Been a ridiculously great morning at the HomeQuest Social Media Summit in Portland.
We had a packed house… Great audience. Wonderful crowd. Engaging speakers. So much fun!
And the speakers were unbeatable. There’s always so much to learn from:
And if you were at the event, we’d love your feedback… What did you think? How could we improve the event/presentations?
[Photo from Dale Chumbley!]
Do you need a foursquare social media strategy?
Someone landed on my site today with the keywords: [foursquare social media strategy], and it got me thinking… Do I have a foursquare social media strategy?
It’s all the rage to hate on foursquare (at least in the real estate space), but I’ve found the tool to be great for meeting up with folks, especially when I’m on the road. More times than I could count I can directly attribute a great meeting over coffee, lunch, dinner, drinks, etc. because I checked into foursquare at some nearby location. It’s so great at connecting me with others that one of the first things I do when I fly into a new city is to checkin at the airport because I can pretty much guarantee I will get one or two follow up messages (almost always texts for some reason), from locals asking when we can meet up.
FourSquare is actually a little bit *too* effective. If I’ve got a deadline on a project, I have to make sure *not* to check in to a place to make sure I get work done.
Does this mean I have a foursquare social media strategy? I wouldn’t call it a strategy as much as common sense. If I’m in the mood to connect with people, I checkin… If not, I don’t.
But more importantly, do you need a foursquare social media strategy?
It depends. Do you enjoy meeting up with other people? Are you the type of business person who could generate more deals if you could just get in front of more people? I know I am… I have a hard time meeting up with someone and *not* walking away with a plan to do business with them. For me, checking in on foursquare means I meet up with more people and meeting up with more people translates directly into more business opportunities. Very few of the business opportunities pan out, but enough of them do that I keep on check’n in!
UPDATE
Marc Davison has been hosting a related conversations (with a completely different take) on his blog where I’ve also been actively commenting.
EXACTLY!! treat it as a game and do with it as you please (or nothing at all) – for me it’s about meeting people without planning – it’s those informal meetings sans-agendas that lead to the most productive ideas. (like the cat-in-the-box)
Since Inman in NYC I’ve been working on a strategy for Foursquare. With the RE.Net crew playing (extensively) with FS, it helped me to get over the ‘teething’ of a new social media toy. Once understanding How it worked in practice I immediately started to think of How can this help me as a Realtor (agent, owner, etc…). I’m still trying to figure it out. As more Local’s are catching on, I find interesting that I know where they are (when they want me to know). I’ve used it to meet up with some local people when I probably wouldn’t have (helping to build relationships). Although I don’t have an exact strategy as of yet, I am still Thinking. Just like the rest of these Social Media tools (toys) – as Gerry “The Realtor” (a.k.a. RealtyMan) each one needs to be looked at individually but also in addition. and in combination with each other. Kinda makes ones head spin… (copied from my FB response).
I’m still trying to figure it out – but I find it mildly addicting and receiving somewhat random badges and mayorships … is positive reinforcement at its best.
I tend to NOT log into foursquare, or do facebook updates, when I’m away from home and only our guard-cats Poudini & Baby T are minding the store.
You bring up an excellent point. I made the mistake of using my previous home as my “business” address one time and NEVER could get my name completely disassociated with it off the internet. During that time, I rarely felt comfortable tweeting when I was out of town, but even if I didn’t tweet, others would often tweet about me (i.e. “watching @tyr talk about…”), so it was an uncomfortable situation.
However, since our last move about a year ago, I’ve been ridiculously vigilant about making sure that my name and address are never posted on the internet (at least not together). I actually got a PO Box and send all of my credit cards, etc. there just to make double sure. Anyway, so far, so good… 
Ah Foursquare… I must say, I love Foursquare! I will also claim “guilty” to hitting you up for that coffee, drink after hours, lunch or just a quick hello. To me, that is one of the beauties of Foursquare. When you want to be social, be social. If you have things to get done. Don’t check in.
Recently I met with a possible seller that came as a result of Foursquare. It’s someone I know lightly in Twitter & Facebook. I fairly regularly checkin within a block of his home. He has stopped in once to just say hi and recently contacted me within 30 minutes of me checking in by him to find out about his home value. My checkin reminded him that he wanted to chat real estate.
On another recent occasion, someone checked in at a local brew pub. I happened to be driving by at the time. I had a few minutes to spare. I popped in to see him and we sat and chatted (real estate stuff of all things) for almost 30 minutes. I continued on my way and he continued on his. He later tweeted “Just got a really great surprise visit from @DaleChumbley! Wonderful interruptions ROCK!” How cool is that!
I am for any SM tool/app that will foster greater connectivity potential. So many other tools/apps almost force you to spend more of your time in front of a screen or hand-held device, rather than actually ‘engaging’ IRL f2f contact. And I love the near spontaneity of fs!
Short reflection on creating more intent around Foursquare http://bit.ly/al9ioe
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
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!
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
Thanks Nicole… Feel free to reach out any time! 
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.
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.
I was chatting with Dale Chumbley about Facebook Pages and how we’re both using them to reach out to our respective communities when he touched on an interesting topic… He said about 1/3 of the folks who became “fans” of his page were not his “friends” yet on Facebook.
I’ve had a few conversations on this topic lately and I’ve boiled down the different types of social media relationships into the four most common types and given a bit of an explanation about the implicate meanings behind each type:
1) No connection. This one seems to be obvious… but there could be a number of reasons you don’t connect with folks. Most of the time it’s because you simply don’t know them, but maybe it’s because you don’t like them, don’t think they’ll add value to your network or, even worse, view them as spam.
2) Follow. This is the Twitter model and the connection is probably one of the “weakest” ones out there. You could have any number of reason to follow someone and it’s completely one-way. There’s no reason to expect that just because you follow someone that they’re going to follow you back, be interested in you, or even take time to learn anything about you.
3) Fan. This is the model used by Facebook Pages. While functionally it is identical to a “follow” connection (i.e. a one-way connection with no reverse interest implied whatsoever), there’s a value judgement implied when you become a fan of someone. Whereas it often only takes one interesting tweet to get me to “follow” someone, it takes a bit more before I’ll become a “fan” of someone.
4) Friend. This is the model used by Facebook Profiles, Digg and many other social networking sites… and clearly implies (and most likely requires) a two-way relationship. However, the term is so often abused (I’m just as guilty as anyone else of becoming “friends” with people I’ve never met and am likely never to meet) because I thought I might find some value to having them in my “network” in the long run.
Similar to Dale, a little over 1/3 (30 out of 85) of the people who have become “fans” of my Page are not “friends” with my personal Profile. This tells me that based on their actions, a fair number of folks feel more comfortable becoming “fans” than “friends” with someone they don’t know.
