ActiveRain Tutorials

Join Us This Thursday For Agents Helping Haiti, a Telethon to help families devastated by the recent earthquake in Haiti.  This 6 hour telethon will feature 30 minute segments with some of the most well known people in the real estate industry.  Come listen as they share some of their tools and secrets they use in their daily and support this cause. 

12 Top Real Estate Experts 12 BIG Ideas

12:00PM Kendra Todd- Shares of her trip to Haiti & REALTOR® Experience

12:30 PM Jeremy Blanton- How to Write a $10,000 Blog Post

1:00 PM Laurie Moore- How to Keep Your Foot Out of Your Mouth and In the Door

1:30 PM Frances Flynn Thorsen- Risk vs. Reward REALTOR® Foreclosure Pitfalls

2:00 PM Jason Crouch- The Importance of Building an Online Following

2:30 PM Ken Golde- Distressed Agents: Settling Your Own Debt

3:00 PM Jim Cronin- Social Media.  The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

3:30 PM Special Guest

4:00 PM Joeann Fossland- 6 Figure Referral Business Using Strategic Partners

4:30 PM Special Guest

5:00 PM Patti Kouri- 100% Intention- 100% of Your Results

5:30 PM Jay Kinder- 65 Million in Sales... How to List 500 Homes a Year

If you haven't heard by now, we are in 2010, (twenty-ten, two thousand ten, or my favorite, oh-ten) and as this new decade begins I see this year becoming more of a shift in the way consumers gain the information they need as well as how other consumers share their experiences with others.  I read an article the other day about consumer review based site Yelp being offered 500 million from Google to be purchased.  Yelp, however, turned down the offer from Google.

This being said, I really feel that as this year carries forward you will see more companies adopting the principles of consumer based reviews and question/answer sections on their sites.  The other day, I heard of a company called Formspring which allows you to easily add a Q&A to any site that you use.  This is a free service that takes virtually no time to set up, but could be very beneficial to your business.  Why?  Well, it is rather simple:

1.  Gives consumers an easy place to ask you questions about your business or your area.

2.  Gives you the ability to share your knowledge in a non publication type of arena with consumers.

3.  Allows consumers to find answers to other questions they may have without needing to fill out a form & feel as if someone will begin spamming them for business.  They can simply look through past questions & answers and possibly find what they need.

I said all this to get to the point of my post which was to tell everyone about what I have been up to these days. In addition to recently starting my own Social Media Consulting business with Jason Crouch called 210 Consulting, I also recently started a new job as a community manager for a company called SmartHippo.  SmartHippo is a site designed to allow the consumers a place to come and ask questions of lending professionals and receive free top quality answers directly from lenders.

Another awesome feature that SmartHippo offers is a platform for consumers to write reviews of the lender they used to benefit other consumers.  This should help to raise the bar of customer service provided by lenders as well as give other consumers a place to come and read unbiased opinions of a lender before making the largest decision of their life. A customer can read whether the rate quoted online was the same they received, the loan closed on time, the lender was prompt in returning calls, etc.  SmartHippo's main focus is to empower the consumer with as much knowledge as possible before getting a mortgage through these lender reviews. 

The last thing that SmartHippo allows which I think will be very beneficial to real estate agents is the ability to refer your customers to a site where the buyer can compare ALL the rates available in their area.  Unlike other sites that offer similar things, they will not be selling the leads to the highest bidder.  This means that buyers can see all the rates available in their area and make their own decision based on the reviews of the lender, the Q&A responses of the lender as well as the rate offered by them.

As a real estate agent, I see this being a great new tool to offer to your buyers to assist them make an informed decision on a mortgage as well as keep you from having to "recommend a lender" which we all hate to do for the liability associated with it.  You are no longer needing to make up lists of available lenders to share with a buyer or anything.  We all know how awkward that moment is when the buyer asks you "Which lender would you recommend?" You simply give the buyer a website and allow them to get all the information they need. 

