Small Business Take Note! – Tech Savvy Moms lead The Way With Social Media
Filed under: Real Estate Technology, social media | Tags: BabyCenter, facebook, mobile phone, myspace, social media, Technology, Virtual community
Leave a Comment 
Social Media Usage jumps 462% amongst tech savvy moms
The way social media usage is growing with the general population never ceases to amaze me and new research is showing that the biggest increase in usage is amongst stay at home and working mothers. In fact, social media usage has jumped a massive 462% amongst tech savvy mothers since 2006 and the number who use mobile phones to go on line 348% during the same period.
“The 21st Century Mom Report,” revealed that, in addition to bigger trends shaping motherhood such as comfort with technology and increasing eco-friendliness, becoming a mother is a huge, life-stage transformation that alters a woman’s lifetime purchasing behavior and criteria and triggers a significant re-evaluation of products and brands.
For example:
- 85% of moms say having a baby changed their purchasing habits.
- 73% say it changed their purchasing criteria.
- 62% say it changed the brands they purchase.
Before having children, BabyCenter said that women are most concerned about product and service quality, features, and design.
After becoming mothers, they are much more likely to shop based on safety, quality, and price.
Some of the other interesting stats to come out of the survey include:
Social Mom: Social media is mass media.
- The number of moms who use social media regularly (e.g. Facebook, MySpace, BabyCenter Community) has significantly increased from 11% to 63% since 2006; a change of 462%.
- More than four in 10 (44%) percent use social media for word-of-mouth recomendations on brands and products and 73% feel they find trustworthy information about products and services through online communities focused on their specific interests such as parenting.
- Moms tend to use mass-reach networks for socializing and entertainment and content-rich environments, while using mom-centric communities to get information and advice from other moms going through the same experiences at a given time.
So, there you have it, if you as a company or individual business operator have not yet embraced the power of social media marketing to engage the online community, it’s about time you gave it serious thought.
If you are interested in reading the full report, click here to visit the company’s web site or to read more about creating a social media strategy visit social media is about engagement & Do Traditional Marketing rules apply to social media .
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=93f43121-7b1a-49ad-914d-f49d9429e7fd)
Half of Twitter it Seems Has Never Uttered a Tweet
Filed under: social media | Tags: Canada, HubSpot, London, On the Web, Online Communities, social media, Social Networking, twitter
Comments(1) 
- Image via CrunchBase
Well, it may be the flavour of the year, but new research from Hubspot has shed light on some interesting stats on those that use Twitter.
According to the survey 53% of users who have registered with Twitter, have no followers, 56% are not following anyone, and 55% have never even tweeted.
The companies “June 2009 State of the Twittersphere,” found that more than 9% of Twitter users are completely inactive, meaning they have fewer than 10 followers, fewer than 10 friends and fewer than 10 updates.
Additional findings:
- 80% of users failed to provide a homepage URL
- 76% have not entered a bio in their profile (vs. 20% last year)
- 69% have not specified a location
Active Users are Regular Tweeters
In contrast to those who don’t use Twitter much, HubSpot did find that a large portion of individuals who are actively using Twitter have embraced it, and are tweeting on a regular basis.
Usage findings:
- The average user tweets .97 times per day
- The average user has tweeted 119.34 times in total
- The average user has a following-to-follower ratio of .7738
These stats are really interesting but lets take a look at the information and/or quality of what is being tweeted on a daily basis, looking at the research it shows that users frequently answer questions and communicate with other users rather than just answer the “What are you doing” question
From a location point of view, Twitter appears to be more popular in english speaking countries and cities such as London, larger US cities and Canada.
On doing some research of my own and looking at the stats of those that I follow, I’d have say only about 70% of them tweet on a daily basis, the rest are very passive and some I never even hear from, maybe time to do some culling and have a good ol’ clear out.
This survey is really interesting in that it almost backs up the Nielsen report released in April of this year which estimated that 60% of Twitter users quit after their first month.
