There has never been an easier time for flipping houses. Between easy access to transactional funding, ridiculously inexpensive properties and a rebounding market with plenty of interested buyers, the only thing holding back real estate investors from making more money than they ever imagined is their marketing.

Clearly social media is perhaps the fastest, easiest and most cost effective means of marketing for real estate investors today. However, many are missing out on the following 4 essential social strategies for maximum lead generation and ROI…

1. SMO

By now, whether they like it or not, there is no excuse for any investor not to have a presence on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Whether these opportunities are being maximized may be a whole different story but there is plenty of free information out there on the web for investors to educate themselves with. However, where 90% of investors are failing is not optimizing their social media profiles for the search engines. The right keywords and keyword placement on your profiles and in your posts can make all the difference in being found by motivated sellers and interested buyers. Don’t do anything else until you’ve done this.

2. Google+

Some tech snobs may try to talk down Google+ because it hasn’t surpassed Facebook’s user numbers yet. Perhaps they forget that it was launched several years later or that it has a more niche following. The point is that the users Google+ does have are ideal for real estate marketing. Plus, the SEO benefits of being on G+ are huge.

3. Pinterest

Many new social networks pop up every month, make a buzz and fade away. Pinterest appears to be one of the few here to stay. While its marketing power has been doubted for many industries, Pinterest is an amazingly powerful platform for real estate investors. Add a badge to your real estate blog so that readers can Pin your content, post awesome photos of your homes and rehabs and even use it for creating your own online TV channel.

4. Story Telling as a Marketing Strategy

What you post on your social profiles is just as important as how they look visually, how well they are optimized and how great your product is. It is common knowledge that selling at the public is out and attraction marketing is in. A great way to achieve this and make your social posts and properties more attractive and interesting is through story telling. This applies to your ‘about’ section and what you say about your brand as well as your homes. Look at some of the recently listed homes on the market including the home where Marilyn met JFK and the house that Howard Hughes crashed into.

Many real estate investors are allowing themselves to fall into a trap that is hampering their profits and for some completely paralyzing them. What is it?

They are staying far too tightly glued to the news and are concerning themselves far too much with what others are predicting than honing in on their local markets and getting deals done right now.

Yes, staying tuned into future trends in marketing and home buying habits is smart and in the macro sense rumors in the news often become a reality just as with the recent bubble and the stock market crash before that. Forward thinking real estate investors who plan to be around for the long run absolutely should be planning ahead and positioning their businesses to come out ahead but this shouldn’t be holding anyone back from stacking up money in the bank today.

The savviest investors have learned 1 thing from the banks – take no risks. Bet on sure things and only invest in what you know will be profitable and have a clear exit strategy for. Banks only make loans when they know they are going to make money on them (and yes despite the crisis they have already made billions on loans which are in foreclosure) so why should you invest any differently?

Having your real estate deals sold even before you buy them and using someone else’s money to make your acquisitions eliminates risk, slashes the cash cycle and means as close to a sure thing as you are going to get.

Hold on! Before you think this sounds too good to be true recognize that other investors are doing this every day with the help of transactional funding.

Don’t think it’s possible to pre-sell your properties? Investors are doing it daily and have for years, even sight unseen and half way around the globe. You can sell anything with the right marketing. Of course you should have a good product but if other investors can sell properties in China and Egypt in the current market then you should find it a breeze to sell any U.S. property that you are offering at a reasonable discount.

You don’t have to have your own infomercials to do this, you don’t need a reality TV show or even a $100,000 a month marketing budget. It is all about how you present the opportunity and position your properties ahead of time. Others have done it using tools as basic as Craigslist while some have found direct mail, slick iPad presentations or websites and social media is the trick.

You should have a long term plan but regardless of where the market is heading next month you can make a ton of money right now by flipping houses and using other people’s money.

Online marketing is clearly one of the most cost effective and rewarding channels for real estate investors searching for buyer and seller leads today but it also comes with many pitfalls. What mistakes and traps should you be avoiding for getting the most from Internet marketing and your real estate business?

1. Not Closing on Social Media Opportunities

Yes, social media is for providing valuable content and attracting followers and a hard sell pitch doesn’t always work as it does with traditional, direct response forms of marketing but this does not mean you shouldn’t be trying to close deals with it or that it can’t produce real leads incredibly quickly. Many others are making big bucks with social media and generating real customers and sales and real estate investors should be too.

2. Underestimating the Importance of Social Media

It isn’t just the immediate lead generation opportunities that real estate investors are missing out on from social media. You don’t have to love or use every form of advertising just because it works. However, the real power of social media for real estate investors is being able to reach so many more prospects for less money and then being able to market to them over and over again for very little.

3. Skimping on Content Marketing

Unfortunately it is easy for new real estate investors to be lead astray with so much bogus and outdated online marketing advice out there today. Most notably this comes in the form of those still selling article spinning software and suggesting the right strategy is just to flood the web with low quality, keyword saturated content. Those who have been paying attention will know that Google has already made several changes in the last couple of years to penalize those using this type of approach and is rewarding those with fresh original content with better rankings.

4. Allowing Online Marketing to Become an Expensive Distraction

Becoming a little savvier about Internet marketing is smart. What isn’t smart is spending the next 12 months mastering it and less time actually flipping houses. What yields the best return on your personal time? Delegate your online marketing to someone who specializes in it and do what you do best and makes you the most money.

5. Poor Follow Up

Once you get a good online campaign running it can be difficult to keep up with all of the leads and phone calls. Don’t let great leads go to waste. Automate your follow up systems and streamline your processes.

There are all types of complicated Internet marketing strategies and sales funnels that you can set up today but perhaps the most cost effective of all for finding more wholesale inventory has nothing to do with the world wide web at all.

There are distressed homes to be grabbed up all around us. In addition to bank owned REOs and the properties being peddled by other wholesalers there are thousands of homeowners becoming delinquent on their mortgages as well as many homes needing to be sold quickly due to divorce and probate.

Of course exactly how many homes are in foreclosure or are in a distressed state in your area can vary, but taking a look at some of the numbers from data compiler Realty Trac it is likely an enormous figure. In August alone 1 in every 266 homes in Lee County, Florida received a foreclosure notice. In many parts of Los Angeles this rate is around 1 in every 100 properties. In Las Vegas, NV some zip codes are saw 1 in 19 or even more foreclosure filings in August this this. This of course doesn’t count all of those who have already fallen into default in the last year or two and who still need to sell their homes.

This means that you must certainly personally know quite a few people who need to sell. More importantly perhaps, it means that everyone you know also knows a number of people in need of help. Just through personal contacts alone you should easily be able to find more than enough inventory to keep you busy flipping homes for quite a while. The question is are you reaching out to them and do they know that you can help? If you simply traded contact details with everyone you ever come into contact with and told them what you do, you should have more than enough homes to make millions.