Social Network or Blog? Which is best to start for business purposes?

[bronxpad]

I am a Realtor and was wondering which is better to start for Lead generation? A social network for local professionals or a blog?

[AdoptionHelp]

Do you mean start your own social network? The challenges and technical hurdles to doing so are much higher, but the potential rewards are also much greater.

I would say start a blog, get a post or two a week on it, and publish those to your social media accounts (especially linkedin, twitter, fb).

Once you've got that down, if you still have the resources to create a social network then go for it! You can use existing services like Ning or Drupal Connect to speed up the process.

[bronxpad]

I was thinking about using one of the Social Network Templates out there like Social Engine. Have you heard of them?

What hurdles do you think I would face?

[AdoptionHelp]

Technically its a lot more involved than a blog, probably requiring more bandwidth and processing power if it becomes successful. And it requires more technical know-how to get it set up properly. Then the challenges of building and maintaining an online community are significantly greater than just publishing a blog and attracting a readership.

But again, if you can pull it off you'll have a fantastic resource and a great way to market your brand.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Joel,

Ryan is spot on.  I've worked with many Realtors over the years, and I've also seen many others who think a templated social network service is a great way to get lead gen going. The problem is many-fold.

For all the "template" based systems that claim to be "easy" to set up, they're not.  Unless you want a highly unprofessional looking site from your target market's perspective.

Even if the visual aesthetics are pleasing, social network solutions outside Facebook are rarely, if ever, going to be found by your target market easily.  They're isolated from the world, and you need to build up inbound links and off-site signals to get them ranked with more effort than you would imagine, because they're disjointed and lack clean topical focus the way a site and its blog would be.

So unless you're going to spend the time / invest the effort to first build & design a very high quality a templated social network, and then can easily and for relatively little cost then promote it through traditional or gorilla marketing to drive enough traffic that eventually enough of those people actually want to participate, there's no viable reason I've ever found for me to be willing to recommend them as an intelligent, sound business decision.

If you had a company with dozens, hundreds, or thousands of people in the organization and you wanted to create a platform for internal dialogue, I'd say it's a consideration.  That's the only other circumstance I can advocate for them.

[kbloemendaal]

I work with several realtors/builders and I would say to build a website with a blog on it (for content and SEO value) then use a lead gen from that. Build an email list, there is no better way for realtors to connect with potential clients, whether you are trying to get other realtors to show your listings or get buyers to list with you.

Network with other realtors on networks like Active Rain and LinkedIn, use some sort of IDX solution on your site so potential clients can search for properties, and bait them in to sign up for your email list.

The money is in the list!

[bronxpad]

I actually have a website with a blog. Currently I'm on page 1 for my main keywords. I was thinking of another way to generate new leads.  So the Social network was an idea for another project.

What do you think? Is it worth it or dead end?