Online Real Estate Technology

Looking at the impact that new media and web sites such as Facebook and Myspace have on how people communicate with each other got me to thinking about how much impact they have on “Word of Mouth”.

Social media sites,Blogging and podcasting have had a huge impact on how businesses and individuals can get their message out to a ready and willing audience on the internet, Well, have you ever given any thought on how this might be impacting what you do on a day to day basis?

In my On Line Reputation management presentation I look at the impact of web sites that allow consumers to publish comments about you or your business and rate a service that you may have provided and how that comment can kill your business if it’s bad. In fact when planning my recent overseas trip, I frequently went to tripadvisor.com to check on a hotel or service provider and if it was given a negative review and there were a number of these about my choice, I would change my hotel based on those comments. I believed the consumer and these comments were published and available for everyone to see.  

So the question I ask is, if this is the impact of negative comments, what would the impact be of positive reinforcement of your brand, business or service and is the method of reinforcing this word of mouth advertising changing? To me the simple answer is yes it is bigtime, so are you or your business ready to really change the way you approach social media and the internet? Are you adopting new communication tools in your business?, are you aware of what comments are being made about you, your business or industry? If so are you gearing up to take full advantage of the power of the new word of mouth?

Here’s an interesting video about the change in Word of Mouth advertising from Gary VayNerChuk, Internet businessman and celebrity about brand building and the way that word of mouth is changing in 2008/2009:

Are you still using traditional marketing tools to generate prospects on your web site? Well the world is changing as far as web marketing goes and you need to make sure that the strategies in place in your office keep up with the changing trends and web savvy consumers. There is no problem in getting leads from your web presence, the big problem that you will face is converting those leads to business. In Australia approx 30% of all email leads generated by the 2 major portals go unanswered, that is , no response at all from the agents who receive them. The other factor is agents who receive leads from consumers with false names, incomplete email addresses etc and those who really don’t want to do business for the next 12 months or so. 

So using traditional thinking with these prospects is doomed to fail, traditional thinking dictates that we ”do business right away” and generally someone considering selling or buying in the next 6 to 12 months is classed as a poor lead or a tyre kicker.

The psychology of Web marketing is entirely different. The typical Web buyer or seller begins the home-search process up to 12 to 18 months prior to moving. The major portals research also indicates that over 39% of their traffic spends up to 9 to 12 months researching properties and constantly revisits the sites looking for and researching properties. The same can be said for the seller, up to 33% of all visitors to real estate portals are vendors looking to find an agent to market their property. So to cope with this situation, you must have a system to stay in touch on a regular basis or to motivate them to visit your Web site or blog repeatedly.

Using web 2.0, agents can now use the tools to communicate better or more effectively with these consumers and constantly be top of mind, so when the decision to buy or sell is made, you are the agent of choice. Email campaigns have being hampered by the large amount of spam mail over the past few years and have very quickly lost there effectiveness to the new web savvy consumer, who really wants to and does use the social networking sites as a form of communication. Whatever solution you come up with it, it is most important that you stay in front of your target market on a consistent basis.   

So what are those tools?

1. Blogging – This allows agents to provide additional information and post updates on their market. Set up a blog that reflects your area and constantly work that blog, advertise it in all your marketing as well as maximise your readership via RSS feeds. Syndicate your blog to other sites that help drive traffic to your blog.

2. Podcasting – Deliver your message in the recorded format and allow consumers to download information on a regular basis. Create a series of interesting podcasts, based on information that vendors, consumers and landlords or tenants will find useful. This week alone, my podcasts have been downloaded over 210 times.

3. Video Profiles – This includes your office and properties. Upload to youtube,realestate.com.au,domain.com.au and your own web site and actively market these in your listing presentations. Read my earlier post about video and it’s impact on perceived property values. http://mikeandrewrealestate.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/property-videos-increase-percieved-property-value/

4. Use the social networking sites such Facebook and myspace to market yourself. Create user groups and invite people or your customers to join your group. You can even market to employer groups via these sites.