So what are my duties with this new position?  Well, as the community manager, I have a few different roles.  The first is to help build our community through various different social media platforms.  (YouTube Channel, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, etc.)  My other main task right now is to create and manage our community blog that will consist of some of the top bloggers in the lending industry.  This includes writers like Ken Cook, Eleanor Thorne, & John Cannata.  The community blog known as "The Herd" will provide valuable content to buyers who are in the process of purchasing a home. I hope over the next few months to add several other top notch bloggers into the community.

I am really excited to join up with this SmartHippo and am really looking forward to what the future holds.  So, if you are unfamiliar with SmartHippo, please take a few minutes to check out their site here.  I think this can be a great tool for your customers to "Join the Herd, Save Money" as their slogan states.  Also, check back on my blog over the next few weeks as I will keep you updated about some really exciting features & updates of what is happening at SmartHippo!

Visit SmartHippo Now!

One of the questions I ask people every time I begin a conversation with them about social media is Why did you sign up for these networks?  9 out of 10 times the response I receive is: To make money of course!  But, unfortunately with the ever changing amount of networks and new networks being birthed almost weekly it seems, many become overwhelmed almost instantly.  Then comes along the friend requests from your fellow colleagues who asked you to join and you find your resting place. 

Once this happens, many begin to lose their focus and reason that they originally joined this network in the beginning and it turns into a cocktail party and fun for you.  Now that you have found that comfortable place, you begin socializing with your friends & associates and completely lose focus of the original reason you joined. 

If your remember, I wrote two weeks ago about The Importance of Listening with Purpose To Your Consumers and how listening to what consumers are saying on social networks like Twitter and Facebook can lead to increases in business.  I mentioned how each network has certain applications available to assist you in tracking what consumers are saying about their needs of your services or goods.  The two that I talked about in that post were TweetGrid and Facebook Search.

I decided that today I would share a few other must have tools that I have found to be beneficial in Cashing In On Your Social Media Investment. Of course, a solid blog is before any of these items, as that is your foundation to any social media marketing strategy.

1.  Google Alerts-  I have Google alerts at the top of my list for a reason.  In case you aren't familiar with what it is, let me first explain.  Google alerts is a notifying program produced by Google.  You can set up an alert to be notified of any keyword/search term you wish.  For me, one of the terms I use is my name.  Why?  I want to know every time Google is picking up my name.  It first lets me know if someone has either re-blogged a post of mine, mentioned something good or bad about me, and allows me to know what is being said about me.  I have this alert set to notify me immediately.  The other day when Jason Crouch wrote about our first webinar, How to Chug Google Juice & Get 15 Years of Fame, I received an alert in less than 8 minutes.  In fact, it came so quick, that I received that before Jason's email stating that he had included my name in the post! 

Some other ways you could use this is to set up some alerts for the keywords you are trying to dominate in the search engines.  That way, you will know when your posts are being indexed for those keywords, and also know what your competition is saying on the same type of terms.  Google Alerts are a must have for any business you do.

2.  A Solid Twitter Application  There are plenty of different platforms available here.  I am not going to say one is better than another, but I will say that you need to be running some sort of program other than just the web version.  The reason for this, is that applications like Tweetdeck, Seesmic, & Hootsuite are some of the most popular ones and they allow you to filter your lists into different categories.  For example, I have an entire column just for closest friends, another for local people, and several others.  With these, you can set up different columns for your target audiences and for those who can supply you with great valuable content to enhancing your business or with content to relay onto your clients.

3.  A Mobile Photo Blog  Normally when I start talking about this one, I begin to lose people.  I actually have two mobile photo blogs.  Both bring me a ton of traffic as well as some really great connections & Google juice.  One photoblog, currently has 490 email subscribers to it.  My other photo blog which is hosted on posterous, is currently averaging around 800-1000 views per photo.  This is HUGE!  One of the beautiful parts of a photo blog like this is that it takes virtually zero effort to post to.  Once you have things set up properly, you simply shoot the picture with your mobile phone and email it to a specific email address with the subject line being your photo title.  The rest is automatically handled as your photos will automatically be re-sized & formatted to fit well on your post. 

Speaking of mobile phones, that leads me to my next point.

