Online Real Estate Technology

Twitter Micro Blogging

As a follow up to my post yesterday about Twitter and the possibility that the honeymoon might be over, I thought I’d share with you new research from TNS Global about why people use Twitter, It’s a nice follow up to my post yesterday, so here are the findings:

41.6% percent of Internet users who used Twitter did so to keep in touch with their friends.

Why People Use Twitter

In addition, 29.1% used it to update their status, 25.8% to find news and stay updated, 21.7% for work purposes and 9.4% for research.

Men and women both used Twitter primarily to keep in touch with friends. Secondarily, men were interested in finding news and women in updating their status.

Users under age 35 were more interested in broadcasting their status than their senior counterparts. Older users were more likely to use the service for work-related purposes.

The average Twitter user interacted primarily with friends and family.

Why People use Twitter

Next-most-popular were celebrities, bloggers, TV shows, co-workers, brands and journalists.

More women interacted with friends, family and celebrities than men, but men were more likely to follow bloggers.

Older users trailed younger ones in interaction with every Twitter user type except journalists and brands.

Who can Twitter users blame for their addiction? One-half of tweeters said a friend or family member introduced them to the site and 33% were hooked by a co-worker.

So there you have it, and if you’d like to follow Mike Andrew on Twitter then click on the link as follows www.twitter.com/mikeandrewre

Image via CrunchBase

I don’t know about you, but I’m a little over the Twitter fad, I haven’t yet found it a successful advertising or promotion medium and it pails into insignificance when you compare it to Stumbleupon for promotion of blog posts and actually driving readers to your blog or web site.

There are those that will say it works really well for them, but in the last few months I’ve been tracking all the referrers of traffic to this blog and Twitter does not even rate, so either there are a lot of passive followers or as new research indicates very few advertisers think it an effective promotion tool. The survey carried out last month by linkedin Research network/Harris Polls found out of advertisers surveyed only 8% thought it effective.

The study also found that advertisers are more likely than consumers to know about Twitter and are more likely to believe in the microblogging tool’s future power to help promote products and services.

The research, which included surveys of both advertisers and the US public at large, revealed that just less than half of advertisers (45%) think Twitter is in its infancy and its use will grow significantly over the next few years. In contrast, 21% believe Twitter will not move into the mainstream and it will remain something mostly young people and the media will use.

Among consumers, the study found a different picture, especially in terms of awareness. A large majority (69%) say they do not know enough about Twitter to have an opinion about it, 12% think it’s in its infancy, 12% say it is just something that young people and the media use and 8% say it is already over.

Consumer Research Twitter

Effectiveness of Twitter

Among those who have an opinion about Twitter, feelings about the effectiveness of it for promoting products and ideas are lukewarm among both consumers and advertisers:

Among advertisers, just 8% say Twitter is very effective for promoting products and ideas while half (50%) say it is somewhat effective. One-third (34%) of advertisers say it is not that effective and 8% believe it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas.

Only 8% of consumers say Twitter is very effective for promoting ideas and products and 42% believe it is just somewhat effective. Three in ten (31%) consumers say Twitter is not that effective and 19% feel it is not at all effective for promoting products and ideas.

I’d be interested in your thoughts on this survey either from a Twitter user or follower, just leave me a comment.

Red Widget - Is there a question?

Thank you all for the feedback you have given me on what content you would like to see more of in this blog, and with a count of 10 to 1, most of you would like to know more about search engine optimisation, setting up a blog and how to optimise your blog once you have it up and running, rather than more posts about social media. There appears to me to be a bit of burn out around social media, so for awhile, it’s a no go area on this blog.

With that in mind, I thought I’d write a follow up piece to my post last month on Internal Links – Create A Better SEO Result For Your Blog . In that post I mentioned the phrase “ranking for red widgets“, and I said I would qualify my statement in a later post. So, lets look at how to rank for any term you write about when blogging.

Firstly, you need to understand how the search engines work, they will return search results in the order of their perceived relevance to the search phrase requested. The more relevant your site appears to be to the search requested, the higher your site or page will rank.

Lets say you  wanted your page to rank for the term “red widgets”, and this applies to any term that you select that you want to rank for, then you need to think about how you will construct the page. If your page title is about red widgets, your keyword and description tags are about red widgets, your content is unique quality content about red widgets, your page displays images of red widgets and alt text and file names demonstrate that fact, you pick up links from other web sites pointing to yours about red widgets and you include some links to other web sites related to red widgets, does this then make you think that maybe the page or site will be highly relevant to the search phrase red widgets?

