It is Thursday!  Which means it is time to introduce another of our wonderful new themes!  This week I wanted to introduce Real Estate Red.This wonderful theme incorporates bold red colors into your blog to make things Pop.  For those of you who have been experiencing difficulties in loading a header, you have nothing to worry about with this theme.  Real Estate Red comes with header already set that shows off the title to your blog well.  Below is a screen shot of what it looks like, or you can always visit my outside blog to view it in real time.

Remember, changing your theme is a simple deal. All you have to do is head over to your outside blog by clicking on the link from the left hand side of your 'my home' page. Once on your outside blog, click the 'theme' link up at the top of the page and select the theme you want to use.

If you don't have a custom ActiveBlog on your own domain yet, Brad Andersohn takes you through the step by step of how to get it set up. If you have recently signed up for the Rainmaker upgrade, your ActiveBlog is included in your upgrade so make sure to get it set up.

For information on how to sign up for your own Outside Blog, click on the picture below.

If you have missed my other New Theme Thursday Posts, you can check them all out below.

New Theme Thursday - New Theme for your ActiveBlog! Our Business Casual Theme

New Theme Thursday - New Theme for your ActiveBlog! Our Easy Going Theme

21 Themes to Customize your Outside Blog

ActiveRain Takes A Day at the Beach

New Theme Thursday- ActiveRain has Upgraded to Granite

Yesterday I receive a message from one of our members, Sara Bonert.  Sara is the Director of Broker Relations for Zillow She asked me if there was a way to incorporate the wonderful new about me video that was created for her profile on Zillow onto her ActiveRain profile.  She said that she had tried for a while, but was unable to get it embedded properly.

This got me thinking.  Whenever I visit someones profile, if they have a video that tells me about them, most of the time I will click & watch the video instead of reading paragraph after paragraph of text.  However If their video is boring & not engaging, I normally stop it after 15-20 seconds & move on to another place.  Zillow does an awesome job of implementing this into the profiles of their staff.

I decided shortly after inserting Sara's video onto her profile that this was something very unique that I could do to help my profile start to stand out from anyone else.  Granted, everyone can add a video to their profile after following the tutorial below, but even if all 153,000+ members do this, there still will only be one About Me video from Jeremy Blanton. So, one of the first things I did today was make my own welcome video.  You can see my example on my profile.

Tips to Creating an Effective About Me Video

Start by making an interesting video about you.  It took me several tries to make a video that sounded interesting & not boring.  The first few times I stuttered through my words & also looked very sad.  Also the tone of my voice was rather dull & drab.  Since videos are all about visualization you want to look happy & sound excited!

Don't get caught up on Professionalism.  While Sara had a professional on hand to create & edit her video, not everyone has access to that. My video was recorded straight from the web cam built into my computer.  I simply cut the section that I wanted to publish with a basic video editing software that every computer has.  (iMovie on Mac, or Windows Movie Maker on PC)

Be Human!  Whatever you do, please do not make your video a mini infomercial. It is fine to say your name & what company you work.  It is even ok to add in the easiest ways to contact you.  But please do not go through every designation, how many homes you have sold in the last month, why it is the perfect time to buy or sell real estate, or why they should hire you today.  Remember, all your contact information is already listed in your profile, so you don't need to say it on the video.  If they want to contact you, they can find how to do so right above. 

Also, share non business things that you enjoy doing, like golf, or reading a book, or going for a run.  Those small things can be the thing that connects that consumer with you.  Remember, your social media success is dependent on engaging someone else.

Keep it Simple. You video needs to be short sweet & to the point.  Don't add 25 slide transitions & pages of text intro & at the end.  If the video gets too long, you better have something really interesting to keep me around.  I would suggest keeping the video under 3 minutes max.  Mine was actually under 2 minutes because if you are anything like me, you got a lot going on & well to sit still & watch one page for a long period of time is difficult.

How to Insert Video On Your Profile

The first thing you need to do after creating your simple video is upload it to one of the many video platforms like youtube, viddler, vimeo, seesmic, and the list goes on.  Once you upload your video remember to go into the settings & change it to not include related videos if you are using youtube.  After you have done this, copy the embed code that is generated.

