By: Ravi Sinha
Track2Realty Exclusive: The social media is a huge enabler. Even though in India its reach is hampered by three factors: Low PC numbers, lack of electricity and low literacy, it is making its presence felt. How does it affect the real estate sector? Or in other words, how its reach is different to realty vis-a-vis other sectors?
Sachin Dave, a social media specialist believes while the real estate sector has relied heavily on branding, they fail to understand the psyche of their buyers. “A brand is not built on the billboard,” he says, ‘it is rather built in the nighbourhood and through word of mouth user experience. This holds more true for the realty sector since it is a very micro market driven business. Problem is that while anti-brand communities create a virtual reality that fosters utopian thinking, developers have no clue as to how focus on developing good brand ambassadors and ideal communities that are not cluttered with urban sprawl.”
Dave also questions that if McDonald’s can promote their junk food as “nutritious” to the extent that most of the developers are dying to invite them as anchors in their malls, why can’t therealtors learn a few lessons from them as to how to create a loyal brand audience in the cyberspace?
The real estate sector in general has been ahead of many other corporates in innovating ways and means to reach to the customers. However, when it comes to the online reputation management, many of the developers, even some frontline companies, are found to be lacking. All that the real estate has seen till very recently is the buyer-seller transaction portals which are no match to offline marketing efforts in the absence of trust factor.
However, that is changing fast and realtors need to adapt to the digital media world for reasons beyond buying-selling activities. After all, that is the first point of contact for the new-age property buyers, mostly the young lot, for whom online search of developers’ reputation is more viable option than reading in the newspapers.
