Two of the slickest aspects of using the P2 theme are 1) it gives me the option to write simple posts directly from the homepage (twitter-style) and 2) it updates comments and posts without any need to “reload” the page. To give you an idea of how cool this is, while I was writing my last post, two new comments were being left on the previous post and I got to see the comments in real time as they were being made… It’s pretty slick technology for a wordpress blog… and I’m totally lov’n it!
If you’ve ever been to one of my presentations, you probably know that one of my passions is educating audiences. I simply love everything about a presentation… and the bigger the audience, the more fun I have! I’ve been pretty fortunate to land some amazing opportunities including speaking at all recent Annual NAR events, all recent Real Estate Connect events and more than a few regional and brokerage events.
Probably the only thing I haven’t done well with my speaking is spend time reaching out to regional and state REALTOR organizations to let them know about my experience speaking about social media and blogging activities that generates business. That’s where you come help!
If you know someone looking for an experienced speaker to engage an audience around social media and/or blogging topics, please don’t hesitate to send them my way. If they want more information, you can send them directly to my speaker’s page or my speaker’s bio that summarizes my experience in a more print-friendly form.
No surprise that my presentations have evolved over the years (anyone else remember the bloginars I used to give with Russ Cofano in the summer of ‘06???). My current favorite to give is a three-part presentation that discusses how agents can (part 1) engage on social networks, (part 2) create a local website or “hub”, and (part 3) use their social networking activity to drive traffic to conversion points within their hub…
By the way, just a few of the speaking gigs lined up in my near future include:
If you’re going to be at any of these, I’d love to connect!
Early today I was having a conversation with Eric Bryn on twitter when he said:
which was all the impetuous I needed to finally get around to publishing my very own online marketing bookstore here on 4realz. This is something I’ve been thinking about doing ever since I built a similar (Amazon-powered) bookstore for a client, but just never took the time to do for myself.
So far, I have three categories of books:
and only two books in each category. My idea is to limit the books under each category so as to make it a “best” of breed books…
Nonetheless, I like the idea of adding a few more books to each of the categories and potentially even another category of two, so if you have a book that should be included because it’s been particularly inspiring to you, definitely let me know!
As always, the Real Estate Connect Event put on by Inman this year rocked! The information, the people, the food, the fun… it’s just way too much fun (honestly too much!). And I know I’m a bit biased, but I hang with a really great group of people, even if you’all do stay out a bit too late.
Combine a great New York City trip with being able to team up with Jay Thompson for a session on blogging and you know I’m going to have fun.
Follow that up with a great opportunity to moderate a discussion on the future of mobile technology in real estate with Brad Blumbert of SmarterAgent, Mark Ford of Qwasi, Dawn Doherty of StreetEasy and Jamie Glenn of Trulia and I was feeling pretty darn good! But then give me the opportunity to moderate another panel on web analytics with Gahlord Dewald of Union Street Media, Marty Frame of CyberHomes, Ed Freyfogle of Nestoria and Anita Gandi of Hitwise and I was in online real estate geek heaven!
I learned a ton from so many folks at Inman this year, so thanks again to everyone who connected up over the past few days!
Sadly, I’m going to be missing out on the last day of the event (thanks to the fact that I doubled up my NYC time with a client meeting on Friday), but I did that very reluctantly as I cherish every minute I get to soak up from the great folks in online real estate!
Can’t wait to see you’all in San Francisco!
Dustin, how fun! I am soooo jealous!
You should be jealous Irina! 
Maybe we’ll be able to get you up to SF this summer???
It was amazing huh? Great to meet you IRL and hopefully I’ll be there at San Fran too!
Hey great job moderating! That web analytics panel felt great to be on.
Amazing Poppy! I definitely look forward to seeing you in SF! and maybe a trip to London for me some day!
Thanks so much Gaylord! You guys did a great job on the panel and made my job really easy!
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As I write this on a Wednesday night, I can’t help think what a long week it’s been! And yet, the week (and the fun) is just beginning.
Tomorrow morning I leave for NAR…. and it’s not until I hit Orlando that things really heat up.
First major stop:
Friday @ 12:30 I’m moderating a panel featuring Teresa Boardman, Jim Duncan, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Ginger Wilcox titled Driving REAL business with blogs.
I’m really excited about this panel! There’s a great group of people assembled with very different styles of blogging and I’m really looking forward to peppering them with questions. The one warning I’ve given to the panelists is that I expect this to be an extremely fast moving panel and I’ve prepared a ton of questions that will let us get through a ton of information out of this crew! I’ve prepared the panelists that we’re going to move fast and I expect to get through a lot If you’re going to NAR, this is one of two can’t miss events!
By the way, you might remember way, way back in the beginning of February when I first reached out via twitter to start assembling the panel. It may be almost a year later, but that only makes it all the better to watch this panel come so close to fruition!
2nd Major Stop:
Sunday @ 11am, I’ve teamed up with Jeff Turner and Rudy Bachraty, to put together an “event” on Using Social Media to Engage Clients.
I don’t want to set expectation too high, but this is not going to be just another presentation… This is going to be an event. We’re going to have a lot of fun and have plans to involve people from all over the country!
By the way, this presentation started with a simple blog post from CRT that I picked up and was so lucky to have Jeff and Rudy join me in taking on this adventure. This presentation is going to be fun!
There’s more!
Jeff has tons of details on connecting with others within the social media space @ NAR. Here’s some highlights:
Some great posts about NAR events:
And on the off chance you want to meet up with me in orlando, the best way to reach out is to connect with me on twitter! Can’t wait for the fun to begin!
