Getting More Real Estate Social Proof in 2016 – Real Satisfied

“We’ve noticed significant conversation improvement and longer times spent on a website when featuring a testimonials page.” ~ Preston Andrew, CEO of Social Proof Creative

I have long been suggesting that agents take time to build their online real estate social proof.  The idea that you can influence potential buyers and sellers while you are sleeping, eating, or vacationing is just Awesome.

70% of consumers say they trust opinions posted online

Some posts I have written in the past about online reviews:

• The Facts About Online Reviews
• A Simple and Free Tool to Get Google Reviews
• Tips For Getting More Yelp Reviews

There are many ways to create real estate social proof such as:

1. Customer Reviews/Ratings
2. Social Likes/shares
3. Trust Symbols
4. Video Testimonials
5. Celebrity Endorsements
6. PR

I would like to show you a tool to help you build your online real estate social proof…

Real Satisfied

What is Social Proof

According to, Aileen Lee writing for TechCrucnh, Social Proof is ” …the positive influence created when someone finds out that others are doing something.  It’s also known as informational social influence.”

Wikipedia explains it as, “Social proof, also known as informational social influence, is a psychological phenomenon where people assume the actions of others in an attempt to reflect correct behavior for a given situation.”

I found this little video to help explain social proof.

Social proof for real estate is more than just online reviews as I mentioned above and the video explains, but we have to start somewhere.

Getting Positive Online Reviews

I recently stumbled on a Real Estate Social Proof tool that looked interesting, thanks to my friend Drew Meyers of Geekestateblog. In his blog he pointed out that using this tool to put agent reviews on your WordPress website might be a good idea.

I decided to go ahead and sign up for the tool and take a closer look at it.

Previously I have used a handful of different review tracking tools including ReviewTracker.  But I had never seen a tool specifically for real estate.  Well now I have.

While it is important to publicize your positive online reviews, it is also important to hear from all past clients.

A good review is great, but a bad review might actually be more beneficial.

A bad review gives us the opportunity to understand our weaknesses and gives us a road map to improve on them.  And if we do that then we will get a higher percentage of positive reviews.

Real Satisfied

They describes themselves as: “RealSatisfied is a customer satisfaction and brand management platform for the real estate industry designed to help you improve customer retention and acquisition”.

This tool allows you to send surveys to people who you have worked with in the past.  Those surveys include:

• Buyer
• Seller
• Lost Listing Presentation
• Peer

This allows you to get feedback from your clients, people who did not choose to use you and the agents you have worked with.

The surveys that are sent are Professional, Attractive, and quite Detail Oriented allowing you to get a good picture of what the service that you provided.

Surveys

Your potential reviewer will receive a professional and branded email asking for them to take a survey.  If they accept they will be directed to survey you requested.

Finishing with a branded call to action.

How Real Satisfied Helps

Using this tool will help you:

• Catch Problems Before They Go Viral
• Solicit Better Testimonials
• Easily Share Your Recommendations
• Build Real Estate Social Proof

You can carry out those goals with:

• Feed & Widgets
  To display positive survey results on your website, newsletters, email marketing, etc.
• Social Sharing
  Easily publish your positive survey results on Facebook and Twitter.

Use the “Visual Testimonials” tool to create an attractive post while building social proof with your sphere of influence.

• Testimonial Aggregation
  Collect and save all your reviews in one spot that easy to use and easy to share.
• Third Party Integrations
  Realtor.com, WordPress, Facebook, Twitter, more to come
• Reputation Management
  A “Complaint Escalation Service” will alert you if a client had a bad experience and give you the opportunity to contact them before they hit social media with a complaint.
• Invitation Automation
  Sending surveys is pretty simple, taking me about 30 seconds.
• Thank You Gifts
  After your reviewer completes a survey you have the option to send them a thank you card and a Starbucks gift card with a couple clicks.

Well that sounds nice… so how do you go about achieving these results.

Create Your Real Satisfied Account

Visit the Pricing and Sign Up page:  https://secure.realsatisfied.com/pricing_and_signup.php

I choose the Free Agent Lite option, mainly because I am not a real estate agent 🙂 but the Agent Pro option for $99 year is very reasonable.

Update Profile Settings

• Add Your Image
• Edit the Profile Page Settings

• Add links to your Social Media Accounts
• Add links to your Online Review Accounts

Office Settings

• Add your office logo
• Edit your office details

• Add your company information

Syndication

If you are a REALTOR® you should turn on the Realtor.com syndication.  This will add your approved testimonials to your Realtor.com account.

This is where we wish that there were more syndication tools built-in such as Zillow, Trulia, Yelp, and Google reviews.

Publishing Services

I would suggest turning on both Facebook and Twitter.  A simple authorization process is all that is required, as long as you have both accounts set up.

Notifications

I am a big fan of being reminded.

• I would turn the notifications on.

Feeds and Widgets

They do have a WordPress plugin to display your testimonials but I would suggest adding them in this way.  Due to the fact that they only offer a widget.

I would use the “Web Site Widget” Tool:

Sending Your First Survey

Now you have everything set up and ready to Rock n Roll.  Time to start sending out your surveys.  Luckily, this part is super simple.

• Click on “Send a Survey Invitation”
• Select what type of survey to send
• The address of the property in the transaction
• Clients Name and Email Address
• Send

BOOM!  You are on your way to building more Real Estate Social Proof.

Survey Tracking

Once your past clients start completing the surveys you will be able to track your customer service.

You can see what your overall client satisfaction, recommendation, and performance levels are.  You will also see how often people are completing their surveys.

Once surveys are completed you will have the ability to view them, and publish them to your feed if they are positive or contact the client if they are negative.

Summary

If 2016 is the year that you decide that you want to get serious about your real estate social proof than you might want to take a look at the Real Satisfied client review tool.

With Real Satisfied you can catch problems before they go viral, solicit better testimonials, easily share your recommendations, and generally build real estate social proof.

Start with their free account, or pony up the $99 year to really get going.