In this era it is pretty much a given that you are required to be online.
After the initial internet businesses of the early 2000′s, people have been reluctant to say the least with regard to investing time and money into any internet strategy. Free email like Gmail and Online fax services like eFax and ringcentral are two of the only business models to survive in into the new generation.
Web 2.0 has shifted the focal point away from big companies and given it back directly to the single user. Web 2.0 gives the guy with a laptop and an view a voice on the World Wide Web.
So what exactly is Web 2.0?
For most people, Web 2.0 is a vast unknown with many questions and few answers. Let’s see if we can clear some of this up for you. In general it is a broad concept that covers the new user content driven websites we see like Twitter, Facebook and Myspace.
This means we now have the power to communicate much more efficiently than previously possible. Newly created content can be transferred to viewers more easily than we could have dreamed of just a few years ago. With a few clicks of the mouse you can bring in content from other authors daily without any further work on your part. Same goes for photos, videos and articles.
Many, many strategies and sites fit the Web 2.0 description but the basic necessities are creating a personal blog and having profiles on the various social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Real-Estate-Investing.com. You can also do social bookmarking, article writing like the one you are reading now, download mobile phone applications and so much more.
Let’s bring this back around to Real Estate Investing. How do you use Web 2.0 in your real estate business? First, networking is now a breeze. You build a twitter profile and people all over the planet start following you. You join a few of the REI social networks and find other investors to chat with in your area. Finding other investors with more experience can often pull you through to the next level. You can make a video of your property and distribute it to 100′s of video sites at one time with TubeMogul. The possibilities are really endless. Just like in the marketing days of yesteryear, the creative bird usually gets the worm.
You want to establish yourself as an authority or expert in your particular niche of the investing world. The more exposure you can get for yourself and your business, the more opportunities will flow your direction. Web 2.0 levels the playing field so you now once again have a chance to be the first in the mind of your potential sellers. The trick is you have to figure out where they are and what they are doing online. Then put your marketing information dead in their tracks. By building a reputation ahead of time people can Google your trust factor before they trust you with their most valued possession.
So how much does all of this cost? That’s the greatest part, almost all of it is free. While this might not be so good for the companies providing all these free services, it is definitely great for you and your expanding business. Now people like yourself can express their opinions where they might have never been heard before. You will have to invest a little bit of time but anything worth while usually takes a bit of that. A few hours per week or a few minutes a day, either way it is still not a great deal of time.
Once you have been at it a while you will become better and better at creating new content in less time. Keep in mind, once you produce the content you keep getting returns on the information long into the future. But also keep in mind that you need to watch what you put out there as it will probably be around for years to come as well.
Since the real estate bubble burst people have been searching for a new way to approach the market. While deals and cash to buy them are not wholly plentiful right now, take this time to build your reputation for the next roller coaster market climb.