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SILENCE OF THE REAL ESTATE MARKETING

May 18, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Almost every Real Estate marketing agent values Facebook. The Facebook effect may be creating another phenomenon. The MLS (Multiple Listing Service) has always been the mainstream way to sell your home in the U.S. Some people, however, do not want signs up on the lawns or photos of their master bedroom online. No Real Estate marketing allowed. Some brokers have to be creative and use their own contacts to find potential buyers. An estate currently for sale by Dreyfus is on the private market. Even the price is private.

 CNNMoney reported recently: “Hastings’s Facebook rant draws FCC’s attention”. CNNMoney further said that people are still paying attention to Reed Hastings after all. The Netflix (NFLX) CEO’s Sunday rant directed at Comcast (CMCSA), a favorite target of his, is getting all kinds of attention. The Federal Communications Commission paid attention and they are looking into the matter. Comcast, he says, is violating net-neutrality rules by favoring its own video streams on its Xfinity network over those of competitors. Many of the responses have to do with his chosen venue: Facebook. Hastings, of Facebook’s board, said he spent a weekend using “four good internet video apps” through his Xbox: Netflix, HBO Go, Xfinity and Hulu. Only in the case of Xfinity, he said, was the stream not counted against his Comcast data cap.

Hastings also said: “for example, if I watch last night’s SNL episode on my Xbox through the Hulu app, it eats up about one gigabyte of my cap, but if I watch that same episode through the Xfinity Xbox app, it does not use up my cap at all. I used the same device and the same IP address, using the same WI fi on the same internet connection, but a totally different cap treatment. How can this be neutral?”

Matt Peckham from Times said: “Xfinity streams video over its own private IP network. The network still intersects with the Internet where streaming rivals like Netflix or Hulu are concerned”. It does not matter that Comcast’s network is private. They still get their video from the public Internet, which is supposed to treat all data equally.

Filed Under: Real Estate Marketing

YOUR CONTACT DETAILS ARE FILED

May 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Results of a new Inc. Magazine/Cargo study reveal that the needs of small businesses are commonly ignored by the very companies that try to sell products and services to them. Among the 540 Small Business Owners responding to the nationwide survey, more than half said that brands are ineffective at marketing to them. If potential clients are complaining that they cannot reach the Small Business Owners, one has to investigate the marketing strategies of the smaller businesses. One of the most important aspects is to ensure potential clients can reach you.

You do expect people to contact you sooner or later when you hand them your business card. In reality this is much different. Your card simply gets filed or placed in a box somewhere. Currently or at the time they do not have any need to contact you. It is, however, possible that they need your contact details in future and then cannot find your well designed business card. It can be much more convenient if a potential client can find all your contact details with a tap on the screen or a click of the mouse.

An online business card works much better and it is available. The available products on the market are mostly downloads of a VCF format file which easily imports to Outlook, but do not import easily into other forms of address books people require. You need a product that shows tracking statistics, offer QR codes and make it possible to receive automatic updates when you change your contact information.

The Canadian company called Contact Monkey does just that. Their product displays your information and picture in an online business card. It features nineteen different address book formats. This is a great and easy way of having your information stored on their address book that they use daily. It can be their Blackberry, Android, Windows or iPhone. The client also gets the option to receive updates when you change any of your information.

Filed Under: Real Estate Marketing Tagged With:

REAL ESTATE MARKETING AND LINKEDIN NON-PROFIT SOLUTIONS

March 9, 2012 By 1 Comment

On March 22, LinkedIn announced it had surpassed 100 million users, growing at two new members per second. However, more importantly, LinkedIn has 3.6 million individual members who identify as employees, real estate marketing or board members of a non-profit. More than 1,000 non-profit organizations have established a company page, and there are 76,000 non-profit groups on LinkedIn.

Given that, it’s great news to hear that LinkedIn is putting more resources into supporting non-profit professionals and organizations. On May 9, the company launched LinkedIn Non-profit Solutions under its LinkedIn for Good brand.

LinkedIn brought on Bryan Breckenridge, former director of nonprofits and education at the Salesforce.com Foundation. The company has begun taking the steps to address nonprofits’ needs but will be doing a lot more, he says. For starters, LinkedIn has opened a learning centre page for nonprofits with great pointers, ideas and resources for maximizing a nonprofits’ presence on the site. Markets use LinkedIn for purposes such as real estate marketing. The learning centre specifically offers examples and best practices about how non-profit professionals and non-profit organizations can take advantage of LinkedIn.