Almost all of these people are professionals I *would* have connected with on Facebook (via a “friendship”) in the past, but I’m so much happier to have them separated on my business page so I can begin to do a better job separating my work life from my personal life.
Also interesting is that from a marketing perspective these relationships imply different levels of business outreach. When someone becomes a “fan” of my business page that definitely implies an “opt in” to a certain level of marketing that is not necessarily part of being a “friend”… or even a “follower”.
If you’re ready to explore how different professionals are using Facebook Pages, start following (i.e. become a fan!) of these pages:
And while you’re exploring, you should probably also check out the page I created for my listing syndication tool.
Thank you very much for sharing all these fantastic article. I liked “4 Levels of Social Media Marketing the most”.
This comment was originally posted on Future of Real Estate Marketing
I agree with everything you wrote here. I pose a question though. All of this information and these relationships are virtual and all can (and often do) stem from one master database. Why not have the “become a fan” feature on your personal page that one can see a limited amount of information on as a visitor?
I segment everyone I encounter on FB into separate groups and use those groups to not only pull in content and check out their update/statuses/what have you but also use those groups to push content with permissioning (only certain people can see certain things) as well as invite folks to events, groups, etc).
If we are striving for adoption AND simplicity then it would make sense that you can do this all in once place for everyone on both sides of the equation.
With FB being a platform more so then a website it would lend itself to other media/networks taking advantage of this and lead to better capture of analytics all the while not pelting people with things they don’t want to see.
Thoughts?
Great information Joel, thanks.
This comment was originally posted on Future of Real Estate Marketing
Call me crazy (you won’t be the first), but I think Facebook nailed it with their updated news feeds and new functionality of their Facebook Pages. But before I can explain why, I need to give some background on the difference between a Facebook Page (also called a Public Profile) and the standard Facebook Profile.
A Facebook Page is geared toward giving businesses, brands, public figures, etc. a way to engage an audience on Facebook. With a Standard Facebook Profile, you make “friends” and engage with people on a very one-to-one level. With a Facebook Page, people become “fans” of your page, which doesn’t require you to connect with them at all… In many ways, it becomes a “broadcast” tool similar to twitter, but like twitter, you’ll need to engage with others, be interesting, etc. in order to get any real value out of the tool…
And here’s where it gets interesting…
Like a Standard Profile, Facebook Pages allow you to give status updates, share links, create videos, host discussion boards, and generally interact with other people (your “fans” in this case) in much the same way you might interact with them if you were friends. To get an idea of how you might use features like this, check out my Facebook Page:
If you check out my “wall”, you should notice that since I created the page a few days ago, I’ve left status updates, recorded videos, shared links and generally interacted with people in much the same way I might interact with people using my “personal” profile… (note: you’ll need to be logged into Facebook to see all of the updates)
However, this begs an obvious question… if these Facebook Pages are just like your personal profiles, why bother?
I can think of three reasons:
This last point is extremely important to me because as I hit up near 1000 friends, my news feed is getting pretty polluted with updates from people I have no connection to other than we both travel in online real estate circles.
Interestingly, I reached the point on Twitter where there was too much noise a few months ago when I was following around 1000 people. At that point, I would see so many automated tweets (i.e. “just posted on ActiveRain…”, “view my latest blog post at …” and “view my latest listing at…”) that reading my twitter feed felt like a chore.
At one point, I unfollowed a ton of people (over 700), and now that I much more cautious about how I follow, my twitter experience has improved 10-fold as it’s now much easier for me to follow and engage in interesting and (sometimes) meaningful conversations…
Returning to Facebook
Going forward, I’m going to be using my Facebook Page to give online marketing and online real estate tips, links, videos, etc, and my Personal Facebook Profile to connect with family and close friends. While it might seem a bit mean, over the next few weeks, I’m going to “unfriend” a bunch of folks (probably hundreds) whom I simply do not have a personal connection to…
Obviously, I highly encourage anyone reading this post (that means YOU!) to become a fan of my page… and order to give you some encouragement, I can tell you that my plan is to keep the page interesting and worthy of your attention by posting a steady stream of social media links, commentary and videos in a similar (but cleaner!) way that that I was using the 4realz Hotlist.
In the big picture, I’m going to continue to reserve 4realz.net for my “big” ideas, and share my little insights over on my FB Page.
One more thing…
If you made it this far on this long post, I figure you must be a glutton for punishment, so I thought I’d indulge you with a video I posted yesterday on my Facebook page. This video highlights 6 ways Facebook Pages excite me in a similar way that business blogging did nearly 4 years ago when I started Rain City Guide:
P.S. Did I mention that Scotty Brown and I both published our pages around the same time (over a cup of coffee the other day)? He thinks that just because he’s a Reality TV star he’s gonna end up with more fans than me. We can’t let that happen, can we? Go become a fan!
P.P.S. I also want to thank some of the folks who first signed up to be my “fans” like Alex Scoble, Scotty Brown, Cecilia Camps, Bob Maiocco, Susie Blackmon, Ines Hegedus-Garcia and Victor Lund. Each and every one of you rock!
Dustin, how does one get “personal information” on their page? The only field I am offered is “Public Transportation”
I can see the value of FB Pages but I think a lot of people (myself included)
are stuck on the … I’ve got my page, NOW WHAT!
The ease of use (your #1 point) is defenitely a plus point.
I think the problem a lot of people see/have is they want traffic to come back to their site so they can at least possibly see a result of their efforts.
Yes you can see results with your FB Page.
I think really where I get stuck and many others also do is..
I’ve got enough FREAKING work to do, now i’ve got to do a FB page also
What’s harder to explain is I can’t even put my finger on my exact point.
Am I having SocMed burn out?
Maybe it’s because I haven’t spent much time on FB and I think I’ll do that for the next couple of days and see where it gets me
Loren
Thanks Mike for your feedback! I didn’t know you had a page, but now that I do, I just added it to my Page’s favorites! I agree that the messaging is potentially extremely powerful… especially in the long run assuming we build up a decent size base of fans.
Dustin, You’ve convinced me (again)… so I now have a Facebook page… I was a little confused over what type of page to set up (local, brand/product, or personality).
I guess on my blog, I should be promoting my Page instead of my Profile? I like that the page gives me a venue to be more professional.
So glad to give you a bit of inspiration! Like you suggest, I’ve started promoting my page over my profile around the web.
Facebook is a minor client management tool at best. It continually baffles me that people in the RE industry view it as a primary means of lead generation and self promotion.
