Authentic Real Estate Marketing

During a presentation I gave last week, someone suggest to the audience that they sign up for a service that will auto-update their status updates on social networks like like twitter, facebook, plaxo, etc. every time you write a blog post.   Personally, I find these updates to be horrible marketing that do more damange than good... and ensure you get no meaningful following on any of the services...

Because this point is so darn important, I decided to record a video to make my point!

The takeaway?

Find a way to be relevant to your target audience or don't bother! You're doing more damage than good to your marketing efforts by autoupdating than any possible benefits you might be getting.  Of course, with all rules, there are some exceptions, but those exceptions are so far-and-few between that they're not worth mentioning in this post. 

And by the way, if you want more information about the radio show that we're going to be streaming live at 2pm PST (5pm EST!) today, then check out this post I did on 4realz.net:  Using Facebook Pages to Generate Business and consider giving your RSVP on the Facebook Event Page.  

It's going to be a blast and we have some great people who are planning to be on the call include:

• Reggie Nicolay
• Ricardo Bueno
• Stacie Wells
• Mike Mueller
• Loren Nason
• Rich Jacobson

There's lots to learn from everyone involved!

I spent a decent amount of time recently revising a presentation for Technopalooza, a tech event that's been organized by the Arizona Regional MLS (ARMLS). The title of the presentation I'm going to be giving is:  Using Social Networks to Build and Engage Your Community.

I definitely don't want to give the "whole" thing away, (at least not before I get a chance to present it to a live audience!), but I thought I'd give a taste for how I organized the presentation so that you can (hopefully) get a better idea of which social networking sites you should be using to build your business.

First off, based on the title, I broke the presentation into three parts:

• Part 1: "Using Social Networks"
• Part 2: "Building and Engaging YOUR Community"
• Part 3: "To"

The insight I thought I'd share is from Part 1 of the presentation and it's the idea that there's a social network for everyone, but every social network is not right for you.

The idea is that if you look at the three types of personalities that tend to do well online (and by "do well" I mean generate traffic to websites), they are:

• Community Builders
• Connectors
• Mavens

I like to think of the community builders as the social fabric that keeps everyone engaged.  I thought about calling these people "social networkers", but "social network" has a pretty different and fuzzy meaning so I decided not to go there.  The value of these people is that they are often the ones to organize events, bring people together in social settings, introduce new people to the "rules", etc. 

I use the term connector for the people who are more the business networking type.  These are the people who attend lots of conferences, have a huge rolodex of names and are always on the lookout for ways to connect people together so they can do business together.  I had lunch last week with a true connector.  The guy organize monthly dinners at a very nice local restaurant for 8 (different) people each month even when there's no obvious way he's going to make money (yet!).

The mavens are the first-movers and the people who are always looking for the next big thing. Traditionally, these guys have been some of the best bloggers around because they're always looking for the next big trend. (I could be wrong, but out of the three, I think this one best describes me).

Once you identify where you fit into this mix, I think you'll have a much easier time finding the social network that will not only drive the most business your way, but that you'll enjoy engaging in.

• For example, for the community builders out there... try out Twitter.   I think you'll find there's a huge community of people out there just waiting to engage with you.  And for the people who treat this right, there's a huge potential for generating referrals from the connections you'll make using the tool!
• For connectors, there's no more popular business networking tool than LinkedIn.   Engage over there.  Start making a ton of connections with other business-minded networking folks.  And when you hear about a great business opportunity for someone, look to spread the news to your linkedin connections.  This will give you an awesome opening to start up a connection and start a dialog in a way that people on that social network want to engage!
• And for the mavens, I'm completely smitten with Facebook Pages (not a Facebook Profile mind you, but a Facebook Business Page!).  Functionally, these are kind of like twitter, except general chatter is really not appropriate, so instead you can focus on topics and conversations that are related to your business or interest  (in my case, it's using social media to generate business!)
  

My hope is that for at least a few of the folks reading this post, it can help bring some clarity to how you might engage with people on the various popular social networks!

And just to close the loop, in Part 2 of the presentation I'll be giving at Technopalooza, I talk about how to build your own community, which is where I talk about the importance of blogging and creating dynamic local content (all great ActiveRain stuff!).  In Part 3, I talk about how "to" bring all the pieces together and actually use the social networks to build traffic and interest in YOUR community.  If there's any chance you can make it on Wednesday, then I look forward to seeing you in Mesa!

#1 Do *not* over-think yourself!  

It's been too long since I updated my AR blog, so my initial reaction is to do a massive everything-under-the-sun post that "perfectly" encapsulates everything I've been working in the year+ since I've been active... 

