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Happy Birthday Jeff Turner!

Related posts:

1. How to Avoid Suffering From Blogging & Social Media Overload
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3. Internet Based Avatars: The Complete Guide

If you all remember, last month I posted a brief overview about Social Media and some of it’s many uses for SEO and exposure. Well, in this post and several to follow, we will explore a handful of sites in some detail.

The first Social Media site I want to look at is StumbleUpon

What is it?

Simple Description:

Owned by eBay StumbleUpon is similar to YouTube but very different (and broader) in it’s media content. StumbleUpon is a user driven platform where “Stumblers” specify the content they want the technology to find and display. Once the user selects their preferences the videos, news, photos, websites, blogs and over 500 topics/categories will then be found and displayed with a click.

Each item displayed is filtered through your preselected preferences, we’ve gone from Surfing to Stumbling! Not sure if that’s good or bad? Nevertheless it’s addicting! One could spend hours Stumbling! The simple user interface can be installed and embedded into your browser so there’s no need to go to a specific site to search for stuff, all you do is click “Stumble” and…well, your Stumbling or surfing or…guess it depends on what you did the night before?

Here is a capture of my StumbleUpon toolbar.

One cool feature of the toolbar is the user’s ability to select the channel they desire to pull content from. For example, you’ll notice in my tool bar from left to right - Stumble All, Stumble Favorites and Friends, Stumble Images, Stumble Videos, Stumble People, News, and so on, you decide. The entire interface can be set up within your browser and you can set all your preferences, sign in and out, and for the most part do it all from there!

Another neat feature is you will know if your website or any website for that matter has been Stumbled and tagged by other users. You will see the “thumbs up” along with a “star rating” of the page.

Here’s and example…

OK, so your asking the question, “what does this mean to me” right? Or, “how can I use this as a tool to gain exposure,” I wouldn’t leave that out! Besides the cool little rating feature above there’s more…

Social Bookmarking and Publishing (Or Social Stumbling your stuff)

The toolbar is very fluid and easy to use and this is where the benefit to you comes in. Let’s say you write and publish a new article on your Blog, good for you. Stumble it!

Like or Not?

You like your own Blog article right? Well, tell others! Get them to like it! Sign into your account, find the page you want to share and give it the “thumbs up!” You can select the appropriate category and add a little text if you’d like but that’s it, you have now just exposed your piece to a potential 6 million plus Stumblers! This might be why people say “Hey, I stumbled across your website and….” Happy Stumbling!

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An Avatar is simply: “a computer user’s representation of himself or herself”.  This could be a three dimensional representation in a game like Second Life, or a 2 dimensional graphic in a website profile.

With all the social based websites out there these days, chances are you already use an avatar on a website like Myspace, Facebook, Linkedin, Digg, Twitter, etc…  This is not rocket science… but it is important to follow a couple of guidelines (suggestions) when creating these avatars.

Branding, Facial Awareness, and Improved Visibility

One cool thing that happens when you graphically represent yourself is that you start branding (for lack of a better term), you could also call it “building awareness”, or creating “mind share”.  In simple terms, you’re creating a visual reminder of who you are for people that see your avatar multiple times.

An avatar doesn’t always have to be a picture of yourself.  Many people make this mistake, in thinking they don’t have any options in this regard.  You can really use anything you want.

You need to ask yourself, what are you really trying to create awareness of??  Your face, your company, your website, your logo?  The answer may determine what you decide to use.  Many people opt for an avatar that really has no meaning, but simply stands out from the crowd.  Others use an artistic representation.  There really isn’t any right or wrong way to do it except to say that if you are trying to create awareness for you, your business, or your website, you may want to consider using something that relates to that purpose.

Some Twitter Examples:

The “I like to photoshop my face”

The “I brand the first letter of my name”

The “I’ll just use my logo”

The “I just like my face”

The “I prefer a graphic representation of myself”

The “I like randomness”

The “I like using props on my face”

The “I like my dog”

The “I brand my face and company for maximum avatar domination”

Services You Need to Sign up For if you Haven’t Already:

MyBlogLog.com - Sign up for a free account.  You don’t even have to have a blog or website.  But your avatar will appear on websites that have the Mybloglog widget installed (like this one)… which is a good thing!  Why not brand everywhere you go?