Those are just a few thought starters for you, if you would like to know more about these ideas, then come along to the Domain Power Breakfasts in Qld, tomorrow at Toowoomba, Wednesday Maroochydore on the Sunsine Coast and Bundaberg next Wednesday. I’ll be presenting all these ideas and discussing how you can really use web 2.0 to it’s fullest extent.

Another great idea is to include something that will keep your readers coming back to your blog or web site, so lets try this experiment. Have fun with this link, this game is Iphone compatible and I’m sure, like me, you’ll have a lot of fun with it.

http://www.psychicchicken.com/

If you would like additional information on anything included in this post, send me a comment or better still come and see me live at the breakfasts over the next few weeks. Information is listed below for you.   

http://mikeandrewrealestate.wordpress.com/2008/10/17/domaincomau-power-breakfast-location/

I recently came across a comment in my travels that I’ve used quite frequently in my presentations and I believe it hits the spot, “Real estate agents will not be replaced by technology, they will be replaced by agents with technology”. 

When I really started to look at this in more detail and the impact it would have on business if an agency did not start to embrace it, got me into looking at the consumer angle on all this technology and was there an overload of information. This is only an assumption on my part but I believe the answer is yes. The real estate agent role has changed from controller of the information to the facilitator, and if an agent could communicate this more effectively through their marketing both on line and off would it provide more leads and or listings.

Some interesting research on the buyer/seller relationship comes from the California Association of Realtors, their Traditional Vs Internet Buyer research showed that whilst 81% of buyers search the Internet to find homes, 56% of these same buyers search the net to find a real estate agent to either buy from or to list or to use as an information source, so it seems to me that we should focus on demystifying the technology and bring it back to real life. 

There’s an interesting blog on this if you would like to read about the consumer angle:

http://transparentre.com/2008/08/23/consumer-internet-fatigue.aspx

I first saw this software program when I worked for PBL’s myhome.com.au and Microsoft was a shareholder, they gave us a demonstration of this product about 12 months ago, and what a fantastic product it is. It has taken Microsoft about that long to get the program from taking a day and a half to process the synths to today where it takes a moderately powered computer about 5 mins to calculate a synth of about a dozen photos, matching elements they have in common to reconstruct the subject.  Essentially the software arranges photo sets in their real-world, 3-D context and allows people to navigate smoothly around the canals of Venice, for example, or zoom in to read the serial numbers on the space shuttle’s heat shields.. Imagine what it could do for the average real estate home photos. You could open the door of the house or apartment for the first time and fully experience every element of the design and architecture. This program is already finding it’s way into the commercial real estate industry with one New York based Realtor using the program to showcase high end properties to out of town clients who can’t personally make the open home. 

To get started all you need is a Microsoft Windows Live ID to create a free account and then to create and view the “synths” you’ll need to download an 8mb piece of software. From there you just create your “synth” and add copyright to your photos if needed.

To Shoot:Use any off-the-shelf digital camera, shoot lots of overlapping photos of an object or scene, specifically for Photosynth. Don’t just throw every photo on your computer into the system. Start with wide-angle shots, moving around to cover the whole subject. Then take closer, detail images. Subjects with lots of texture do best.

The web site has experienced large traffic volumes since launch last night and has temporarily shut down, however you can still visit and get a rough idea of how it all works, so for you all here’s the web address and once they get the site up and running again, I’m sure we’ll all have a load of fun.

www.Photosynth.com

I get asked about this quite frequently, SEO and keyword searching, are subjects that a lot of real estate agents get confused about when trying to get that coveted position on the major search engines. I’ll cover it a little later in future posts but in the meantime, here is an interesting article and video that may help you when it comes to writing your keywords. I hope it helps. Let me know if you find this article interesting.