However, I know myself well enough to know that ain't gonna happen...  Whenever I start to write a HUGE post, I end up over-thinking myself, writing piece, saving drafts and never hitting the publish button.   That's gotta be the #1 reason I really like micro-blogging sites is that it forces me to hit "publish" on an idea even if I told have time to complete it in full.   

With that in mind, I'm *not* going to go deep here... but rather, I thought I'd give a brief update on some of the things that have been top-of-mind for me lately.   If one of these topics is of particular interest to you, let me know and I'll happily dive into more detail in a future post! 

1. Social Media Speaking Engagements. In the last year, I've been so fortunate to speak at dozens of real estate events on using blogs and social media to generate business.  I've been asked to travel as far as Burmuda and Toronto, at events as large as the National Association of REALTORS annual conference in Orlando Florida and Inman events in both San Francisco and New York. You can see a ton more on my real estate speaker's page, but if you want to see me live, then consider heading to Tempe, AZ on April 22 for Technopalooza where I'll be keynoting a talk on using social media to generate business. 
2. Facebook Pages. I'm loving the new Facebook Pages as a way to market yourself.  I've written a bunch of posts recently on 4realz about Pages (note: these are a VERY different beast than your standard FB profile and actually a very different beast than the FB Pages that existed a year ago when the NYTimes features me for one of the real estate marketing pages I had built), the most relevant of which is "Why bother with Facebook Pages."  Check it out, and if you have a Facebook Page, let me know.   I've fascinated to see how REALTORS are using Facebook Pages to market their business. 
3. Eating my own Dogfood. I've been using my Facebook Page as a way to help educate folks on social media and real estate marketing.  You can see what I've been up to by becoming a fan of my page here.
4. Affiliate Marketing. I've been having a blast building affiliate marketing programs for some of my clients and recently worked with one real estate client to release a product that can help real estate professionals get paid for including a moving widget on their site (I've got it up on the sidepanel of every blog post on Rain City Guide right now). If you'd like to learn more about this affiliate program and other ways you can make money off of your blog with complementary products, let me know and we can explore this area as well! And if you want to see the main place I play with affiliate programs for real estate professionals, check out the 4realz Toolshed where I list a bunch of real estate marketing tools for real estate professionals.
5. Promoting Your Blog Posts.    One of the things I think a lot of new bloggers expect is that if they write interesting stuff, the readers will come.   Reality is that if you're not spending 2X as much time "promoting" your posts as "writing" your posts then don't expect to get the traffic and leads that the big boys get.  There's all kinds of ways to promote your posts and I summarized a few of them on this presentation on getting SEO value out of your Social Media efforts.   This is something I've been doing for 4+ years with Rain City Guide posts and I think is an under-appreciated how much additional traffic, leads, clients it can drive. 
6. Using Social Media Tools to get SEO benefits. Related to the previous item, it's possible to get some ridiculously great SEO value out of the time you spend playing in social networks, but you've got to think strategically.  I'm so immersed in this world with a few of my non-real estate clients that I'd like to step back and bit and bring this conversations to real estate professionals.  If you have any questions on how SEO (i.e. optimizing your website/blog posts so they rank better in search engines), let me know.   That might be the best place to start! 
7. Listing Syndication for SEO. If you're ready to "rethink" the value of listing syndication, then HomeSyn maybe appropriate for you.  HomeSyn thinks about listing syndication *not* from the perspective of "how do I get my listings on as many sites as possible?", but rather, "how do I use my listings to get my website and neighborhood pages to rank better in the search engines so I can drive more search engine traffic".  It's a bit of a leap of faith for many agents getting into website design, but the tool is ridiculously simple out-of-the-box and can do wonders for driving relevant traffic to your site. You can learn more by becoming a fan of my listing syndication page on Facebook and watching the video below. 

Hopefully, you can see that things have been crazy-busy for me, so obviously there's tons more I could talk about... but before I start over-thinking myself, I want to turn things back around to to the AR community and say if you'd like a bit more detail on any of these things that have been top-of-mind, let me know. I've love to dive a bit deeper on any of these topics, so let's start exploring!

I've been running two radio shows for a while now and I thought I'd share my expience with the AR community because this really is something that just about any agent can do to generate rediculous local traffic and great inbound links from local community sites.

The first show I run is through Rain City Guide and I call it Rain City Radio.  For this site dedicated to the Seattle real estate market, I invite local community members, predominately local bloggers, to talk about their websites, their neighborhoods, and generally explore the influential people in my online community.

