The next logical step

Thanks to those who left some predictions for 2011 in the comments on my last post. I am not going to put any of them in this post but I plan to buy a lottery ticket each week for the rest of the year because Lani predicted that someone from the re.net would win a medium sized lottery in 2011.  If I win I will pay out $1000 dollars to each person that made a prediction about 2011 before the end of 2010. (Some rules and restrictions apply, not valid with other offers )

QR code head

I am going to make two predictions for 2011:

One of those predictions is the photo.  I predict that it is part of a natural evolution of Realtor marketing photos and in 2011 the QR code head will become the standard for professional photos.

The other prediction is that there is going to be a tremendous backlash against “social media experts”.  By the end of the year the title itself will be met with  gales laughter.

There are 5 basic reasons why this is going to happen in the real estate community:

1.  Jealousy, see my post from December 8, 2010.

3.  Home sales are down nation wide and social media usage is up. See Housing Vs, Facebook. Agents will be more interested in learning how to sell real estate than in how to use social media.

2.  No one has failed as a Realtor  because they did not use facebook, or twitter or because they did not have a blog but the internet is littered with the blogs of former real estate agents and there are some very successful agents that don’t use social media at all.

5.  Too many experts don’t go beyond teaching people how to set up an account on a social network and too few experts show people how to set up the accounts.  Agents will expect much more for their training and consulting dollars in 2011.

4.  There are too many social media experts, consultants, gurus and trainers.   As the number of agents continues to decline those who make money off of what I call the cottage industries will decrease in number leaving only the very best and both of those people will make a lot of money. Those who have spouses with high incomes or who work for companies or organizations willing to pick up the tab will continue to hang out with us because we are a lot of fun and we will continue to listen to and read their pontifications because we are easily amused.

I will revisit these predictions in 2012 before the predicted end of the world to see how accurate they were . . . like anyone will care.