I just wonder, how many of Twitter users who are registered are genuine anyway, It’s not that hard to register a user name, it could even be yours if you haven’t thought to register it, maybe your competitors or a well known brand that’s been slow to catch on to the social media band wagon and just sit on it, that’s why you should read my post on grabbing your social media user name before your competitor does.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=4cbeb1e4-5287-41ba-a591-4e0528e126a9)
CoTweet – A Great Twitter Application for Companies
Filed under: Real Estate Technology, social media | Tags: business, On the Web, Online Communities, social media, social network, Software testing, twitter
Leave a Comment 
CoTweet Logo
Over the past 2 days I’ve had the chance to use a new Twitter application called CoTweet, and having signed up for a private beta testing account and being amongst the first users to play around with the site, I thought I’d give you a rundown of its capabilities.
At the moment it is still in private beta testing but i found it performed very well, apart from one or two little niggles such as getting a message “There was an error loading messages” when refreshing and the site occasionally sent me back to the main log in screen when navigating between screens and functions, that I’m sure will be worked out once testing is finished.
CoTweets main aim is to be a platform that helps companies reach and engage customers using Twitter, and the site has loads of great features that business can use. For example CoTweet allows for multiple users,which is ideal for companies wanting to keep control over what and who is using Twitter, particularly when representing your brand.
Some of the highlights on CoTweet, you can manage up to 4 Twitter accounts during the private beta period. You may share Twitter accounts with others (i.e. invite them to CoTweet with you through the same Twitter account). Or you may keep them unshared, so that only you may tweet through them. The way you might use this feature is people managing a shared account (perhaps for their company) as well as their personal account through CoTweet. Managing multiple accounts through one interface makes life so much easier.
CoTweet Main Screen
With one click you can view the profile of the person you are following as well as all conversations and updates and you can add notes and then allocate that note to other users on the site, this appears on the right hand side of the screen making it very easy to see the information of the person you are following. Another nifty addition is the use of CoTags, so what are CoTags? CoTags are short signatures that allow you to identify yourself as part of a message while sharing an account with multiple people, EG @CoTweet.
CoTweet User Screen
You can also integrate it with a Bit.ly account to shorten your URL’s and links, posts can be delayed which allows you to stagger your posts across the day, or scheduled to go live immediately and you can assign posts for follow up to other users.
Another very nice feature, is OnDuty, a system that keeps your team informed by sending email updates when new @replies and direct messages come in. Unless you’re glued to your Twitter client all day, it’s easy to lose track of messages and the value that immediate responsiveness brings to your brand.
OnDuty keeps you and your team in the loop and allows you to jump in on things as they progress. In the new updates you can not only change your own OnDuty status, but also that of your team members as part of a new channel menu. Users are able to decide what happens when they’re set to “on” via their settings. At the moment, CoTweet only offer email notification but are looking to expand to other notification tools soon.
- The only way to really know how great this application is, is to apply for a private beta test account and start using CoTweet. It’s a great application for companies and another great social media tool.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=d3e991f7-0a16-4de1-a07f-ea65ceb823b3)
Newspapers and the Internet
Filed under: advertising, research | Tags: Detroit, Detroit Free Press, Detroit News, newspaper, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, United States, US
Leave a Comment 
- Image via Wikipedia
Back in March I wrote about the closure of one of the oldest newspapers in the US, the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the move to create an online only version of the newspaper, so I thought it relevant to go back and see how the move to the online space has been accepted by the readers of the post and other newspapers that have moved to an Internet only version.
It appears that the move to Internet only versions of the newspapers has seen some very interesting growth in reader numbers, at Seattlepi.com, the online successor to the now defunct print version of Post-Intelligencer, unique visitors have grown steadily since the paper went online-only in March, and according to executive producer Michelle Nicolosi. “We haven’t lost readers”.
In the Detroit area, where readers were amongst the first to lose home delivered newspapers, readers have taken to the new Internet only versions of the now defunct papers, for example, in April traffic grew 74% to the Detroit Free Press website.
Another interesting side benefit of the move online for the papers is that downloads of e-editions, or electronic newsprint equivalents of both the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News increased seven fold when home delivery of the papers ended.
It would appear that readers retain loyalty to their local brands and are prepared to make the move with them when they move to online versions.
