Social marketing is completely unlike SEO in that potential customers do not come to social sites specifically to find your services. They are on these sites to interact with friends/family and to discover new and interesting content. While SEO is about being there when your customers are looking for your services, social marketing is about building your brand and trust based on mutual connections. Because of this, social marketing can be a numbers game. Therefore, reach is very important!

The BragForce is BizBrag's built in social network that helps you grow your reach. Connect with other businesses in your area (home inspectors, contractors, lenders, etc) and send them your Braggits to post to their social networks. Do you know a local business that should be on BizBrag? You can send them an invite from the BizBrag dashboard. By sharing each others Braggits you reach more customers, and have more varied interesting content on your social accounts for potential customers in your area. Do you work at a brokerage with many agents? Have them contact us about our technology that will allow them to post their Braggits to all of their agents' social pages.

Some Braggit strategies:

• Have you recently sold a home to some happy clients? Get a picture of them in front of their new home and write a Braggit about it. After you post the Braggit to your social networks send them a link to one of your networks so they can see (and like) your post and page.

• You can do the same for listings. When you list a home post a Braggit about it and send your social page's URL to the owners. They will want to share your post and help spread the word.

• If you create a Braggit about a successful closing discuss the people involved, like the home inspector, in the Braggit. Then @mention them in a tweet or mention them in the Facebook post and send them the URL.

• Don't make every Braggit about real estate! Create Braggits about local events, great deals you've found, a new business in town or a business you love. @mention the person/business discussed in your tweet and message their Facebook account about your post. When you write a Braggit praising a local business they will want to share it with their customers!

• When you go to post a Braggit to a social network there are default fields in place, but these are boring! Customize your post to catch people's attention.

• You can schedule Braggits to be posted to social networks at a later date. Have extra time to create Braggits on the weekend? Create a few and set them to post throughout the week.

Overall Strategies:

• To increase your reach on Facebook you should be using a business page for your business instead of a personal profile. People are much more likely to 'like' a page then they are to friend request a profile.
   

• 60% of social media users expect a business to respond when they write on your wall or @mention you. Make sure you occasionally check you pages and join in the discussion.

• Research shows that the best times to make social posts are between 1:00 and 4:00 pm during weekdays, and throughout the day on weekends.

• Encourage friends and family to engage with your accounts. Mixing your personal life with your professional profiles can make others more comfortable doing business with you, but be careful. Do share: trips, events, dinner, humor, good experiences, local businesses you love. Don't share: Religion, politics, social games.

• Let Facebook look through your email addresses to find your friends. Invite current Facebook friends to like your page and follow your twitter account.

• Post happy, appropriate, and flattering photos not only of yourself – but of other people.  Tag them to create connections to your profile.

• Put your Facebook page url, Twitter handle, or LinkedIn url on your business card, email signature, etc. to encourage others to connect.

• Share local market stats, showcase new listings, talk about schools, parks, and community events.

• Prompt for feedback to encourage discussion

• Make sure your about sections of your social accounts contain a link to your website and/or your BizBrag profile.