I recently attended one day of the three day session of the Arizona Association of REALTORS® 2009 Winter Conference in Prescott.  It turned out to be a good day to attend; I not only saw many familiar faces but also caught the Social Media Networking panel discussion.  Whenever I hear “social networking” I think of people after work imbibing adult beverages. There were NO adult beverages but I stayed anyway.  Great panel, moderated by Amy Chorew and hosting Jay Thompson, Rob Gibbs, Phil Sexton and Dru Bloomfield.  I was pretty proud that we had two representatives from John Hall & Associates on the panel.

Phil Sexton, the officially appointed “I.M.D.” (Internet Marketing Dude) of John Hall & Associates, talked about the online tools especially effective for managers and designated brokers.  It is more effective, more efficient and cheaper than other types of broker- to- agent communication; it is also easier to store, reference and file that any other type of communication.  We found out that some of the tools used by John Hall & Associates are “bad to the bone”!

Dru Bloomfield was an exceptionally informative panelist.  Her success on Twitter was phenomenal; she has over 2,200 people following her!  She must be truly doing it right if 2,200 followers have identified value in her information.  The “how to” of it seems almost embarrassingly simple, as did her advice – “Be Yourself”.  She “tweets” about those things important to her like special need children and real estate in general, but Scottsdale in particular.  She only started doing this a year ago and considers it social capital just like community activities and volunteer work.

Great panel, great information and great learning opportunities.  Congratulations Arizona Association of REALTORS® on an all around great day.

DF