Just imagine you had your very own real estate investing ?institute? that cranked out deal after deal and deposited money into your bank account almost automatically? Writer Bernice Ross of Inman News recently ran an interesting article about the importance of social media in promoting property deals, and the same words of advice apply to promoting your real estate investing business.



Ross specifically considered LinkedIn, a popular social media site, and found that it was a great was to generate referrals for helping build your real estate investing institution. If you are investing now, you need referrals in order to find buyers, power team members, financiers, real estate investing attorneys, joint venture partners, and solid Realtors. Ross points out that asking people you know for referrals can backfire because those you know understand how long (or how little) you have been in the business and because some people may want to keep some facts personal.

(That is, if your uncle recommends his business partner to you, the partner may worry that you and your uncle will discuss his home buying and even his finances). When it comes to investing in real estate, you may not want to focus just on who you know in order to secure referrals.

Obviously, strangers are a better way to go. However, many real estate investing professionals tend to outsource their marketing and referral seeking to an ad agency. While there is nothing wrong with this per se, it can create a problem if you are not targeting the right market or if your potential clients are getting many similar mailings from other professionals as well. Why should they respond to you?

LinkedIn and other social media sites allow you to be more personable and allow you to reach a larger audience for less. Simply join a network such as LinkedIn and you will be able to interact with the entire community. For example, LinkedIn has a community of over 19 million professionals and when you join you create an online profile that details your education and profession. Once you do this, you are linked to former colleagues, classmates, and people in the same profession as you. If someone is looking for someone in the same field, he or she can find you with the click of a mouse, as well.

Others can recommend you and your services on social media sites such as LinkedIn and this allows you to get referrals quite easily. When someone recommends you, the testimonial appears on your site and the recommender's site. Therefore, anyone visiting your former client's page can easily find you. Just do not be afraid to ask past customers and others you know for a recommendation and you could be featured on hundreds of pages other than your own LinkedIn page.