Discounted recruiting solutions are a core part of the new LinkedIn Non-profit Solutions. Bryan says this year they will aggressively discount the price of three primary LinkedIn Recruiting Solutions products for nonprofits, starting as low as $400 per month (which is still a lot for smaller nonprofits):

• LinkedIn Recruiter
• Jobs Network/Job Slots
• Career Pages

LinkedIn Recruiting Solutions can help nonprofits differentiate themselves and recruit the right staff members, volunteers and board members to accomplish their missions. Visit the learning centre and click on the “contact us” button if you want more information about these products.

Companies, e.g. real estate marketing, make use of this network for optimization. This is great news for non-profit organizations that want to take advantage of the power of LinkedIn’s network. For example, a simple search for “volunteer manager” turned up in 287,985 member profiles within LinkedIn Recruiter. LinkedIn also foresees a formalization and globalization of its program at the start of 2012.

 

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EXCITING TRENDS FOR REAL ESTATE MARKETING

February 24, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the more exciting trends to keep an eye on closely these days for real estate marketing is immersive environments. Consider this app:

 

Tour Wrist resuscitates the 360 virtual tours, a play not new to real estate marketing but one that has long been on life support. Rather than spinning an image around using your mouse, Tour Wrist makes use of your device’s internal compass and gyroscope. As you move your iPhone or iPad around in real space, you mimic the view of the panorama on your screen.

 

It feels a little strange doing it, but the effect (especially on the iPad’s larger screen) is transfixing. You really feel like you are peering through the ether into another place. It’s no wonder it walked off with the 2012 Best of Show award at last week’s Macworld | iWorld conference in San Francisco.

 

Swivel is another exciting development. The app uses Microsoft’s Kinect technology to create a virtual dressing room where you can try on virtual representations of real world goods.

The demo is impressive.

 

Clearly, there are some cues here for real estate marketing. Getting a real sense for a particular property has been always been elusive online. We have layered photos on maps to provide them with some degree of geographic context. Smartphone cameras and photography apps like Instagram have given us a peek into what makes a neighborhood or property truly special. In addition, video may finally be making a dent in real estate marketing budgets this year.

 

However, we have yet to get inside a home virtually. The notion that we will be able to transport ourselves virtually may seem like the stuff of science fiction today. Do not forget Google Maps Street View to see neighborhoods up close. There were 250, 000 miles of US streets photographed. Users get full panoramic 3D to virtually either walk or jog neighborhoods of interest right from their mouse pad.

 

Filed Under: Featured, Real Estate Marketing

GET GOING WITH GREAT REAL ESTATE MARKETING

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

As a small business, there is going to be competition around Local Search Engine Optimization. Understand that you do not have a lot of time. Therefore, you have to be smart about the time you do spend building your online presence for Local Search Engine Optimization. Gather as much information as possible before digging in, and then build your local community. After all, that is where you will see the most ROI!

LOCAL SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION AND REAL ESTATE MARKETING:

As much goes in to Local Search Engine Optimization as goes into Search Engine Optimization in general. The difference is focus – your focus – and where you put your efforts for Real Estate Marketing. If you have a physical store on top of your online presence, you will need them to get your own Local Search Engine Optimization done… like some of the important key factors such as NAP (Name, Address, Phone number). If you are a local real estate, your site needs to have all three pieces of information on it, especially on the contact page:

  • Provide a local number, even if you have a toll free number, too.
  • Do not use an image for this information. Make sure it is all searchable text.
  • Use full names with no abbreviations (i.e. avenue, instead of ave.).
  • Include zip code, city and state information.
  • Be consistent. Wherever your company and URL are, make sure your NAP is the same.

 

Google Local Listings powered by the information in Google Places  prominently listed in Local Search Engine Optimization results. To do Real Estate Marketing this is a free opportunity. You can feature your real estate name, map, contact information, and more. Once Google approves your business, go to maps.google.com . Google local listings often appear on searches that include regional keywords, such as “Iowa City restaurants” but are now coming up for services that are typically done on a local level

One important thing to remember – most all of these sites will require verification from you that you actually exist and posted the listing. Normally this is via an email, but in some cases, it may be via an automated phone call. So make sure you provide a phone number that you can answer quickly or else your hard work may be for nothing. Get going with great Real Estate Marketing.