BlogCatalog.com - Same as Mybloglog, just a little less popular.

Gravatar.com - Becoming very important.  It’s used to identify you all over the internet including when you make comments on certain sites (like this one).

Blogger.com - If you ever comment on a Blogger blog, you’ll want to set up a basic account and upload your picture so it shows up when you comment.

Wordpress.com - Same as Blogger.

Avatars.Yahoo.com - Yahoo is such a huge web portal, once you upload your picture to Yahoo Avatars, it will show up in many places all over the web as you participate

Other Places Online That Allow Avatars:

Forums & Message Boards - Involved in any forums, message boards or blogs that make you sign up to participate?  99% of these probably have a way to upload your avatar.  I find that this is the place where people forget to upload profile pics the most often.

Industry Specific Sites - There are tons of sites specific to each industry that allow profile pictures. In real estate, you have Activerain, Trulia, REW, Zolve, etc.

Specialty Sites - These sites aren’t really that special, I just didn’t know what else to call them:  Twitter, Plaxo, Friendfeed, Facebook, Friendster, Flickr, etc…

Tools for Creating Avatars:

http://mypictr.com - Online tool that helps crop larger pictures

http://www.reducephoto.com/step1avatar.asp - Online tool for creating specific sized avatars

http://www.gizmoz.com - Create animated avatars and place your head on strange bodies, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RP7l8rbn9rA - Video on creating an Avatar in photoshop

Final Tips:

Choose Wisely My Son:  It’s a true pain in the rear to change multiple avatars if you decide you want to use a different avatar somewhere down the road.  You may want to consider using something that will work for you 1 year from now.

Ask Your Friends: This simple tip may save you from using a stupid avatar.

One Avatar in Multiple Places: It would be wise not to use different avatars on different sites.  You’ll miss out on a branding opportunity for people that may see you on multiple sites.

Don’t use Random Graphics:  If you can’t find something good, wait.  This is important.  You don’t want to be using an old picture of yourself, or a silly picture of an inanimate object simply because you had nothing better at the time.

Use Photoshop: There is nothing worse than seeing a blurry or stretched picture of yourself, or an unreadable logo because you were too lazy to resize the picture properly.

Be Professional: If you are using your online identity to improve business for yourself and promote professional networking, make sure you don’t use an inappropriate picture of yourself or morally questionable object.

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The Value of Social Networking Relationships from Justin Smith on Vimeo.
Social Networking is such a huge topic these days, but I don’t find many people that truly understand the value behind building online relationships.  Most people I meet are sort of haphazardly participating on these social networking sites and have a basic understanding of their value, but don’t really get the point.

This video attempts to explain that much of the value of networking online comes with tapping into a wider audience.

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Social Networking and Social Media are powerful tools in your Internet Marketing, Brand Awareness and Public Relations strategies. This entry may be elementary for some and new for others but equally as important.

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 48 months or so, you know what a Blog is, you may know of a few highly visible blogs, and if you’re really with it, you own a Blog and update if frequently! Whether you own a business, handle PR in a corporate setting, hate this country, the elections, the war, meat eaters, the climate or republicans, the truth is, Blogging is like publishing your own newspaper from your home in your underwear. Its a great way to be heard regardless of what you write about!

“Freedom of speech and expression has never been so widly exercised by so many, so enhanced by technology, and so effective until the dawn of Social Media and all that it encompasses.”

To make this article relatively short and concise, if you are the owner of a business and you want to increase your public visibility, create multiple portals to your company and create open communication lines between your clients or potential clients; build a Blog, update it regularly, write useful and compelling content, and then promote it!

Where To Start Blogging:

1. Wordpress (Best Blogging Platform by far in my opinion)

2. Blogger

3. TypePad

These are just a few I would recommend. However, you can check out several, click this link to see how others rated various Blogging platforms. A lot of it is preference and usability but we think in terms of SEO with nearly everything and Wordpress has proven to be very good if not the best for SEO purposes. It seems to have a faster indexing time across the board than other Blogging platforms.