The second show I run is through 4realz.net and I call it the 4realz Roundtable.  On this show, I've invited a who's who of online real estate technology to talk about issues that we think will be helpful to real estate professionals.   I've been running shows on topics like marketing real estate with videos, using technology to help your seller clients, and getting value out of social networks.

Both shows are targeted at providing a regular and interesting conversation with the communities I want to reach...  And thanks to the fact that the popularity of each show grows each week, I'm getting wonderful content, engaging my community and earning a stream of relevant inbound links on a regular basis.

And best of all, the cost for running my own radio shows is almost negligible. Both shows are run through a free service called TalkShoe, which manages all the tough stuff like setting up a conference call line, enabling an associated chat and distributing your recorded shows to podcast sites like iTunes.  The cost really is minimal. My only financial investment to run my own radio show was to buy a $14 headset from radio shack. (I don't see the exact model I bought on their website, but it was something like this)

AND HERE"S THE KICKER

If you start to get a reputation as someone running an interesting show, the conversations (and the guests!) just keep getting better.   For example, in just under 6 weeks, the 4realz Roundtable is now at a spot where I'm going to be hosting a conversation with Lawrence Yun tomorrow.   Lawrence Yun is the Chief Economist for the National Association of REALTORS and will be speaking about how the bank failures and troubles at Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae are likely to affect the real estate industry.   It will be a fascinating conversation where I'm sure I'll learn a ton of great information!  (You will too if you join us!)   

And from a website owner point of view, having worked up to having top-notch guests mean I not only get a weekly bump in traffic to my site, but I inevitably "earn" some great inbound links!

If you're active enough in your community where you think you could bring interesting guests to your blog on a regular basis, I highly recommend that you make the plunge and try hosting your own radio show!  And if you want to take part in tomorrow's show with Lawrence Yan, then you can listen to the show by clicking the play button on the purple widget on my sidepanel starting tomorrow at 5pm!

(By the way, if you use this widget tomorrow @ 5pm to click through to the 4realz Roundtable TalkShoe page, you'll also be able to take part in the associated chat!   I use the chat extensively to get inspiration for additional questions to ask the host, so I highly encourage you to try it out!)

And finally, you might have hear of these types of shows being called "podcasts".   Personally, I like to use the word radio show because I find people take it more seriously and as far I your listeners will care, they really are the same thing! 

A little poking around the realtor.com site revealed a pretty interesting feature.  They now have a home valuation comparable (in features, not in accuracy) to Zillow.   Definitely something I would think teh AR community would be interested in exploring.  :)

During our Week of ActiveRain,  we covered a lot of ground!  Including:

• Comment on Blog Posts
• Writing a Blog Post
• Inserting Widgets into Your Blog
• Engage with Groups

For the final day, I'd like to bring the various pieces together by explaining a bit about what makes AR tick.

Points!

With AR, you can get points for all kinds of activities.  The activities that can start to add up include: (1) Writing blog posts, (2) leaving comments, (3) Inviting others to AR, and (4) getting "featured."

It's kind of standard operating procedure for AR devotees to say that they don't engage on the site for points... It's all about the community.  However, the reality is that the more points you get, the more likely you will be featured in critical searches. To give just one example, if you were a Calabasas agent, then you want to show up high on this list because this page shows up fairly well in search engines and can directly lead to consumers contacting you.

At the same time, I think you'll find it is much easier to do well on the site if you play by accepted community rules.

So in terms of the four areas that generate the most points, you already know how to (1) write blog posts and (2) leave comments, so I'm going to focus on the other two areas.

3) Inviting people is easy... You only need to go to this page and dip into your contact list to invite other real estate professionals.

4) More interesting is getting featured on the homepage of AR.   There's no science to this... But there is an art.  From my (limited) observations, the articles that get featured tend to be pretty generalized advice for other agents. So if you're willing to share your knowledge with the community, you're much more likely to get featured (and the influx of comments and points that ensues).

To do

For today, write one blog post on any topic that interests you.  And look through other people's blog posts in order to leave one comment.   

It's been a blast watching the 4RealzEd attendeees who are new to blogging take the plunge.  I'm seeing more than a few people get a real kick out of writing posts and watching the comments pile up. 

And remember to post to the 4RealzEd group on ActiveRain: http://activerain.com/groups/4realzed


Preparation for Next Week

So far in the first four weeks we've made a ton of progress... You should now have profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Trulia, ActiveRain, Google, Zillow and Inman.   In addition, we've gotten in-depth on both LinkedIn and ActiveRain, as well as had a week where Jim showed you how to focus on keywords that will be used in upcoming weeks.

