One thing is for sure, in today’s tightly connected world, being connected is more imperative than ever.  It’s not just who you know anymore, but really how many “whos” you know today.  Fortunately, social networking on the web is catching right up to those in the business of real estate and letting them pursue and develop connections and networks in ways never before possible.

Many real estate agents have already tapped in to the resources available – blogs, social networking sites, internet marketing, and so on.  However, I’d venture to declare that the vast majority have barely even begun to discover the awesome resources that await them just a few clicks of the mouse away, while others are still stuck in the early days of the web mindset.

Pat Kitano over at Transparent Real Estate sums it up nicely when talking about the development and transfiguration of the community building process:

Real estate professionals need to blanket market their area of influence (i.e their physical community). The traditional way is "brand advertising" - shopping carts, print ads, mailers, followed by developing referrals within their traditional communities - Lion's Club, churches, schools. This takes a long time and only reaches a small subset of the total potential market. Social networking connects the real estate pro to far more diverse communities (hubs) via relationships that extend beyond their physical sphere (spokes). What do I mean by diverse and beyond their social sphere? A Realtor can be exposed to a big subset of the community through her high school son's Facebook account… and connections made this way are credible. In theory, more close connections are made more efficiently and quickly through social networking.

I think another way to put might be that connections spurred and developed online are now real and credible – not just the novelty they may have been in the beginning.  And for that matter, they’re certainly nothing to be quickly dismissed or ignored.  The business of real estate is based more on relationships than anything else and since when has naturally finding new relationships ever been so easy than the times we’re lucky enough to be experiencing now?