Filed Under: Featured, Real Estate Marketing Tagged With: , , ,

PICTURES THAT ARE NOT GOOD FOR REAL ESTATE MARKETING

February 10, 2012 By Leave a Comment

About 250 million photos are uploaded each day on Facebook for personal and Real Estate Marketing purposes, according to the social network’s media site. Sharing pictures became a very popular activity on Facebook.

Facebook etiquette about photos is a common complaint among users.

It remains a topic of controversy whether to limit who can tag you in an image, or if pictures of other peoples’ kids should be shared. The best course of action in such situations seems to be obvious — delete these photos from the social network as soon as possible, whenever possible, so that it does not reflect on your Real Estate Marketing. But as Ars Technical reports, the photos you delete may still exist via direct links to the image, even years after you thought you removed the photo from your profile.

On Monday, Facebook confirmed to Techno log that the social network does have photos in its system that users believe to be deleted. Instead, these images live on, hiding out on content delivery networks which store copies of network data. “Approximately 2 percent of users’ photos are being stored in an older system that was not properly deleting (these images) after a user deleted the photo on the site,” Facebook spokesperson Fred Wolens said.

How many photos is that? In September 2011, Facebook had more than 140 billion photos, making it 10,000 times larger than the photo catalog in the Library of Congress. So that’s nearly 3 billion photos stored on that hoarding system — though who knows how many are supposed to be deleted, let alone how many feature the drunk and/or otherwise humiliated among us?

At any rate, said Wolens, “We are in the process to migrate these photos to the newer system to ensure proper deletion, but until this migration is complete (ETA four to eight weeks) CDN URLs from deleted photos stored on this legacy system may still be accessible.”

Ars Technical first reported Facebook problems with photo retention in 2009, and at the time was told by a Facebook spokesperson something similar — that the social network was “working with our content delivery network (CDN) partner to significantly reduce the amount of time that backup copies persist.”

Follow-ups stories by Ars Technical 2010, and again on Sunday reported that images believed to be deleted by readers as far back as 2008 still exist via direct links on Facebook. Think twice if you are about to share pictures on your Facebook that can affect your Real Estate Marketing in a negative manner.

Filed Under: Featured, Real Estate, Real Estate Marketing Tagged With:

REAL ESTATE MARKETING IS NO LONGER TRADITIONAL

February 8, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Social media Real Estate Marketing is the process of gaining website traffic through social media sites. Wikipedia said: “Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns”.

Networking websites like Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, You Tube and blogs allow individuals to comment on products and services. Products or Real Estate companies join those sites; people can interact with the product or company. That interaction feels personal to users because of their previous experiences with social networking site interactions. Because the information about the product is being put out there and is getting repeated, more traffic is brought to the product/company.

Besides research tools, there are many Real Estate Marketing companies providing specialized platforms/tools for social media marketing, such as tools for:

  • Social Media Monitoring
  • Social Aggregation
  • Social Book Marking and Tagging
  • Social Analytics and Reporting
  • Automation
  • Social Media
  • Blog Marketing
  • Validation

Traditional Real Estate Marketing techniques include print and television advertising. The Internet had already overtaken television as the largest advertising market.Websites often include banner or pop-up ads. Social networking sites do not always have ads. In exchange, products have entire pages and are able to interact with users. Television commercials often end with a spokesperson asking viewers to check out the product website for more information.

Advertising is beginning to move viewers from the traditional outlets to the electronic ones. Through social networking sites, Real Estates can have conversations and interactions with individual followers. This personal interaction can encourage a feeling of loyalty into Real Estate followers and potential Real Estate customers.

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ARE YOU LOST IN REAL ESTATE MARKETING?

February 3, 2012 By 2 Comments

Lost between two places:

The difference between Google Places and Facebook Places can be confusing when you are in Real Estate Marketing. Google Places is a dominant mapping and data marketing tool for Real Estate. Facebook Places is a social networking tool. Facebook Places is a new attribute of location based services using the mobile network. Facebook attempted to buy Foursquare, but decided to initiate a service and incorporate it within the Facebook platform. Google Places is a powerful place of technologies to help you with Real Estate Marketing.

