Online Real Estate Technology

Effective Blog posts ahead

Every day I can guarantee that you will be impacted in some way by social media, there will be experts telling you, you need a profile on social networks like Facebook, and that Twitter is the best thing since sliced bread was invented, so you create a profile and you start to tell everyone and anyone who will listen about your latest listings and open homes, but is that really the way to approach social media, doing the same thing you do every day on more traditional mediums?

Taking this approach to your social media strategy will do nothing more than waste your precious time, time that could be spent prospecting for new listings and working with your clients face to face.

I know some younger agents who think that social media and the Internet will replace face to face contact, the reality is it won’t, however the very same principles you use face to face, apply to social media, the only difference being the method of delivery.

I know of some real estate groups who have launched their social strategy with profiles on this site and that network, yet  their sites are full of their member offices congratulating themselves on such forward progress, but where is the consumer?, where is the engagement factor?, where is the interaction with the people that count the most, your customers. This should be the reason you create your social media strategy in the first place, to create the local expert, the trusted advisor role, create and engage your community and to provide information and advice for the long term.

One question to ask yourself is, why do people interact within social network sites in the first place? Is it to get your latest listing, or to find out about your open homes, or to get an appraisal? No, No, No, they are there to connect, to engage and interact with other like minded people, to share experiences, to share activities and create a sense of community and to stay in touch with family and friends.

You as a business person need to understand this motivation and work with it to really maximise the return on your investment of time in creating a social media strategy for you and your business

So what is the best way to approach a social media strategy, firstly you need to work out why you want to have a presence on social networks, is it because everyone else is doing it? Is it because your competitor down the road is doing it so you should as well right? Well wrong actually, do it because it gives you another advertising medium to capture the attention of prospective customers, do it because it is a huge billboard of opportunity to take your message to the masses, do it for you and the exposure it can bring you and your brand, do it because you are an expert in your field and do it because people are looking for an expert to advise, coach and motivate them.

Start by doing a business and digital media strategy and look at ways in which you’ll start to build an audience, do you start a blog first, do you jump on Facebook and MySpace or do you start using Twitter and on what network sites do you create a profile.

How do you declare your brand identity? Remember, you should be focused on how you and your team help other people, being the agent to call when listing a property and raising the profile of you and your office on the web.

The first Step, is create accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and YouTube. Check in and see where you fit in to the community, upload or add all of your contacts into Facebook and start a routine of regularly adding “friends” to your page, the goal is to get your personal contacts engaged and to start to follow and engaging with other local businesses, build a schedule so that you can allocate time each week to this, otherwise you will find yourself becoming overwhelmed with trying to keep up with all the conversations that happen.

As you become more familiar with the sites you learn that Linkedin or Twitter may not be for you, that’s fine, at least you are now more informed than you where when you started. You are learning, next you can start to build your blog, your blog web site is your central hub with all roads leading to it, and everything you do should be designed to get people to your blog and interacting with you on your territory.

It’s great to have a Facebook page but even better when you have both working for you; you are in a win win situation.

Remember, with your blog comes responsibility, you’ll need to add content to it regularly and this takes time, so you should allocate at least 2+ hours a week.

Use the same strategy for all the social network sites you use, allocate time each week in your plan to update your sites and remember it’s about engaging your community not only about promoting your latest listing.

We can help you save time and money in building your social media business plan and setting up your pages and blog, we provide weekly coaching clinics that provide information and advice on content and tactics for social media. If you’d like to find out more about our social media integration plans and coaching clinics contact me at Mike Andrew Consulting and we’ll design and set up a coaching plan for you.

Real Time search on Google

Ok, if you been putting off starting a blog or using social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter, it’s time now to think again and very seriously. With the launch yesterday of Google real time search, it opens up a world of opportunity for bloggers and social media users to get their efforts at the top of the search rankings, Google now pulls information as it happens from sources such as friendfeed, Twitter and Facebook as well as blog posts and news feeds.

This is essentially Googles answer to Twitters and Facebooks search engines which provide up to the minute updates on trending topics, and it was a natural extension for it to be applied to search engines, after all they are trying to give you the best response to your search query.

Real time search will enable information to be delivered as it happens, by clicking on “Latest results” or selecting “Latest” from the search options menu to view a full page of live tweets, blogs, news and other web content scrolling right on Google.

You can also filter your results to see only “Updates” from micro-blogs like Twitter, FriendFeed, Jaiku and others.

Latest results and the new search options are also designed for iPhone and Android devices when you need them on the go, be it a quick glance at changing information like ski conditions or opening night chatter about a new movie — right when you’re in line to buy tickets.

