Barbara Kleban works in online marketing, social media, branding and transition for the North Shore Region of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage Chicago.
I watched a video today about a nine-year-old boy in Los Angeles named Caine Monroy. Take a moment to watch the video yourself and get a full understanding of the story before reading the rest of this. Done? Ok. Caine had an idea.
He loved arcades, so why not make his own? Out of cardboard boxes and spare parts, calculators, and paper ticket stubs Caine put together four or five games that anyone would want to play. He charged $1 for 1 game or $2 for 500 games.
Caine then meets a young man named Nirvan, who is his first customer. Nirvan so enjoys his incredible find of 500 plays for the bargain price of $2 that he asks Caine’s father if he can make a video and post an event on Facebook open to all of Los Angeles to come play Caine’s Arcade.
This one Facebook page event now has over 116,000 likes, thousands showed up to play his arcade that day and NBC and many media outlets came out to watch. Through this event, media coverage and social media, more than $200,000 has been raised to send Caine to college. The moral of this story – besides that kids are amazing – is that one small idea using video and social media can become something big. If you’ve thought to yourself that video and social media are too hard and you can never do that, think of the 9 year old who built an entire arcade from boxes and scraps.
From a more relatable perspective, I’ve watched several agents in the Chicagoland community have a small idea for a blog, or a community video, or a Facebook business page and with passion and commitment turned it into business. In a day and age where advertising is expensive, wouldn’t an investment of your time, energy and creativity be more feasible? If you’ve never touched a video camera, take out your smartphone, FlipCam or iPad and start playing today.
It doesn’t have to feel like work. Ask your first-time homebuyer if they’d mind you filming them saying a few things about their new house and how it makes them feel. After staging their home, ask your sellers if it’s given them a new perspective and/or hope that a sale is imminent. When taking your family or pet to your favorite local spot have someone filming you in two minutes or less on why you love that spot, community or environment. Then use your social media channels to get it out there. Sign up for a YouTube channel. Upload, share, repeat, upload, share and repeat.
Over time you might be accomplishing several goals; building brand awareness, establishing yourself as an active community member and expert, and, wait for it…looking like a real person! What potential client doesn’t love that? Take a page from Caine’s young but wise example – nothing is impossible, and anyone, young, old, rich or poor, can do GREAT things!
P.S. Big thank you to Rich Rogala, Coldwell Banker Digital Strategist for sending me the Caine’s Arcade Video!
For more information and facebook user guides, ‘like’ my business page or subscribe to my Youtube channel.
Barbara Kleban
Broker® | Online Marketing, Social Media, Personal Branding, Transition at Coldwell Banker
Direct: 847.784.7393
barbara.kleban@cbexchange.com
www.BarbaraKleban.com