Function of Google Places:

Roslyn Layton explains it best: “Google Places automatically enters your real estate and address into Google Places, but if you are the Real Estate owner, you can revise and enhance the entries. You can post reviews, provide directions and descriptions, define a service area, note operating times and payment accepted, select categories of products, upload pictures and videos of the location and merchandise and provide coupons. Companies with multiple locations can upload a spreadsheet in lieu of entering addresses individually: a business with hundreds of locations typically will purchase this service from a provider such as Axixom. By doing this, the entry receives an “owner-verified” badge on the location along with secure PIN protection. All of this data integrates with Google Analytics and Adwords, allowing the company to conduct geo-based marketing campaigns”.  Furthermore she says what is interesting is the ability to determine how users find the place of business, providing a geographic map overlay of where customers are located. If the company uses paid search, the owner-verified Google Places result will be included in the ad, taking up more valuable real estate on the Google results page.

Understanding Google Places:

Google Places is a suite of products to do your Real Estate Marketing in Google. The technology is Geographic Information Service (GIS), web cartography and enterprise business directories. In short Google Places help customers find your real estate and collect data about your customers. You do not have to be lost in Real Estate Marketing.

Filed Under: Featured, GOOGLE PLACES, Real Estate Marketing Tagged With:

WHAT DOES FACEBOOK SAY ABOUT ITS USERS

January 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Facebook is a great Real Estate Marketing tool. At Face book’s recent F8 Developer Conference, Facebook shared the following statistics:

  • More than half of Facebook users log in every day – that’s more than 400 million people.
  • The average user has 130 friends and is connected to 80 pages, events and groups.
  • There are 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, etc…).
  • Facebook hosts over 7 million apps, and over 20 million apps are downloaded each day.

Around 75% of Facebook users are outside of North America with accounts available in 70 languages.

More Real Estate Marketing assistance: Here is a great e-book to Increase the Popularity of Your Blog Posts:

We all have heard that content is king, but if no one comes to see your content, then what is the Real Estate Marketing point?

Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide will take you through ten different strategies you can use to successfully do Real Estate Marketing blog posts, leading to more social shares, more comments, and much more traffic.

This guide will not only show you the strategies that will help you get your awesome content the exposure it deserves, but it will also help you build a mutually beneficial promotional team on your email list, instant messenger, and social networks e.g. Facebook, so that when you are ready to promote, they will be there willing to help you.

Want to learn more about Real Estate Marketing Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide? Check out the following:

Blog Post Promotion Launch Post – Learn more about the eBook!

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Blog Post Promotion Affiliates – Become an affiliate and earn 40% commission!

Or, if you’re ready to start promoting your posts and becoming an authority in your niche, buy your copy of Blog Post Promotion: The Ultimate Guide and start implementing promotional strategies that get results today!

Filed Under: Featured, Real Estate Marketing

REAL ESTATE MARKETING VERSUS “FOR YOUR EYES ONLY”

January 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you are involved in online reputation management and Real Estate Marketing, your goal is to displace negative results in the search engines with positive results. Let us look at leveraging social media profiles.

As with every search result in Google, the top results are generally made up of the most trusted and authoritative results, so it makes the most sense for us to talk about the most trusted authoritative social media sites at the moment Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus.

Facebook is by far one the most popular and visited sites in social media; however, for many people, it can also be the most problematic. The most common issue on Facebook is people or their friends posting unflattering pictures or unflattering status updates. That status update or picture from that party weekend may have been funny at the time, but it is not funny when you are applying for a job, trying to get the condo board to think you are a qualified, responsible tenant, or trying to prove that drunk driving incident really was not you. Thanks to Face book’s new timeline feature, it makes it incredibly easy for someone to skim through your profile and isolate those “wild college years.” Create a “close friends” group and edit all those items so only they can see them. Alternatively, you could block all the old info on your timeline. It’s much more drastic but also a lot more bulletproof.

If you are a Real Estate, doing Real Estate Marketing, you may not have those unflattering pictures of college years to contend with, but you may not have a rich history, or even a profile. If you don’t have a profile, start one. It is hard to link to a resource but, to be honest, Facebook changes so often that the link would need to be updated every few months. Google: “how to create a business profile on Facebook”.

Sadly, we all now have to treat our Facebook status updates like a Public Relations team. Do not post anything unflattering or crazy that you do not want to be associated with. An alternative course is to regularly post completely off the wall crazy information that is completely unbelievable. This gives you a bit of wiggle room and allows you to have plausible deniability. This really is only an option for personal accounts and is not for Real Estate Marketing.

Filed Under: Featured, Real Estate Marketing Tagged With:
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