After copying the embed code, you will then visit your my home page & click on the Edit button next to My Profile.  You will see a button that says HTML third from the right on the toolbar.  I would suggest adding the video to the first section of your profile so that people see it first when entering your profile.  If you place it in the second or third box, the chances that they watch the video go down dramatically since they have to scroll down to see it.

When you click this button it brings up the entire box in HTML coding.  Then paste in the copied embed code in the box above all of the rest of the coding.  That way your video shows up at the top.  

Then click Update. 

****ONE VERY IMPORTANT LAST STEP!***

Make sure you click save profile to save addition of the HTML Embed Code.  If you do not click save profile after clicking update on the HTML box, the changes will not take effect.

Congratulations! You have now successfully added a video to your profile!

As always, while it seems like this may be some huge massive project to do, it really is not.  To shoot the video, edit, upload to youtube & embed on my profile the entire time with many interruptions was maybe 20 minutes.  Just like my video says, if you get stuck, do not hesitate to leave me a comment & ask for help!

Last week I did a simple test on an old post that I wrote titled: My 4th of July Festivities in Myrtle Beach, SC. What are you doing?!? In the article, I shared a few photos that I took of me grilling out some steaks to celebrate the holiday with the in-laws.  For fun, I edited this post & decided I would label my photos "Best Steaks in Myrtle Beach" I did this on purpose to prove a point. 

In my post, that phrase is used nowhere other than just the labeling of my pictures. Today, I ran a google image search to see where my photos ranked.  I wasn't really surprised to find them in the #1 & 2 spaces on Google.  I know what many of you are thinking, "Who Cares if your photos rank high in google image search?"  Well, if you haven't paid attention to this before, you may want to now, because there is a tremendous amount of Google Juice involved.  When google searches your site, they are no longer just looking at the text comments. They are also reading your images & any text associated with the image to help categorize the web page.  

Peter Linsley, who is a product manager for Google Images did a great video on google images search. He explains why images are important to SEO & also why consumers are using image search.  The video gets very technical & geeky, so I will warn you ahead of time.  Nevertheless, it has a few good points.

Two Reasons to Appeal to Google Image Search for Consumers.

1. Images have a very broad exposure.  By labeling your photos properly, you are increasing your exposure tremendously.  In the example above, if I was searching for the best steaks in Myrtle Beach, I would use the regular Google search, but I would also look at the images to see actual photos of the steaks.  I am very much a visual person, so I want to actually see the results instead of just reading about it.

Before you say it, let me extinguish this complaint: "But this has nothing to do with real estate, so who cares?"  You are correct, this doesn't have a thing to do with real estate.  But, how many times do you visit a website from Google in search of one thing & end up noticing something else? Think with the Walmart Mentality.   Also, when you are placing your actual real estate photos, you should be labeling them as well for the searches.  Like stated before, it gives those using Google image search the ability to find you, & also helps increase your overall Google ranking.

2. People Search More than Just #1!  When someone is doing an image search, they are going to look at more than just #1 on the list.  In Fact, many times, they will search through several pages to find the photo that catches their eye. So even if you are not lucky enough to get your photo landed in the #1-5 spots, the importance of labeling the photos is still present because if you have the most visually appealing photo, the consumer will visit your page.

202 Billion photos Labeled img.

That is right!  There are over 202 Billion images on Google that have never been labeled properly.  That means there is such a huge amount of photographs out there that may be some of the most amazing pieces of art that nobody will ever be able to search.  ActiveRain has made it very easy for you to label your photographs. 

Under the Image URL box you will notice the Image Description & Title.  You can set these to be whatever you wish.  I normally make them both the same so that there is no question to the search engines or consumers what the photograph is supposed to represent.  You want to make sure you fill in both boxes.  The Image Description is what Google will read & associate with the photo.  The title box is what consumers will read when they hover over the photo. 

If you leave these fields empty, both Google & Consumers May not know what your pictures mean.  Also the search engines cannot find you.  Implementing this simple & easy step takes only a few extra seconds while writing your posts, but the benefits from it can be endless. So, if you have been contributing to the 202 million, it is time to stop & contribute some SEO to yourself!