4.  A Powerhouse Mobile Phone If you are seriously considering taking your social media strategy to the next level, a good smart-phone is essential.  I am not going to get into what is the best to use, in the past I have used an Android platform phone, an iPhone, and several Blackberries.  Currently, I am back on a Blackberry.  All of them though are going to be more than sufficient and offer the same basic features, phone, camera, web, email, and the main social networks applications.  The key is to pick what you like.  For me, touch screens are hard to use, especially while trying to concentrate on other things.  I am a button type of guy, so I like the blackberry more for that simple reason.

Once you have a good phone, it will allow you to begin to participate on the social networks when you have the time waiting at a vacant home for a client, or when standing in line at the Walmart to check out.  Also, the ability to connect with consumers quickly & efficiently is priceless. I had someone once tell me that most consumers want to be responded to in less than 2 hours or they will move on to someone else. Having that ability to respond quickly and painlessly, even if it is just a response of: "I am out with clients, let me call you later this afternoon" can do wonders for your business.

5.  A Video Camera  While this does not seem like a big deal, this one can be so crucial to a social media strategy.  Did you know that YouTube is the second most searched site in the world?  One of my favorite choices is a simple handy Flipcam.  It doesn't have to be a hi-tech machine or anything.  These are fairly affordable at under $200.00 and by far are the easiest video cameras to use.  Simply shoot the video, flip out the build in USB and connect to your computer.  To give you an idea of how popular video is, I have 25 videos uploaded to YouTube that have received a combined 71,000 views!

These are just 5 of the tools I use on a regular basis to cash in on my social media investment.  Implementing these tools into your social media plan will definitely help you to achieve your ultimate goal and turn these networks into income producers for your business.  If you want to learn more about how to use these tools & many others, feel free to register for our next webinar which will be on Monday February 1st at 1PM Eastern 10 AM Pacific time.  To register, click here.

As many of you have already heard, Jason Crouch and I recently teamed up to start a new venture called 210 Consulting.  I am really excited to team up with Jason as social media advisors to share our knowledge with people from around the world.  In case you missed our big announcement, we are holding our very first webinar this Monday, January 18th at 1PM EST.  Our first webinar is called "How to Chug Google Juice & Get 15 Years of Fame"  In this webinar, we will be sharing how to use a blog to:

* How to write posts on your blog to increase your inquiries (and sales)
* How to get Google and other search engines to pay attention to your blog
* Dominating Google for your desired keywords
* What a longtail keyword is, and how it can send you oodles of potential business
* How to garner more subscribers and a loyal audience for your blog

If you are interested in attending, you can register here.  The cost is only $50.00 for this 2 hour webinar.  You will also have access to a recorded version of the webinar as well as a copy of the slide presentation.  Also, if you are unable to attend, we hope to be able to have the webinar available in a recorded form soon. 

The reason though for this post is NOT to talk so much about the upcoming webinar or to talk about our new Social Media Advisors company.  Instead, I wanted to take a minute to share the new logo for our business!  So, without further ado I am proud to share with everyone our brand new logo!

A HUGE thanks to my friend Dave Bartz who designed our new logo!  I think it turned out great!  Let us know what you think of our new logo, and we look forward to seeing you all on Monday!

I just finished listening to a wonderful session at #VREBC by my good friend Jeff Turner in which he spoke about "The Lost Art of Listening." I wanted to share with you my takeaway from his session.

The one thing that I got out of Jeff's presentation was that while many want to use social media platforms for their business, they do not really know how. Many have progressed past the point of understanding that social media is more than just broadcasting. However after understanding that principle, many get distracted by the social aspect and miss the purpose that they originally joined a network.  People who are in business and join a social network do so for two reasons:

1. To build relationships with potential consumers and build a strong following that will not only use their services, but also refer others.
2. To connect with consumers who may not already be aware of the business and increase their revenue by reaching new clients.

In order to achieve these two things, you must be listening to what consumers needs are.  However, many businesses get lost in the listening stage.  Many who start on these networks immediately find all their friends, family, coworkers, & others in the same industry.  When this happens, a level of distraction takes place as the media platforms take on more of the social aspects and less of the media/marketing purposes.  Once this takes place, many throw in the towel on the social media platforms & immediately say they do not work.  When in essence, that isn't the case, the real thing that happened was that the you the business have lost focus and are no longer using the network for what you originally signed up for.