Click here to view: http://internetrealestatesuccess.com/2008/08/21/attract-the-customers-you-want-with-the-right-keywords/

You can now check out my podcast for Using Video On Your Property Listings: 

http://mikeandrew.podOmatic.com/entry/2008-08-21T00_16_06-07_00

Have Fun, I did putting it together

Hi All, I’ve got the dates and locations organised now for the seminar roadshows for September and thought I would share them with you, if you would like to come along I’ll be covering new technology for real estate, blogging and podcasting and how to set them up and how to maximise your searching on google, as well as showing you how to make your property listings perform better on the internet as well as a segment on On Line Reputation Management, which is essential to you and your business in todays digital world. I’ll also cover social networking sites such as facebook and myspace and how you can use these sites to market you, your brand and your properties. The dates and locations are as follows:

1. Tuesday 9th September Greek Club & Convention Centre 29 Edmonstone street South Brisbane
2. Wednesday 10th September Oatlands Golf Club Bettington Road Oatlands Sydney NSW
3. Thursday 11th September Melbourne Bowling Club 138 Union Street Windsor Victoria

To register contact on 1300 662 203, realestate@kaplan.edu.au, visit www.kaplanprofessional.edu.au or complete the registration form below and fax back to 1300 360 834.

I’ll look forward to seeing you there if you can make the seminars.

Well just as you are getting used to the “new” technology of blogging!! along comes another update on this called Vlogging. This is where you get to put video to your blog, now if you are like me and have a good face for radio!! then you may shy away from this, but if you really want to add some new zing to your blog then this could be right up your alley, the team at MyTechopinion.com are running a competition for agents to try vlogging, so if you think you can create a video that answers the following question: What technology product or service has made the biggest impact on your real estate business? And why?Then have some fun and enter the competition, Heres the link and good luck if you decide to enter, come to think of it, I might even give it a try myself. Although I’m not exactly the Brad Pitt of the real estate industry!!

So, you’re still using old style virtual tours and standard old photos to market your clients listings and don’t know the benefits of video, well this post just may help. A number of agents that I deal with regularly are starting to use video now in place of the old style virtual tour and in a recent survey over 54% of people who viewed a video stated they would not go back to the old style virtual tour once they had seen the property in a professionally produced video tour. In one of my recent posts I highlighted some PRD research which indicated that over 87% of people view a property first on the net, and with such a large percentage of people starting their search on the net, the use of video is the first thing that comes to mind. Video gives the property searcher a first hand experience of the property in real time, and you can use video to showcase the local neighbourhood and street appeal of the area. The content on your video is “evergreen” and allows people evaluating your listings to get a real feel for the area. You can also use video to profile your agency and your team, allowing each member to showcase themselves as identities within your office. This can be left with prospective clients as a listing tool, accessed via your web site or used on the real estate portals as your find an agent profile, and you can give your client a copy of the video as a memento.

Are there any listings that can’t benefit from a video tour? no I don’t believe so, any property will benefit from being presented properly and a professionally produced video will showcase every property to it’s best potential. Videos can also be uploaded to social networking sites such as youtube and recently Century 21 in the US ran a competition asking vendors to video their own property and upload to youtube for a chance to win a cash prize, also not a bad prospecting concept, the results in some cases are quite funny and I’ve included one very interesting video for you to look at. One word of warning though, make sure you get a professional video company to shoot your video, you will only get once change to engage the buyer and or prospective vendor, so make sure your video meets their needs. Make your video engaging, informative and compelling to watch and remember this product is a highly portable piece of content so make sure you upload it to facebook, youtube and email.

Now click on the link and see how not to do it, enjoy

I’ve just finished a presentation for my friends at Century 21 Australia about setting up blogs to provide interesting and updated information about the market, their products and listings etc to help further promote themselves and their vendors/clients properties to the on line world, and also how real estate agents can benefit from blogging in their local community’s. I’ll be presenting these ideas and suggestions at workshops for real estate agents in Mackay on the 1st September and followed up by 3 day long presentations on the 9th September in Brisbane, 10th September in Sydney and 11th in Melbourne, all sponsored by Domain.com.au.

If you would like to attend please let me know via my blog and I’ll forward information on venues etc, in the meantime here is an interesting read on marketing your blog. Once you have set up your blog, you’ll need to include good content and start to market your blog via your listings, press and internet advertising.

Getting started is probably the hardest part, the rest is quite simple, good luck.

http://www.mytechopinion.com/2008/01/marketing-your-real-estate-blog.html