Social Collaboration: If Not Networking Then What?

Sometimes traditional networking doesn’t work. There is advice and suggestions for how people can network if they find it distasteful. But there could be practical barriers, like the people you need to reach being too far away, or there’s no one you know who can make initial introductions to broader groups. Maybe you need to move faster than in-person networking would allow.

Madison Sutton, who has been in real estate for only five years and is director of operations at The Serhant Commercial Collective, a new CRE division of Serhant Real Estate. But she makes social media work for her.

“I’m also known as @TheNYCAgent, on my social platforms where I have over 140K followers,” Sutton tells GlobeSt.com. “I started we went into the pandemic. Networking was not an option at the time. Social network because a bit thing for me.”

Sutton recommends the book The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life by Todd Herman. “It tells you how to take the characteristics and traits that you strive to be,” she says. “I wrote down the values of my business. I want to be authentic. I want to be the best I can be. I want to be informed. And as a young female, I want to be brave.”

Working social media in this way can be transformative. “You’re not a salesperson at that point,” Sutton says. “You’re a friend and someone who can relate to them. Being vulnerable is hard. People can be mean. Not just strangers but secondary people in your life. If you post something and maybe get three likes? You have to push past that and not have the exterior validation stop you. It’s a terrifying thing to do. It’s not something you necessarily get with a presentation. It’s a little muscle. The more you put out, whether informational posts that solidify you as an expert, but when you add human elements like here’s my dog, here’s my family, you stop being a salesperson and someone they can relate to.”

Start with finding people who are doing things that you like. “Don’t recreate the wheel,” she says but don’t be slavish. Instead, adapt techniques in ways that feel comfortable to you. Don’t expect to be smooth or good at the start. Try to be consistent, which increases audience retention and helps you build habits.

“Accept help, whether through friends helping you create at first, or optimizing AI. “The idea that you’re alone in this is counter to the concept,” she says. “You don’t have to be alone.” Eventually, you might hire a videographer or editor

Experiment. Maybe you’ll post videos of properties one day and talk about some other aspect of your business on another.

Also, realize that you’ll adapt and learn. Sutton is still working out the processes she uses. “In a perfect system I would post and repost,” she says. “I’m not a perfect person and don’t have a perfect system. It’s not that I need to post every single day. We’re not only doing deals. We’re therapists for some of these people. We’re doing comps, socializing with them.” Fous on the social.