This trend I’m sure will be welcome news for the other newspapers that are facing closure in the US.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=b096abc4-fae5-4929-a72e-b7218301b368)
Mobile Phones Beat PC’s for Young Women
Filed under: Real Estate & Property News, Real Estate Technology, social media | Tags: blackberry, facebook, Iphone, mobile phone, myspace, Personal computer, Smartphone, SRG
Leave a Comment 
- Image via CrunchBase
Back in December of last year I wrote a post on the future of the Internet in 2020, and in that post one of the predictions was that mobile devices would be the primary connection tool to the Internet and social media for most people. Well I thought I’d revisit the progress of that statement and look at if the mobile device is in fact having any impact on searching trends.
Some new research from a company in the US SRG, has found the mobile phone is displacing the PC among US women in terms of usage – especially in the 12-24 age group, the survey has found that young women spend twice as much time with their cell phones as women over age 40.
The survey also revealed that more than 80% of US women now use a wireless device and 17% use a smartphone, such as an iPhone, BlackBerry or models from HTC, Samsung, LG or similar. Among those in the 12-24 and 25-39 age groups, smartphone ownership is now 23%. In contrast 11% of women ages 40+ own a smartphone.
When asked about the top benefits of owning a smartphone, the top answers among women were convenience, the ability to send texts and email, and access to social media online.
When asked what technology had the most impact on their life in the past two years, women overall picked the internet, followed by the PC/computer, and cell/wireless in a distant third spot. This changed amongst young women, where a wireless device took the #1 spot:
Technology with the most impact on my life
So how does that impact on how they use social media?
The study found that more mobile usage and smartphone ownership is enabling women to bypass the traditional PC to upload their pictures to social media sites:
- Nearly 74% of 12-24 year-olds say they have taken a photo with their cell phone in the past month.
- Young women are twice as likely have used the internet browser on their cell phone in the past month.
- 22% of 12-24 year-olds used their mobile device to access Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in the past month, making them four times as likely as older women to have accessed social media such as a Facebook profile or MySpace page on their mobile phone.
From that research and the upward trend of smart phone usage, particularly amongst women, who are the bigger users of social media, you don’t need to be Einstein to work out that the smart phone will be the primary connection tool for the Internet and social media online well before 2020.
I would love to hear your thoughts on this, so please leave me a comment on this post.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=42ab36ec-89c0-4176-956c-335b3b3bb822)
Internal Links – Create A Better SEO Result For Your Blog
Filed under: Real Estate On Line Training, Real Estate Technology, SEO & Keyword Optimisation | Tags: Blogs, Google, internet marketing, links, SEO, strategy, yahoo
Comments(4) 
Search Engines
Your blog will have a better SEO result when you utilise good SEO techniques such as link building, and one of the ways to do that is by creating internal links within your posts or content.
A good internal link structure can have a size-able impact on your rankings on the major search engines. Most blog writers either don’t use this strategy or don’t know how to create internal links and it is really quite simple. You want your readers, particularly new readers to discover all your great content, and by including links to your older posts, it gives them a whole new life, as well as maintaining your readers on your blog for a longer stay. For example, in February I wrote a post about Google Analytics and in January I wrote about how important an SEO strategy is to your business, as you see I’ve included internal links to both of these posts I’ve mentioned, knowing that when new readers visit my blog, they will be able to visit those posts and read the stories, effectively giving those older posts a new lease on life.
So here are a few tips for you on creating an internal link strategy and a few things you should avoid:
1. Avoiding Bad Anchor Text: Whilst adding “Click Here Text” may drive a better click through rate, it is not good for anchor text. You need to decide if click here or keywords are more important. In the examples above, I’ve decided that keywords are more important, you can of course mix them up, by including good keywords and then a separate link containing the words “Click Here”. So if you want to rank for “Red Widgets” don’t use the phrase click here. I’ll cover this in my next post.
2. Uneven Distribution of links: Make sure you spread your links around, promote all your old posts in your new content. But one word of advice, don’t over do it. One or two links per post is sufficient.
