NEW YORK CITY-Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest are powerful communication tools for many industry professionals. All are portals to spreading awareness, driving site traffic and creating a company's online persona, which, hopefully, can lead to greater sales, conversions and potentially the next big deal.  

The consumer products industry makes some curious and creative use of these mediums to interact with users, to advertise and to generate discussion surrounding their latest products. Other fields, namely commercial real estate, are now starting to jump on to these new technologies and it seems that some of those in residential real estate have got a solid handle on some interesting practices.

A recent release from N-Play, the provider of the Real Estate Agent Directory on Facebook, outlined how this company has used Facebook as part of its greater social media strategy. For instance, real estate agents are “increasingly” looking to this platform as a way to promote their services and property. Apparently, 90% of agents have a social media presence, and they integrate social media pages – namely Twitter and Facebook – to reach more individuals. Additionally, more are using Facebook as an advertising tool, linking ads back to listings via the system.

“Social media, particularly Facebook, is a driving force of the next wave of change for real estate professionals.  More home buyers and sellers are connecting with agents on Facebook,” explained N-Play CEO Mark Bloomfield. “With Facebook's socially-charged environment, agents are just one click away from starting a connection with a home buyer or seller through a Facebook friend, friend of friend, family member, referral, or an ad. It's amazing to see how interconnected we really are and that's exciting to us.”

What we would like to hear is how commercial real estate executives are finding uses for social media in this industry. Weigh in with your comments below: what is social media's place in the commercial real estate industry?