All right, sounds easy enough right? Well, the act of blogging is simple in its self but just like promoting anything else on the Web your Blog should be submitted to directories, optimized, and establish some authority before others will find it. Especially if its a stand-alone and not linked to your main website.

Social Media…how do you make the connections to your Blog and major Social Media sites and how is this going to help you?

Simply put, what ever you write on your Blog you are going to want to publish a snippet of each article and its URL and syndicate it across the web. Here is a great tool to help you do so…http://www.socialmarker.com. Simply select what articles you want to bookmark and publish on major sites and follow the interface instructions. You can select the “top sites” option to cut down on wasted effort.

This is time consuming at first, but once you get the hang of it you’ll love it and results can be very substantial.

Check back soon I’m going to continue to write about Social Media in greater detail. Maybe one article per site.
Have Fun!

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3. Podcast: Matt McGee From Small Business Search Marketing

More than 90% of consumers said they told at least one other person about a Web site when the original recommendation came from a friend, according to Jupiter Research

Advantages of Viral Marketing

1. Viral Marketing detours the cluttered mantra of traditional advertising. This allows marketers an advantage in more effectively reaching their audience.

2. Viral Marketing doesn’t require a product with a wow factor in order to raise awareness,
generate buzz, and kick-start peer-to-peer spread. Instead, the viral campaign’s communication agent is the element that needs a wow factor or element of interest .

3. Unlike traditional advertising viral is not an interruptive technique. Instead, viral campaigns work the Internet to deliver exposure via peer-to-peer endorsement. Viral campaigns, whether ultimately liked or disliked, are often welcomed by the receiver.The focus is on campaigns with material that consumers want to spend time interacting
with and spreading pro actively (MindComet Corporation, 2006).

Viral marketing is a term used often in the online community because news and information can spread so fast! This marketing phenomenon is similar to the spread of organic and/or computer viruses. Venues through which Viral Marketing information can spread: Social Networks like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Squidoo. Viral marketing takes on many forms like video clips, Flash games, advergames, ebooks, brandable software, images, or even text messages.

The basic form of viral marketing isn’t very sustainable for the long-haul but is very effective in creating a “buzz” around a specific product, service or promotion.

How can Viral Marketing help your business?

You can leverage so many tools on the web to help generate a “Viral Marketing Buzz” around your business. Do you have a new product or service you want to promote but know were to start? Creating an explosive Viral Marketing campaign may provide the results you are looking for.
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I’ve found that this is a hot button topic among many real estate agents and brokers. Maybe someone can enlighten me, but I just can’t seem to understand why more agents don’t blog about their listings. You have a free opportunity to let the world know about one of your properties… what are you waiting for?

My only conclusion is that most real estate agents just don’t know how to do it. Maybe you are an agent but just don’t want to include a property listing post right in the middle of your other blog posts… whatever the reason, I want to show you 4 reasons you would be crazy not to start blogging your listings

Crazy Myth #1: Blogging about my real estate listing takes too long

Nonsense. You don’t have to be a photoshop pro in this day and age. There are plenty of tools out there that will allow you to create an online flyer that you can easily post on your blog. My favorite, and probably the easiest is VFlyer.com - It is super fast, and it even submits your flyer to GoogleBase, Trulia, Craiglist, and more… sort of a double whammy. And there are plenty of other sites out there there let you create an online flyer… just make sure that you can export it in an html format so you can copy and paste it as a blog post.

If you don’t want to use a property flyer on your blog, or you can’t get it to work, you can still just write a quick description of the property and include a picture slide show using flickr, slide, or Real Estate Shows. You can even post a video tour right on the blog using youtube or Wellcomemat.

Crazy Myth #2: My blog gets no traffic, what’s the point?

There are plenty of other places you can post that listing. Just because you may be new to blogging doesn’t mean that there isn’t value in blogging about your listings. Think outside the box… try using Localism.com. Just go to ActiveRain, paste in your flyer, or listing as a new post. Then choose “for consumers”, and “advertising a listing”. This will also increase your AR points with little to no work!

