest way to succeed is to have a game plan in place before you start.  Develop a strategy that identifies the who, what, when, where, why and how of your efforts.  Who will do the updates?  Will you go it alone or will you partner with another agent or a family member?  What topics are you going to cover?  How often will you update? Most importantly, Why are you doing it? If your answer is to promote your real estate business, you’re doing it for the wrong reasons.  Real estate promotion and leads are a bi-product of your efforts. 

If you’re having trouble developing a strategy, I would highly recommend checking out Matt McGee’s Hyperlocalblogger (http://www.hyperlocalblogger.com).  Matt wrote a whole series on starting a hyperlocal blog, which is rooted in his efforts to develop a group of blogs for his wife who is a real estate agent.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 30th, 2010 at 4:31 pm and is filed under Marketing, Social Media. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.