Thanks Dustin for all the helpful insight regarding blogs in real estate. I am just getting started with the process and was pleased to hear of the success realtors are having with these types of tools! Looking forward to getting started.
I spent the better part of today completing the first draft of my presentation for next week’s REBlogWorld in Las Vegas! (If you haven’t registered yet, it’s getting late, but there is still time to sign up: afflilate link.)
For my presentation I wanted to create something a bit more advanced than I usual cover, so I decided to focus on the lessons I’ve learned from running Rain City Guide over the past three and a half years, as well as give tips to real estate professionals on how they can run their own group sites. Truth is, I’ve seen so many people try to intimate Rain City Guide over the years, but almost all of them have failed to catch fire… and rarely am I surprised since so few people do it right.
I’m calling the presentation “With a Little Help from my Friends” for reasons that will be obvious to most and especially those that attend.
And now I want your help. I’ve been talking about the Rain City Guide for so long that I feel like I must be missing some obvious stuff and would love your feedback.
Profile on BlogWorld Wiki
Are there any questions you have about how Rain City Guide works? Are there any group blog topics or etiquette that you’d like to see me cover? And, obviously, if you ask a great question, I’ll make sure to answer it in the comments so you can benefit even if you don’t make it out to Vegas. 
Bonus head’s up to other speakers: The BlogWorld folks put up a wiki page for each speaker that seems to be ranking pretty well on many of your names. I’d highly recommend taking a few minutes to complete your page. Here’s mine, Dustin Luther at Blogworld, as an example.
thanks for the tip Dustin, I’m looking forward to seeing you again. BTW, are you stilling doing the Roundtable thing?
I’d be happy to weed through suggestions for Roundtable topics
…great for a variety of reasons, don’t expect to use a corp blog to drive consumer traffic.
This is very interesting, indeed…
Vicki (from Trulia) mentioned that we might get a sneak peak at the party tonight.
I think Daniel sums it up nicely on that blog post when he says “To me, the main reason you wouldn’t blog on Trulia is the same reason you wouldn’t blog on ActiveRain– you don’t own the content. When you don’t own the content, bad things can happen.”
That’s what makes Propertyqube different. Real estate agents have the ability to feed in their outside blogs being hosted on wordpress, typepad, you name it. Every time a blog entry is posted, we automatically pull it into our system and distribute it to four different local places in our platform. We import links so when a consumer clicks on your blog entry title, they leave Propertyqube and go to your blog to continue reading. That way, the consumer experiences your brand and you realize the increased traffic.
Real estate agents should own their content. Propertyqube clearly supports this (and seems to be the only willing to).
Someone told me this was in the works last month. It’s not surprising since they need content/pages for their site.
Agents don’t give a sh*t about owning content. With all the MLS regulations they never have. I wouldn’t be surprised if Trulia supports blog exporting and if they are smart importing. I doubt agents will even understand that they *may* not own their content.
I don’t agree with everything Trulia does. (TPP BS. They give publishers a trulia sub domain so they get credit for the traffic/pages views. They should give publishers a snippet of js to serve listings) but I think they will do the right thing with the blog platform.
I like this move. Seems natural for me. I have a lot to say about this but I will wait until it goes public.
I am rooting for them though.
I think it could be a good step forward, but we’ll have to wait and see. I strongly believe that each site needs it’s own unique thing. For example, PropertyMaps and it’s google maps/mls tool. Maybe changes will come for the better as a result of this.
What a great day at RE BarCamp!
It was so much fun to see everyone and build out my card collection!
Lots more photos from myself and others on this Flickr group.
Those were the absolute hit of REBarCamp!
Good Job Grant, Gia, and the Zebra!
The bidding on my card on ebay is up to 60 cents. Come on people, this thing could be worth a small fortune some day ( http://tinyurl.com/57ea8e )
I love that you actually threw it up on ebay! Too cool!
Anonymous and 2 others are discussing. 
Shell Smith, 
MN Houses 12:30 am on June 10, 2009 Permalink |
Hi Dustin,
I am quite new to this whole “using the internet to generate more business”. I didn’t know what I am using for fun, Web 2.0, could help me in my real estate practice. Thank God for your site. I’ll go ahead and seep all information in here, if you don’t mind. Would love to hear you speak as well in the future.
Cheers,
Nicole
Dustin 1:51 am on June 10, 2009 Permalink |
Thanks Nicole… Feel free to reach out any time!
Anonymous 9:33 pm on July 4, 2009 Permalink |
We are addicted to ghettoes, and in so doing refuse the antagonism of ‘the political’. Where is the enemy? Not on Facebook, where you can only have ‘friends’. What Web 2.0 lacks is the technique of antagonistic linkage. Instead, we are confronted with the Tyranny of Positive Energy. Life only consists of uplifting experiences. Depression is not a design principle. Wikipedia’s reliance on ‘good faith’ and its policing of protocols quite frequently make for a depressing experience in the face of an absence of singular style. There ain’t no ‘neutral point of view’. This software design principle merely reproduces the One Belief System. Formats need to be transformed if they are going to accommodate the plurality of expression of networked life.
We Homes 7:51 am on September 16, 2009 Permalink |
Good presentation
Mike Carpino 6:16 pm on October 23, 2009 Permalink |
I am always looking to increase my social networking. I have been an active member of ActiveRain. It connects Realtors from all around the country as well as posting blogs. I came across this site and found it to be very informative and hope to continue the friendship.