The tool that will make real impact on the real estate industry in the next twelve to twenty-four months is brokage adoption of Microsoft Communications Server and agent use of an application called Office Communicator, yet you hear almost nothing about either of these.
Bob,
I agree that FB makes a lousy client management tool, so you’re clearly interpreting the post wrong since I’m not talking about using it in that way.
Nonetheless, I’ll bite… What makes Office Communicator so revolutionary?
A quick glance at the product page on Microsoft makes it look like their answer to Google Apps. But Google Apps is free, so I’d hope it offers more than integrated chat and VoiP?
Bob & Dustin,
I’ll take a jab at the Office Communicator and Communications Server.
I do not see a traditional brokerage ever adopting the above technologies, and I push a lot of MS technologies.
The problem with a traditional brokerage is that every agent is an indepedent contractor and not an employee. With that being the case every agent is pretty much allowed to use whatever technology they want therefore not every agent will adopt the office’s chosen platform because they don’t have to.
From my limited reading of Offfice communicator and Server it is basicly an enterprise version of MSN Messenger that ties into the enterprise environment. This tool would probably require to much work to explain how an agent could use it with a consumer (if at all possible)
End point. It’s not free as other solutions are either free or relatively very low cost and inter operates with what consumers are using anyways.
As mush as I love MS products I don’t see it becoming widely used by brokerages
Ok…I get it. I see the benefits. But I think that a lot of people fall into the “ooh this is shiny” and “cool” phase, they sign up, and then don’t make the most of it (no engagement, and ultimately derive no value). Am I right or am I being harsh here?
Anyway, I so I get the benefits of having a Facebook Page, but let’s talk about who **shouldn’t** have/or get a Facebook Page. What do you think?
hello
Thanks for all the solid info, and not to be too critical but nobody is joining Facebook to actually buy anything. Plenty of people on there trying to sell stuff already, and they largely get blocked, dropped or hidden.
Have you actually made a single sale because of your involvement with Facebook? I’m not intending to be harsh, just realistic.
The Facebook pages may get indexed by search engines, but so do standard web pages, and a well done standard web page gives a much more professional impression to a potential buyer than a Facebook page. This hype was all applied to Myspace previously, and I don’t think it’s been proven to be a rousing commercial success as a substitute or even supplement to other marketing strategies. Fine for Myspace: selling ads, and great for lonely teenagers but I don’t think a lot of houses are being sold there.
Just my 2 cents, of course “your results may vary”.
I am having a problem with Facebook that perhaps you can give me insight into.
Recently I created a page for business (no profile-by choice).
The address is http://www.facebook.com/pages/MPI-Label-Systems/117070082648
The problem I’m having is that when I click on this link from any computer, it seems I have to be logged in to view them. I want to be able to use the address & put a link on our website, etc. I’ve seen a lot of other url’s looking just like this one (/pages/name/number) that does not have to be logged in to view.
Do you have any idea how I can resolve this?
Opps! Just found the resolve for this after 3 days of searching. I had selected over 18 & when I changed that, then it allowed it to be public.
nice! I asked the question over on http://dustinluther.com/ so now I need to go let them all know the answer!
So, I created a page, but whenever I try to add cool apps, it says I need to create a profile in order to add the app. What gives?
Sheri: I’m not really sure, but it sounds like you might have to have a FB profile in order to add many of the apps. I know it’s possible to create a FB Page without having a FB Profile, but I’ve never tried to do that.
Hmmm…and yet there is a scary warning about losing your privileges if you create a profile but are not an actual person…
Do you know how I can get help from facebook on this? Their help pages are difficult to filter.
Thanks in advance!
Sheri: Not sure why you’re trying to create a profile that’s not an actual person. Why not create one for yourself?
Hi, Dustin,
I think Jean answered my question below. Thanks again!
Sheri
Sheri,
I have created a page (business page) for MPI.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/MPI-Label-Systems/117070082648
Mine is just that, a page & not connected to a profile. It’s pretty limited without a profile. You cannot use any of the apps. You also cannot get the shorter username when you hit 100 fans unless you have a profile.
The above mentioned is the negative side of not having a profile. The positive side of not having it tied to a profile is that it can still stay in tack if an employee leaves the company. Then it can be the company page instead of the person the profile belongs to. It is also more professional.
Hope this is helpful for you.
Jean, THANK YOU – I thought I was missing something. It is annoying not being able to get to the apps, but I, too, do not want to tie the page I created for my employer to my personal account. Did facebook miss the boat on this one? I still haven’t figured out how to contact them for “support.”
Thanks again!
Sheri
I have never actually found a support email address either, but have sent several requests to info@facebook.com. It doesn’t bounce, but they’ve never answered either. I’ve sent an email twice asking them to make the username available for all business pages (without profile). Maybe if enough people ask, they will consider the change.
Recently, I was asked by the folks at MOTM to give a talk on Social Media. I typically present to real estate audiences, so I decided to rethink my usual approach for this tech-audience. More than anything, I wanted to present something that was worthy of the group.
After more than a few conversations, I decided to explore the “gray” areas of social media, and especially how you can use social media engagement to improve search engine rankings. It feels like I’ve been living in this gray area for quite a while now, but I don’t often blog about it because most SEO works best when it is not widely shared.
In terms of SEO strategies, the stuff I presented last night was relatively tame (i.e. on the black hat to white hat scale, the ideas trended toward the lighter side of gray). And at the request of more than a few of the people who attended, I’ve decided to publish (most of) the slides I used in the presentation.
As with most of my presentations, the slides don’t begin to tell the whole story. That’s especially true with this presentation since the conversation that came out of the slides was by far the most informative part of the evening.
Nonetheless, the 7 tips listed below offer some insight into how you can start to improve your website rankings (SEO) by taking part in various social media sites.
Assumptions Going Into the Presentation
The four assumptions I start out with are:
Tip #1: Create Value on Your Own Site (URL)
The typical corporate blog is about as white hat as they get in the SMM world. Here the company is trying to outreach to consumers and/or clients by providing useful, interesting or otherwise valuable content and thereby earn inbound links and other positive word-of-mouth from their blogging.
Background on Black Hat SMM
TIP #2: Promote your Posts... HARD!
Tip #3: Create Active Profiles... lots of them
Tip #4: Get Creative With Your Profiles
Tip #5: Play Especially Hard on One Social Network
Tip #6: Develop an Exclusive Database
Tip #7: Think SEO When Syndicating
If you think I’m wrong or have something to add, let’s continue the conversation in the comments… and if you found this information helpful, then help spread the luv by returning to the top of this post and giving it a digg, save, bookmark, stumble, or whatever it is that you do!