Give it a try next time you write a blog post on any subject. Think about how the consumer will search for the phrase or keyword that you use, but be very careful about over using keywords on your page, use them wisely and do  not over saturate the page, otherwise Google will know what you’re trying to do, and she won’t like you at all if you try that little game.

Image via CrunchBase

With the recent addition of real estate to Google maps in Australia a lot of discussion has been generated over its value to the real estate industry.

So far, to my knowledge, of the main portals only myhome and homehound have uploaded listings to Google, although I’m sure that realestate.com.au and domain.com.au internally have been in discussions about the merits of uploading all their listings to Google.

Google will have a full time job controlling the quality of listings available, and making sure that old, outdated or sold stock is removed, just look at the issues that myhome.com.au faced when it first launched in the market with trying to maintain quality with its listings.

During a presentation to one of the major franchises on Tuesday night I was asked my opinion on this very subject and in follow up discussions with a number of people in the industry, this is it seems, more about the potential changing of the guard than anything else.

There is a feeling in the real estate community that Google may just break the monopoly of realestate.com.au.

Well, I thought I’d provide you with a link to an article that Simon Baker, ex CEO of realestate.com.au has written on his blog about this very subject, will it work for Google and what, if any impact will it have on realestate.com.au in the future.

To read the article click here

Experts Are Everywhere

I don’t know about you, but the word expert pops up so often when talking about the internet and marketing, that it’s a wonder there are any of us mere mortals left in the world. There’s the SEO expert, ” I’ll show you in 3 easy steps how to dominate Google” yeah right, the Facebook expert, the Twitter expert and the list goes on,well now there’s a new breed called social media experts.

These are the ones that are popping up everywhere, they’re on  Twitter, a site they probably didn’t even know existed until 2 months ago, pumping out daily updates of useless tweets about social media, what links to click on, who you need to follow etc.

In some cases these so called experts were recently working in the real estate industry, are now unemployed and think that internet marketing and social media is the gravy train they need to get on board with.

Well lets set the record straight, there are no experts in social media, it is evolving at such a rapid rate that no one can be deemed an expert , I know from experience, just trying to keep up with the research is a full time job, then translating that into a solid business strategy takes a lot of hands on experience and knowledge. Just being a user of blogs or Twitter or Facebook does not make you an expert in social media marketing

So beware, the next time you speak to a consultant or are contacted by those who claim to be experts on social media or Internet marketing, check out their background, ask them to list the clients they developed a strategy for from the ground up, and get testimonials from those clients, because the proof is always in the tangible results delivered .

Feedback on Content

I’ve had this blog running now for over 12 months and what started as a bit of fun for me has developed into a great passion. The blog has been more successful than I would have imagined, when I started it in June of last year.

Successful, at least in the number of people who read my posts and visit the blog on a daily basis, so I thought I would ask the question of you, what information do you find the most helpful? What content would you like to see me feature or write about on this blog that helps you the most in your business in the next 12 months?

In checking out the popularity of my posts over the past year, some articles that I thought would be popular were not, whereas other posts on Blogging and SEO were very popular, so it’s clear to me that you prefer certain topics over others.  Articles on Social Media for example, have been amongst my lowest read posts.

So the question I put to you is, which of the following topics would you like more information on:

SEO

Technology

Internet Marketing

Social Media

Blogging & Podcasting

Copywriting

Video

Even if the topic is not listed above, let me know what content you would like and I’ll do my best to provide the information you find most useful.

A little while ago I started a series of posts which were based on the worst property videos that have been featured on youtube. Those posts were very popular with the readers of this blog, so I thought I’d give you another 4 minutes and 43 seconds, sorry, 4 minutes and 44 seconds of sheer painful boredom.

This is just one of a few youtube videos that highlights luxury homes available for sale in Sri Lanka. Again, here is a slide show that is pretending to be a video, and there is not one indoor shot included, just a montage of luxury properties and no voice over. The music featured on the video reflects the country which is in context, but the addition of a voice over, in my mind, would have improved the soundtrack. Remember, some of these properties are for sale at a price range over a million dollars US.

Well, I’ll leave it to you to make up your own mind on how you think this video could have been improved.

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 .

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.

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.