Tweeting Mortgage Rates Kills Unicorns

Posted by on Nov 2, 2011 in The Kilted Broker | 6 comments

Unicorn MeatTweeting Mortgage Rates Kills Unicorns, this is a #Fact – Scott Stratten of @unmarketing said so.  If there is one guy in Canada who knows social media, it is Scott (over 104K dedicated followers) so you can’t really argue with him.

Social Media is about engaging people ~ not marketing

Social Media is not about getting referrals, its about being referable ~ If you are referable, the referrals will follow

People only care about what you have to say when you care about what they have to say

Think in terms of providing value to your followers ~ without selling anything

If you are a mortgage professional who is new to twitter and would like to discuss how to use twitter effectively to grow your business, I would love to talk with you.  I believe that as a channel if we share best practices, we can improve the quality of mortgage professionals in Canada.

However If you are a broker who believes that tweeting mortgage rates provides tremendous value to your followers, I disagree passionately with you and would love to hash it out, please feel free to comment below.  Make sure you bring your A game!

@kiltedbroker

 

About Jackson Middleton

Jackson Middleton has written 30 post in this blog.

I am the Principal Mortgage Broker and Highland Mortgage Partners, I wear a kilt everyday, love my family and my community, and I enjoy a good cup of coffee at least twice a day.

  • @therobcampbell

    Ay-fricken-men!!! Jackson, you and I together will increase the Unicorn population in this Nation! I will watch for these debates and feel free to add me in to the conversations. Let’s do this!

    • http://www.thekiltedbroker.ca Jackson Middleton

      Thanks Rob – I knew you would get a kick outta this one. I honestly think there are more brokers who just don’t understand social media than ones who believe tweeting rate is a good idea… I guess we will wait and see!

  • http://www.scottdawson.ca/ Scott Dawson

    Great post Jackson, I think we’re on the same page when it comes to social media best practices. Like I always say, “it’s Social Media not Selling Media”.

    If you look deeper, the brokers that just tweet mortgage rates typically don’t have much success with social media and end up quitting on Twitter. I have lost count of the number of brokers who have not tweeted for months when they were once active rate tweeters. I just love how you can follow your competition on Social Media ;)

    As a mortgage broker that wants to be in this business for any length of time I think you need more of a value proposition than just rate.

    • http://www.thekiltedbroker.ca Jackson Middleton

      Love it, thanks for the comments, I completely agree with you. I too have watched many brokers who start tweeting rates and then die off – the problem with this is that it perpetuates a false image of what a mortgage broker actually does.

      When brokers continually advertise the lowest rate, it tells the customer what they should believe is important and ultimately sets a precedence for their expectation.

      Thought Pattern ~ “If all brokers are advertising the lowest rate, rate must be the most important factor in determining a suitable mortgage for me, I will choose my broker (and mortgage) based on the best available rate”

      • http://www.scottdawson.ca/ Scott Dawson

        Best thing I ever did was take rates off my website. I found out long ago that by not marketing on rate alone and instead being more client and relationship focused it allowed me to spend more time with the clients who appreciate the services a broker can provide. I feel it’s allowed me to provide better service since I’m not wasting my time with people shopping rates.

        In most cases I’ve seen, it appears to be newer mortgage brokers that base their marketing efforts on rate. I think mostly because they think that it’s the best way to drum up business.

        They need to realize it’s not worth having rate as your only value proposition since most clients who only care about rate will only use you for the one transaction or leave you to save 5bps on a potentially inferior product or even worse just use you to get their bank to match a rate.

        • http://www.thekiltedbroker.ca Jackson Middleton

          wow, that is incredible, very bold move. I toyed with the idea of not putting rates on my site, however decided to include them on the agent pages rather than the front page. I might yet make the move to eliminate them completely, just have to work through the plan a little more! Very cool!