I’m interested in the BX and the HomeSyn….tell me more and I’d love an invite.
Interesting to think about a “gray” area in social media. So much of it is entertaining and useful in actually building real relationships. It would be hard to do it if one “had” to.
I’m interested in your HomeSyn I just need to get more listings.
kk
Interesting to think about a “gray” area in social media. So much of it is entertaining and useful in actually building real relationships.
You know it’s a good article when you book mark it. I will come back to make sure I implement the ideas here that I’m not already doing, like using delicious to push topics to mybloglog, hmm…
I’m going to have to think about that a little more. I guess Ive never used delicious much and I’m not sure I grasp the idea there. Feel free to help me out here a little.
These gray areas are pretty intriguing. I use social media to build relationships and have gotten some business from it, but I need to concentrate more on the sites like Digg and Delicious, etc. I help others out there but have never done my own stuff there – need to learn how, I guess.
I definitely notice social media’s impact on my posts, sites whatever. I also think that there can be streamlining without automation. Setting up RSS feeds for say a [re promotions] group makes it quick to be in and out etc.
Great article Dustin. I am going to head over to the Business Week site as it sounds well worth the effort.
SEO, linking and such is such a great side effect of utilizing social media. It become a great link building tool, just remember too much is still too much when it comes to google take your time and build slowly.
Thanks for sharing this line of thinking. Most agents I am talking to are frustrated at the amount of time they are putting into social networking expecting it to be a magic bullet. You underscore the importance of having a plan and some understanding of how it all works together.
Gosh Dustin, I wish I could have been there for the discussions….
You have some fantastic info and as a a Realtor, SEO is not really my thing.
I am supposed to be selling homes but I seem to be spending so much time and effort on my position on the net….it gets hard to remember why? LOL
I will join and link to you on
http://bx.businessweek.com/profile/dustin-luther/dluther593/
Would really appreciate anymore tips
Callie
Very profound insight and the tips too are great. Starters will definitely dig juicy information here.
Your gray areas are my “accidental” areas. I was just playing with friends online, and somehow all these really good opportunities kept throwing themselves at my feet. It would be wasteful not to pick them up and use them.
I suppose it’s not a bad idea to try to create more of those accidents, right?
Sarah: Sometimes I feel like I live to create accidents. But at the same time, I enjoy trying to figure out what’s working out of that play (i.e accident creation) and replicate the good stuff.
We would be interested in participating in HomeSyn. We are already connected on BusinessWeek BX. We have become a “fan” of your Facebook page.
Look forward to seeing you at REBCLA.
Best wishes,
Fran and Rowena
You Rock Fran and Rowena!
I’ll get you set up with an invite in just a bit!
Social media, and social media marketing will surely help any publisher get a good audience online. So anyone who is serious about boosting site traffic should focus too on these sites.
I would be real intersted in conjunctive with you on BX and would also rattling realize an invitation to HomeSyn.
Nice post
Manikanda: Glad you liked the post. In terms of connecting with me on BX, it’s as simple as clicking the “add” button on my profile page. As long as someone is promoting interesting links, I’ll normally add them right back.
If you have anymore invitations left, I would love to “play”with Homesync.
Dustin, great post (s)! i am a little fuzzy on some of the terminology. What’s a “do-follow” versus a “no-follow” site? Kind of like you can “follow” someone on Twitter, and can’t on, say, Digg? (not sure of that, even).
I would love to see how HomeSyn works – is “syndicating” pushing listings out to various venues? I work full time and have no listings at this time, but would like to know what you mean by “syndicating” listings!
Looking to connect also via BX/BusinessWeek!
Gina, thank you for your interest!
A few years ago, Google created the concept of a “no follow” link. A no follow link is one where the words ref=”no follow” are embedded in the HTML code of the link.
The reason for adding this feature is that google’s ranking algorithms are based HEAVILY on links… and google wanted to provide website owners a way to link out to other sites (like advertisers) as well as let people leave links on sites (like the comments of this blog), without necessarily having the webpage give away “value” to that link.
Does this super high-level overview make sense?
It does make sense – however that means someone would have to insert the words ref=”no follow” into the link (and I’m thinking “link” isn’t the same as a simple “URL” – yes? and I’m not sure a non-developer would be able to do that. Let’s say I want to link to my web site e-newsletter page. The link would be http://www.mycompanyname.com/myname/newsletter.asp(configured this way so you don’t think I’m trying to spam you!). Is the html *behind* this URL and controlled by the site developer (not me, obviously)? Do non-developers see the “no follow” html code in other links? Sorry to be so obtuse and thank you in advance for your insight.
no problem… you’re thinking along the right lines, but it’s a bit simpler a typical link would look something like:
4realz.net
If you wanted to make it a no-follow link then you’d add the code here:
4realz.net
whoops… I thought if I used the “code” function, it would actually show the code. I’m not 100% sure how to show you the difference other than to cut out the first bit of a link… i.e the “< " and the "a".
Here's a typical link stucture:
to make it no-follow, you’d add the code right afterwards:
Dustin – yes, I’m interested in your “invite only” groups, both for online real estate professionals where we help each other promote posts and for syndicating listings. In addition to my Active Rain blog I have http://florida.ssimms.com and a typical listing is http://www.6935DatePalmAveS.com
Sharon: Thanks for reaching out… I’m currently retooling the invite-only group. After playing for a while, a few of us realized we needed to re-tool it a bit and we’re currently doing that. Nonetheless, keep checking back with 4realz.net because when I’ll mention it here when it gets relaunched!
Great post. I do Social Media Marketing and Online Marketing for a living and I picked up some great pointers.
A couple of quick tips:
Most blogs are already set up “out of the box” with “no-follow” links so that’s something most people don’t have to worry about.
When it comes to bookmarking, you should never bookmark your own posts. Ask a friend or relative to bookmark your posts. And don’t have every one of your posts bookmarked. That will be seen as spam. Just have your best ones bookmarked, say, once a month.
I have a feeling Dustin’s real estate promotion group works on a similar basis. Which is a fabulous idea. Promote each others posts.
Bob McClain
WordsmithBob.com
Dustin, good stuff on social networking. I work for a number of real estate clients internationally and would be interested in joining your ‘invited’ list when the revamp is completed.
Like many real estate professionals who are using the internet to market themselves, Marc seems to be overlooking the fact that the best clients come from your friends… your real friends.
Most agents know this implicitly, but don’t necessarily make the connection to how they need to operate online.
