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Social Networking: The end of "Search and See" for Real Estate
Consumers expect not only to have a voice, but to create the conversation.
SAN FRANCISCO -- The financial crisis and the evolution of the Internet
away from a culture of "search and surf" to a "friend era" driven by
social networking sites have produced profound changes in consumer
attitudes that must be understood in order to thrive during the
recovery, consumer behavior experts told attendees at a homebuilding
industry conference this week.
Consumers feel burned by the advice they received from their "trusted
advisers" in the lead-up to the financial crisis, including real estate
professionals, said J. Walker Smith, executive vice chairman of market
research and consulting firm The Futures Co.
"The outrage simmering beneath the surface is not to be underestimated,"
Smith said. People feel they were "cheated" and "conned" by bankers,
mortgage lenders and politicians, among others, and that those
"betrayals" have gone unpunished, he said.
That's one reason consumers are increasingly turning to the networks of
friends they've created on social networking sites like Facebook for
guidance, Smith said.
That may seem obvious to real estate professionals who have already
embraced social networking. But Smith unleashed a barrage of statistics
to back up his contention that the "friend era" made possible by social
networking and technology in general is facilitating deeper changes in
society that have been accelerated by the economic downturn.
Americans are moving away from the notion of an "almost radical sense of
individualism" -- in which success is achieved at the exclusion of
others -- to "a more collective sense of how we achieve individual
success," Smith said.
There's a growing belief that personal accomplishments require
connections with others, and that networks, and not just hard work, are
a requirement for success.
"This is a fairly big change in American society in the last two
decades," Smith said -- one that is also manifesting itself in the real
world.
Read the full article on Inman News, www.Inman.com
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