ActiveRain Tutorials: January 2010

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.