Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
At the pinnacle of Inc.'s 5000 are situated the fastest growing and most profitable real estate companies in the United States. While their success records punctuated in the listings on this prestigious magazine speak volumes, we thought about how any company can stand to get better.
Let down - courtesy © Jekaterina - Fotolia.com
To that end, let's look at just how effective the top five on Inc.'s list communicate via social media and their web footprints. The image above should warn you.
With three year growth at a remarkable 6000 plus %, the company at the tippy top of Inc.'s best list deserves the accolade. A nationwide commercial and residential appraisal management company, VMG serves banks, mortgage companies, credit unions, and many other segments of the industry.
Looking at their corporate site, perhaps it's appropriate for their landing to look cool and all business, even Web 1.0? Way down at the bottom of the website, you'll also find their social media buttons for Facebook, LinkedIn, and the RSS if you are so inclined. Evidently anything called Twitter must sound to corny to add here? 285 likes on FB, but a super nice LI profile, gets the fastest growing real estate company in America - 3 of 10 SM Engagement. Maybe with Twitter they can grow as 12,000 % in the next three years?
Once an IT firm, Innotion Enterprises has grown by some 3000 plus percent over the last three years. The company serves REO property management, marketing, and sales efforts these days. An interesting thing happened on the way to scrutinize all that this company has going on socially, their website timed out and Chrome simply would not carry me there? So I tried IE - no dice. Evidently Inc.'s second place firm needs to go back to its IT roots. (sorry guys but???)
Anyhow, the firm does have a nice LinkedIn profile with plenty of info. AND, a Facebook with all of 86 likes - they even posted to it twice this year already. I even found a picture of CEO Al Espinoza there! (at right) Twitter? Guys, help me out here.... 0 of 10 SM Engagement.
Third on this prestigous list, this company Offers residential real estate appraisal management, alternative valuation, and post-closing quality control auditing, among other services. Having grown by some 2,751% over the last span of three years, it's no wonder Inc. chose them. And hey! They even have a functioning website.
Interestingly, Landmark seems to favor Twitter over Facebook, with LinkedIn thrown in like the other corporate real estate players here. But with 74 followers, and the company following 184, Twitter could never be considered a serious connect point. With a website that offers a bare minimum by way of connection points, and no real social media engagement, Landmark actually wasted their time creating an online presence at all. 1 of 10 SM Engagement.
A national real estate asset management, this fast growing company specializes in property marketing and management. With three year growth at 2,669%, these guys are currently fourth in revenue growth among all budding real estate servicing firms. Matt Martin's company has three of the four major social networking buttons on their landing page. A WP cookie cutter, it looks like the site only recently went up, or either the "team" profiles have not been filled out. Or, it is not optimized for Chrome? Not sure here, but looking over at Martin's Facebook, clearly his team has some sort of SM management. 600 plus likes is respectable.
@MMREM is at least a decent try at a Twitter engagement with real tweets and 417 real followers. However, I am not sure beating zero engagement ial only marginally better than the businesses above is anywhere near what anyone would call excellent. Any company with "marketing" loosely described as an area of expertise NOT present in on the Internet channels... I'll let you finish this. 3 of 10 SM Engagement.
My last hope for a truly "out there" mover and shaker among Inc.'s fastest growing real estate entities was shattered the instant I landed on this company's website. The experience of hitting mundane where the cutting edge is supposed to reside is a bit like entering a hospital, a sort of sterility mixed with something old, old, old. For a company that specializes in the purchase of distressed mortgages and real property, resolving delinquent mortgages, and auctioning short sales and REOs, though, maybe one cannot expect a human website? Still, CEO Doug McCabe's name and mini profile is on there, minus any picture though.
Social channels for this company either still mean drinks on the 19th hole, or they just figure 2,540% growth is good enough? I often wonder why such efforts are even made to come online. With an Alexa rank of 3,685,471 no one visits their website anyway. And believe me, I HATE being so critical. Looking a bit deeper, if the company's walk in address is correct, and Google Maps is, my assessment of golf links social methods is actually not too far off. Loan Resolution's offices appear to be a strong 7 iron away from the 17th green. 0 of 10 SM Engagement.
To be brutally honest, after completing this assessment of Internet visibility and branding for these five Inc. movers, I am a bit aghast. Sure, in fairness some of these firms have more incentive than others where online visibility and connected-ness might play a role in their successes. Brand wise however, their efforts are pitiful given their resources. Why is any of this important?
Credibility, viability, growth potential, and potential for starters these few things dictate the necessity to reach into the digital space. And when mobile channels gain parity or exceed social/web models for connecting? These companies will never be able to ramp up - and if they can, the lost opportunity costs will be in the millions. If I have to explain this, the positive effects of constructive criticism are totally lost. For me, any company listed online in Inc.'s top ANYTHING, had better make damn sure when potential clients visit, they find SUPERB written all over a company. Lest the competitor next door be there already.
And I started this list with high expectations.