For example…
A good friend of mine, who conveniently happens to be a real estate agent, hates internet leads. Doesn’t want to deal with them. For years (he actually attended one of my bloginars in July ‘06) , I’ve been telling him about the importance of SEO, “owning” his own domain, link structure, quality content, relevant traffic, etc, and while he humors me (he’s become a good friend after all), his heart has never been in it. As he likes to remind me, internet leads are crap and he just passes them off to others when he gets them anyway.
However, on a recent conversation, we were talking about where he’s getting his business and he mentioned Facebook (he’s very active on Facebook and MySpace having uploaded thousands of photos and shared countless stories). Says his friends on Facebook have been treating him well lately sending him great clients and he’d love to get more. But he doesn’t consider those “internet” leads since the clients typically come to him on a recommendation from a friend.
I think it’s worth reiterating. People who find him on the internet aren’t worth his time. People who get recommended to him from his Facebook friends help pay his bills.
So, now to bring this back to Marc’s post on twitter… Marc says:
“You can either post gibberish or you can choose instead to post content about what’s happening in your marketplace right now that does or could have consequences for your reader.”
I can guarantee that if my friend had spent the past two years limiting his online participation to writing content that had consequences for his marketplace, he’d not only have a small fraction of friends on the site, but Facebook would not be providing him any meaningful business. Worse, his most common “friend” would probably be other real estate professionals who accept this boring banter on social networks.
With that said, I’m a HUGE fan of agents creating a place where they can share their knowledge and expertise by creating content that has consequences for their marketplace… And my other website, Rain City Guide, does a great job generating business by creating this type of content (and I’d argue generates more business for our agents, mortgage brokers, title reps, lawyers, etc. than any other real estate blog).
But to compare the value of Twitter banter (or banter on Facebook or any other “social” network) to the content created on a site like Rain City Guide is to completely confuse the value of unknown internet clients with clients recommended to you by your friends.
If you don’t mind dealing with internet leads, then by all means focus on building out a website like Rain City Guide that will drive relevant traffic.
However, if you want your real friends to start sending you clients, then you better start interacting with them in a “real” way. Maybe that means throwing ridiculously cool parties, joining the local PTA, coaching a little league team, or sharing inside jokes and other gibberish on Twitter. Either way, your real friends expect you to be a real person.
Dustin- You make a great point about the importance of establishing trust and relationships online before implementing real world services . We need to engage the consumer and make them part of our community (or become part of theirs) in a real way by connecting with them in the manner they need – not the manner we think they need.
Once we make that dual connection, we are not an internet presence and they are not an internet lead – we are friends who are prepared to do business with each other.
Well put Tyr!
I have to say I agree with your friend. Internet leads are more work than they are worth. we do get business from people who know us. It is much better than the business that comes from random strangers. I have however been able to make some friends through my blog. Mostly neighbors that I did not know.
I have met far, far more people on twitter than I have met through my blog. Local people, in my area, that can and will refer business because I engaged them and we became friends. Most of them would not have ever been on my blog because they may not necessarily be in the market for real estate (right now), but now, when they hear their friends talking about real estate, they think of me. Maybe my tweets are “gibberish”. If so, fine. Apparently gibberish may work. It is all about connections.
This is exactly why I “waste” so much time on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, email and my other blogs. Why I go to art openings, why I volunteer with my kids school, why I host parties and salons, sponsor craft sales, work on boards and fundraisers, build art cars, and help friends and neighbors to make our world a better place. It’s all about friendship and rapport, and this is how I stay connected. And when the time comes that they may need some real estate services, hopefully they’ll think of me.
Twitter is flat out awesome for getting your message across in a non-threatening way. I’m not always trying to cram sales figures at people. Instead I can talk about the weather, sports, fun local activities and people can get an idea of what living in Orange County is like. If that turns into business, then great. It might accidentally turn into business, which is the best kind.
While blogs and social networks do help me stay connected and visible in the marketplace, I tend to get a lot more prospective clients from my website where they can search for properties and find real estate specific information easily. I guess they each have a place and purpose. But I think of the social networks like Facebook and Twitter as more “chatty” and less “real estate focused”
Whether blog or twitter or FB or even meetup.com (one of my favs), each is a different communication vehicle for us social beings to interact with each other and build relationships– they allow for a broader reach (if you want 2000 friends) but may be less emotionally deep — until they become f2f (or telelphone call) interactive. Heck, there is something about a smile that beats a lol or . And who prefers a virtual hug?
….. or maybe instrument is a better analogy. It’s in the way you play SM and, if you are adept enough, you can be a one man band.
Having said that, short term business ROI may not be greatest in social networks (cold/warm calling may yield higher returns) but the hope is the SM clients stick better and refer out better, making SM a long term play. BUt heck , I could be completely wrong. I built my client base in the old school, one handshake at a time.
Maybe your friend is getting the wrong sort of internet leads. We’ve seen great conversions here in New York, and I know of many others who convert internet leads at a great rate. I wonder what sort of phrases his sites are showing up for?
We have developed a system to work with and building relationships with online consumers that register to search for homes and condos on our websites. 95% of our business comes from our websites. Working with the online consumer is different than a traditional consumer…you must adapt to each to succeed.
Recently, I changed our property search system from Park Place to Diverse Solution’s interactive map search…and the quality of the online consumer is higher…and everyone loves the map search product. I have been getting more phone calls from them during the past week. We are excited to see how the new product effects are business in 2009 and beyond.
Half of our business is coming from the Internet. The biggest issue I see with agents is lack of effective follow up.
John… I totally believe that half your biz is coming from the internet and that effective follow up is the missing piece for most agents. However, my experience has been that getting some agents, who are otherwise very successful, to do effective follow up with internet leads is often like trying to fit a square peg through a round hole.
In other words, keep up the great work!
Good local bloggers corner their online real estate market. Part of that is social networking with ‘friends’ online. Great post. More talk like this and maybe the general public will start to get the real gist of social media!
Relatively new to blogging, I’ve long considered how to focus my blog: whether to make it more informational, or conversational. I chose the later. I’m not sure if it will generate the most business or not, but it’s something I’m
much more apt to enjoy and maintain longterm.
I hope that you don’t mind, but I linked back to your post in my blog. To read it, click here: http://mistyfau.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/are-you-a-twitter/
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Misty Faucheux
Real estate marketing has always been about relationships. Now you just have a lot more ways to interact with people.
We love social networking at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate. Facebook, Twitter and our blog have become powerful tools to build brand awareness and establish a network of business “friends” Creating a balance between providing useful information, and engaging in friendly banter is key – just my opinion…
Sherry: Your opinion obviously carries a lot of weight. Thanks for stopping by and sharing.
Found your post very informative. I am just now getting familiar with Twitter. I am in the moving business, and trying to establish relationships with people.
