I’ve recommended you all read Dave Evans book titled “Social Media marketing, an Hour a day”. It describes the power behind “inbound marketing” a term used to describe using social media networks to promote your product, service or brand. For developers of new communities in LaGrange, Ga, the leverage provided by social media is enormous and really the only way to attract a market to LaGrange.

Here’s why:

In my experience with real estate sales…new homes, condos, lofts, condo conversions, etc…we must attract about 20 people to our sales office to make 1 sale. If it takes 500 impressions to attract 1 person to visit us on site, then about 10,000 impressions are needed per sale. If there are 1,600 new homes to be delivered in LaGrange over the next 10 years, 850 of which are from Magnolia alone, 160 homes a year must be sold on average. 160/12 = say 13 per month. That means the town of LaGrange must attract 260 people to visit its development properties per month and at 500 impressions per visit, 130,000 people must have their sights on LaGrange reliably each month or 4,000-5,000 per day 28,000-35,000 per week.

Well,

1. There aren’t enough people in LaGrange to generate that great a market, so the target market must be regional.

2. One way marketing, i.e. ads, billboards, direct mail, brochures, etc are too expensive to rely on to reach the audience

3. Social Media is a proven way to amass a large audience focused on Lagrange, if its campaign is driven by a ‘cause”.

These diagrams illustrate the power of social media from Dave Evan’s book

Sarnoff’s Law…Old Economy; traditional paper media, brochures, TV, radio, etc. All one way communication

Network Value is 10x its members

Metcalf’s Law…Internet, Telephone, multi-directional communication

Network value = Square of its members

Reed’s Law….Social networks; Law of the Pack; communication between groups in multi-directions

Network Value is 2 raised to the 90^th power of its members…too big to count