I  read a post earlier this morning from fellow staff member Joel Kruse on how within a three hour period he helped a new member, achieve page one results with her new ActiveRain Blog on Google.  If you missed the article, go read it here: New Rainmaker on the first page of Google in 3 hours the post is rather astonishing!

As I began reading the comments, one of the comments I saw by a few over & over was: "Lets be real, who cares if you are #1 for Manhattan Beach Events & Activities?  You need to be on page 1 for real estate terms in your area."   I wanted to take a few minutes to explain why writing about anything in addition to real estate can be an asset to your Real Estate business.

Adopting the Walmart Mentality to Your Blog

I don't know about anyone else, but I know that whenever my wife & I visit walmart we end up being there for a minimum of 30 minutes & spending close to $100.00 no matter what.  We go in to purchase a bag of potatoes & diapers & while inside realize that we needed paper towels, see an adorable outfit for Isabelle we can't pass up & need more shaving cream.  The reason that this happens is because Walmart has everything you could ever possibly need!  They are a smorgasbord of products. Also, you know that their prices are always going to either be better than the competition or very close.

This same principle is true to your writing on your blog.  While writing about community events & activities, or restaurants may not have anything to do with real estate, writing these posts bring consumers to your blog.  While they are there reading about a local restaurant, or an upcoming Marathon, they also notice you work in real estate & as they become comfortable with you as a local expert, they are also going to be telling others about your blog.  Also, they will check back regularly for more information & also connect with you.  Also, you never know who they may be telling about your site & the great info you shared about the local parade that is ready to buy a home now.

Here is an example to bring this into perspective:  A few years ago, I wrote about baseball & a major local tournament that was taking place here.  Shortly after writing that post, a gentleman contacted me one day.  He said, "Hi Jeremy, I read what you wrote about the upcoming baseball tournament.  My son is playing in it this year & I was wondering if you could help us find a place to rent for 10 days."  While I never ventured into the rental market & stuck strictly to real estate sales, I was kinda bummed he was looking to rent instead of purchasing.

I gave the man a the name of a nice condo development that did rentals & didn't think much of it anymore.  As the next year of the tournament rolled around, I received a call one day from this gentleman.  He said: "Hey Jeremy I have been following your blog for the past few months & it seems that the market in Myrtle Beach is really prime for us to purchase. When we come back down in a few weeks can we get together & look at property?"  I said most definitely!  So, we met up while they were here.  They ended up purchasing two properties from me as well as referred another 3 people to me.

That one small thing written about a baseball tournament resulted in over $30,000 in commissions because I wrote an article that appealed to this gentleman's needs, & also took a step beyond the call of duty to help him find a rental.  Also, he was able to relate to me because he knew I loved baseball enough to take time & write about it.  We had a common connection.  He didn't first come to me because buying a place here was on his mind. Just like when I visit Walmart I am not going in to purchase Isabelle a new dress, or my wife a new pair of shoes.   I am there for bag of potatoes.  But because the rest is available, I get that as well. 

If nothing else, write the post for the Juice!

Ok, so maybe you think this principle above is crazy & completely ridiculous.  If you do, that is perfectly fine and you don't need to believe it.  But, what about the SEO side of writing local content?  As you write these local content posts you are working on building a larger online presence.    Every time you write a post & submit it for the public to view, you are giving Google another page to index on your blog & increasing SEO. One of the things that Google loves is fresh new content.  The more content you can provide, the more it will love you. 

So, Have You Adopted the Walmart Mentality to Your Blog?

Just like I have shared over the past few weeks, ActiveRain has designed a new theme for your ActiveBlogs.  This weeks theme is called "Granite."  It incorporates nice jewel tones with the sidebar image.  It also allows for a Header image for your blog.  Below is a screenshot of what it looks like, or you can always visit my outside blog to view it in real time.

Remember, changing your theme is a simple deal. All you have to do is head over to your outside blog by clicking on the link from the left hand side of your 'my home' page. Once on your outside blog, click the 'theme' link up at the top of the page and select the theme you want to use.

If you don't have a custom ActiveBlog on your own domain yet, Brad Andersohn takes you through the step by step of how to get it set up. If you have recently signed up for the Rainmaker upgrade, your ActiveBlog is included in your upgrade so make sure to get it set up.

For information on how to sign up for your own Outside Blog, click on the picture below.

