As a luxury real estate marketing professional it is essential to have testimonials as part of your marketing package. That way you can leverage the highly effective marketing principle of “social proof”, a phenomenon that occurs when prospects defer to the judgment of others who endorse you.
Social proof is a powerful influencer when someone is about to choose a luxury real estate marketing professional to list their home or assist them when buying. When your social proof profile is authentic it can help to generate leads and sales.
The evolution of social media has several practices that attempt to create authentic social proof. Both Linked In and Facebook have endorsement systems, where your contacts can endorse you or like you as a professional. This can often lead to Social Spoof, which can be deceptive.
In our experience, many of these endorsements are from people who have no idea who you are or what you do. They just want you to reciprocate. This becomes a ridiculous numbers game that gives the recipients of endorsements bragging rights.
But, after the initial wave of this form of social proof who is really buying it as authentic?
And now, here comes Stik.com, a fee based service that sends messages to people in your Facebook or Linked In world prompting them to give you an endorsement. We recently received this e-mail sent via Stik.com on behalf a subscriber that we knew years ago:
“John Doe (we changed the name to protect the innocent) is waiting for your review. Lack of reviews can cost mortgage brokers $36,000 in lost revenue. John currently has only 7 reviews, so your endorsement can make a major impact on John’s bottom line. Please click here to support John with your recommendation. It takes less than 2 minutes to lend a hand. “
All the best
Your Friends at Stik/ Unsubscribe here
Do you feel the guilt that is heaped here? We may be responsible for this man’s failure, if we do not endorse him. We never used his services so we could not give a genuine testimonial. It really made us wonder about the authenticity of social media endorsements as a form of social proof.
Social proof or social spoof-what do you think?
Written by Ron & Alexandra Seigel-
-WATCH VIDEOS-
Buzz-Worthy Luxury Real Estate Websites
Personal Branding Case Studies Company Branding Case Studies
- JOIN THE LOL COMMUNTIY -
GET FLUENT. GET AFFLUENT!
Linked In, Facebook, Active Rain
Follow Us on Twitter: LuxuryMarketing