Happy Birthday!

Over the course of this blog I have come to you with a lot of ideas; some of which you could use, some of which you could not. Today I come to you with a sure-fire winner.

Like everyone else on Planet Earth, I have a birthday. Coincidentally mine was Saturday. Thank you if you sent well-wishes. As you all know, I have a facebook account and I have a respectable number of friends...not sure of the total because it changes every day. Each one of them has a birthday too. Birthdays are one thing we all have in common, even if we try to hide them occasionally.

OK, let's get past the obvious stuff and talk business. So Saturday I was out and about celebrating my birthday and my email (which is of course tied to my smart phone) was buzzing like an angry bumble bee. Every time I would silence the buzz, it would buzz again...really amazing stuff for a weekend, and really bizarre overall. Most of these emails (61 at last count) were from facebook friends chiming in to wish me happy birthday.

No, I am not that popular. Truth be told, some of the people who sent greetings I haven't actually talked to since I graduated High School in 19xx. They just felt compelled to drop me a line on facebook (because the calendar reminder told them to) and wish me well. About halfway through the day I realized there was a blog post in it somewhere.

So today (albeit Fathers Day...yeah bummer having both holidays back-to-back) I am spending time writing each one of them back. The messages may be simple, such as "hey, thanks...how are you...where are you these days?" but the purpose is solid. We engage in social media for many reasons, but one of them is because it connects us with people who MAY BE business contacts. We work hard to make them understand who we are, we try carefully not to post too much business on our site...but at the end of the day (just like in the real world) we need to talk to them about real estate. I just had 61 people open a conversation with me...you can bet I am going to leverage that as much as I can.

So what am I going to talk to these people about? That's easy. They tell me about their lives every day - all I need to do is check their profile and they share details about their families, their jobs and their homes. I'm just going to tap into that knowledge base, pick up something recent and follow up.

For Example:
Let's pretend for a second that our Malvern Manager Chuck Yeager was someone I hadn't seen since High School. When he wished me Happy Birthday at 7:05 Saturday morning he opened a dialogue that I can use to my advantage. Jumping over to his profile, I see he was at the National Constitution Center later in the day. A quick Google search of the NCC (if necessary) and I am prepared to jot him a note.

"Hey Chuck...thanks for the birthday greetings. Haven't seen you in forever. How are the kids? Saw you were at the National Constitution Center yesterday...what did you think of the place? Last time I went the drive in was horrendous - how was it for you..actually now that I think of it where are you living anyway? It's been so long we should really try to catch up"

Whether Chuck comes back and tells me he lives two blocks from NCC, or he tells me he lives in Bismark, ND the answer is (eventually, maybe after one or two exchanges) the same..."oh cool, well I can help you there if you ever need a Realtor". That's what Social Media allows you to do - introduce yourself to an audience who may not know you as much as you would like. If you are going to have to read their Farmville/MafiaWar/BakeryShop posts for a year, might as well utilize your birthday to move the ball forward, right? I know I will for the next few days.

Look for a post update over the next few weeks to see if this paid off. In the meantime, however, make sure your birthday is on your facebook profile (remember you don't need to add the year) and that you are paying attention to the birthdays coming up in your sphere.