To see other new themes visit:

New Theme Thursday - New Theme for your ActiveBlog! Our Business Casual Theme

New Theme Thursday - New Theme for your ActiveBlog! Our Easy Going Theme

21 Themes to Customize your Outside Blog

ActiveRain Takes A Day at the Beach

I was planning on writing about this later in the week, but since my good friend Midori already wrote about it, go & vote please!  Seems Isabelle has some competition from another mommy that is voting repeatedly by refreshing the page every 2-3 minutes! Voting takes you about 5 seconds total & no registration is required.

Thanks everyone for helping the cause #Isabellwins!

REMEMBER HIT THE REPORT A CONCERN BUTTON, DON'T JUST DELETE SO WE CAN TRACK THE IP ADDRESS & CATCH THESE RASCALS!

Also, there is no need to submit trouble tickets regarding this spam.  We are aware of the issue & are working hard to to stop it.  Simply Report a concern & we will handle it from there.

Sorry to everyone!

**THIS TUTORIAL IS ONLY APPLICABLE TO FAN PAGES.  IT DOES NOT APPLY TO A REGULAR FACEBOOK FRIEND PAGE**

Since Facebook announced the ability to have your own personal url for your Facebook Pages, there has been an amazing increase in Fan Pages.  One awesome feature that has recently been released is the ability to add a Facebook Fanbox Widget. 

Like most new and cool things, I immediately had to try & add it to my page.  So, I visited Facebook and noticed that the code was giving as a <script> which is not on the approved widget list yet on our network.  But, as I scrolled down a little further, I found a version of the code in <iframe> which is supported by the network.

So what are Facebook FanBoxes?

The fanboxes are almost like mini versions of your fan page.  It allows people to become a fan of your Facebook page right from your blog.  It also shows some of your fans on rotating basis.  The other fun thing is that you can bring in your wall from your Facebook page to show what is happening on Facebook on your blog. 

How to install Facebook Fanbox on your ActiveRain Blog.

The <iframe> widget is rather generic and if you just copy & paste the generic version of the widget, it will be too wide & look funny on your blog here on ActiveRain.  But, like any good community builder, I have taken the time to make the necessary changes so that the widget will look right on your page. 

Two Versions for Your ActiveRain Blog.

The first version includes your stream from your Facebook Page Wall into your ActiveRain Blog.  The finished product will look very similar to my personal widget over on the right.  The first step is to copy this piece of code in it's entirety:

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://www.facebook.com/connect/connect.php? id=YOUR ID NUMBER&connections=6&stream=1" allowtransparency="true" style="border: none; width: 205px; height: 600px;"></iframe> <div style="font-size:8px; padding-left:4px"><a href="YOUR FACEBOOK URL">YOUR FANPAGE NAME</a> on Facebook</div>

After you have copied the code above, you will then go to My Settings on your ActiveRain Blog. Paste the code into the Blog Description box.  Once you have copied & pasted the code into your blog, it is now time to alter the coding to make it your personal page.  Start by opening up a new tab on your web browser & bring up your Facebook FanPage.  You are going to need to tab back & forth between the 2 pages to get all the information needed to customize your page.

You will notice 3 parts of the code above that I have placed in BOLD print.  The reason for this, is that these three sections you must enter your information or the widget will not work properly.  Also, it will be very generic & not customized to you.

The first section you are going to change is Your ID Number.  This is found by visiting your facebook fan page. Under your profile picture there is a link to add a fanbox to your site.  Click on that link. DO NOT USE THE CODE THAT APPEARS NEXT ON FACEBOOK.

Once it opens, you will want to copy 12 digit id number that is at the end of the URL.  This is YOUR ID NUMBER. 

Once you have that ID number go back to the code and replace the words YOUR ID NUMBER with the 12 digit number.

The next step is to get the link for your page.  If you are lucky enough to have over 100 fans already, You have a custom URL.  Mine is http://facebook.com/socialmediatips that would be the URL I would place in mine.  But, if you do not have the vanity URL yet, your URL would look more like this: http://facebook.com/Real-Estate-Client-Referrals/101152061373.  The number at the end of the URL is very important as that is part of the URL identifier so make sure you include it as well. You will paste the entire URL into the YOUR FACEBOOK URL section.