So there you have it, create your blog and start writing, and by creating good quality content on your blog or social media network, you might just end up in the number one spot on Google.

It’s the freshness factor that is also important when it comes to getting your information ranked high on Google and now with real time search, you can get fresh up to date information on trending or newsworthy stories as they happen.

If you’d  like to start a blog and don’t know where to start, visit Blogging for Business Packages and get started today.

Last week during a webinar that I participated in with Michael Sheargold and the Real Estate Results Network, I suggested that every real estate office should create a digital media strategy that covers at least the next 12 months. Technology is changing so rapidly for real estate agents and without a plan or strategy in place you’ll find it very hard to keep up. I’ve had some agents talk to me about what should be in this digital strategy, so to help you lets go through the basics of what you should include in your document.

1. Web site SEO – First and foremost in my mind is having your web site search engine friendly. Local search queries continue to increase as does 3+ word keyword searches.

Yellow Pages book usage is decreasing and Internet searches increasing, so that makes it vital that your site appears on the first page of Google. You need to also consider how your site performs, Google are planning to use site speed as a ranking factor and therefore how quickly your site loads will be a consideration. Image heavy sites without alt tags and optimising your pages for relevant keywords needs to be considered.

During the webinar, one industry specialist wrote a comment ” Do you really think that principals or agents actually write their own copy?”  No I don’t, but they need to make sure that what is written on their behalf is search engine optimised and written for the web, not copied from a newspaper. Make sure that you get access to the coding on your site as well, you pay for it, you own it, not like I have encountered recently with one web company attached to the number one real estate portal, they have a very arrogant attitude to you the customer, so if in doubt walk away, there are plenty of web design companies that will help you.

Search Engine Marketing should not replace your web site SEO, use SEM wisely and don’t double up, if you’re on the first page or rank highly for a search term, don’t waste money on Adwords,use them in areas that you don’t rank, remember, Google ranks pages not web sites so you can effectively optimise each page on your web site for keywords.

2.Social Media – Include this into your 12 month plan, small business is lagging behind their big brothers in using and integrating social media into their business. Your customers have embraced social networking and it is becoming the trusted adviser, so you can’t afford to neglect it any longer.

One of the reasons slowing the integration is a lack of knowledge about social media by small business owners, in my mind you are better to try and work with social media than to ignore it, so jump in and have a go. Plan it slowly and use the major sites such as Facebook and Twitter to start with, you can use this as your guide, POST. This stands for:

• People – What is your target market?

• Objective – What do you want to achieve from using social media?

• Strategy – How will you go about communicating with your customers? Status Updates, Coupons, Discounts etc

• Technology - What are the main sites you’ll use to communicate your message? Facebook/Twitter

That at least will help you plan your strategy, also remember, Podcasting, Vlogging and YouTube are powerful tools in getting your message across, plus Google loves video, so use this to your advantage

3. Blogs – Create a blog and add it to your web presence, it allows you to add the personal touch to your on line marketing. ComScore’s research indicates that blogs reach over 48% of the online population in the Asia Pacific region, social media 56.1%.

Blogs are a great way to communicate with your customers and are a great customer service tool, remember though you need to make sure that your content is fresh and relevant to the target market you are aiming at. Google loves blogs because of the constantly updated information they provide and will index them very quickly as well as give them a high ranking, sometimes even over a higher authority site. Wordpress provides a great platform for you to use and I’d recommend the self hosted option as you can use your own domain name and you have much more flexibility.

4. Internet Marketing – Make sure that you have your office details listed with Google business, use different keywords or categories so that you rank on different search pages in your area. Be very selfish with where your links go, you might think its great that your business comes up number one under a realestate.com.au listing in your area, but think where the customer goes when they click on the link, to you? no they go to the portal so make sure your web site ranks on that first page.

Audit your listing on the portals and start to implement good keywords in your copy, remember you’re writing for the web not a newspaper, so think about how people search and what keywords they use. Get those from your own office, you have a wealth of information at your disposal, so ask your staff what words or phrases consumers use when  they contact your office, find the most frequently used and start to weave those into your articles or listing copy.

Don’t leave out of your listing valuable information, Google uses a completeness filter on Google real estate, so the more information in your listing the higher the rank, makes sense really doesn’t it.  

5. Technology – Make sure you stay informed on technology that impacts on how your customers find you, Augmented Reality and QR codes are examples, be aware of the impact they are having and factor these into your strategy.

