Property Report magazine held a debate at the Fairtex Hotel on Monday the 21st of February aimed at informing those working in the real estate market about optimizing their marketing by looking at the ever changing resources available.
The heading for the debate was “Digital, Print or PR – What works best for the real estate market?” and was headed up by a panel of three distinguished speakers: Dr Ian Fenwick, who is the co-author of “DigiMarketing: The Essential Guide to new Media”, and who is one of the most respected academics in the business world; David Armstrong, former President and Chief Operating Officer of the Bangkok Post, and Gareth Marshall the Account Director of Bangkok based Spark communications.
The panel of Dr Ian Fenwick, David Armstrong and Gareth Marshall address the audience.
About thirty people were in attendance and after a lunch they sat down to an informal but informative talk.
The topics covered included Quick Response (QR) Codes which are the unusual graphics starting to be included in newspaper and magazine advertising where readers can scan the QR code and get more information about the product/property straight to their mobile phone.
Also the emergence of Twitter and Facebook, which whilst free in terms of setting up, do require managing on a daily basis as these ‘social’ forms of communication require personnel to keep the ‘conversation’ running.
Search engine optimization (SEO) was also something of great interest to the audience and examples were given as to how to ensure their website got the right kind of ‘traffic’.
Mention was also made regarding websites and how people tend not to read them but that they tend to scan and their eyes pick out key phrases and sentences.
In the realm of print media, editorials also came into the picture and people were told that a good editorial should have something new or exclusive to engage the reader and ensure that it also has a story that the publisher will be interested in reporting.
Figures were also given about Internet penetration which at present is 26% but will rise over the coming years and meanwhile print media holds a steady 29%. Facebook also had an astonishing figure of 600,000 new users in Thailand every month.
And finally iPads also have their place (for the time being) for people reading magazines and newspapers through the various applications available.
This was a thoroughly informative debate which would have been useful not just to those in the real estate sector but indeed to anyone in business that is relying more than just on passing trade.
The key message in the end would be that PR in its various forms (which includes print, digital etc.) should always conform to the principles of being honest and having integrity.
