On this edition of “Keeping it real,” a recurring series on Inman, Peter Lorimer hosts a private meeting with his agents where he jumps on the gorilla in the room: Zillow. He also explores the world of hashtags and how Evabot can help agents’ marketing twofold.
Listen in for Lorimer’s take on Zillow, social media and gifting — three big topics in real estate right now.
Zillow
This year will be the first year Zillow is in profit. Where does the money come from?
Lorimer dives deeper into decoding this billion-dollar company by looking at the rise in numbers of agents, big data and what it all means to the agent right now.
“I think agents fear that they’re not going to get business, so they deploy capital with Zillow,” he said.
#SmartAgent
Lorimer offers guidance on the importance of hashtags in social media to gain business. Hashtags are like little buoy’s in the ocean of collections of things, he said.
He’ll also cover the correct usage as well as apps to help real estate agents find appropriate hashtags to use and how to connect with people through hashtags.
Evabot: Gifting for the savvy agent
To wrap it up, Lorimer shares his advocacy for Evabot, a sophisticated service that sends personalized boxes as closing gifts and also allows agents to track data via said gifts.
“If you want to use this as a strategy, $50 a month means you get Evabot to send surveys, testimonials and feedback from your customers. Guess what this is? This is social media god for $50 a month,” Lorimer said.
Peter Lorimer is the CEO of Beverly Hills, California-based PLG Estates.
