Online Real Estate Technology

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. 

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.

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.

Whilst Twitter & Myspace already provide vanity URL’s for users, Facebook has not until today, well actually from Saturday the 13th June,because that’s the date you’ll be able to get your vanity URL on Facebook. The vanity URL is an important part of social media, because it allows you to create a common theme across all the sites and it makes it easy for your followers to find you.

To get your URL, you’ll need to visit the following link on Saturday, http://www.facebook.com/username/, on the page you’ll find instructions on how to claim your URL or create your own, you will only be able to use numbers, letters & periods , no hyphens or underscores will be allowed. Once you have selected your URL you will not be able to change it.

I would think there will be a rush for names on Saturday so If I were you, I’d make a note in the diary and get in in as soon as the site goes live.

Good Luck   

I’ve been working on a social media strategy paper for a top real estate franchise group and it’s kept me fairly busy during the last couple of weeks and that’s the reason I haven’t been very active on my blog for that period. As part of that strategy, I’ve been looking at the impact of social media on brand building and especially the impact blogs have on the purchasing decisions of consumers.

Blogs, play a major role in influencing the purchasing decision amongst women in particular, and in a recent survey in the US, 85% of regular female blog readers said they were influenced to make a purchase as a result of a review or comment posted on a blog.  So with that in mind, if you’re the company that gets it right, you have a good chance of getting the sale, but what happens if you are on the receiving end of a negative review or comment. How do you protect your brand and how should you respond?

Your customers can now read, listen, discuss and research their purchasing decisions and you need to work harder at customer service than ever before, if you are finding negative or damaging reviews about you,your brand or service then use this as a wake up call. The world of social networks, business review sites and blogs has provided the disgruntled consumer with a voice.

Every employee in your company is now responsible for your brands reputation, and when you as a company, start to live up to your reputation, it becomes a lot easier to manage your brand effectively on line.

If you do find a negative review on any of the sites, resist the temptation to respond defensively and do  not allow any of your staff to respond, you could put the Streisand effect in motion. 

What can be used to deliver a negative can also be used to promote a positive, so use it wisely.  Remember it’s very hard to remove a negative comment or search engine result, but you can promote a positive, just like the company in this video has done. 

If you’d like any additional information on how to manage your brand effectively on line, please ask me, I’d be happy to help advise you and get you headed on the right track.

Twitter Social Media

I’ve been following for a little while now the number of tweets that are appearing on Twitter from some users offering big numbers of followers that can be achieved by signing up to  third party applications and auto follow applications.

Some are free and some charge you for the privilege of using their applications to build followers, but I can’t help but feel that this is not what Twitter is all about, it’s just an ego trip of getting big numbers of followers that in reality have no interest in what you do or say.

I first wrote about this back in March, and since then I’ve seen my following grow slowly, I’ve not tried to push the growth just so I could claim a huge following. To me organic growth that happens because people like the information I provide or they find it useful is far more important to me than having a huge following that never interacts with me. Now I know there are some using Twitter, that by the nature of what they do will always attract a big following, celebrities such as Ashton Kutchner for example, but for me I’ll continue to try and build a following based on good quality links,information and updates, and I’ll be pleased that the followers I have are there because they want good information which is helpful to them in running their business, not because some auto follow system drives them to me.

To those of you who are new to Twitter, build your following on providing good quality links and information, communicate with your target market and to do this, the best advice I can give you is to:

1. Follow
2. Create
3. Engage 

To me this what social media is about, not what Twitter is becoming.

I’d be interested in your comments on this subject.

It’s called Social Media, but sometimes the people who use social media are not social at all. You put a lot of work in setting up your profiles on social media sites, making sure that you include all the relevant information, contact numbers, email address, great looking photo, update it regularly and then – Nothing!! that’s because you do not introduce yourself or work the room. Ahh, have I got your attention with that comment?, you have just entered the biggest conference or social event in the world and if you stand in the corner and do nothing, that is what you will get out of all of your efforts.

Get out and create the handshake, that’s one of the secrets of networking yourself on social media sites. You are not stalking other users, they are there to network just like you and get information from like minded people on all kinds of interests and passions. The more you network or meet people on the web, the more followers you will generate. One of the things that I  notice when I talk to people, is they can talk passionately about the subject that is closest to them when they are face to face, but as soon as they get in front of a computer, they become totally different people.

Twitter, Facebook, Blogs are all big social events and you need to get out and create traffic by inviting and following other users. Start conversations with them, invite them to connect with you and network. This way you will start to build a following and this in turn creates more followers, as like minded people will find you and your sites. Take Twitter as an example, by using Twitter Grader you can find other Twitter users in your area, or better still look at their profiles and follow them, chat with them, share your information or expertise with them and they will respond. Check out my post The Green Green Grass of Home- Try Twitter Grader  for a refresh on this.  Update often, but make your updates relevant, don’t waste their time when they start to follow you, for instance, I made a decision when I started this blog, not to include gossip or to criticise other portals when I post, this blog has always been there to provide you with helpful and useful information on technology and internet marketing, and I’ve stuck to that theme. I only update or post when I have something to say that is relevant to you, my readers.

This networking also applies to your listings, they way you write, structure your content etc, all impacts on the way your listings will be viewed. So get out there, meet and network these social media users, introduce yourself and create conversations. Here’s a great video that will help you get to terms with how to work the room.

Good luck and please let me know your thoughts on this post and wether you found the information helpful.

This post now available as a podcast