So, how do you stay focused on your original vision for which you joined a network?  Simple, Listen with purpose to your consumers.  There is always at least one consumer who is looking to spend money in your industry and needs your services/products.

Each and every social network platform has some sort of way of tracking what the users are saying, asking and needing. Our job as a business is learning how to use these tracking devices effectively and listening intently to what consumers are needing. Use things like tweetgrid, facebook search and many other programs to find your prime consumers by listening with intent to what consumers are saying about keyword terms that are applicable to your business.

Here is a sample tweetgrid that someone who is a real estate agent in Myrtle Beach might set up:

There are 9 different categories of terms that someone who is looking to either buy, sell, or rent a place in Myrtle Beach that I can track simultaneously and connect with that consumer.  Some of these terms include: "Myrtle Beach" and "oceanfront", "need more space" or "for sale" and "Myrtle Beach".  These are all common phrases that someone who needs to either buy or sell a home would use when speaking on twitter.  I am now listening with intent to what others are saying that could be possible consumers and connecting with possible business opportunities and not just friends in the same industry.

Once you master the ability to listen with purpose to consumers, your whole outlook on social media sites will change dramatically and you also start seeing an increase in your return on investment into your social media strategy.

So in closing, if you are not listening intently on the social media platforms, you may want to focus on the reason you are there & begin listening to what your consumers are saying.

Today was a rather exciting day as I heard about Ustream releasing a new Mobile iPhone App for the iPhone & the Droid.  So what is this new Ustream Mobile app, & what is mobile streaming?  Well, Mobile streaming is the ability to do a live video feed straight from your mobile phone.  This is huge & exciting new technology for us in the real estate industry. What this new Ustream Mobile App does, is allows you to transform your basic iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, or Droid smart phone into a live video streaming machine.

The app works really easy & with just a few simple clicks of a button, you are now able to share live video feeds with the world.  Since the Ustream Mobile App is created by the makers of Ustream.tv, it also allows you to use their other great features.  Which means you can create video & instantly feed it to your Facebook Page, Twitter Account & also to YouTube.  The best part of all, is that the Ustream Mobile App, is totally free!

Here are my top features of the Ustream Mobile app:

• Uploads straight from phone to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, & Ustream
• Integrates the Ustream chat right onto phone while doing live streams.
• Allows video to now be recorded on iPhone 3G without needing to "jailbreak" phone.
• Save videos to be uploaded later when you are not in a 3G or wifi area.
• Ustream Mobile app is free!

So how could the Ustream Mobile App be used to enhance your Real Estate Business?  Here are a few ways you might find this type of program useful:

• Showing property to buyers who are not in town.  You can use your phone to show the property, answer their questions & also show them first hand what the property looks like.  So, if the buyer wants to know what color the cabinets are, you can walk into the kitchen & show them the cabinets in a live stream.
• Updating a Seller on the Condition of their Property.  Especially as we go into the winter season, there are times where you have an emergency with a home that you need to share with the seller immediately to make a decision.  I remember one time we had a home where we had a very cold day & a pipe inside the wall had broken.  I wish I had something like this to show the seller quickly so we could make a quick decision & save their first floor.  Unfortunately, this type of software was not available then, and the first floor ended up needing to be completely redone.
• Share Special events with Friends & Family.  How many times do you wish you had the ability to share a special moment in video format with friends & family on your Facebook Page?  The Ustream Mobile App allows you to do such a thing really easily. 
  

There are tons of other great ways that you could use the Ustream Mobile App.  So what do the videos look like from the Ustream Mobile App on an iPhone 3G?  Here is a short video I did as a test to see how it worked.  While the video quality isn't the highest possible, it is fairly decent & the audio is very good.  Take a moment & watch:

Download the Ustream Mobile App for iPhone

One of the most common questions that I keep getting asked over & over is by many of our members here on ActiveRain is "How do I get those I work with & my friends to try out ActiveRain.  They just don't understand it and how to use it for business."  I also get asked by many of our members to teach the class for their brokerage.  In fact, many have asked if I would come personally & teach the class at their office. 

