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Carver Communications - Index

Carver Communications - 6.1.09 - Index

Travis
Kessler, CEO of
the San Antonio
Board of REAL-
TORS®, was
awarded the prestigious
William
R. Magel Award
of Excellence on
TRAVIS KESSLER May 13th, while
attending the
NAR Mid-Year Meetings in Washington
D.C. Travis has been actively involved in
SABOR CEO receives William R. Magel Award of Excellence
the REALTOR® organization for thirtytwo
years and has made outstanding contributions
to every aspect of the REAL-
TOR® profession and industry.
The William R. Magel Award of
Excellence is presented annually to an
individual who has truly excelled in his or
her role as an association executive of a
local or state REALTOR® association and
who is active in the REALTOR® organization
at the time of nomination. All
recipients of the William R. Magel Award
of Excellence automatically become
members of the Dr. Almon R. (Bud)
Smith, RCE, AE Leadership Society.
Travis has made a life-long career
with the REALTOR® organization. His
career sparked in 1977, when he was just
out of college, and went to work for the
Texas Association of REALTORS®. He
put his full energy into every facet of his
job, serving the REALTOR® community
with passion and conviction. After five
years with the Texas Association of
REALTORS ®, he worked with the
Colorado Association of REALTORS®
and the Lafayette Board of REALTORS®
in Louisiana before returning to his native
Texas to work with the Greater Fort Worth
Association of REALTORS®. He served
Fort Worth for ten years before assuming
his current position as President and CEO
of the San Antonio Board of REAL-
TORS® in 1997. Most recently, Travis
serves as the 2009 National Association of
REALTORS® Strategic Planning
Committee.
Travis demonstrates a passion for
the Association, its members, both REAL
Contined on page 18
Vol.XXVII, No.11 © Carver Communications, Inc. June 1, 2009
What’s All the Hype about Social Networking?
By Kate Cherry, SABOR
You may or may not be familiar
with some of the buzz words that surround
the topic of social networking – Facebook,
friends/followers, Twitter, LinkedIn, profile
pages, MySpace, etc. The phenomenon has
taken storm in the business world, and
specifically in real estate. More and more,
people are creating pages and profiles in
these social entities to further promote their
business and services to consumers. So
what exactly is social networking?
According to TRENDLINK’s spring
2009 publication, social networking is the
idea of bringing people together to interact
with one another to share information and
ideas across the internet. The different networking
sites offer different ways to communicate,
facilitating conversation between
groups of people or individuals. Examples
of sites where this can be done include
LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, MySpace,
Flickr, YouTube and ecademy, just to name
a few.
Jackie Galvan of RE/MAX Preferred
REALTORS® uses social networking in a
variety of ways. “I build my referral business
by connecting with other agents and
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stay connected to agents I meet at conferences
through these sites,” said Galvan.
“We provide marketing ideas to one another,
as well as motivational support, and even
share photos.”
Most sites are free and each has the
same main purpose – to be connected to
others who are also users of the same site;
but each platform is set up a little differently.
LinkedIn, for example, is primarily used
as a network of experienced professionals
from around the world. The LinkedIn Web
site says that over 40 million people are registered
participants representing 170 industries
and 200 countries, and that executives
from all of the Fortune 500 companies are
members. The site allows you to find past
and current colleagues, friends and potential
clients through which business relationships
and referrals can form.
Similar to LinkedIn, Facebook offers
opportunities for people to connect with
one another on a personal and professional
level. From a business perspective, the
Facebook site allows one to further his/her
online presence and push information out to
consumers who are already on the site. It is
a way to build connections and relationships
that can then further facilitate your
business.
“Facebook is more informal, and
really, a way to stay in touch,” said Missy
Stagers, Coldwell Banker D’Ann Harper
REALTORS®. “It [typically] is not directly
used to do business, but by staying in
touch, you are doing business. When you
stay in front of people, they don’t forget
you.”
During a Webinar titled “The
Business of Social Networking – Brought
to you by NAR International,” presenter
Brad Hanks indicated that social networking
is used for marketing, prospecting and
promoting. He indicated that “You can’t
talk business all of the time. You will find
that people may start ‘un-friending’ you.”
When asked what the benefits of
social networking were for REALTORS®,
Karen Hale of Keller Williams Legacy
responded with, “I think social media gives
an agent the advantage of establishing credibility
as an industry expert, increases visibility
and helps agents build a strong team
with other industry partners to provide an
outstanding service package.” Hale began
using these tools this year and explained
that it was one of her business plan goals to
start taking advantage of this technology.
As with any good thing, however,
there are limitations and concepts you
should keep in mind when opting to utilize
these online tools. Be careful what you post
– know that anything you publish once is
out there for the world to see, even if you
remove it later. Be sure to post information
and images that do not incriminate you or
others. It may be a good idea to create a
company liability policy to keep you and
your business from being liable for someone
else’s poor judgment.
To learn more about this evolving
topic and how social networking is affecting
your business, be sure to attend the
SABOR Town Hall meetings that will be
held on June 11th, 16th and 18th where
experts from KGBTexas will be talking
about this very subject. Go to SABOR.com
for more details about locations and times.
At the Mid Year meeting
in Washington this month,
Mary Ann Jeffers, 2008
State President for
Women’s Council of
REALTORS®, and her team
brought home the 2008
Super Mega State
Chapter Award, beating
Florida and California.
This makes two years in a
row for the Texas State
Chapter. I am so proud of
all our members as this
was their achievement and it was certainly a TEXAS night to party. We also
had two Local Chapters to bring back Awards. They were Dallas Metro
East for the Mega Chapter, Houston 1960 for Large Chapter. We had 22
out of 25 Local Chapters to win Gold or Silver Awards.
“WHAT A NIGHT TO REMEMBER”.