Zillow 101: Sharing Listings, Reviews and Market Stats

If you've ever been on Facebook and clicked 'Like' or 'Share' on a post, comment or photo, then you understand the power of 'social sharing'. It is a way to push out certain materials to your contacts, clients, friends, family and social connections.

Using the built-in sharing tools on Zillow, you can share listings, reviews and local market reports via Facebook, Twitter, email, and Google+. Your friends can then share with their friends, and so on down the line.

'Over-sharing' is a fairly common phenomena, and should be avoided. The problem is, no one can tell you 'rules' like, 'It's OK to share this listing on Twitter, but don't ever do it on Facebook!' or, 'Sharing twice is OK, sharing three times is over-sharing,' -- because there are no rules and one person's over-sharing may be perfectly fine with another.

You don't however, want to fill your Facebook Page or Twitter stream with nothing but shared listings, reviews and market reports. Consider the audience when looking to share. Does every Twitter follower need to see every review you get? Probably not. On of the best ways to control your level of sharing is to use Facebook Lists and Twitter '@replies and mentions'. Both are very powerful, and underutilized, features of Facebook and Twitter that can limit and target who sees your messages and shares.

Use one or all of the most popular and preferred social media networks to drive contacts to your profile and to increase the amount of contacts received from those powerful networks. Social networking is the new “real estate farming” and a great way to increase your exposure and contacts.