Perhaps my message was not fully comprehended. Firstly, I covered Twitter back in 07 (http://www.1000wattblog.com/2007/06/what_are_you_do.html) with a considerable theme of excitement, long before most agents discovered it.
I get Twitter. I get the brilliance of using it to build relationships. And I firmly believe that using Twitter to distribute critical intelligence about yourself and your market is the key to its users success.
What’s in question is whether local market data is the meat on this particular bone, which appears in direct contrast with, agents desire to post activities to build and cultivate these relationships.
Here’s the thing – intelligence can be just as sexy, just as interesting and considerably as attractive as posting the simple things you, I and the rest of world do on a daily mundane basis.
And intelligence can be packaged all sorts of ways and made out to be interesting, fun, light-hearted and totally conversational.
Folks like Robert Scoble, Guy Kawasaki, Tony Hsieh, do it daily and they are the kings of Twitter. And just look at their success.
So I am with you guys in that I completely agree that Twitter works wonders within a sphere, cultivating friends and winning business. Where I disagree perhaps is simply the verbal, conversational bait placed on its line. I question how the posting things like I just parked my car, drinking a smoothie and wiping off my sweat at the gym (real posts that appeared on my account by those I used to follow) can really lead to business.
If any of my friends called me each time they blew a gum bubble, I think, for sanity sake, I would move out of town in the middle of the night.
To believe that broadcasting real estate info to real estate people on Twitter flies on the face of logic interests me considering just about every real estate conversation between agents at any conference begins with “So how’s your market”?
So here’s how I think this through. If I were an agent in Arizona where the market is dead and have a clientele of rich investors who I am trying to source good deals for, do I a) work a deal with agent A who Twitter about the prices in her town and the opportunities abound or Bob from Cleveland who Tweets about his bubble bath, his dog and the itch he just scratched?
If I’m not thinking clearly on this, please work with me. I am not an agent and often times attempt to apply my background, my business experience and my communication skills to a career I never had. There has been a healthy conversation going on at my blog as well on this topic, which is cool because I think social media is indeed an agents big, big opportunity in years to come.
My concern is that real estate is applying older, 1.0 style communication techniques to a 2.0 platform. You know, the agent who once posed with their dog now Tweets about it on Twitter.
At the end of the day, I am still placing my bets on following the practical applications used by the webs most prominent gurus who have cultivated tens of thousands of followers very successful businesses.
Marc-
I think the important word missing from your line of thinking is .. “and”
In your example you give us a choice about choosing the agent who Tweets about pricing versus the agent who tweets about his personal life.
If you are tweeting JUST about your personal life or JUST about pricing, you probably are going to be pretty boring to follow.
The key in my opinion is to Tweet about real estate AND personal activity.
My blog has a lot of info about market activity, but it also has my PERSONALITY and it has info about the fun recreational activities my town is famous for.
As far as social media gurus go – I know that Guy Kawasaki loves hockey and can’t skate backwards like he should. I know that Chris Brogan is honest and open and gets great pleasure buying toys for needy kids.
In my mind Brian Boero and Marc Davison are the same person. The 1000Watt Brand may be strong – but your personal brand is weak.
In real estate that would be horrible for building a business.
We all have different opinions and they all work—. I cringe when I have to “work” with a friend. I end up trying to “protect” them and it’s too hard for me.
Further, I hate referrals because INEVITABLY they take me out of my MIami Beach/South Beach market. A person who extends the generosity of referring someone to you, on some level, gets offended when I don’t work with them.
I prefer TOTAL strangers.
Is there gonna be a blog war on Christmas Eve?
Georgie vs Marc?
Could it be?
The truth about good sales/networking is it’s natural. Clients choose to do business with providers they know & trust. Twitter allows you to be yourself your friends will see through any “spamming of business” if you mix it up. Be real. Great post! The simple fact is use Twitter and enjoy, work hard and the business will come.
The present day composer refuses to die. (Varese)
According to one of the Twitter kings (methinks they were wearing their robes before they arrived):
http://scobleizer.com/2008/12/22/did-i-harm-my-blog-by-friendfeeding-this-year/
Kevin-
I don’t do wars.
Peace, love, and best wishes on Christmas eve to all.
Geordie with a D.
@Geordie,
Great insight my man. I agree completely with the “and”.
As for my lack building a personal brand – a few thoughts here.
I have, at times, offered insights into myself when appropriate. My readers know I’m married to my childhood sweetheart, know my son got his real estate license, know we were in Hawaii celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary and know that I’m an accomplished musician that occasionally performs with iconic artists.
I simply control how often I reference these things and try hard to execute it within the context of a beneficial post that carries with it some alternative value beyond being seen as a braggart.
I refrain from posting what I’m eating, what color boxers I choose to wear or what song I am listening too. Some things I choose to keep to myself.
Building personal brand is not part of my professional discipline. The 1000watt brand is based very much on the “us” experience (the combined knowledge, creativity and intellect) my partner and I collectively bring to the table. Combining some personal events can confuse clients in my line of work so I manage that side things best I can.
Your inability to distinguish between Brian and I is an interesting observation. One I am glad you thought to pose.
Has anyone else who has followed us felt the inability to distinguish between the two of us and if so, does it matter?
I wonder.
Mike Good, President and CEO of Sotheby’s International Realty comes to mind. We know very little about him personally, but publicly, he embodies the very essence of Sotheby’s. If Mike enjoyed rodeos, eating deep fried Twinkies and camping out overnight at K-mart for Black Friday, would posting about it help or hurt him? Granted, that me a part of him, but where, in the rules of Web 2.0 and transparency, does it say that you ought to reveal every single fiber of your being?
That’s my point Geordie. Building a personal brand is just as, if not more intense, than building a business brand.
I feel the principles and sensibilities of image building has been skimmed over in real estate and tied too loosely to instructors who don’t posses the academic pedigree to instruct correctly.
For the record, I believe building your personal image is critical to a Realtors brand. I believe that doing it right is both art and science. I strongly believe most agents attempting to do this on their own with no professional guidance will build an image that is all over the place, and ultimately confusing to their client base.
Two years ago, I judged a blog contest for ActiveRain. I wrote a very intense critique of Kevin Tomlinson based on my observation never having met him. My impression was that he was shallow, self-absorbed and disguised his lack of knowledge of the market behind sensational postings.
Then we spoke. And I learned about Kevin’s intensity. And his talent. And deep-seeded knowledge of his market. And I then questioned him at length about the path he chose to convey his brand which I, given the time I spent on his site, came away with a completely different opinion.
It would be cool if Kevin can chime in here and expand upon that illustrating what we talked about and if that had anything to do with how he appears today which is, IMO, a perfect combo that defines the “and” Geordie speaks of.
