What are you presenting?

If a session on what social networking is, get familiar, branding, etc then the strongest qualification is a social network expert or marketing expert.

If the session is how to use it to improve/grow your business then I’d expect the presenter to have some solid credentials in terms of production. Mostly because there are so many people pitching it as a business panacea. If this presenter can’t show that it works and speak to how to make it work for me, too, then he’s not the right guy.

In that regard, I’d echo jfsellsius’ comments above.

Give me the true honest picture. Tell me what you’ve learned the hard way. Not what you learned from a website that promises you to get rich quick.

Social Media encourages experimentation. Don’t be afraid to hire a speaker who is still experimenting. There is no hard fast system to social media. It’s much like life. I might enjoy a conversation with you, bit not with the next guy. I recently wrote on AgentGenius about what I learned in social media. My best nugget?

I learned to sell while keeping my mouth shut.

Social Media is not about production numbers, it’s about connections that can lead to production numbers. If you skip the connections you won’t get the numbers.

As long as the Realtor has proven whuffie, then they should be valuable to the panel. PROVEN.

Sooner or later the SM expert, consultant, trainer, etc. thing will shake out. THIS is the beginning of that conversation…

The thing that ties the two together is the fact that he IS an agent, so he can speak at their level and relate what he does to their business. Being a Social Media expert means you are a good marketer. Marketing is only one piece of the puzzle.

If I were in the audience i wouldn’t care about his production as much as I would care about his presence on Social media.

Does he have a good network?
Does he have a good blog?
Is he providing valuable info?

That’s what really matters to me.

It’s the, “I succeeded by doing it exactly this way so it must be the only way” type people who disinterest me.

But I do think it’s important that it is an agent trying this stuff. I think there are way to many “experts” out there that don’t know what it’s like to sell real estate or originate mortgages. Experience counts a bunch in my book.

But then again…. http://tr.im/uFxB

Here’s what I mean…

If agent A has $50k GCI and agent B does $200k GCI, there is no way you can assume that social media advice from agent B is better. As an example, agent A may have done that $50k with “the perfect set of clients” that she found through facebook. Good friends, very similar interests. Basically “fun business”. Agent B may have done a bigger business, but it might be a shotgun style of social media marketing. He’ll do business with “anyone”.

The undeniable truth is that social media marketing can and will amplify who you really are and what you are really about. The resulting business will reflect that.

Another big point of discussion is measuring social media results.
Just because someone contacts me through facebook doesn’t mean that this opportunity didn’t or wouldn’t have come through another channel.
It’s great that FB keeps me more connected and it probably helped me
get that opportunity, but I can’t put that deal in a SM catagory only.

Likewise, if someone calls me on the phone, I can’t say that they were not impacted by my online presence. In fact, it’s more likely that they were.

This is what our friend Jeff Turner has called “ambient presence”.
Social Media keeps you more connected to a larger potential client base with less effort. This will result in increased business (while difficult to measure) — assuming what you’ve amplified is appealing