In March’s Marketing and Branding Month, we’ll go deep on agent branding and best practices for spending with Zillow, Realtor.com and more. Top CMOs of leading firms drop by to share their newest tactics, too. And to top off this theme month, Inman is debuting a brand new set of awards for branding and marketing leaders in the industry called Marketing All-Stars.
Real estate marketing and technology company Collabra Technology announced today that it is rolling out a new tool to help real estate professionals improve their online marketing, which the company describes as a kind of social media version of Credit Karma.
The company calls the tool “SphereBuilder,” and in a statement characterized it as “a comprehensive digital marketing platform that provides real estate professionals with data-driven insights, analytics, content and tools.” Collabra is rolling out the tool first in Denver, Colorado, and Huntsville, Alabama, and has plans to go national during the second quarter of this year.
Russ Cofano
In a call with Inman, Collabra CEO Russ Cofano explained that after users log in, the platform holistically evaluates their presence across an array of social media platforms including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok, as well as how they rank in search and review results on sites, such as Google and Zillow. Using a proprietary algorithm, the platform looks at factors, such as engagement and content quality.
The platform then produces what Collabra calls the “SphereIndex Score,” which is meant to give agents a quantitative idea of how well their social media presence is connecting with their audience. The platform also shows agents the local “benchmark” score so that they can see how they’re performing relative to other industry members in their markets.
A screenshot showing the SphereIndex Score inside the SphereBuilder platform | Collabra
Cofano said the tool was born out of the idea that agents are repeatedly told to work on social media and online marketing, but it can be hard-to-impossible to evaluate what’s working.
“The reality is they have no idea how effective their digital marketing activities are,” Cofano said. “So they equate being busy with being effective.”
After providing agents with a score, the platform will also provide suggestions, such as setting up profiles on new social media platforms. The SphereIndex Score “is designed to be dynamic” and is “always changing” as agents’ online presence grows, Cofano said.
A screenshot showing SphereBuilder’s interface | Collabra
All of the above offerings are free, and Cofano said he wants “everyone to come into the application” to see how their social media efforts are doing. He also compares the product to Credit Karma, which tells consumers their credit scores and offers suggestions on how to improve them.
For agents who want more assistance improving their social media scores, SphereBuilder also provides actual content including pre-built and customizable images and videos. Cofano describes the service as “Canva on steroids.” Agents can also use SphereBuilder to automate the process of posting on as many social media platforms as they want.
“No longer do they ever have to worry about what to post,” Cofano said. “We give it to them.”
Access to the social media content and automation tools costs $49 per month after a 30-day free trial. Collabra is in talks with several large brokerages to provide the SphereBuilder platform at an enterprise level, Cofano said.
The debut of SphereBuilder comes on the heels of several other product launches from Collabra, including a marketing platform designed for Realtor associations and multiple listing services and an analytics video tool for agents.
Collabra’s statement on SphereBuilder additionally touts the tool as a means of surviving “the changing market with digital marketing.” The comment alludes to the market shift that began last year thanks to rising mortgage rates and the ensuing falling demand for loans.
Speaking to Inman, Cofano ultimately reiterated that “most agents today are in the dark” about how much business their online marketing efforts are producing, and Collabra is consequently trying to “open up the black box and show them what’s going on relative to what other local agents in their market are doing.”
“This is designed for those agents,” Cofano continued, “who spend time and believe that social channels are an effective way to grow their business.”
