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Focus Your Social Media Marketing
By NikNik · April 16, 2008 · 10 Comments
Ever find yourself in Facebook’s spine and wonder how the last 3 hours flew by and all you have to show for it are a couple of pokes and Funwall messages? It’s happened once or twice to me. Real estate professionals have a complex task when it comes to staying focused in the distracting world of social media. First and foremost, understand why you are there and develop a personalized strategy.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) is taking off as a standard soft sell approach to Internet Marketing. That doesn’t mean that some marketers don’t take advantage of networks and become annoying spammers. It’s the best social media marketing gurus that can effectively target, communicate, and appeal to a desired audience.
Social Media Marketing takes place at all your favorite social networking sites: Facebook, ActiveRain, RealTown, LinkedIn, MyBlogLog, Flickr, Digg, Stumbleupon, Twitter, YouTube, etc. These social media sites usually incorporate some form or mashup of Read more
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Tags: real estate agents, social networking sites, media marketing, real estate professionals, activerain, target audience
Trulia First to Go Google Street View
By NikNik · April 8, 2008 · 11 Comments
Not since the acquisition of Rudy Bachraty, has the Trulia team unleashed such “coolness” in the real estate community! As of today, Trulia is the first national real estate search Website to incorporate Google’s Street View technology.
Google’s Street View mapping is a phenomenal tool for real estate agents. With it, agents and consumers can view a property up close at street view level, walk or drive past the property and surrounding neighborhood, and even check out the yard and other attributes of the lot. For those agents specializing in relocation, this is obviously a powerful resource for learning about a new area. Rudy, Trulia’s Social Media Guru, adds, “Besides zooming in on the minute details of the exterior of the house, now you can actually take a peek at Read more
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Tags: traffic patterns, google street view, real estate agents, real estate search, trulia, technology
Viral Tools to Boost Your Real Estate Blog’s Readership
By Reggie · March 5, 2008 · 4 Comments
Over the past few years we have all witnessed the explosive growth of social networking. One could argue this growth has been achieved with viral marketing tools. Think about it every time we sign up for a new network or add a new application we are given the option to spread the message (or application) to our network. By having the option to easily broadcast a message to your database, without having to retype your contacts email address, you are more likely to spread their word…right? Would that type of viral element work on your real estate website or blog?
Introducing Octazen Solutions a contacts importer and address grabber for PHP, .Net, Java, and Ruby. Octazen has built in support for all the major Webmail systems (Yahoo!, Hotmail, Gmail, & AOL) also including Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, and Mozilla. For their complete list of supported services, click here to review. Are you wondering if your server is compatible with the address book importer? Try this PHP test script? Try the contact importer demo.
Perhaps rather than importing contacts from an address book, you’d like to spread your message through a social network. With Octazen’s Invite Sender Script, your visitors can message their friend list in Friendster, MySpace, Hi5, Facebook, Orkut, Xing, BlackPlanet and Bebo. Your visitors with enter their login information and the Invite Sender script will compile a list of contacts to invite. Once the message is sent it will arrive as a social network email. Try the Social Network Friends finder
These scripts could be placed before the download of an eBook or other value added item. It would allow those interested parties to also help spread the word with other that share similar interest…easy!
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Tags: address grabber, microsoft outlook, Viral, friends finder, network friends, gmail
New Recent Reader Widget from MyBlogLog
By NikNik · February 16, 2008 · 2 Comments
You may have noticed our new “Recent Reader” widget from MyBlogLog. If not, take a look. The design has been updated and now you can access additional information about your readers. When scrolling over a reader avatar a flyout box will appear with reader details. You can then find out more about your visitor by easily clicking through to their MyBlogLog profile and community pages. The new widget is also infused with a quick link for adding visitors to your contacts. In addition, MyBlogLog readers can simply add themselves to the site’s community by selecting the “add” button at the bottom of the widget.Currently, MyBlogLog offers a choice of seven colors and 2 layouts for your widget. You will need to adjust the flyout box based on your blog layout. There are a couple of known glitches:
- Iframe Blocks Flyouts: If you’re displaying the widget code in an iframe, set your flyouts value “none”.