Great conversation! And I agree that Marc is onto something.
I wonder if people should be focused on using the social web to communicate with people you know. It is probably better to speak and not slurr or SHOUT. Slurring and Shouting is an embarrassment that is not likely to promote stronger friendships or business contacts.
I guess that I connect with different people on Twitter than Facebook. Facebook is for people that I know – or at least have met in person, or hope to meet in person.
I think that if an agent is connected to a number of people on twitter, and they clearly put in their profile that they are REALTORS, then they can lend the agent bent to twitter conversations. But most of the time should be carrying on the conversation if you see something that it interesting.
If you know who you are publishing to, then you know what they are interested in – just don’t assume. Sharing what song you are listening to would only be relevant if you are being followed by people with shared musical tastes, right?
Twitter can also be a marketing tool. For me, it replaces email marketing and press releases. It is “micro blogging” and I typically use it to draw followers to our blog.
Anyway – Merry Christmas
Just one other thing…..
I just read on twitter that a Loveland Man has the Number 1 selling software application on the iTunes store at .99
ifart!
I guess there is room on twitter and everywhere else for a little levity
Building a personal brand no matter how you do it, no matter what medium you use, using the proper mechanics of good brand building is critical.
Just because the web has now provided tools to build brand through self publishing, posting, anything, anytime, won’t necessarily accomplish this. Your name might be more recognizable to more people but it won’t build your brand.
A brand has to be tied to something that people can anchor to.
Honda – Tied to mechanically sound engineering.
Apple – Tied to flawless design.
W Hotel – Tied to a wonderland hotel experience.
Zappos – Tied to relentless service.
UPS – Tied to prompt, dependable delivery.
Wav Group – Tied to helping real estate firms understand its market and its brand position within through research, analysis and published reports.
1000watt – Tied to helping brokerages and media companies navigating the complexities of web 2.0, branding and communication.
Proper branding means that everything these brands do should act as a touchpoint to their meaning. The better each touchpoint conveys their meaning, the better the brand.
What are you tied too? Do you know? And if you, are you managing each and every touchpoint which includes every post, comment, tweet, etc.
Real estate has been taught to blast the neighborhood with flyers, bus stop bench posters, shopping cart ads and template websites filled with forms and bio’s and Hobbs Herder glossy tri-folds showing agents as humans. And through it all, why do people get toungue tied trying to voice the difference between most agents?
Twittering the things you do is cool. Don’t stop. But I advice trying to tie to something that also supports what you stand for.
Earlier today, I Twittered about U2 and their upcoming release and the marketing techniques they are employing that I find brilliant and the tie ins I see for real estate. I feel that type of post support my brand, both personal and professional.
So here is an example for you guys.
Suppose your agent brand position is tied to – representing local real estate through up-to-date, instant market centric information, consultation and hyper local knowledge and service.
Which post supports that brand better?
a) Stuck in traffic, boring. Wish I could beam myself places.
b) Stuck in traffic sucking on a swizzle stick listening to Sweet Thing on the Country Music Channel.
c) Stuck in traffic and just learned a local developer was granted permission to build condo complex downtown. K’ching. Reaching out to clients right now.
If you could prudently, skillfully, apply your efforts into really building up a brand based on simple, proven brand formulas, imagine how much more successful you would be?
Over the holidays, write down a statement that defines your brand. Then look over the bulk of your past Twitters and see if what you’ve posted supports your definition of yourself. If it does, bang on. You are doing it right.
Some leeway is acceptable. But the more you pay heed to connecting these dots, the more your worth and value will be better communicated. You will see an increase in readership. And business.
I stake my career on this.
And, thanks much to Dustin for his original post and allowing us to educate each other here on his blog.
Marc
Hey Dave, I’ll join you here from your twitter post and add a big heaping shovel full of an even bigger question this whole conversation begs me to ask…
It’s a bit dangerous to post here.
I know this may shock you and the others who know me and think of me as “techguy” of sorts. But I’m probably be better categorized as more of a RE “pragmaticist” and “researcher” and after you read this you’ll probably call me a “antagonist” and “contrarian” AND possibly a “HERETIC”…
So the heaping question is, “what’s the yield?”
$$$/month, week, year?
This question may look innocuous, but by delving deeper, it will start to pull and challenge the roots of the RE tech community (sorry).
With a degree in Finance and a background in Economics, I know with all options being equal (efficient market theory), an investor will pick the vehicle with highest return with the shortest payback period.
-So-
Replace the word “investor” with “REALTOR”, “vehicle” with “marketing strategies” and assume EMT (efficient market theory) means that the agent is fully aware of his/her options to choose what marketing will work the best.
Now the question is, who is making more money?
Blogger/Social Media Maven v. FSBO/Expired Listing Leader/Cold Call Cowboy?
After spending the last 13 months chest deep interviewing over 50 top coaches, speakers and agents in the world, I’ve found that every single case of “million dollar babies” and “super producers”, agents who make over $500,000 a year NET to the bottom line, do so on an almost pure blend of Active Prospecting using telephone and mail.
They are not substantively twittering or blogging with any real “conversation” intentions.
-and since-
TIME is the ultimate in limited resources and the only true fixed variable to measure success; leads/day, appointments/week, $$$/month, I’m throwing this next statement out as subject for debate and evolution…
What do you think is the optimum blend of time is spent generating business?
How is your day scheduled?
What tasks and actions are they comprised of?
Who is really rocking it with the SM? Define rocking it.
Has anyone tracked, tested, or case studied this before?
It would be very interesting to study the best of breeds from both camps and see who has more money at the end of the month, quarter, year.
From my own experience in launching an enrichment based educational web service to agents, at the end of the day, they want more money in their bank accounts, (give me ROI or give me my money back).
Kind of like “give me liberty or give me death”, but not as harsh.
A corollary thought, after learning what works best from each side take the “best of breeds” from each “skool of thought” and create a hybrid model of the modern real estate success. Could sound something like -The Ultimate System to Modern RE Dominance-
Well I hope I’ve made some good points, looking forward to feedback (no rotten tomatoes) and if you would like to share the numbers behind your yield, I’d love to interview you!
Warmly,
Justin Zimmerman
Bravo to Marc to staying engaged in this conversation!
I comment because I care.
I enjoy reading everything that you and Dustin bring to the table and I think this discussion has helped us all grow.
I look forward to the ongoing discussion of :
*Appropriate us of Twitter for business
*How use to Twitter to brand your self
* How to use Twitter to connect IRL
Cool. Same here. I believe Twitter to be an uber powerful tool. But I also believe, that when it comes to doing anything publicly, tools like this, while powerful, can also be somewhat dangerous if done wrong. Is is so fool-hearty of me to think that taking charge of your own imaging and branding without a fundamental knowledge of this discipline is risky?