I hope that helps you in planning for the next 12 months, having this in place is a good start in improving the way you market and communicate with the online consumer, it also improves your businesses “Future Fitness”  for digital marketing.

Watch Out for the Twitter DM Hacker

Watch out the Twitter DM hacker has struck again, having been a victim myself only last week please make sure you log in to Twitter and change your password. Don”t be tempted to share your Twitter log in details with any third party software program that you don’t trust.

The DM spam attack, presumably being spread by hacked Twitter accounts, contains unknown but dubious content, and we advise you to avoid clicking on anything that appears suspicious. Be on the look for tweets like, “hi, did you do this quiz thingy.”

I lost a few followers last week because of these hacked DM’s so please be warned and be careful. If you’d like to check the latest on these, search “dm spam” on Twitter.

Yes, well here we go again, another one of those, I’ve got  a list of over “9,000″ Twitter followers so I’m a social media expert marketing forms has hit my desk today. Come along it says, “to my affiliate marketing driven roadshow and in 4 hours I’ll make you the expert, but there’s more, if you sign away your hard earned money right now, i have an e-book special for you, yes just for you, an E-Book that I didn’t write by the way,but I’ll pretend its mine, and all it will cost you is $89.00.”

I get emails like this every day, offering free product that I can sell or give away as my own, I get E-Books, money making ideas and lots of materials that I can re-brand, that’s not being an expert, that’s a faker.

These so called experts all have massive numbers of followers on social media sites like MySpace and Facebook and of course Twitter, and they fool you to part with your money.

Well don’t fall for it, because I’m going to tell you how to fake it, and then you too can be the instant social media expert, you know, the one who can’t get a job selling real estate so they opt for this easy money.

Ok this is how you do it, On MySpace and Facebook, you find as many people with similar names or interests as you and then send them friend requests, a lot will decline but you would be surprised at the number that actually come back and accept you, that way you build up your following very quickly, they never do anything with you but hey it builds your numbers. Next Twitter, there are a number of programs that will show you how to build big follower numbers and it’s funny but it’s nearly always around the 9000 mark. You can do the same with Twitter as you do with MySpace and Facebook, that is follow large numbers of people and I’ll guarantee you a fair number will follow you back, and you know the dead giveaway? look at the follower number next to the following number, that they can’t hide.

I know of one expert that actually sends out his flyers with “I have 9000 followers on twitter” so I must be good, well one thing he doesn’t tell you is he follows over 10,500. If you really want to get serious with this, have a look at the Twitter accounts with large followings, 99% of them are well known actors, celebrities or business people, so what does that tell you.

I have always taken the tack that to build a social media following you should earn it, build it on providing good quality information and advice and create the “Expert” tag through experience and generate your followers organically not by underhand means and faking it.

There are so many “snake oil” sales people out there you really need to hang on to your wallet.

So next time you get a flyer or an invite, stop and do some research first, the web and Google are a great place to find out information on your expert. How many articles have they had published?, where do they rank on Google?, What recommendations do they have and what companies have they worked with in designing and integrating a social media strategy. For example, I’ve just done a search on social media experts, and this person I’m telling you about doesn’t even rank on the top 20 pages.

Is this sour grapes? no, I just don’t like rip off artists who pray on people like you.

If you’re a real estate agent or small business owner just getting into a social media strategy, or already using social media networks such as Facebook and you haven’t yet created a Facebook brand page, then go and create one right now. They are an excellent way of promoting your brand not only to others on Facebook, but also promoting your brand or product via Facebook adds.

If you are considering using Facebook adds or any form of on line advertising then it’s important to understand the searching and viewing habits of the audience you’re trying to impact. Social media sites are changing the way we search on line, and as marketers, relying on this information and understanding where and how your audience views or searches for information on social media sites is vital.

So which are the best days to run your adds or banners, and which days generate the best click thru rates for advertisers? Some new research out today helps shed some light on this and I’ve detailed some of the results for you.

Content posted on Facebook based brand pages has a higher than average click thru rate on a Tuesday, the average click thru rate on Tuesday is 9.89%, the highest of any day. Wednesday follows closely behind with click rates of 9.87%.

Friday and Saturday had the lowest click rates with a very measly 2.67% on Friday and 2.7% on Saturdays. If you  take all the days into account, click thrus for Facebook brand pages average 6.76%. This average is lower than Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but still much higher than average CTRs for display advertising across social networks in general, including Facebook itself.

So really what this research means, is that certain days of the week are better for launching a product promotion, and by really understanding how consumers use social media sites, you and your company can start to target where you’ll get the best return on your investment.