- Mac Firefox - Flyouts vs Flash: This is a Firefox bug w/ CSS transparency and absolute positioning.
MyBlogLog has plans for those of us who prefer optimum customization and promises we’ll be able to upload our own skins very soon. Also, stay tuned for major changes on your MyBLogLog profile. In the coming weeks, your profile will be getting a facelift and new integrated features….taking your profile from static to dynamic!
Getting Started: To update your “Recent Reader”widget, go to your MyBlogLog community page and click on the “widgets” link under your community description.
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Tags: add button, own skins, colors, MyTechOpinion, widget, technology
Real Estate Marketing Strategies for 2008
By NikNik · January 25, 2008 · 9 Comments
Joel Burslem handed me a Flip camera and press pass at the Inman Real Estate Connect New York. And, I’m pretty honored that he thought I’d bring him back something worthy of Inman TV. Good thing I kept it clean. Those blogger parties can get pretty wild!
Actually, my goal was to uncover real obstacles facing agents in this market and the strategies being used to get a leg up! A special thanks to Dan Green, Brian Wilson, Sara Bonert, Diane Cohn, Jay Thompson, Christian Sterner and Reggie. They not only provided me with great real estate insight and perspective, but also professional wisdom from the heart! Thanks for sharing your expert knowledge and for getting “deep inside real estate” with me!
Tune in next time, as I sit down and get “deep inside real estate” with Max the HomeGain Monkey for an in-depth interview on boosting buyer traffic to your Website.
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Sidebar "Bling" Cross Promotes Your Online Presence
By Reggie · December 10, 2007 · 11 Comments
These days real estate professionals are members of social sites, online communities, blogs and more. So how do we deliver a consistent brand and message over so many tools? Also how to we channel interested parties to our other communities? One way is to use a similar sidebar for each application.
Introducing the BLING Widget for Real Estate Agents
Since we have not seen the perfect sidebar bling application for you real estate agents, we developed one for you to use. You will notice in “Step 7″ I instruct you to use the full path to the icons. This is so that you can use this code on real estate networks like Activerain, Facebook and more without making further changes.
Here is an example of the buttons I have created for your use.
(Buttons from left to right: LinkedIn, Facebook, RSS, Activerain, Zolve, MyBlogLog, Google MyMaps, Friendster, Trulia Voices, Zillow and RealTown Real Estate Network.)
DOWNLOAD ZIP FILE OF BUTTONS HERE.
IMPORTANT: If you are adding this to your blog, please make a backup of your template before beginning so you can easily restore things if you need too.
Step 1:
Create a new folder on the root directory of your website or blog and title it “bling”
Step 2:
From the icons I’ve created, choose the specific icons you want to use on your sidebar widget and add them to your newly created folder titled “bling”. (Note: Choose either the .jpg files or the .png files. PNG files have a transparent background.)
Step 3:
Start by opening notepad or your HTML editor. Now you will be adding the code from each step to the blank notepad document. Please add each snippet of code to notepad in the order below. If you are advanced, the complete code is avaliable here.
Step 4
Copy the code below. Now paste into the notepad document we opened in Step 3. The code we just copied is for the header of our widget. The widget title is”Find Me Online” If you would like to use a different headline, replace those words with your own. You can also update the header and border color by replacing the hexadecimal (6 Digit) color with one from this chart.
Step 5
Copy the text below. Now paste this code after the code above. We will be editing it as follows:
Replace [Insert URL of Personal Photo] with absolute/full URL to photo. (i.e. http://www.mytechopinion.com/images/reggie.jpg) (Tip: Ideal width is 75 pixels or less)
Replace [Insert Name] with your name
Replace [Insert Company Name] with your company or blog name
Replace [Insert Your Blog or Website URL Here] with your actual URL
Step 6
Copy the code below. This is the DIV for the buttons. Please paste to our open notepade file after the previous code.
