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Communication Generation Gap

Written by Scott on May 24, 2010 — Leave a Comment

If you're new here, you may want to register for our special report on The Real Estate Paradigm Shift with information on how social media is changing the real estate world and how you can leverage it!

Socialcast has an excellent post on the coming generation gap that will occur in most offices. It’s more or less a communications revolution that will change the way people work:

This generation is already accustomed to consumer social networking tools that provide real-time communication, and they enjoy connecting with people.

The interesting caveat here for real estate professionals is that these up-and-coming workforce powerhouses are also the up-and-coming real estate customers. Are you prepared to communicate with them on their terms? If you aren’t, one of your competitors most definitely will be.

Posted in Blogging for Real Estate, Social Media for Real Estate | Tagged ,

eKey for iPhone Coming Soon

Written by Jen on May 14, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Thanks to a head’s up from Geordy Rostad at  Geek Estate Blog, we got the scoop on eKey coming for iPhone.  What a great new feature for real estate agents who live by their “do-it-all” iPhones – soon you will be opening your Supra lockboxes with them as well!

Real estate professionals finally rejoice!  It looks like you’ll be able to have it all in one place.

You can get notified when the release is official.

Posted in Real Estate Tech Tools | Tagged , , ,

Twitter From Your Email — TweetyMail

Written by Scott on May 7, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Over the last year I’ve noticed I’ve spent quite a bit of time bouncing back and forth between Twitter clients. Tweetdeck, Seesmic, Twitter.com itself, and Seesmic on my Android phone are all interfaces I’ve used just in the last month. TweetyMail is a service that could actually end that for me for the simple reason that I can control my Twitter account right out of Gmail.

The idea behind TweetyMail is pretty simple–do everything you need to do on Twitter via email. That’s an attractive proposition for people who don’t quite want to live in Twitter but still want to have a presence there. TweetyMail also has some interesting features they’ll be offering to their paid customers (currently invitation only) like scheduled tweets and the ability to retweet from email. I have to say, one of the nicer features they’ve listed is the new follower notification, which is much cleaner and more informative than the ones Twitter is sending out currently.

TweetyMail is one to watch. I think it’s worth giving it a shot if email is your thing and Twitter is not (yet).

HT TechCrunch

Posted in Twitter for Real Estate | Tagged , , ,

Where Are Real Estate Agents in the Social Media Power Shift?

Written by Jen on May 5, 2010 — Leave a Comment

Mark Schaefer again writes an interesting post, this one on the power shift in social media. Mark describes how corporations have shifted into the social media space and in many areas appear to be dominating, even those spaces never intended for mainstream marketing use.

Remember that just a few years ago, there were few, if any, corporate videos on YouTube and Facebook was a hang-out for college students.  This commerical development is not surprising. If there is a way for money to be made, companies will find a way to exploit it.  Capitalism at work.  So what are the implications for small businesses trying to carve a niche? Is it too crowded?  Is it too late?

No, I don’t think so. There are plenty of social media marketing opportunities for the savvy small business professional, even with the brand titans bringing their game:

Importance of Twitter. Twitter isn’t flashy.  It rewards real connection and conversation, something monolithic companies typically don’t do well.  I have a small business but have more followers than Pringles (one of 2009’s Top 10 Facebook pages). I think there’s a message there. My hypothesis: Of the major platforms, Twitter may actually favor the local small business owner.  How can you leverage this powerful tool on a local level?

This is especially true for real estate professionals. A barrage of corporate messages cannot replace real individuals interacting in meaningful ways as they do on Twitter. They also cannot hold the attention of consumers for very long, especially via tools like Twitter, where people look for important interactions – a careful balance of give and take, moderated only through the social acceptance or denial of users who contribute as least as much as they withdraw from the process.

Mastering your time and use of Twitter can radically reshape how you look at marketing. The sooner you grow your online sphere, the sooner you will understand and experience the freedom of attracting clients to you for simply being the professional you are, rather than chasing them down and trying to convince them to hire you.

For help shortening your learning curve, enroll in TechShorties two-part Twitter course for real estate professionals. You will exit the course with a fully established Twitter account and be on your way to building your online network in just 45 minutes!  Each course is just $29.95, or you can enroll in both at once for just $59.95 total:

Introduction to Twitter for Real Estate Professionals

Intermediate Twitter for Real Estate Professionals

Twitter for Real Estate Professionals: Complete Course (includes both Intro and Intermediate)

Posted in Twitter for Real Estate | Tagged , ,

New SEO Factor for Google — SPEED!

Written by Scott on April 12, 2010 — 2 Comments

Google has announced that site speed is now officially being factored into search engine rankings. What does that mean for your real estate site or blog? Here are a few things we’ve seen on several sites, mostly those with older designs, that could now impact your rankings in a negative way:

  1. Playing a sound file on your site as it loads. Believe it not, Jen sent me a link to a site just this week that plays a song when the page loads. Slows down your page load time, and more than just a little annoying, especially if you weren’t expecting any sound to play automatically. If your pages uses video from your own server, this could affect load times as well.
  2. Flash files that automatically play on page load, especially if it’s on an older version of Flash and hasn’t been updated in a while. This could cause an otherwise fast loading site to absolutely creep.
  3. Using large image files and reducing the size for display. The images you are using for your pages should really be built for the size you want to display. All too often, people will use a large image and, instead of editing it and resizing it, they simply reduce the display size in their pages. These larger images take longer to download for a browser than they would if they were resized at design time.

Just a few things you can quickly check to make sure site load time will not negatively impact your SEO! There’s more information on this change over at Search Engine Land.

Posted in Blogging for Real Estate | Tagged , ,
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