Following guidelines

With business use of social media becoming so important for reaching new clients and maintaining past relationships, it’s not uncommon for brokerages to put guidelines in place regarding how agents use these platforms.

“Baird & Warner has a social media usage policy stating you have to be professional and conduct yourself professionally,” Rivera says. “Don’t post anything that is offensive. I didn’t really see anything specifically targeting politics. I try to post as clean and professional as possible when I’m voicing my views. I don’t ever say anything that’s so unprofessional that they would truly be against me.”

Mainstreet Organization of Realtors (MORe) President Karen Irace of RE/MAX Northern Illinois works to keep politics out of discussions with her clients unless she shares similar views. Instead, she tries to focus on areas of common ground.

“Generally, if a broker can have a respectful and meaningful discussion or debate with their clients whether in person or on social media, that’s fine for them,” Irace says. “If a client makes it known to me through their comments that they share the same political views that I do, I’m much more open to having that discussion with them. I have no problem with letting them know that we share that ideology and those views.”

Irace follows guidelines set forth both by her brokerage and MORe that discourage social media posts expressing individual political views so that people don’t associate those views with the policies of RE/MAX or MORe.

“Sometimes people don’t separate the personal and the professional,” Irace says. “If Karen Irace from RE/MAX makes a comment, they might think that RE/MAX has made that comment. For that reason they ask us not to comment. Our association is the same way. As the president of Mainstreet, I have my own opinion, but I don’t put my own opinion out there because I don’t want it to be misconstrued as the association’s official position. I can have my own opinion, but the association itself does not have an opinion. I wouldn’t want those lines to be blurred.”