How to Become the “Digital Mayor” of Your City
Digital media leader Gary Vaynerchuk encourages audiences he speaks with to become the “digital mayors” of their city. By that he means blanket your local area with a wide variety of relevant social media so that you’re reaching everyone you possibly can, and then nurture and own those relationships so you’re the best at it in your market.
I recently conducted a Tuesday Mastermind session with two top producers who are doing just that: Rick Scherer and Andy Tuttle. They are Mortgage Coach power users: They’ve both done more than 1,000 TCAs; they do Annual Mortgage Reviews, Cost of Waiting Analyses, and much more to provide high trust and high-value.
And, they are social media power users. The key to their success is they publish frequently and across multiple channels to reach the most number of people possible and to make it easy for viewers to engage, interact and ask questions. Here are 3 ways they are building their business through social media that you could easily start doing today:
#1 “I do a lot of posting in Realtor groups,” says Andy, who completed 366 units in 2017 in the Dallas/Ft. Worth market for $92 million and has set a goal of $150 million this year. “That's one of my most effective things. I do a lot of posting with the teams and the brokers I work with. I get added to their groups, and I do a lot of my education through there and just create little communities in those groups, even more than I do broadly on social.”
#2 Andy does a Facebook LIVE market update every Friday and has been featuring the Cost of Waiting Analysis. “We've generated a ton of leads from it, just giving people those personalized analyses, and now they're in our system and we can communicate with them through our platform.”
Rick, from MSA Mortgage in the Boston market, also uses Facebook LIVE, but afterward, he takes the footage and uses it to create videos. “We're talking about how to get offers accepted,” he says. “We just announced a new up-to-100% financing program with one of the housing authorities here. Facebook is getting us a lot of great reach on that.”
“We had up to 35,000 views on a video we did when Zillow launched their instant offer program,” says Rick, whose production is around $110 million, with a goal of $125 million this year. “We did a video in the radio studio, and talked deeply about both sides of what this instant offer thing could actually mean to the real estate community. We were trying to get both sides of the coin around what technology and disruptors are going to have the ability to do in our marketplace. It was viewed, liked and shared probably 30,000 times and received a couple hundred comments, so we were really pleased with that. It was the most successful one we’ve ever done.”
#3 They both partner with the American Dream TV show and leverage this national platform to partner with a dozen of the best Realtors in their city. “It’s allowing me to be the only one in the marketplace on TV in the mortgage industry,” Rick says, “but it also allows me to have 10 real estate agents who are in the top 100 in Massachusetts come in every week to my office, to the studio, to sit down. We have champagne, and we get to know each other. I’ve been able to build a really, really great relationship, on many levels. Then, taking what we do for the TV and throwing it on social media has been game changing.”
“The return on relationship with agents is huge,” Andy adds. “We recently had 32 Realtors in a room that we hand selected. You can only take 10, so, the opportunity that I had to get in front of the biggest agents, I mean, five of the top 20 were there. To get in a relationship with them and have a discussion with them, I've never been able to do it like that before. It was so easy. And they pay for it. It's not like I'm paying for them. They pay their own way. And they're glad to do it.”
“Then the agents get to post the content on their social media,” Andy explains, “and every one of them is getting thousands of views and hundreds of likes from their first show, which provides another reason to call them. ‘Hey, congratulations on the post. Did you see all your views? Oh my gosh.’"
#4 Andy and Rick both integrate their CRM with Mortgage Coach and layer social media platforms on top. “We do mass texting from Jungo, but the response comes back in an email, so we can communicate with the client the way they want us to, but then we still can send TCAs and videos through email,” Andy says.
MSA Mortgage has a VoIP platform called 8x8 that offers texting. Rick says, “People are texting us a lot there, not knowing that it's our business phone number, so our team now asks every client how they want to be communicated with, and texting is one way that gets mentioned a lot, so the lenders will text customers right from the 8x8 platform.”
“One of the key points that make both Andy and Rick’s social media programs work is that they’re both super-authentic,” explains Kristin Messerli, founder and CEO of Cultural Outreach Solutions, a consulting firm that specializes in social impact, who also participated in the interview. “So many people in this industry are doing social media, but it’s automated, not authentic. Both Andy and Rick are being themselves and that’s providing true value to their audience. I think that’s key to modern mortgage professionals being successful on social media.”
“That’s right,” says Rick. “I don't do anything automated. I'm not reposting other people's articles unless there's meat behind it and I'm explaining it in there. I also don't see a lot of engagement any time I share anything else other than my own thing. I'm not doing digital just to do digital,” he says. “It has to be appropriate. I think a lot of people try to scale social, and as you know, every platform tells a different story. I don't think it makes any impact when you try to go against the grain of what platform you're posting to.”
And Rick doesn’t use social media as a selling tool, but rather, for building relationships. “My posts have nothing to do with wanting your business. The idea behind digital mayoring is to give a ton of content about your area. Don't be the local newspaper – be better than the local newspaper. Give – give with abundance, and don’t expect reciprocity. Just share your compassion, your connections, and your knowledge every day and you'll do well, and then when you do ask, don't beat around the bush. Just ask. That's the thing. I think that's the beauty, because when you've earned the right, then you can ask for the business without trying to be all sneaky about it.”
“Don't be the local newspaper – be better than the local newspaper. Give – give with abundance, and don’t expect reciprocity.”
So how can you get started on the road to becoming the digital mayor of your community? In this interview, Andy and Rick give several strategic social media ideas you can use in your business, including:
- How they conduct lead capturing and grow their network
- How they provide simple, but high-value information
- The art of storytelling; it’s easier than you think
- How they conduct video interviews and who they interview (hear Rick talk about how he interviewed the head of Massachusetts housing, how easy it was, and how much value it brought to his business!)
- The simple art of a doing a book review, and the value of simply ‘liking’ a book
- How to schedule posts in advance
- The importance of keeping your message authentic
Both Andy and Rick conduct local mastermind sessions with Realtors and use social media to attract participants. They also talk in this video about how they’re using the American Dream Network to layer their message across their community and then promoting it through social media, and much more.
To learn how you can use social media to build your network and become the digital mayor of your community, click here to watch this video.
The 4 Essential Disciplines of the Modern Mortgage Professional
Kristin Messerli's 5-page workbook
CLICK to see our online calendar that is updated daily.
CLICK to go to our YouTube Channel
CLICK for a DEMO of Mortgage Coach