Midwest Real Estate Data’s Share My Listings (SMyL) widget Boosts Realtors' Social Media Presence

Jan. 23, 2012 - PRLog -- Social media has become a vital component in the marketing strategy employed by today’s real estate professionals.  Many have incorporated vehicles such as Facebook and Twitter into their daily business practices.  In response to the explosion in social networking, Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) was one of the first to create a service - its Share My Listings (SMyL) widget - to feed the insatiable social media giants.

The SMyL widget brings to MRED Listing Brokers and Agents a full-fledged social marketing tool with the power to perform functions that positively and significantly impact the sale of listings, including the sharing on popular social networking sites, the creation of embedded links to listings for blogs or company websites, the display of listings on Facebook business pages, the generation of custom QR codes, the gathering of real time web statistics and much more.

The SMyL widget has been embraced by MRED brokers and agents.  As of January, 2012, it had generated over 175,000 web hits from clients in 101 countries, all 50 states and 387 cities in Illinois.  Much of SMyL’s popularity has been attributed to its ease of use and its overall effectiveness as a full-fledged marketing tool.  MRED real estate professionals need only click on the “Share My Listings widget (SMyL)” link on the home page of their multiple listing service, connectMLS™.  This link takes them to the SMyL dashboard, where they can create a dynamic link containing all of their listings and post that link on their website, blog or many other places of their choosing.  They can also choose to drop individual listings on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn --- and since November, craigslist. The SMyL “ad” displayed on craigslist is not your average craigslist posting, but is designed to get people’s attention by being graphically interesting and eye-catching – a very professional presentation.

The popularity of the craigslist functionality surprised some.  When measured at the beginning of January 2012, MRED brokers and agents had used the SMyL widget to display 789 listings on craigslist generating 51,719 views, an average of 65 views per listing.  There is a definite synergy between the SMyL widget and craigslist, something that was anticipated by Chris Lambrou, MRED’s Director of Special Projects and the creator of the SMyL widget.  

“As a part of my responsibilities when developing new products and services, I monitor what is trending, especially in the cutting edge technology arena and popular social media sites,” said Lambrou.  “I had craigslist in my sights for quite a while and was able to create functionality that I was satisfied more than met the needs of our users, including giving them the ability to monitor analytics from their craigslist post.”

The popularity of the SMyL widget has reached other markets.  This past September, MRED launched the SMyL widget at NorthstarMLS in Minnesota.  In one day sixteen listings were already posted, and one of those had received ninety-seven views.  Since launch, the SMyL widget at NorthstarMLS has generated 23,041 client hits from 69 countries and all 50 states.

“The success of the Share My Listings widget underscores the commitment MRED has to cutting edge tools and technology to assist our real estate professionals in being as competitive and successful as possible,” said Russ Bergeron, MRED CEO.  “We are continuing our efforts to provide our brokers, agents, appraisers and ultimately the consumer with the best possible real estate experience for the benefit of the entire industry.”

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Midwest Real Estate Data (MRED) is the real estate data aggregator and distributor providing the Chicagoland multiple listing service (MLS) to nearly 8,000 real estate offices and 40,000 real estate professionals, including brokers, agents and appraisers