But don’t just stop there, almost every single social networking site out there has a mini-blog feature that will let you paste in an html flyer, or even add a slideshow. Try: Facebook, wannanetwork, xanga, plaxo, cre8buzz, Myspace. Go crazy… there are hundreds of sites like these to choose from.

Crazy Myth #3: The chances are slim that an individual listing will be seen online.

Even if posting your listing online doesn’t bring a direct buyer, there are still plenty of other benefits to be had.

• Blow your potential clients away during listings presentations by showing them a huge list of places where their property will appear online. Most people are floored when you tell that you will be blogging specifically about their property. It’s impressive!
• If you spend the the time posting your listings in places besides your primary blog, you have the opportunity to create a call to action within the post itself. Direct people to click a link to view all the available MLS listings in their area. Ask them to sign up for your IDX email delivery system notifying them of new properties on the market in their area. The possibilities are endless here.
• Each time you post a listing, you’re creating a link back to your website or blog. This will improve your search engine ranking… but make sure you use good anchor text.
• Branding. Your face, logo, name, comapny… etc. are all branding tools. The more places you leave them online, the more branding will come into play.

Crazy Myth #4: Posting listings on my blog will water down the rest of my content

This myth actually isn’t so crazy. It’s a real concern that many real estate bloggers have, and I don’t recommend that anyone write a post about an individual listing and include it with their regular blog content.

So, here is how you get around that… The solution I’m sharing can be done on any platform, but I’m going to show you how with wordpress.

The best solution for this problem is to create a specialized category just for your listings. Then, you want to tell wordpress (or your platform of choice) not to include that category on the home page. You are essentially just excluding that particular category.

You will want to place this code in your index.php file to tell your home page not to include the category you choose.

Here is the code: <?php query_posts(’cat=-13?); ?>

If that doesn’t work, you can also try this:

<?php  if (is_home()) {query_posts(”cat=-13″); }?>

You will need to change the category number to make it work (where it says: “13″). To find the category number, go to >Manage>Categories, then view the category number you want to exclude. For more detailed instructions on this try this wordpress tutorial.

I hope that was helpful. It doesn’t take much work to blog about your listings. Just go out and do it!

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If you are looking for a customized blog, or in depth coaching to kick start your blogging or internet marketing campaign, please email or call me.

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This post was spawned off of an article I read by Brian Brady on the new real estate weblogging 101 website. Although I didn’t completely agree with his perspective on SEO, I understand where he is coming from. Basically, his method is… “puke” out your picture and sales pitch to every imaginable website or online space that lets you have a free profile and see what sticks.

Brian does a heck of alot of writing. You can find his work regularly on his blog, the Bloodhound Blog, NELA, ActiveRain, and an occasional guest post on other real estate related blogs.

He claims to have had over 1,000 online inquiries in the past 12 months which is pretty impressive. On my real estate related profile radar, I’d probably place his online presence in the top 20 of all real estate related people.

So how is this done? How does the average real estate agent or loan officer develop that kind of online presence? I thought it would be helpful to make a list of many of the places you can create an online profile, and network with people. Some are obviously more successful than others when it comes to generating business, but for this model, we are using the “puke” method. Place yourself in as many places as possible, write new content like your life depended on it, get your face and message to as many people as possible, and see what happens…

Real Estate Related Websites: (in no particular order)

ActiveRain.com — Quickly becoming the mother of all real estate community websites. Create a profile, start blogging and networking, and create some referral business from other members around the country.

Localism.com — Tie into your Active Rain account, and post articles and pictures about your local community.

Zillow.com — Lots of options here: Contribute articles to Zillow’s Wiki, post your listings, and… uhhh… other people’s listings, chat on Zillow’s Discussion board, or contribute to a neighborhood page

Trulia.com — Answer real estate related questions from the general public.

RealEstateVoices — Digg for real estate. If it is eventually able to create some more traffic for itself, having a high ranked profile may come in handy.

Inman Wiki — Similar to Zillow’s. Contribute articles to the general public about RE.