While unfortunately I am not able to physically travel around the US to visit each & every current & new member in person,  I am however able to do it virtually through technology.  As many of you know, I started a few months back teaching a Blogging Basics 101 class for our new members that have not yet become a Rainmaker. With our webinar software, I am now able to teach up to 1,000 people at a time.  So if you have a small or large company or brokerage, I should be able to accommodate. So, without further ado, let me announce that I will now be offering my Blogging Basics 101 class to not only new members, but also to brokerages, & businesses alike.  

So, if you have been telling your staff & friends about ActiveRain & encouraging them to sign up but they have not yet taken the time to do so, this class is for you & them!  This is the perfect solution to help all of your friends that are real estate agents, lenders, home inspectors,home stagers, & brokers to finally get their blogging career started in the right direction.   

What Can Be Expected in this Webinar?

In this class I will teach you: 

How to Optimize Your ActiveRain Profile.
How to Insert Photos into your Blog
How to Insert Hyperlinks.
Setting up Your Outside Blog.
How to write effective blog posts for consumers & search engines.

How to use your blog to connect with your community.
Topics to write about on your blog.
Question & Answer  
Why Blogs are the most important tool in your Social Media Arsenal.

When is My Webinar For My Brokerage?

Good question!  Due to different time zones & schedules, we will be planning these classes separately from my regularly scheduled classes.  Depending on the amount of interest along with the size of the brokerages, there may be a few companies combined together.   Of course, these classes will be scheduled at convenient times for your business.  So, if you have your company meetings on Tuesdays at 9AM, or Thursday at 5PM I will do my best to accommodate.

How Much is it Gonna Cost me?

For this time of top notch training from an expert in the field, you could expect to be paying hundreds of dollars to have them come in & speak to your team.  But, what if I said that the training was free for our members?  That is right, I said FREE.  The only thing that I ask, is that you make sure that those in your office that are not currently using ActiveRain on a regualr basis come to the class & encourage them to at least try out our Rainmaker Membership for the first month.  It will only cost them $5.00, but they will be able to enjoy the successes like so many of our members already have.

So, if you have a group that you would like to have a special training session for, feel free to fill out the simple form below.

In case you weren't aware, yesterday ActiveRain held their second annual Raincamp in San Francisco, California.  Now, if you were like me, you were stuck in your office all day seeing others brag about how awesome the day was and thinking to yourself how you wished you could be there to participate. 

While I was rather bummed that I didn't get to take part in yesterday's event, I was able to keep track of what the people in attendance thought and was able to see all their pictures through twitter. Unofficially, there were 131 people who mentioned #Raincamp on twitter yesterday.  There were over 430 tweets about #raincamp as well.  So, if you were unable to make it to yesterday's event, here is a list of all those who tweeted about #raincamp in San Francisco.

Now, instead of having to sit & click each name individually to follow on twitter, I have collected & placed all of these names into one easy step to follow all quick & instantly.  You can do so by visiting Raincamp San Francisco on TweepML.  In a single click of a button, you will have 131 new friends from ActiveRain to follow. Then, make sure to send them messages and hear all the good details on Raincamp San Francisco!

So connect now with all those who were in attendance!  And don't forget, Raincamp NYC is right around the corner for all of you going to Inman Connect in January!  Read Bob's post for details!

Technology is constantly changing the way businesses act and conduct business daily.  How willing are you to adapt to the changes as they come along and incorporate them into your business plan?  If you are not, you may want to re-think before your all your business has been captured by your competitors.

This is a movie review of Transformers 2, but since I didn't care for the movie that much, it turned more into a lesson on how to embrace change for your business. In fact, if you want, you can skip right to around 1:24.

