Residential Real Estate Applications for Foursquare

You know you’re a foursquare junkie when you regret visiting your parent’s home because it’s not a registered venue on the location based social media platform.  After 32 years in Salt Lake, my parents have decided to move to the more moderate climate of Minneapolis, Minnesota and are in the process of sorting, packing and tossing a partial lifetime of stuff.

My brother and sister are helping, so I’ve been over there a lot recently.  I’m not going to create their home as a venue, because they’ll soon be selling the home and the home is frequently vacant.  Though checking in there may create an illusion of activity for anyone that frequents pleaserobme.com.  Hmmm.

The marketer in my mind has been thinking and today it hit me…Realtors should be using foursquare!  They visit listings and they show houses.  Real estate is all about location, location, location.  So is foursquare!

Now before you criticize me about privacy issues, please consider that every single building in the world has a satellite photo of it on Google Earth.  Also be aware that just about every home in the United States has property tax, valuation and sales history information on it through Zillow.

Transparency is a two-way street.  As citizens and consumers we desire transparency from corporations and demand it from government, but we have to freely give of ourselves as well.  Transparency is good for consumers because we can avoid messages we don’t want to hear.  It’s also good for advertisers because they know where to deploy resources.  A famous businessman John Wannamaker once said, “I waste half my advertising budget.  Trouble is, I don’t know which half.” 

In an ideal world, we could all share only information that was relevant and everybody could make informed choices.  Unfortunately, we don’t live in an ideal world.

With technology, we do live in a world where we can share where we’re going and where we’ve been.  For real estate based businesses, including residential real estate, I believe this is a good idea.

Why is foursquare good for real estate agents?

1. Share your listings with new potential clients throughout the social media space.  This includes Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with just one application: foursquare.
2. Share your daily activity with existing or potential clients.  Are you at a title company on behalf of a client?  Share that!  Are you at a home for an inspection or appraisal?  Share that information of foursquare.  The busier you are is the more value you create for your client.
3. Foursquare can build your client network, especially with people who haven’t heard of you.  Foursquare is rapidly growing and expects to hit 1,000,000 users this week!  Internet land grabs are harder and harder to find.  Don’t let the foursquare opportunity pass you by!