Those making that argument state that spending a lot of time posting about the community, events, business and other area happenings is a waste of time. Some have compared it to advertising that you sell real estate in the window of the local department store. The idea is that nobody is there to shop for real estate, so it is a waste of time and effort. That's probably true in the very narrow sense.
What they may be missing is a two-fold real estate market phenomenon:
- People start their real estate property research much earlier on the web.
- Only a tiny fraction of the population are currently interested in buying or selling real estate.
If we look at the first item, there is data to substantiate that real estate buyers and sellers start months, if not a year or more, ahead of a transaction to do research about it on the web. If that is the case, we could still believe that they are the prime prospect, and we must focus all of our blogging efforts on having totally real estate specific content on the blog. This helps to assure that they find us in the search engines. However, this also means that we must hold them and groom them as prospects for months to a year or more.
The real problem with the heavy-handed real estate content approach is in the second item. What is being stated is that we should focus our blogging on those ready to do some real estate business. That is how we will generate business, not by catering to those who just want to know what is happening in the area. This is true again...in the narrow sense. The problem relates to the first item. If these people are also interested in the area, as well as what's happening there, then they may defect from the real estate heavy blog in the extended period before a transaction. They may find another blog, one that has interesting and informative area information and commentary, to be of great ongoing interest. There is still real estate content, and there are prominent buttons and links to it. They will be able to find it when they need it but, in the interim, they will be happily consuming the community content.
This need for area and community content is particularly important to those who are not buying where they already live. Vacation, resort and second home markets are great examples. Though they may have spent many a vacation there, the buyer may not know as much as they would like about what's happening. They will happily consume news, events announcements and community information. In one resort community, a broker is experiencing three year or more time periods between first contact and a transaction. These people rapidly digest the real estate content of the site. However, their long term interest is in the community and area information keeps them as loyal readers and subscribers.