Ok, now you will start to add the buttons for your widget. 4 buttons will fit on each row. If you are using more than 4 buttons, you can add another DIV by preforming Step 6 again. This will create a 2nd row of icons.
Step 7
Earlier you added the buttons for your widget into a newly created folder. Now find the corresponding code from the options below. Then add each desired to your notepad or open editor. Look for “<!–Insert Buttons to the left of this block–>” and paste the button(s) code before it.
LinkedIn
Replace [Insert LinkedIn URL] with the link to your LinkedIn Profile.
Facebook
Replace [Insert Facebook URL] with the link to your Facebook Profile. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
ActiveRain
Replace [Insert Activerain URL] with the link to your Activerain Profile or blog. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
RSS
Replace [Insert RSS URL] with the link to your RSS feed URL. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Zolve
Replace [Insert Zolve URL] with the link to your Zolve profile or blog. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
MyBlogLog
Replace [Insert ByBlogLog URL] with the link to your MyBlogLog Community. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Friendster
Replace [Insert Friendster URL] with the link to your Friendster URL. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
MyMaps
Replace [Insert MyMaps URL] with the link to your custom Google MyMaps page. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Trulia Voices
Replace [Insert Trulia Voices URL] with the link to your Trulia Voices profile. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
Zillow
Replace [Insert Zillow Profile URL] with a link to your profile on Zillow. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
RealTown Real Estate Network
Replace [Insert RealTown Profile URL] with a link to your profile on RealTown Real Estate Network. Also replace [Full Path to Image] with your full URL to the image.
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Tags: trulia, sidebar, real estate technology, Directory, real estate agent, real estate
Interview: Brian Wilson of the Zolve Real Estate Network
By Reggie · October 29, 2007 · 2 Comments
Many real estate agents understand establishing an online presence is more important than ever. But not only an online presence…you want to generate some business! That’s why the social network(s) you choose for your real estate business should have strong referral tools built in. One such system is Zolve.com. Recently I cornered Brian Wilson, founder of Zolve, and asked him some questions. Read the interview below.
Q. In your words, what is Zolve?
A. Zolve is a business exchange platform for industry professionals built to simplify the inefficient, time consuming process of referral tracking, its paperwork and locating like minded professionals to work with. It is a marketplace of real estate professionals where people can objectively evaluate and select a local expert in their market.
Q. How do you see Zolve benefiting real estate professionals?
A. Several ways. First and foremost, Zolve’s platform completely systematizes the entire referral process so it can be executed and tracked online. Secondly, the Zolve network will be comprised of members with online profiles and consumer ratings that simplify the process of choosing referral partners. Of high importance, it helps real estate professional to “be found online” which is no small challenge. There needs to be some reasonable alternatives to every web-based real estate professional in a market all competing for the first 10 search results on the search engine. Zolve provides a technology economy of scales that allows members to be found in an objective marketplace.
Q. How do you see Zolve streamlining the referral process?
A. Zolve provides binding referral contracts in an easy to use “referral wizard.” I can send a digital referral agreement in a few minutes and the member on the other end will get an email alert which will allow him/her to accept, decline or discuss it. Once a referral in place, the receiving member is automatically prompted for regular progress reports and all communications between the cooperating members are stored in a permanent transaction log. Zolve also provides members with a host of exclusive online social and marketing tools to handle inbound and outbound referrals and interview requests.
Q. How will Zolve differ from ActiveRain and other social networks?
A. Zolve is a platform built to process referral transactions. That’s its primary function - to serve as a business tool. All of its social features are designed to support the business center within the platform. Active Rain and other social networks work completely the other way. Their business tools are designed to support the social network. We have designed this network so the time spent on it results in business and is thus productive time. Every decision we make in continuing to evolve Zolve and add features answers the question, “How can we directly help the agent on the street grow his/her business?”