The third & final customization to the code is to title the fanbox widget at the bottom of your widget.  I titled mine Social Media Tips, but yours might be Miami Real Estate, or Denver Locals, whatever you want to name it.  The choice is yours.  I would keep it to less than 5 words. 

After making these changes to the code, make sure to click Update to save changes!

Some of you may not wish to have the wall included into your widget out of fear of what some of your friends might say, or to just make things simpler, so I have also customized the widget without the wall feed included.  To make this widget on your blog, you will want to copy this code:

<iframe scrolling="no" frameborder="0" src="http://www.facebook.com/connect/connect.php? id=YOUR ID NUMBER&connections=12&stream=0" allowtransparency="true" style="border: none; width: 205px; height: 440px;"></iframe> <div style="font-size:8px; padding-left:4px"><a href="YOUR FACEBOOK URL">YOUR FANPAGE NAME</a> on Facebook</div>

As above, follow the 3 simple steps to Customize your widget on your blog by changing the ID Number, URL & Fanpage Name. Once the changes have been made, DO NOT FORGET TO CLICK UPDATE ON YOUR ACTIVERAIN SETTINGS PAGE.

I will leave you with this final thought.  While it seems like this is a rather complex & long laborious process, it really is not.  I have already taken the hard part out by making the customizations to the html code to make this widget work properly and look good on ActiveRain. 

My guess is that if you follow the steps above you can add this widget in less than 5 minutes.  When Clint Miller Contacted me yesterday to add the widget to his Real Estate Client Referrals blog on ActiveRain, we were able to have it up & running in about 2 minutes time. 

Also, if you are familiar with HTML codes you can make a few more customizations to this widget.  For example, you may not want 12 of your friends showing at a time, or maybe you wish for none to be showing.  This coding is fully customizable.  If you would like some of those changes but are not familiar with HTML codes, let me know in the comments section and I will try to make the changes & post them below.  One suggestion is this.  Make sure to keep your friends showing on the widget in multiples of 3.  If not, you will run into issues.

Lastly, if you have not already joined the ActiveRain Page, what are you waiting for?  Use the Fanbox on the right of my page & become a fan today!

"New client called me from co. website...I was the only one in my office w/my profile filled out!"  This was a quote that came through my twitter stream earlier today from my friend Kristina Cusick.  She was so thrilled to receive a new lead straight from her company website.  Why? Because she had taken 10 minutes to fill out her profile completely. 

Each day as I navigate through ActiveRain I come across profiles of members that are left vacant.  Most do not even have a profile picture.  This saddens me because it sends off the impression that either they are incompetent and do not know how to complete the profile, or the member is just too lazy to take time and fill it out.

On twitter, I see friends say all the time, "If you don't have an avatar, I am not following you!"  The main reason for that statement on twitter is that people are constantly making spam accounts that are used to just push junk on clients.  If you actually took the 3 minutes to fill out a twitter profile and upload a photo, you will gain confidence in people instantly.

Then, while writing this post, I came across another post on Sara Bonert's blog that she just published about Terri Lussier's Awesomest Zillow Profile.  In this post, Sara discusses the importance of Keyword Rich information on your profile.  There is a graphic there that shows how Terri's social media profiles are dominating Google. 

If you do a google search of: "Use this section to write about yourself - don't be shy - Why should a buyer or seller want to work with you? Do you have any certifications and qualifications? What sets you apart from other agents/loan officers?" You will find over 18,000 members on ActiveRain that have never even filled in the description sections of their profile!  That means 18,000 members are missing the ability to be distinguished in google searches with their profile page.

So, my question to you is this?  Have you set up your profile on ActiveRain & other social media sites?  If the answer is no, have I convinced you yet of the importance of a complete profile?  I surely hope so!

If you are not sure where to begin to enhance your profile, here are some great tutorials to help:

• How To Set-Up Your Active Rain Profile
• How To Complete Your Active Rain Profile - Part II
• The Importance of Headers in Your ActiveRain Profile
• Optimizing your ActiveRain Profile for Seach Engines and Visitors
• Your ActiveRain Profile-Your Masterpiece!
• Your ActiveRain Profile Page- Make it Shine For You!