This blog post on Curbed LA (a Los Angeles-themed blog) caught my attention this morning: "Agh. My Real Estate Agent Added Me As A Facebook Friend."
In the blog post, Dakota mentions her real estate agent added her as a friend on Facebook and goes on to say, "I like the guy OK, but as a real estate agent, I am not thrilled with the listings he's sending me and I am not sure that my relationship with him will be a long term one. Granted, I'm too polite to ignore his request."
I give it to the real estate agent for being on the forefront of internet marketing by jumping in to social networks, but he obviously likes sending his real estate listings too much. So much so, that the constant spamming and messaging is annoying to Dokata and probably others. In the long run, this is hurting his brand and relationships
We've thought about this at LittleEngine, and at the beginning, we did allow businesses to "friend" anybody they wanted. Then one day, J.J. and I had a discussion, and we didn't want LittleEngine to be like Myspace, Facebook, or the others — filled with businesses, bands, brands, agents, etc., trying to hoard friends and spam their way to the top.
We wanted small businesses to EARN it, to earn that permission to give people respectable messages. So if this real estate agent was on LittleEngine (which he should be), he can't send anybody his listings, unless they agree to fan him. This is permission marketing and this is something you have to earn from the customer, and once you do — DON'T BLOW IT!
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