Q. What social tools does Zolve provide real estate professionals?
A. They are considerable. To begin with, Zolve is also an online community – a group of like-minded professionals gathered for mutual benefit. Zolve members create a virtual sphere of influence comprised of other members with whom they have or would like to do business. Each receives a personal blog that allows them to leverage their expertise and local market knowledge. We have built this blog and are continuing to improve this blog so that it can be used as a truly consumer-facing tool. In fact, we are currently developing an option that members can have their profile look one way to non-logged in viewers and differently to fellow members. Thus, the agent who has a static website that is not producing business for them could use their Zolve profile both as a network profile page to interact with other professionals and as their consumer facing website/blog. This will enable them to focus their marketing investment and time into one online brand rather than managing several. Zolve also provides a rating and feedback system that will serve to police the activities as it does on eBay, creating an accountability system that helps ensure that the customer willg et the best possible service.
Q. How can a real estate professional expand their sphere through Zolve?
A. They very same way professionals expand their sphere through a network like LinkedIn. At its core, Zolve provides its members with a new source of business by granting members access to inbound referrals from across the country and globe and connecting them with a community of reliable practitioners to whom they can confidently refer business. A big difference in Zolve is that our members grow their sphere visually. We created a Google Map mashup for each of our members that shows visually where they are connected. With one click of a mouse, they can look beyond their own sphere of influence and view their “sphere network” which shows their network’s sphere of influence as well. Thus, a member with 15 members in his/her sphere can now be connected within one degree of association to thousands of people worldwide, graphically.
Q. Is Zolve only for Real Estate agents? Who else should join?
A. Zolve is absolutely not just for agents. We have members who practice in many real estate service areas and actively encourage them to participate in the platform.
If I am real estate professional like a lender or inspector and I generate most of my business by building relationships with REALTORS®, I want to be on a referral network where top professionals from markets across the country are building out their networks.
If I am selling vacation property in St. Thomas, I want to be on a network where real estate professionals who have clients with 1031 funds or 2nd home aspirations can find me as a trusted, proven professional off-shore.
If I am a real estate technology provider, I want to be on a network where real estate professionals who are willing to pay for an online service are actively trying to build their online brand. I could probably fill a need that they are experiencing.
I want Zolve to become the answer to this problem… if my mom in Bloomington, Indiana wants to refinance her home and asks me for help, I would love to be able to go to Zolve and screen the 5-6 lenders on the network for that market and be able to read 3-5 customer and real estate professional feedbacks on each of them to determine who would be the best fit and take the best care of my mom. I would like the fact that the person that we choose for the job would know that when the refinance closes, my mom as the customer and me as the referring member will both rate him/her on objective criteria that will “stick” to him forever. This is a layer of accountability that does not currently exist. As it is now, if this lender takes advantage of mom or does a terrible job, he has lost nothing in terms of future business since I am an out of state REALTOR® who never sends referrals to his market anyway. Zolve solves that problem.
Q. How should an interested party get started?
A. Go right to Zolve.com and sign up for a 30-day free trial. If you like it, then on day 31, you will be charged $34.95 for the whole year. At this membership you can do everything on Zolve to include sending referrals, except receiving referrals. To accept a referral on Zolve, you must upgrade to our regular membership rate of $40 per month or save 20% by prepaying the year.
Q. Why join now?
A. I think for those early adapters who understand the need to use systems to save time, save money, and expose themselves to new opportunities during a slow market, then Zolve can be an important component of their business. Zolve is a solution that enables its users to take part in a global real estate market that they would otherwise never get exposed to. For the cost of one business lunch, you can be found online by real estate professionals across the country looking to do business with someone in your market.
For those who tend to procrastinate, I say put off your procrastinations. Get started now. Build your profile and send some referrals whether they be customers across state lines or to the lender you are already using in your market. The advantage is that you and your network can begin earning valuable ratings & feedback that will translate into business you would have not otherwise have in the future. Take advantage of our offers to elevate your current network online and to build a new book of business.
