Words: Ashley Rigg
Published: 19th January 2011
Agents key to success of Rightmove’s new social site
UK market leader, Rightmove.co.uk today unveiled its new social media site,
Rightmoveplaces.co.uk.
The site aims to provide every local community in the UK with its own individual website. Estate agents and members of the public are able to add reviews and photos as well as rate local areas, schools and amenities.
It is a “hyperlocal” strategy with each micro area within a town or city having its own site. Agents will be encouraged to contribute to show-off their knowledge of their area and raise their local profile.
Will it work?
Social media sites are a risky business. Their failure rates are one of the highest in the online space. The risk is they don’t get used or fall out of favour (MySpace hardly gets mentioned these days, it’s all about Facebook).
However, the pay offs are huge if Rightmove can make it work. People trust peer reviews and increasingly congregate where there is a critical mass of like-minded people on sites like Tripadvisor and Amazon.
The only site in this space is UpMyStreet.com which does not have the level of user engagement on a hyperlocal level that Rightmove is aiming for.
Agents are key
In the same way as Rightmove’s main site relies on the majority of agents feeding properties to them, the success of its new venture rides on willingness of agents to consistently create content (at least in the beginning).
If I was a gambling man, I would bet on this site being a winner. The Rightmove sell is all about fear. If you don’t list, your competitors will gain an advantage and if you don’t contribute to the Rightmoveplaces, your competitors could gain the edge.
It is a typically clever move from Rightmove. Don’t expect many overseas property portals to follow suit (they don’t have the local agent involvement) but we should see other large national portals in Europe launch similar offerings. Something similar is already available
in Australia.
Source: Global edge
User Comments
Thats an intersting move from Right Move! However, as the author rightly mentioned that failure rate in social networking is quite high and why would anyone come to right move places when google places already exists?
Instead, they should have done reviews on specific properties.. and invited agents and buyers to provide their views. Something of this sort already exists in US: apartmentratings.com and even in a developing country like www.indianpropertyreview.com
Wonder why UK is lacking behind in the ratings system?
Sandy,
LJ Hooker
As you have said, it is very much a case of if they can make it work, granted whilst Rightmove has a substantial portion of the property searching public, can they cope with monitoring the potential level of public interaction?
If well monitored then it will no doubt become a focussed local ad platform, its just a case of whether they can keep on top of forum trolls and spammers - a large task in this day and age!
Peter Mindenhall,
IPIN - International Property Investment Network