While the need for Realtors to use the Internet is well-established, based on the fact that over 77% of prospective home buyers use it as a research tool, the need for real estate developers is less well documented.

According to this article, developers are faced with a different set of circumstances so far as making use of the Internet is concerned.

Developers are trying to build brand and hype, for both themselves and their projects, often even before ground is broken on a project. If it's a residential project, they're trying to market to multiple audiences (both the tenant or home owner, and the real estate agent) with different marketing considerations. Retail commercial developers have similar concerns, but they also have to consider their projects' ongoing marketing to attract customers to the location. Finally, many real estate developers market to a third audience: the investment community.

The article suggests that developers take a more holistic approach in advertising on the net, which would include such activities as pay-per-click search advertising, email marketing, and online lead-generation. It does make tacit mention of social media, saying that "blogs or podcasts can also be effective on-site marketing tools, while hip, urban blog sites like Curbed might attract the younger buyer."

From my perspective, the use of blogs has great viability if it's done right. I suggest developers consider, in additon to building a marketing site, creating a blog "community," which contains multiple blogs networked together into a central portal. Each stakeholder - the developer, real estate agents, investors, and others related to the project - could have a blog where they talk about the development from their own perspective.

The blog site could be used to build buzz about the project even before the first piece of property was built, generate search engine attention not only for the blog site itself, but for the main marketing site, and present in words, photos, and video, the progress of the development in real-time.

Once the project is underway and homeowners start moving in, blogs could be offered to buyers that agree to champion the project and talk about their experiences from the perspective as residents.

The blog strategy should not be self-standing, but coordinated with other above-mentioned marketing efforts - email, search marketing and others. The benefit to incorporating blogs is that they provide that "live" feel to the development that a static marketing site would be unable to achieve.