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Tags: Google, real estate agents, technology, real estate technology, real estate, real estate agent
Real Estate Bloggers: Increase Your RSS Subscribers with Facebook
By NikNik · September 12, 2007 · 5 Comments
If you are a member of Facebook, you have most likely been hugged, poked, or even superpoked by now. With over 2000 applications available on Facebook, it can be a daunting task to uncover the ones actually worthy of installing. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fun and interesting…and covet my iLike Music Expert status. But recently I’ve taken advantage of a fairly new application that real estate bloggers may enjoy and benefit from. The Blog Friends application allows you to share your blog and feed with your Facebook friends, and your friends’ friends.
With Blog Friends, you can:
- Track blog posts made by friends—on topics that interest you
- Display those blog posts on your profile page
- Increase your network of friends with additional blog exposure
- Increase your RSS feed count with RSS feed icons on Facebook
So real estate agents, if you are already on Facebook, this seems like a win-win application to take advantage of now! Viral marketing techniques are often criticized and the word “viral” alone calls out for hand sanitizer. That’s why I prefer the term “spiral”. Spiders work quickly and efficiently when making their webs, so why shouldn’t bloggers do the same. If a spider can utilize the wind to effectively to carry its adhesive thread…then its only fitting to make Facebook’s technology work for real estate bloggers. So consider installing the Blog Friends application and let the wind carry your thread.
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Tags: real estate agents, Viral, MyTechOpinion, real estate agent, real estate, bloggers
Kyte Offers Online TV Technology for your Real Estate Business
By Reggie · August 25, 2007 · 4 Comments
Video has been reshaping the Internet, and it’s no different for your real estate business. Think back to your listings online, what do consumers want? Enhanced content…right? They want multiple photos, home tours and now video. So the same could be said for real estate information on your website. A text-based story would work, but imagine an article with video and photo support. Could you prove your point better? Could you also brand yourself better? I believe so!
Introducing Kyte.tv; their technology will allow you to create your own FREE real estate TV channel and broadcast it to the world. Your TV channel can include still photos, slide shows, video, music, voice and instant polls to help enhance your online presence and in turn, provide you a competitive edge in your real estate business. You may choose to include videos outlining industry trends, steps towards home ownership, the selling and buying process, real estate investment, or even showcase local attractions & hotspots. Of course you would also include video tours and photos of your listed homes for maximum appeal. Why not also invite colleagues such as your preferred lender to talk on evaluating loans, and improving credit. The ideas are limitless.
Once your TV channel is built, Kyte will allow you to embed it on your website, blog or even Facebook. Then every time you update your TV channel using the KTYE.tv interface, your website and blog will be updated simultaneously. Kyte has also integrated chat technology, allowing your audience to leave comments promoting your website community.
If you are interested in leveraging the latest in Internet TV technology for your real estate business don’t wait; create your own channel today!
A few other companies providing similar TV channel technology:
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Tags: YouTube, technology, api, real estate, MyTechOpinion
SpotIt brings Community Interaction to your Real Estate Website
By NikNik · August 10, 2007 · 10 Comments
Do you want an easy and quick way to enhance the content and value of your real estate website? Well, SpotIt—a new solution offered by OnBoard, may have just what you need. SpotIt is a “plug and play” Web 2.0 solution that allows consumers who visit your website to vote on their favorite local “spots”. Instantly turn your real estate website into a social networking community by giving visitors the opportunity to create their own categories and vote on them such as “Best Date Spot” or “Best Neighborhood for Kids”. SpotIt utilizes OnBoard’s huge store of community, amenity and school information and brings it to you via the SpotIt API or hosted page templates. SpotIt’s easy integration will give your real estate website a more significant presence on the web, as well as increase traffic. This fabulous community tool combines pinpoint mapping and local opinions to give your website visitors “real” information regarding hot spots in their area. Now your real estate website can promote you as a local expert and facilitate the community dialogue that will get you noticed! Check it out!