For next week, I'm going to talk about two things that I hope you'll find extremely useful.  One is branding, and, in particular, what you should be thinking about when you create your own website.  The other item I'm going to cover is Feed Readers and, in particular, we're going to focus on getting the most out of Google Reader.

The following week I have a real treat.   Jeff Turner has put together a week of lesson on how to effectively engage with the Flickr community.  I reached out to Jeff because I'm really not the right person for that particular subject.  I think Flickr can be an amazing social network for people who really appreciate quality photography and Jeff is that type of person!

For Non-4RealzEd Attendees
If you're wondering what this is all about, I've teamed up with another internet marketing expert (Jim marks) to create a four-hour lecture along with a 90-day follow up course.   The idea behind the course is that I want to take agents who are interested in technology and internet marketing, but aren't necessarily "savvy" and I want to teach them how they can start to produce results.   If you're interested in learning more, check out our website: 4Realz Internet Marketing Education.

And if you know of someone in Southern California who would be interested in this type of education, let them know that our next course starts in one week in Pasadena, CA!

Today, I'm going to cover two parts of ActiveRain: Groups and Associations

ActiveRain Groups

Not only is ActiveRain one big real estate community, but it is filled with many sub-communities interested in specific issues.  You can find "groups" dedicated to just about any real estate topic.  To see what I mean, click on the Group tab (near the top of the page) and do a search for a real estate topic that interests you.   Some example groups include OC real estate, land specialists, or ActiveRain Newbies.   And creating a group is so darn easy that I created a 4RealzEd group where we can all post things making it that much easier to follow other people from the group!

So, today's only activity is to find a group that interests you and then post an article to that group.   How do you post an article to a group? 

Here are the steps:
1) When you see a group that interests you, click on the button that says "Join Group" on the left-panel of every group homepage. 
2) When writing a post, there is a section just below the "entry" that will list all the groups that you are a "member" of (see step 1).   When you are done writing your post, check the box next to the group and click publish!

It's that easy to publish to a group.    And if you want to see what others are saying on the group, you can always go to the group homepage to see the latest posts!

ActiveRain Associations

An association in ActiveRain is simply a connection that you choose to make with another AR member...  It can be a really useful way to organize and follow the people on AR... and adding someone as an associate is an easy goodwill gesture that can help integrate you into the AR community.

To give an example of how the associates tool can be used, I decided to track and follow as many 4RealzEd attendees as I could find who had AR profiles.  To do this, I did a search on people's names and then when I found someone I recognized I would add them as an associate under a category I created called "4RealzEd".   Now if I want to see the posts that are written by people I've added to this group, all I have to do is click on the text that says "posts" next to the "4RealzEd" category under the "Associates" section on my homepage.

So if you are a 4RealzEd attendee and you have an ActiveRain profile, leave a comment below to let me know and I'll make sure to follow your posts!  (and probably even leave a comment!).   And if you post an article to the 4RealzEd group, you get double credit!  ;)

[Head's up: The email for Day 24 had a link to this post instead of to the correct post. Go here for Day 24]

A widget is simply a bit of code that you can add to your site to add extra functionality. They can be a great way to add some life to your blog and the widgets available to real estate professionals are seemingly unlimited. Today, I'm going to give you a two example of widgets that you can easily embed in your blog.

Example 1: YouTube

Let's say you found a video on YouTube of your community that you wanted to feature on your blog. Just about every YouTube video includes an "embed code" that automatically creates a widget you can put on your website. Here are the steps for adding a YouTube widget to your blog:

Steps:

1. Find a video you want to use. For this example, I've chosen this video about Calabasas.
   
2. On the YouTube page, there is a box directly to the right of the video that should include a section of called "embed". You need to copy that code.
3. Begin writing a new blog post. (see yesterday's example)
4. Click on the tab that says "HTML." (When writing a post that includes a widget, you'll need to switch to "HTML" mode, but you don't really even need to know what this means at this point... The standard option "WYSIWYG" stands for "What You See Is What You Get" and it much closer to using Microsoft Word, while the HTML option lets you use more advanced features. )
   
5. Paste the code (copied in step 2) into your blog entry
6. Under the "Visibility" section, select "Draft"
7. At the bottom of the screen, click "post blog entry".
   

Because you selected Draft mode before saving, the post will ONLY be visible to you... and when using a widget for the first time, I always recommend saving it as a draft first so that you can see if the widget works as expected before you post it live!