Yahoo! Answers — Similar to Trulia. Start answering people’s questions on real estate.

WannaNetwork.com — A Myspace clone for real estate agents

There are alot of options for getting your face out into the RE.net… be creative. Blogging is obviously huge. Take a tip from some of the more prolific real estate writers out there: start networking and maybe you could start guest authoring posts on popular RE blogs.

Participate in the conversation! - Start commenting on real estate blogs & on message boards where people are asking real estate related questions. If you can successfully set yourself up as an expert on any given topic, you will get leads. If you don’t know where people are asking real estate questions online, try setting up a Google Alerts account, and tell it to search for instances where people type in questions like: “when should I buy a house?”. When you see someone asking a question like that, go see if you can help that person.

Real Estate Forums & Message Boards: Point2Agent, Yahoo!, RealEstateForum.com, REW, AgentsOnline.net, CREN, RIS Media, Flipping Pad, RealTown

Get Your Content out to the General Public!

There are so many websites and tools that you can use to promote your real estate business. I’ll try to stick to the sites that deal with social networking, article distribution, online communities etc.

Social Networking:

Facebook.com - There are many great tools that can turn facebook into a fantastic networking tool, and they are adding more all the time.

Myspace.com - I personally can’t stand all the slutty ads that are targeted at my demographic, but some agents swear by the value of networking to a younger crowd with this social networking giant

Linkedin.com - A more professional approach to networking. More of a B2B kind of service, but still a helpful tool.

Mybloglog.com, friendster, orkut, biznik, ning, squidoo, Gather, Yahoo! & MSN Groups… the list goes on & on & on.

There are so many great ideas out there for marketing yourself online. Social media, and online discussion are only a couple of the ways real estate agents are finding success.

I could probably add another 5 pages to this post, but I think I’ll just stop with the websites that I have seen real estate agents be successful on. Large lists make my brain hurt anyway.

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Today Google announced and launched a pretty amazing new feature to Google maps. The Street view.

You may be asking yourself, how do they take a satellite picture from that angle… uhhh yeah… it’s not a satellite photo. Google has broken out of the mold and has hit the streets apparently with the help of a company called Immersive. As you can see from the video and pics it is a pretty amazing tool. They currently only have 5 cities available, but I’m sure there are more to come. So far it’s:Miami, San Francisco, Denver, New York City, and Las Vegas

Joel Burslem points out on the Inman blog that it will have a “great application” in real estate, but I’m not so sure yet… After playing around with it for a while and considering the markets available, and the cities themselves, I see very little value for the residential marketplace. Sure, it is a great tool, but how much residential area is actually represented? It may have value in New York and San Francisco, as there are many city dwellers, but personally, I don’t see it as being practical.

If they bundled it into their current map API, it may be useful, but I don’t think we’re going to see an immediate stampede to use the technology by real estate agents… at least not yet.

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#2. This one is also very professional, with a thought out narration. But again, one of the most notable problems is the video. It is pretty shaky, and I was actually getting motion sickness through part of it. Great promotional blurb at the end. Good length.

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#3. Here is an example of an all photo based video. It was probably created on one of those sites that creates video for you with a group of pictures and lets you put music to it. It’s not too bad, although the quality isn’t very good. I’m thinking that it just wasn’t meant to be formatted for youtube. For some reason I can’t read the agent’s information very well.

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#4. Here you can see an example of a professionally made video. The video is very smooth and well thought out. Make sure to turn your speakers down… the narrator is very loud and abrupt. All in all this is a great video that shows what is possible with an individual property video. Unfortunately, the video doesn’t include an email or website for more contact information… only a phone number.

____________________________________________________

What have we learned from the above videos??

–If you can afford it, hire a videographer

–If you’re going to use music, use something that fits the property: Urban Loft?: jazz Old Victorian?: Classical

–On do it yourself videos, use a tripod and a camera with decent zoom and a wide angle if possible

–If you’re going to use photos in your video, don’t use cheesy fading effects, and make sure the quality is up to par.

–Make sure to include all of your contact information including phone, email and website.

–Including a picture of yourself and your logo makes the video much more personal.

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