Ah, the woes of being a Vancouver REALTOR®.
Notice the capital letters. Note the R in a circle. I may be a lawyer as well as a real estate agent, but I have never seen such stringent legal requirements imposed on the communications of a small business for things that are not causing public harm.
As a Vancouver REALTOR®, I am required to write the caps, add the little R and follow this through in every piece of communication I sent out, be it a blog post like this, an ad, a tweet, and apparently, even my Twitter handle.
In case you were looking for me, I used to be found at www.twitter.com/RealtorVan
Now, my new handle is www.twitter.com/RealEVancouver
The reason? Well, you can’t write REALTOR® without the registered trademark. It just can’t be done. Even in Twitter, where they don’t allow symbols in their handles.
How crazy is that? Imagine if we had to write GOOGLE® every time we googled something?
I can’t think of an industry as closely regulated in the way we must communicate (but in my opinion not closely regulated enough on things directed towards public protection)…or a group of people more interested in complaining about their peers for petty things….why not save those complaints up for those who don’t act in their clients’ best interests?
Not even the Vancouver Sun and The Province adhere to this convention. (Just check these links.) It’s strictly an awkward, REALTOR® induced restriction.
Even the National Association of Realtors doesn't use this convention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Association_of_Realtors
Here is the REALTOR Code, in case you don't believe me.
http://www.crea.ca/sites/default/files/files/REALTOR%20Code.pdf
Either way, in case you were wondering, that’s why I’m always throwing out the caps. I’m not yelling. I’m not trying to say that REALTORS® deserve some special emphasis when being discussed. I am just playing by the rules…..I don’t want more REALTORS® complaining to the Real Estate Board about my tweets missing the trademark sign! (you’d think they could spend their time trying to sell their clients homes rather than policing Twitter!)