Does anyone know of a step-by-step “guide” to using twitter for real estate most effectively?
Or do you have to grap tips and tricks here and there?
My point is, advising agents to embark on this without some kind of guidance is not very good advise?
http://www.mytechopinion.com/2008/11/organize-chaos-with-the-real-estate-tweet-plan.html
and
That should answer most of your questions.
Exactly my point all along. It’s not as simple as just posting arbitrary shout outs of what you’re doing to friends. With all due respect to Dustin, that’s my trouble with his trouble to my approach. I believe this, like any powerful public medium, a strategy is required.
There’s that but let’s not forget basic common sense. Post when you have something to offer that brings benefit to those following you and check periodically during the day.
Thanks for the two links George, helps a lot to clarify some points that I had.
Bleh re Facebook. I am on it, but to me it’s for finding old friends.
Twitter is my drug of choice. I’m known on Twitter for my passion for horses and Cowboys — which gave me the wake-up call that my lack of passion/respect for RE, per se, was obvious. Let ‘er buck baby. Twitter is a gold mine of knowledge.
… listen to the needs of NAR executives and execute on their ideas.
It’s pretty clear from the job description, that that’s all they are looking for. Anything more sounds fun, but probably isn’t realistic for NAR at the moment… and there’s nothing wrong with this. It sounds like Hilary is swamped with work, so the right person could make a difference.
Most importantly, Rob is right that title’s matter, especially at an organization like NAR… and a “manager” position is meant to implement a strategy, not develop one.
I had a manager who worked for me at Move with a similar title and if I thought it would help, I’d happily recommend Todd for this position. However, if I was in Todd’s shoes, I’d only give it passing interest until they added some real decision making authority and bumped up the title considerably.
Todd would be perfect for the job but you are right I would want the job very defined and some teeth in it.
The job isn’t needed. NAR is not social and they don’t have media
OK maybe they have media
I think that the reason the RE.net is putting so much emphasis on the position is they (we) see the potential of the position. The opportunity, the vision, the possibilities – all can be seen from here, but I’m coming to see, based primarily on the silence, that those things may not be able to be seen/recognized from within the confines of NAR.
I’d love to be proven wrong.
Dustin-
Your most recent comment that the RE.net is putting way too much emphasis on this position is spot on. The expectations are ridiculous for those that have expectations, while at the same time, the presumption by the more vocal among the RE.net of impending failure and doom is equally ridiculous.
A massive issue is being created over a simple job posting. And the notion that the entire city of Chicago probably doesn’t have a person capable of doing the job is equally ridiculous.
Teresa,
They have media it just isn’t worth listening to. And I think you are off big time on the point of them not being social. The lobbyists are very social.
Dustin,
I just finished reading Seth Godin’s new book “Tribes”. This is a group in desperate need of a Leader!
My hunch is the person for this job would be found in the existing Real Estate Blogosphere. Not is a uber-corporate sounding monster.com ad.
That’s why many of us are in Real Estate, to get away from those types!
…at the top of search results or on the back of a phone book than have a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in a niche area of the law.”
Notorious Rob has some interesting insight around how to use social media…
Really nice website, real estate marketing
I got an email last week from some lawyers from Tacoma, Oldfield & Helsdon,
PLLC, http://www.tacomalawfirm.com, advertising their services to assist distressed homeowners.
Their plug was to the agents themselves:
“Agents: Distressed by the Distressed Home Act?
How do you spell relief? . . .O&H . . .Oldfield & Helsdon, PLLC
If your sellers retain a lawyer to advise them about a short sale, you protect yourself from exposure under the Distressed Home Act.
The lawyers of Oldfield & Helsdon, PLLC have over 50 years of experience in helping homeowners with foreclosures and short sales.
Our lawyers provide an affordable consultation so your seller can make the right decision about a potential short sale.
Overview of foreclosure process
Overview of short sale process
Potential for ongoing seller liability for unpaid balances
Possibility for discharge of unpaid balances
Federal income tax consequences of debt forgiveness
Effect on credit score and credit rating of short sale, foreclosure, judgment and bankruptcy
There is a low flat fee for consultation for advising clients of their legal rights and options of $150.00. Telephone consultations are available.
For negotiating a short sale, there is a flat fee paid only upon success. The fee is no more than $2,000.00 for properties whose sale price is up to $500,000.00.”
LOL, Dustin — you got comment spammed bro.
Install Akismet ASAP or something else. It’s pure irony that the post you’re linking to is about comment spamming, and voila! There you are.
Thanks for the link, btw. Talk to you soon.
-rsh
Rob: I can’t say I’m a bit surprised. I think the very nature of my short posts make some thing it’s an automated thing if they don’t know me already. 
Oh, I know the pain of comment spam. But no, I was referring to THIS post. The irony that the first two comments are by spammers is just delicious.
Your links back to my site are never spammed; I’ve already cleared those through Akismet. I know your trackbacks are not.
-rsh
Personally, I’d never go so far as to call any comment of Marlow’s spam. She’s one of my favorite bloggers and reminds me of Hanan Levin in that she can find a way to make even the most odd-ball topics relevant.
But I totally hear you on the first comment.
Anonymous and 2 others are discussing. 
Ricardo Bueno 8:28 pm on February 17, 2010 Permalink |
Great audience!
Dustin 8:29 pm on February 17, 2010 Permalink |
yeah… it really was. Not only a full house, but good questions and great feedback.
Ron Ares 1:00 pm on February 18, 2010 Permalink |
I thought the event really picked up steam as presenters rolled out the complete vision. Your example of ‘blog posting is like sending webmail was a great analogy’.
I wondered though, if the majority of attendees had an understanding of what Wordpress is, how it is administered, how to set it up, etc.. I know the talk wasn’t meant to be techy, but I was approached by a few attendees who didn’t know what it was or thought it was a product.
Dustin 12:26 pm on February 20, 2010 Permalink |
Interesting point about wordpress… and you’re right that we weren’t trying to go too indepth in the technology. If anything, I hope they walked away thinking the technology just isn’t all that hard and the tools are just that: tools. The tools are interesting and fun, and we spend a lot of talk blogging about them, but they’ll change over time. Nonetheless, we could definitely have put a section in the presentation that was a little more hands-on here’s how you use the tool, but I find that stuff gets so dry so fast that I’m not exactly sure how we would have fit it in there cleanly. Nonetheless, we should figure out a way to get a bit more about the tools in the presentations…