3. Broken Links – Make sure all your links work,there’s nothing worse for a reader than to click on a link in your post and it not work. If you change or upgrade your blog software it can cause broken links,so make sure they all work and test them regularly. If you are using Google webmaster tools on your blog, it will tell you if a link is broken. But beware, the search engines don’t like broken links.
4. Missed Opportunities: If you are blogging about a subject you’ve written about before, don’t miss the opportunity to link to your older content.
5.Edit Instead of Linking: Sometimes there is the temptation to go back and edit an old post, or you might even want to add some up dated information to it, Well resist the temptation, you are far better to write a new post and then include a link to your old one.
I hope this post on how to create internal links is helpful to you in getting a better result for your blog. You can breath new life into your old articles and posts by creating internal links, and it will help you in the search results.
Good Luck and if you need help please let me know by leaving me a comment on the blog. I’ll always respond to your questions.
You can now download and listen to this post as a podcast, click here to get the latest episode.
Social Media is About Engagement
Filed under: Real Estate Technology | Tags: CEO, facebook, Fortune 500, LinkedIn, social media, twitter
Leave a Comment 
- Image via Wikipedia
There’s a very interesting report from UberCEO about how Fortune 500 CEO’s in the US are largely absent from any form of engagement with social media. The survey revealed:
Another interesting find is that Twitter was the least used service by the Fortune 100 CEOs, despite being one of the fastest growing social media networks. Wikipedia had the highest level of engagement among the Fortune 100 CEOs, yet 28% of those entries had incorrect titles, missing information or lacked sources.
LinkedIn, a site mainly used for professional networking, only attracted 13 Fortune 100 CEOs, five of which had just one connection. Three CEOs stood out from the pack on LinkedIn, each having more than 80 connections. However, they are all from technology companies – Michael Dell (Dell), Gregory Spierkel (Ingram Micro) and John Chambers (Cisco).
While there were slightly more Fortune 100 CEO users on Facebook than on LinkedIn, most of them had limited information on their page and few friends. More surprising is that no Fortune 100 CEO has a public blog that could be easily found.
In my opinion, the top CEOs appear to be disconnected from the way their own customers are communicating. They’re giving the impression that they’re disconnected, disengaged and disinterested. There’s no doubt that some would be nervous of regulations that make CEOs cautious about communicating freely, but they’re missing a great opportunity to connect with their target audience. The survey also showed some of the reasons CEOs aren’t using social media is because of:
- Fear
- Lack of knowledge
- Time constraints
CEO’s can really learn a lot about how consumers use their product or even relate to their company by using social media as a research tool. I believe that customers who can talk with or communicate with a CEO would have a far better engagement with that company. The one thing about social media is it reveals the culture within a company, be prepared to share information with your followers and engage and interact with them, it’s the best form of market research you and your company will ever have.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=d9b00614-4f6d-46de-9a85-ebccd7d29612)
Link Farms & Your Blog – What to Avoid & Why
Filed under: Real Estate Technology, SEO & Keyword Optimisation | Tags: Blogs, Google, link farms, marketing, optimisation, real estate, SEO, wordpress
Comments(3) 
- Image via Wikipedia
During the course of my blog workshops I present a lot of options on how you can promote and syndicate your blog when you are just starting out, and one of the ways you can generate new readers is by putting your blog with, what the experts call, Link Farms.
The question you may have on the tip of your tongue is “What is a link farm? well link farms are web sites that have lots of inbound links that help increase their ranking and page rank on search engines such as Google. Some of these sites actually build or contain links to unrelated web sites, and sometimes these sites also link to themselves. Search engines are very strict on link farms and in some cases ban them all together from being indexed and displayed in search results.
If they are banned by Google for instance, they will lose their page rank, but that’s not the worst part, because if your blog is linked to one of these sites then you too can be banned and lose your page rank. That is why it is extremely important that you know what a link farm is, and you know how to properly identify one so that you avoid linking to that site.
If in the past you haven’t analysed the sites and directories you link to then you really need to start doing so, as they can have a massive impact on your site or blogs ranking. It is most important that you review the site closely before adding a link to it. Hopefully the following advice will help you know what to look for and help identify a link farm.
