As those who read this blog know, I am in tech PR, and most of my posts relate to this field and the general realm of social media. But sometimes I see interesting stories that are outside of tech, and one in particular that caught my attention ran in last Sunday’s NY Times Real Estate section.
The article It’s Thinking Cap Time covered interesting tactics for selling real estate in Westchester County, NY, where I live. As the article says:
WHEN it comes to selling real estate, desperate times call for desperate measures – or, at the very least, creative thinking.
Of the several examples cited, one stood out as an object lesson in creative PR tactics. Real estate agent Debbie Meiliken became a self-appointed expert on Treasury Secretary Timothy Geitner’s unsold $1.635 million home. An article she wrote for The Loop, a local online newspaper, attracted the attention of the Associated Press; their story about it was in turn picked up by Huffington Post, CNBC, The LA Times, USA Today and and many others (exactly why everyone found this so fascinating is anyone’s guess, as I often find when it comes to the media, there’s no accounting for taste).
According to the article:
She has become the recognized expert on the house’s market travails. “It wasn’t
priced aggressively enough,” she asserted recently. “I would have
listed it for $100,000 less. Everyone’s looking for a bargain today.”
The hullabaloo has landed her a few new listings, she said.
Now The Loop, a “hyperlocal blog,” is also famous (see their story about the story).
The funny thing is, Meiliken did not even have the Geithner listing. But she was not afraid to use the new media to voice her opinion on an apparently hot topic, in a way that attracted the attention of some very big media guns, increased her visibility and helped her business in the process.
