Share your expertise on Zoopla

Last week, whilst raiding their venture capital piggy bank to buy Propertyfinder, Zoopla launched a new feature on their site called AskMe Q&A.

This new feature is basically a forum to ask or answer any given question on property. Zoopla's intention is obviously to add value to the site and make it sticky for consumers not yet fully in the market, ultimately building towards the all important request for a valuation.

Forums with a singular purpose are not always a success because their focus is too narrow, but there are 2,800 questions posted on the site, so there is an audience willing to ask, although I would like to understand how a service launched last week has questions posted in 2007.

The vast majority of the questions remain unanswered at present. Some of them are daft and should simply be answered; Google it and you'll find out, but there are plenty of less daft ones which any agent worth his salt should be able to offer insight on.

The fact that the questions are indexed geographically and by topic; renting, selling etc, means that it would be really easy for an agent to answer questions posed in their area of operation and establish their authority with buyers and sellers from Zoopla's growing audience. What's more Zoopla provides a rating system so that those who answer lots of questions wisely will be highlighted.

I am a little sceptical about the way the AskMe service has been populated to date, but the idea of creating a forum for consumers to get advice from agents leading up to an opportunity to sell the property is a sound one on face value. For those who recognise the value of giving a little bit of free advice, this could go a long way to getting some lucrative listing opportunities...

Comments

[Ben Harris]

Interesting post on this Daniel and I can answer your question regarding the large number of questions already on the site. Zoopla have always had a question section, but with the new 'forum' have now added in functionality and search (via categories) elements making it easier for an agent to zone in on a specific area and raise their profile in that area.

I am in no way linked to Zoopla but have written a blog post myself about this function as I think it has the potential to be the missing piece of the jigsaw in the UK Estate Agent Social Media play to reach local community.

http://housingdabble.wordpress.com/2009/07/07/zoopla-launch-askme-qa/

Ben
http://twitter.com/housingdabble

[Daniel Hare]

Thanks for clarifying the old questions question Ben. I am not sure if the fact that there are so many genuine old questions that have gone unanswered helps Zoopla much with the launch of this, but I agree that this has the potential to be a significant development for agents exploring social networking.