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CASE STUDY:

© 2015 Angie Sommer, ZFA Structural Engineers

Surely you’ve heard of Colliers—they’re the international CRE giant that’s been slowly expanding to every corner of the globe since 1976. It now employs nearly 16,300 people

$97 billion in real estate transactions in 2014, yielding $2.3 billion in revenue. A hugely diverse company in a myriad of ways, Colliers offers real estate services the world over, rang-ing from global corporate solutions and multimarket portfo-lios to property management, sales, consulting, and mort-gage banking. Basically, if it involves commercial real estate, someone at Colliers probably knows all about it.

As a company that’s been around since long before the word “Internet” was a household term, much less the concept of social media, Colliers has adapted better than many to the changing demands and opportunities of the digital marketplace. It was an early adopter of the social media “fad” (which, in fact, is proving to be more than just a fad) and has since branched out to include nearly every major social media platform into its marketing strategy in some form.

has helped develop Colliers’s approach to social media and guide its latest online and mobile developments. Asked what’s important about social media for Colliers, Schultz’s answer was “engagement”: “Social media—as a direct con-nection for people to engage with a brand, a way for them to provide suggestions and feedback and solicit personal interactions with a company, all of which simply wasn’t pos-sible in the same way before the advent of the Internet—has provided a whole new landscape of marketing possibilities to companies like Colliers.”

The way user engagement manifests itself in social media channels has developed over time and continues to evolve. In the beginning of its social media campaign, Colliers would broadcast the same information across every channel (Twit-ter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.), but over time has found that it’s important to consider the personality of each platform. For example, community-oriented events and articles are targeted for Facebook, while research reports and publica-tions are highlighted more frequently on LinkedIn. And as a follower of the Colliers Twitter page, you’ll receive multiple tweets per day on a wide variety of interesting, industry-

related topics, while its eye-popping Instagram photos will only appear in your feed a few times a week.

Though Colliers has a lot of momentum in the social media sphere, Schultz and her team continue to develop their port-folio of social media channels. They opened an Instagram account last spring, launched several mobile apps over the last year, and, most notably, introduced a new blog in mid-

COLLIERS INTERNATIONAL

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“Social media—as a direct connection for people to engage with a brand, a way for them to provide suggestions and feedback and solicit personal interactions with a company, all of which simply wasn’t possible in the same way before the advent of the Internet—has provided a whole new landscape of marketing possibilities to companies like Colliers.”

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2014. Schultz emphasized the importance of the design of the blog: “Our goal is to create a place with valuable con-tent that has a great look and feel to it. We strive to cover a wide range of topics from interesting, educated perspec-tives. With more than 20 Colliers professionals from around the globe to collectively author the blog, we can showcase not just their expertise in their respective markets but also their personalities.”

Over the years, Colliers has polled its clients to discover

addition to great service and CRE expertise, they’re look-ing for an edge on trends, economics, and street-level in-formation for a given city or region. In short, they want their real estate specialists to predict the future (indeed, don’t we all), and Colliers works very hard to be clairvoyant via its skilled team of trend-spotters and analysts. Social media gives Colliers an opportunity to strategically disseminate this information to potential clients while assisting existing

So what’s next for Colliers and social media? It’s a bit of a secret, but Schultz assures us that they’ve got exciting

their social media subscribers.•

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© 2015 Kristine Owyoung, Charles Pankow Builders Ltd.In 2012 CREW SF launched a new website that embodies our brand and highlights our members. Now the Communications Committee, with the guidance of our public relations consul-tant and PR professional Maureen Futtner, is bringing our chap-ter into the social media world.

The team will be implementing a social media strategy that fo-cuses on main platforms, including LinkedIn and Twitter. The goal is to increase CREW SF’s visibility in the local, regional, and national business communities. In addition, the strategy is focused on increasing public awareness of individual members and their notable achievements, as well as promoting member-to-member business.

CREW SF has a strong LinkedIn members-only group (www.linkedin.com/groups/CREW-SF-130143), currently number-ing 177, which all of our members are encouraged to join. This group provides an online platform to facilitate member-to-member business. In addition, it is a great place to share knowledge and trends that support furthering our mission to “develop and advance women as leaders in the commercial

real estate industry.” This platform also allows us to connect with the CREW Network through their members-only group (www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=5071738) and public company page. This is one way to access some of network’s white papers and research.

If you are active on Twitter, be sure to follow us (@CREW_SF). Through Twitter, we are able to connect with other CREW leaders and chapters, as well as relevant industry organizations, through the effective use of hastags (#) and handles (@). Twitter enables us to share our CREW SF–generated content, whether from the VIEW, our blog, or our programs. It is also an information mecca for learning about real estate trends and best practices.

We are just embarking on our journey into the social media world—see you there!•

About the AuthorKristina Owyoung is corporate communications manager at Charles Pankow Builders, Ltd., the 2014 CREW SF Communications Committee team lead, and the 2015 CREW SF Membership Com-mittee board liaison.

“TWEET” & “FOLLOW” & “JOIN” CREW SF

About the AuthorAngie Sommer is a senior engineer at ZFA Structural Engineers, a medium-sized engi-

in the commercial, residential, educational,

time, she writes restaurant reviews for her blog and is part of a small collective of copywriters.