2 minute read
Social Media
“My Great Neighbourhood” Opens the Right Doors
How is Social Media influencing the way we engage with consumers? One way Royal LePage is embracing the new Social Media is through our “My Great Neighbourhood” contest.
First, some background:
Neighbourhood information is an important and desirable asset to an online property search experience. However, gathering and maintaining neighbourhood information has been a challenge historically. It is costly to produce and usually does not represent Canada’s diversity with any equity – large city centres are featured, while more rural, smaller towns are ignored.
Coinciding with this pervasive challenge was the high level of social media engagement by real estate professionals.
User generated content provides added value to consumers
By soliciting neighbourhood information from those living in the neighbourhoods, we would have valuable, authentic information.
In addition, Royal LePage is preparing to launch a map-based listings search interface on our corporate Web site. There
was a tremendous opportunity to mashup the neighbourhood content over our listings on the map. Much the same way you can turn on the pictures, wiki, and video content under the “More” tab on Google Maps.
• A consumer facing Web site where consumers can register, upload content, view and vote on submissions.
• A viral widget that we disseminated to our network as a tool to help them promote the contest in their social networks.
• A variety of Marketing Centre templates that can be customized and distributed to clients.
• A contest brochure with a $100 coupon from TD Canada Trust.
• Posters to promote the contest in your
Royal LePage office or anywhere else in your community.
In addition, we involved key influencers in the blogosphere to further champion the contest to consumers.
Our “My Great Neighbourhood” contest has been tremendously successful and has accomplished a number of strategic goals. We have established a relevant corporate presence in key social networks, while acquiring valuable and authentic consumer generated neighbourhood information.
Our network of approximately 14,000 real estate professionals was leading the way!
Since many of our REALTORS® were already engaged in Social Media, our goal was to find a way to leverage the networking they had established in several key social technologies, while providing them with real value at the same time. These two drivers led to the solution: “My Great Neighbourhood” – an interactive online contest that solicited consumers to tell us why their neighbourhood was the best in Canada. As an added incentive, we offered significant cash prizes.
A great user experience is a great brand experience!
We see that by providing consumers with rich, authentic content, when they need it most, we can offer a great user experience. We supported the contest both online and offline with promotional material, including:
David McFarlane is Royal LePage’s Creative Director and Social Media Strategist. David provides creative input into marketing initiatives across all media and is responsible for developing and leading the company’s Social Media strategy.
I’m new to the neighbourhood and just wanted to send out a quick hello and add that my husband Nick and I (and daughter Abigail) actually chose to move to Sunny Acres because of this [My Great Neighbourhood] essay! I’ll be voting for sure. Can’t wait to get to know everyone, participate in and help out with all the events.