Here's the result of those seven steps:

For today, I highly recommend you search YouTube for your community name and look for a video that you can post to your ActiveRain blog! You might be surprised at just how many community videos are up on the site!

Example 2: Altos Research

Another great widget to embed is the Altos Research widget. Here's an example of using one of their widgets to start a discussion on your blog about local market conditions. (Note: Purely in terms of price, the Calabasas market seems to be doing just fine lately!)

In terms of inserting the widget, the steps are just the same as the YouTube example, except in Step 2, use the code you get on this page instead of the YouTube embed code.

To get an idea of how others are using Altos Research widget, check out the 3 Oceans blog by Keven Boer where he throws rotating market stats into his sidepanel, as well as uses the widgets as a basis for relevant blog posts.

It's also worth noting that as part of the sponsorship, Altos research is giving a special offer for 4RealzEd attendees. If you attended 4RealzEd, then they will give you your first Altos Research report (MUCH more than a widget!) to take to your next listing presentation free. It's hard to beat free, especially when the product could make the difference between you NOT ONLY getting the listing, BUT educating the home owner so they list their home at a realistic price. Just email Scott (sales@altosresearch.com), mention that you attended 4RealzEd and he'll set you up!

Writing a blog post doesn't have to be difficult and in the seminar, I mentioned how valuable your "sent items" folder can be for inspiration for blog posts.    With that in mind, today I want you to open up your sent items folder and find an email that interested you when you read it!

And remember... If this is your first blog post don't stress the details.   The good part about your first blog post is that no one is reading it!  ;)

I couldn't emphasize enough that for your first post focus on something you found interesting.   Maybe it was a link to an inspirational video... Maybe it was an email correspondence you had with a client.  Maybe it was an email about a local event you are interested in attending.

When you get down to writing an actual post, I want you to focus on explaining *why* you found the material interesting. 

And if you're getting writer's block, just keep it simple.  Personally, most of your readers (myself included) are more likely to be inspired by (and read!) short posts over long ones.

Here are the steps to publishing your first blog post:
1) Click on the text in the top-right that says "My Home"
2) Click on "Post" on the left panel [right after the text that says "My Blog (Post)"]
3) Fill in the Title for your post
4) Write your blog post by filling in the section called "Entry".

BEFORE YOU HIT PUBLISH!

However, before you scroll to the bottom of the page to hit publish, look for areas within you post where you can link to other websites.   For example, if you're talking about a local event, then check to see if the event has it's own website that you can link to.   If you're talking about an online video, make sure you're linking to the video. 

And if you're having trouble creating a link, Jeff Turner created a nice video tutorial that shows how to create both a text and an image link.

And NOW you're ready for the last step...

5) scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Post Blog Entry

if you're new to blogging, then hopefully you found this quite painless... If not, let me know in the comments where you're having issues.

ActiveRain is many things to many people... but fundamentally, it is a free blog platform that can do two things for you:

1. Help you quickly build a strong presence on the web
2. Engage with a community of real estate professionals who are more than happy to educate you on just about any real estate issue conceivable

The second part is especially true if you're willing to become part of the community and share your knowledge and experience as well...

I think it is important to note that for ActiveRain, blog posts and the comments that follow are the lifeblood of the community...  So it is extremely appropriate that you start your ActiveRain experience by writing a few comments on popular blog posts. 

But first... way back in Day 6, I had you sign up for an ActiveRain account.   If you haven't signed up yet, you'll definitely want to do that now.  And if you use this link: http://activerain.com/action/referrals/tyr, then I'll get rewared (more on AR rewards later!) for signing you up! ;)

Today's lesson is quite simple and involves just three steps:

1. Head to the homepage: http://activerain.com/
2. On the left had side of the page, you will find a section called "Today's Blog Posts" with three tabs: "Featured", "Active" and "Last Comment".  
3. Peruse the blog posts in this section and leave three comments today.   Your comments don't have to long or profound... just a comment that shares your thoughts about the post.  On the posts that get featured, you'll see that they often feature dozens of comments, so you won't be the only one!  

Assuming you're logged in when you leave comments (and you definitely should be since many community members write posts that can only be seen by "members"), then your comment will automatically link back to your profile where others can learn more about you.

For this reason, if you didn't updated your profile on Day 6, then now would be a great time to make sure that your profile reflects well on you and links back to your business website!

That's it for today.   Tomorrow, we'll write a blog post!

[And for those of you ActiveRainers who have no idea what this blog post is about, I wrote a bit of background here: http://activerain.com/blogsview/515558/5-Days-of-ActiveRain]