The Site has lots of links-If you go to a site and it has lots and lots of links then you should immediately realise it is possibly a link farm.
Low Page Rank -Usually link farms get penalised by Google and lose their page rank, therefore you need to be careful if you see a site with a page rank of 0, not all sites with this rank are link farms of course, but at least this will help you start to look more closely at the site.
Little or no content – Those that control link farms don’t care about content, all they want is the inbound links to help drive page rank. Therefore as a rule, don’t Link to a site that has little or no content on it.
Badly maintained sites- Most link farm webmasters don’t maintain their sites very well, links are all that are important to them. I’ve just removed my blog from one site that had heaps of broken links and links to pages that went nowhere. So check them carefully!!
Be careful as well, as to where you link your site, I added a link to a site about 6 months ago that was heavily used by spammers, unknown to me, and this caused my blog to be flagged by WordPress and removed from public view, the first I new about it was when my traffic decreased considerably, so be careful as WordPress will not notify you that you have been flagged.
My advice is to check out the directories and sites really well before you link to them. If you are still not sure, check out some really well known blogs, that have been around for awhile, to get a feel of what sites they link to.
I hope this helps and as always, if you need help, please leave me a comment and I’ll respond accordingly.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=aecb68ba-9a47-4257-8957-2b954112d643)
Home Buyers Twice As Likely to Use Online Than Print
Filed under: On Line Real Estate Portals, advertising, research | Tags: Australia, Harris Interactive, marketing, on line, real estate, Trulia, United States
Comments(2) 
New research from the US today has revealed that Home buyers are twice as likely to use on line sources than print sources to find information about open houses they are interested in, this is according to research conducted by Harris Interactive.
The survey commissioned for Trulia.com found that 62% of US home buyers use or plan to use on line sites to find open houses, compared with 53% who use/plan to use information from real estate agents, 36% who use/plan to use neighborhood signs and less than one-third (31%), who use/plan to use print sources, including newspapers and local flyer’s.
The study also found that though many home buyers rely upon a range of different sources to gather information about open houses, 41% say online sources are their primary resource, while 14% cite print sources.
More than 9 in 10 home buyers in the US (91%) attended or plan to attend open houses during their home-purchase process.
“The real estate section of the weekend newspaper is no longer the go-to resource for open houses,” said Sami Inkinen, co-founder and COO of Trulia. “Home buyers are increasingly going on line to not only search for the most up to date listings but also to obtain rich information about the neighborhood, schools, and local shops.”
Inkinen added that on line sites – such as Trulia – and related iPhone applications have experienced dramatic growth in recent years because they enable home buyers to search for open houses in neighborhoods that interest them, sign up for email alerts and learn more about the local areas in which they’re looking.
“We used to see home buyers walk into open houses with a newspaper in their hands,” said Aman Daro, VP of Integrated Marketing at McGuire Real Estate in San Francisco. “But now they walk in with print outs of their search on the web. What’s more, consumers are walking in very educated from their on line research – they know details about the property and the neighborhood, and are more highly engaged in the process than the casual lookers of years past.”
Here are the results of the survey as published by Harris:
On Line Vs Print
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=ace37edb-d5bd-40be-b8f4-6c9f5a75dc5b)
Mike Andrew’s Real Estate Podcast Series Available for Download
Filed under: Blogging & Podcasting, advertising, social media | Tags: On the Web, podcast, real estate, RSS, Syndication and Feeds, Technology, Uploading and downloading
Leave a Comment 
Mike Andrew's Real Estate Podcast Series
I’ve had a number of people ask me about my podcast series over the past few weeks and where they can download them from, so I’ve included in this post the URL link to download the entire series of 25 podcasts. These are designed as a series for you and you can download and keep them as a reference source on technology and marketing tips.
I’ll continue to update the series on a regular basis so to make sure you get each new episode, subscribe to the RSS feed at www.mikeandrew.podomatic.com, grab the feed from my blog or get them via ITunes by searching podcasts and entering Mike Andrew Real Estate Podcasts.
Let me know if you have any problems with downloading the series.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_a.png?x-id=9eb23006-5704-4cc2-8c10-24b3ed2b3947)
