Towards the end of 2009, this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender started devoting a portion of my time to blogging as a method to develop new relationships within the local real estate market. This was somewhat of an experiment for me, as blogging was a new discipline intended to communicate my competence and character as a Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender, connect with other professionals in the local market, and improve my search engine rankings as a means to developing future business that would benefit my business, as well as the businesses of those who value my services.
In February of 2010, I determined that my efforts of my blogging experiment were not producing the results required to continue this discipline. The primary reason was that I had not put into place the tools required to maximize my efforts. As I worked to add these tools (it is still a work in process), I found it interesting that the discipline of blogging is very similar to any other lead generation discipline that is used in a sales driven business. Once I stopped blogging, those people who followed the blog of this Colorado Springs Mortgage Lender and commented on a regular basis (those very few I should add), stopped communicating all together. With the exception of one person, never did I receive an email from someone asking what happened to my blog, if I was still in business, or if I had decided to escape to some tropical island to spend my days relaxing in the sun.
So in this new era of online virtual relationships, we need to ask ourselves are we truly developing relationships with those whom we connect with via electronic media, or are we merely developing acquaintances of convenience, people who remember we exist as long as we pop up in their inbox on occasion? I’m not sure of the answer, so the experiment continues.