Either Inman’s Teresa Boardman doesn’t get it, or she’s hit the nail on the head. You decide.

"Social media sites don’t sell real estate," is the title of her recent column, where she reminds Realtors and others that having a presence on teh Interwebs doesn’t mean jack (or jane) — at least, not without agent smarts behind it.

I can give examples of how all of these nifty Web 2.0 sites have failed me. Recently I had a prospective buyer — we will call her "Mary" — who had been lurking on my blog. She contacted me one day and told me that she really wants to buy a house.

I have been showing Mary houses for six weeks. I think I have been showing her 10 to 11 houses each week. Mary seems to have developed a severe case of analysis paralysis and at this point I am not all that sure that she is homeowner material.

You could come to the conclusion that the issues she has don’t have to do with social networking sites. That just happens to be how she got her leads, so she could equally say "Ringing doorbells doesn’t sell real estate." If you get a bad lead, you get a bad lead.

On the other hand, that’s an important point. Social networking is a great tool. For one, it’s an additional tool (and not too many of those come around). And it’s a tool that reaches a growing segment of the market.

But, like any tool, if you don’t use it right you get so-so results. So yes, social networking doesn’t sell real estate. Nor does ringing doorbells. But good tool-users do, and good tool-users take advantage of whatever’s in their toolbox.