Growing into Social Media

Yesterday I was struck with the magnitude (and humor) of our task:  we are engaging and educating those within our company who are willing, to become experts in communicating via social media.  It is the next logical step.  Since our associates are already experts in the specific community areas in which they serve, it makes sense that we should help them communicate that expertise online, where the conversations are taking place 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We are having a lot of fun.  We are helping our associates to benefit sellers by showcasing their homes “where the eyeballs are,”  and benefit buyers and investors by answering questions and providing the up-to-the-minute information they need to transact effectively.

The world is changing, and if you are attempting to lean-in and reach-out with Social Media, it helps to approach this new communication medium with a light heart and a playful disposition.

Walking down the hall in our office, I overheard a sound-bite of a conversation between one of my associates speaking with one of our very talented (and patient) Social Media support staff (yes, we have actual staff whose sole job it is help our team become adept at social media channels, including helping them to blog their impressive knowledge of our community and neighborhood areas).

Associate: “So did I just do a ‘tweet?’”

SM Support: “No, that was a ‘text.’”

Frankly, you gotta love us. We are a company willing and committed to embracing this brave new world of internet “camp fire” communications while so many of us are learning how to simply rub two sticks together to get the fire started.

To all of us that see the writing on the wall about how we will be communicating going forward, I urge us to keep going, keep learning and experimenting, and never lose sight of the fact that we can have fun laughing at ourselves along the way. The key to embracing fast-paced change in our new modern world is… to have a sense of humor!

In the short video below, I discuss our philosophy about using social media as a way to be helpful to our local communities. At Partners Trust, we use the word “hyperlocal” a lot.  Hyperlocal is a fancy way of saying “neighborhood area.” In our company, we love life at the neighborhood-level, and in this short excerpt I discuss the depth behind our motto, “we bring communities to life.”