Sotheby's Realty - Doing Their Digital Best

In luxury real estate news, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty participated in a recent Northeast regional conference for Sotheby’s International Realty® affiliates. The conference offered great networking and forecast strategy sessions, but the larger story of Sotheby's digital engagement and global reach contrasts a bit with Daniel Gale's endeavors. Even within great organizations and systems there appear to be maverick ideas on how to engage via the web.

Held Feb.10 in Parsippany, N.J., the conference offered over 100 attending great networking and information on the growth and strategies for the brand. Panel discussions and 2011's priorities were also at the top of Sotheby's lists. Philip White (center image below), president and chief operating officer; and Wendy Purvey, chief marketing officer, also gave forecasts of things to come.

Just to illustrate Sotheby's presence online (which I am very impressed with), images like the one below where Sotheby's use of digital tools are employed, are throughout this article. It is interesting to note here, that despite Sotheby's excellent offerings for affiliates, the Daniel Gale site has reverted to the mobile version - this is great for wealthy die hard smart phone users, but if big screen "Boomers" like this writer matter, the core traditional web variants are superior. Daniel Gale, unlike most Sotheby's collaborators, is a bit more austere, even stoic in my opinion (cursory investigation).

Daniel Gale Sotheby’s offers exclusive Sotheby’s International Realty marketing, advertising and referral services. The niche is an obvious one, and directed at attracting super qualified buyers to the company's listings. As a Sotheby's International Realty affiliate, Daniel Gale gets visibility juice from sothebysrealty.com and other brand outlets. Unfortunately for Daniel Gale, not much use is made of the opportunity apparently, their engagement on the web is anemic compared to even Eastern Europeans'.

Sotheby's International Realty network is currently comprised of more than 11,000 sales associates worldwide. With 500 offices in 42 countries, their exclusive property listings generally receive massive marketing attention. The network is supported by a fairly massive social media and digital outreach aspect too. The Facebook landing for Sotheby's International below illustrates this a bit.

The local Baltic site below for Latvia illustrates the integrated and refined website support the company offers its team worldwide. (click the image to visit) We spotlight this Latvian broker because of our interest in Eastern Europe too, the bottom images "drill" deeper into the matrix of Sotheby's affiliate and customer value.

Leonid Kil, owner of Baltic Sotheby's International Realty in Latvia, knows how to present his company in the digital world. The image below does wonders for his digital footprint (translation - I would ask him about a house in Riga). The person (picture), the basic info, and most importantly accessibuility - this is what "engagement" starts with. I won't go into marketing and PR aspects here - but I will cover this aspect on our PR News site later on. I don't know about you, but I would like to see and be able to mail the man who sells me a Latvian castle - or even apartment. (top image of Medieval castle in Edole)

In reporting the news about one of Sotheby's affiliates, it is obvious now we stumbled upon one agency which seems to be a bit oof a maverick compared to some. I don't want to go so far as to say Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty is more hype than died in the wool digital - but it's clear they have not optimized and used all the available tools. And to be honest, I don't see how anyone can lead a conference (or even talk at one) without putting their money where their mouth is.

As for Sotheby's on the whole? I have seldom been so impressed. They know how to make commercial videos too. Not perfect, in 13,000 articles I have yet to find one of those, but Sotheby's is top drawer.