A reality of the joy of business travel (note sarcastic tone here), especially in the winter, are the inevitable flight delays, missed connections and cancellations. Getting stuck in one of these situations usually results in a mad dash with your fellow travelers to the customer service desk or taking your place in on-hold hell while your already low phone battery dwindles down to reserve power.
A colleague of mine recently shared how she avoided this scenario by using the airline’s Twitter account to connect with a service agent who quickly responded to her tweeted request for help and was able to get her rescheduled on another flight in a matter of minutes. While the airlines still have a long way to go before we think of them positively, embracing social media to provide another service outlet is clearly a step in the right direction. In the case of my colleague, they clearly earned some goodwill and a positive story that was shared with others.
While commercial real estate has made some strides to utilizing social media, particularly in their marketing efforts, the industry as a whole still has a way to go to catch up with other markets as well as toward meeting the expectations of their tenants and employees.
That’s one reason I’m really pleased to not only launch our new CRE Tech Talks podcast series today, but to have as our first guest, Michelle Mastrobattista, VP Digital Strategy for Solomon McCown&, and a social media expert.
Michelle makes the strong case for why every commercial real estate firm needs a social media strategy of some type as well as some very specific steps to take. Additionally, she shares insight into why CRE professionals need to have their own social media presence to help stay current and relevant.
We’ve chosen the podcast format to share Michelle’s insights and the future guests we have lined up because it offers you flexibility to listen where and when works best for you. The short, conversational style is also something we believe is more appealing than typical webinar or lecture type formats. Finally, we’ll provide you with tangible takeaways from each episode that you can apply to your business today. The series and upcoming episodes will feature subject matter experts on technology issues that the commercial real estate executive must be knowledgeable about as CRE Tech usage continues to rapidly accelerate and you’re tasked with making decisions that impact your firm, staff and tenants as well as your own career.
I hope you join us for today’s broadcast and out future sessions and remember, get a Twitter account today if you don’t have one and make sure you know how to reach the airlines you travel with on it.