I reference Blockbuster Video and how they have not been able to embrace change as fast as competitors like Redbox which are not slowly putting them out of business. You need to embrace change in your business and integrate social media into your plan if you have not yet. If you refuse to embrace change, you will end up just like Blockbuster in a few years....an empty building with a for lease sign in front of it. Please take a few moments to watch:

The Moral of the story?   Technology is constantly changing the way we handle our day to day businesses.  Be alert to these changes and be willing to embrace/implement them into your business plan. Even if you feel you do not like it, or feel it is a waste of time, you need to at least test out the new technology to see if it will help or hinder your business before you form an opinion on them.  Assuming they won't work because of something you hear from somewhere else could be fatal to your business.  Plus, we all knows what can happen if we just assume....

How To Use ScribeFire to Enhance Your ActiveRain Blog Posts  

Scribefire.com is a great 3rd party add-on to the Mozilla Firefox Browser.  Lately, the emails and calls have been coming in about how to setup AR Blogs, get API's, and how to use Scribefire with ActiveRain Blog posts.  First off, the reason I mention Scribefire is that it is one of the few third party apps I have found that works well and doesn't conflict with the AR Network HTML format. 

Really Important

Some members on AR use MS Word, Publisher, Front Page and other sources which often times (but not always) has hidden HTML codes, tables, and formatting that is incompatible with ActiveRain.  You've seen them, you know the ones, these are the posts that show funky looking codes, push the sidebar half way down the page, and make Blogs look like "you know what" when they load on your computer screen.

Why Use Scribefire?

Though the AR Blog Post editor may seem somewhat simplified and to some, a bit archaic, it still does a great job for creating great text content, adding images, photos and links, and producing search engine friendly creations.  However there are many who want to customize and create larger fonts, add color to their fonts, use a different style of font etc. This is where Scribefire does a great job and works well with AR.

THE MAIN REASON FOR POSTING THIS

Where most of our members get hung up is when downloading Scribefire as their Firefox add-on. Somewhere in the process, Scribefire asks for your Blog URL, API, and other information that IS NOT NECESSARY to begin using the Scribefire tools on ActiveRain. The requested and "perceived as required" information is ONLY for use on Blogging Platforms where you plan to use ScribeFire as the total replacement tool for creating your Blog posts. IE: Wordpress, Blogger, Self-Hosted Blogs etc. NOT ON ACTIVERAIN.

Here's the Scoop on How It Works

Go to Scribefire.com, download it and add to your Firefox Browser.  BYPASS all the additional questions and other stuff they want you to enter. (unless you are using scribefire on another blogging platform) To begin using the Scribefire tools and options, just press the "hotkeys" FUNCTION + F8 while in the edit mode of a Blog post, and the Scribefire Window (shown below) will open up in the lower section of your computer screen. Now you will have two areas to work in, your AR Blog post, and the Scribefire editing window.

Create your text, change your font color, select a larger sized font, use a variety of different style fonts, have a field day, and when you're done, just highlight the section you've created in the Scribefire window, copy it (CTRL+C) and then paste it into your AR Blog post body (CTRL+V)  You can do this using the ActiveRain WYSIWYG tab.  Save your post in "draft" mode to be sure everything looks just as you want it, then make the necessary changes you want before making your post public.

DISCLAIMER.. I mean Warning.. NO... A QUICK TIP!

One thing to be careful of is that you don't go CRAZY with Font Colors and sizes.  Sometimes the colored fonts and multiple sized text can make your Blog Post hard to read and unpleasing to the eye. Yellow font colors are difficult to read, Big Fonts can take away from the message in the little fonts, and multi-colored Blog post (for some) can and will cause nausea. (IMO)

SUMMARY and PURPOSE

The Scribefire add-on tools will allow you to enhance your AR Blog posts to your liking, give you a bit more versatility, and keep the AR network and your Blog clean of those Hidden and incompatible HTML codes.  Many of these outside third party apps can and will make Blogs on AR look like "you know what" and frustrate AR members beyond your wildest imagination.  I'm not kidding, you should see and hear some of the emails and calls I get. lol~ NOT!! :-)

For my next trick, we'll look at how to insert iFrames and tables into your Blog post without completely blowing out your Blog. This is one of the more common errors I see on ActiveRain by members that not only affects your AR Blog, but does even worse things to your Localism and Outside Blogs.