In a nut shell, you really need to have a well thought out communication strategy for updating your Facebook brand page, and an understanding of when to create promotions to get optimum response.

Response to your marketing on social media sites is better early in the week then dwindles and picks up again on Sundays.

What I’ll cover for you in the next post on this subject, are results of the latest eye tracking study on social media pages, where are users eyes focused when viewing these pages and how does it differ from other web page viewing.

This has an impact when you’re deciding to use advertising on social sites such as Facebook etc, does your target market actually look at the adds? I’m sure you’ll find that an interesting read.

About the data:The sample data reported is compiled from nearly 200 million fans impressions on Facebook pages over a five-month period (March – August 2009).

For some time now I’ve been using my social media network as my on line CV, suggesting to prospective clients and others I work with “to check me out on line and Google me” if they’d like to know more about what I do and a number of times this has been very effective for me and has led to new clients and speaking engagements on using social media to drive new business .

By using this method I’ve found it really gives them a good understanding of what I do, and of course, when it comes to working with them on a web campaign or social media strategy they have a clear understanding of what can be achieved. I’ve effectively replaced the old style paper resume with a new generation concept, and once they do a search on me they see all the web sites I own, articles I’ve written and those that have been syndicated and can see my area of expertise far better than I could explain or show on paper.

There is however a down side to all of this, and that’s why your on line presence or social network needs to managed very carefully and you need to be really aware of what information you put on line on your Facebook or Myspace page, as those photos, words or comments can really come back and bite you big time!!

Job seekers today are being urged to manage their on line footprint very carefully, because a recent report by Viacom in the UK, found that 1 in 5 employers had researched social networking sites and found personal information about prospective employees, and 59% said it had influenced their recruitment decision.

Amongst the reasons given for not employing people they had researched on the net, were and I quote, “His MySpace website showed a negative side to him including excessive alcohol abuse and disrespect for his job’ and ‘We found that the candidate was on the local police wanted list.’ The report also found that we as users of social media sites are leaving significant footprints of personal information on the web, as we use blogging sites, social networking sites etc.

The spread of people posting personal information on the web is not limited to younger generations though, with 31% of all internet users leaving personal information, which is searchable by anyone, on the web. However, the biggest group of information providers are in the age group 18-24, with just under half of those questioned for this survey, posting personal information on Facebook, MySpace and Youtube. The biggest concern to come out of this survey though, is that over 54% of the 18 to 24 year olds questioned during this research,responded that someone other than themselves, had posted photos, information and comments about them without their approval.

So, with the rise of search engines such as Google and Yahoo, be aware that employers are never more than a click away from getting information about you the job seeker, and of course, the same is true for companies, as job seekers are able to research information about prospective employers, so this is really a two way street.

The upshot of all of this is that you really need to think very carefully about the information you put on social network sites and you need to protect your name or brand. Your on line reputation is so vitally important today that you can’t afford to neglect it.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this post, or even if you’ve experienced this problem yourself, so please leave me a comment.

It’s amazing how quickly you can get out of the discipline of writing blog posts, and having just returned from the US and not having written any articles for awhile, it’s really taken me a little time to get back in the mode again.

But here we go, I’ve written a lot about the impact social media usage is having around the world and having spent the first part of August attending the Inman technology conference in San Francisco, where social media was a dominant theme, I thought I’d take a look at what is happening in the Australian market. 

In June, over 70% of Internet users visited a social network site, that transposes into an increase of 29%. So which sites were the most popular? Facebook had the most increase out of all the sites, with Twitter benefiting from it’s mainstream popularity.

Nearly nine million Australians visited a social network in June, making it among the more popular content categories on-line. Facebook led the sector with over 6 million visitors, growing 95% from last year.

Other interesting facts are as follows: Windows Live Profile chalked up close to two million visitors, but Twitter grew the most, rising to 800,000 visitors in June — up from 13,000 in June of last year. What’s more, social networking use is quite high across the web, composing almost 90% of users that populated Australia’s top Internet properties for the month.

Social media is now an essential part of peoples’ daily on-line routine, providing a level of engagement and reach that far exceeds most other content categories, so understanding how to leverage this audience successfully is both a challenge and significant opportunity for most small business owners.

If you are still  mystified by social media, let me know and I’ll help shed some light on how you can successfully tap into this medium for your business. Another idea is to attend one of my forth coming workshops on social media.

As always, let me know if I can assist you or answer any questions you may have with regard to Internet marketing and web site SEO. 

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 .

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 .