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Got Real Estate Questions? TruliaVoices Answers.
By NikNik · July 14, 2007 · 8 Comments
Trulia launches answers to your questions with “Trulia Voices”. The Trulia community provides a place where anyone can ask real estate questions and get real answers from homeowners, real estate pros or anyone with an opinion on your local market.
To get started, visit Trulia online. Click on the “Trulia Voices” tab up top, then type your real estate question in the provided field. Update with your area info and submit. You will be prompted to register, if you haven’t already. Within seconds, your question is submitted to their online question/answer forum. You can view questions/answers that may be similar to your inquiries. If there are no like answers found, then just sit back, relax, and soon other community members from your area will begin commenting and answering your specific real estate question.
I asked the question, “Where do you find the school scores for your area?” Now, I already have a few favorite resources when it comes to that question (see past article: School Scores & More), but I wanted to test the Trulia forum to see if I would really get some quality answers. And within 10 minutes of submitting my question, I had some fabulous results. The first real estate pro who answered my question provided me with list a great list of websites. Two of which, I use and recommend frequently (GreatSchools.net & NeighborhoodScout.com). And the following 3 real estate pros also recommended GreatSchools.net, among others.
Trulia Voices makes it easy for anyone with almost any kind of real estate question get knowledgeable answers quickly. It’s quite a helpful forum, really. And, it was nice to see some familiar Trulia Voices: Pat Kitano, Kevin Boer, Brian Brady, Tyler Moxley, Maureen Francis, Trang Nguyen.
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Tags: local market, real estate, MyTechOpinion, trulia
Using Video in Your Real Estate Business
By Reggie · May 26, 2007 · 6 Comments
Last year when Real Estate agents spoke about home tours online you could almost guarantee the tours were going to be compiled using a combination of still photos, stitched into a tour. (Photo Story etc.) Well that’s all changing as we predicted in November. Why are video tours and video presentations in Real Estate catching on? Well that’s mainly thanks to YouTube for making previous awkwardly large video files easy to share.
What else is it about video that’s so compelling? If a picture is worth a 1,000 words, what’s video worth…10,000 words? Video allows the interested party to get even more realistic imagery and hear audio which means less to read online. Video also convey’s emotion when produced correctly.
Now just because you have a video camera doesn’t mean you should start making your Real Estate video tours and video presentations for your website. You need to first address the idea of professionalism. You are not trying to film “The Blair Witch Project” you are a professional Real Estate agent trying to position yourself and the homes you represent as a wonderful opportunity for interested parties. To do that successfully, your video should have flow. If you are filming a house, bring your tripod to get smooth, level shots. Use well lit areas, and zoom-in for maximum impact. When these tools are used in the right combination, your Real Estate video will capture the essence of what you are trying to convey.
How do I get started?
Obviously, you will need a video camera, tripod and corresponding accessories for the actual video sessions. Also look into a microphone to attach onto your lapel. This will help remove the echo sometimes caused by using just the video recorders built-in microphone. Also pickup a lightweight, easy to collapse tripod.
In regards to video editing you will need a fairly powerful computer. Using an old PC will definitely test your patience. The right software is also important. If your price-point is FREE*, you are in luck Windows Movie Maker is a decent program. (*Free if you have a registered copy of Microsoft Windows) With Movie Maker importing video is a snap. You can easily add text, transitions and special effects. The result will produce good quality video for web display. For Real Estate agents using Microsoft Vista Premium or Ultimate you will also be able to burn high-quality DVD’s with Movie Maker HD.
If you are still on XP and are looking to create offline high-quality videos on CD, I recommend Adobe Premier Elements 3.0. This program has been a hit for years, and packs a ton of power from its big brother Adobe Premier Pro. Premier Elements is around $100 and now works with Windows Vista.
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Tags: microsoft windows, YouTube, real estate agents, Microsoft, MyTechOpinion, real estate
