Scott Newman
By Scott Newman
So here’s where you currently stand: Everyone and their mother has been telling you to blog. They say, “it’s so important to connect with the potential clients in your market.” Or more generally, “put yourself out there!” Even asking, “Why aren’t you blogging already? You’re the best writer I know!” (This last one from your mom).
But what’s a newbie blogging REALTOR® to do? Where do you start? What do you say? What don’t you say?
For these questions and more, I hope this blog post and the tips it contains will provide answers. Because while a blog is arguably one of the more daunting personal marketing tools out there, it’s also one of the most effective. Starting and maintaining a blog is an important endeavor for any real estate professional looking for more ways to reach potential clients and—drum roll please—generate business.
Be Yourself
Being yourself is the best advice you’ll probably ever get about almost any problem you’re having in life—how’s that for a tip?—but it also holds true with blogs. People want genuine experience, and if you can’t give that to them, they won’t give you their precious time and they’ll go off searching for another blog written by someone who has the realness factor they seek. Oh yeah, and then, when they’re hooked on some other agent’s blog, they’ll wind up buying a home from that agent and not you. Trust me, it can happen. Continue reading »
Lynn Minnick
By Lynn Minnick
I’ve been marketing the crazy out of a high-end listing. (Yes, I’m fairly sure I just made up that expression…but this is about getting creative, right?) This is easily the hardest I’ve ever worked to sell a listing. In this market, I went in knowing it would be a challenge, armed with an arsenal of creative ideas and a full social media marketing plan. Taking a partner on this project was necessary because I knew I would be traveling abroad for an extended time during the listing period, but it has been great to have someone to bounce ideas around with. Because of this, we’ve done some interesting things that might give you a few ideas.
Monica Seles
We started off with hosting “An Evening With Monica Seles” in NYC through the International Tennis Hall of Fame in Newport, R.I., and by sponsoring the Campbell Tennis Tournament. We did this because the property has a Har-Tru tennis court overlooking the Connecticut River. (See, Monica is such a good sport – having her picture taken with our sign!) Sure, we had broker tours as well as the requisite broker’s open house, but we made it memorable by creating a micro-cocktail named after the property (we called it “The Knowles”), sushi and seafood appetizers, a wine and dessert tasting by the river, and an amazing door prize giveaway (tickets to the U.S. Open!).
We’ve been in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and on every online venue we should be. We’ve targeted the agents selling high-end waterfronts with glossy mailers and e-mails. Continue reading »
Rob Reuter
By Rob Reuter, YPN Manager
I was recently approached by staff of REALTOR® Magazine and asked if I could start blogging in the YPN Lounge. I remember thinking to myself “cha right, have you seen my to-do list?” Well here I am and for my first blog in the lounge, I get to write about an exciting topic: the word REALTOR®. It is over 100 years old and many members, and even more of the motoring public, are still unclear of what it means (and how it is pronounced). I’ll admit that even when I was selling real estate, I wasn’t 100% sure on what it actually meant or how it could be used.
Websites, blogs, business cards…YPN Chapter names. Many of these are guilty of the misuse of the term REALTOR® and as the future of the real estate industry, we should all be fully educated on the meaning and correct use of it. To help get us started, here are a few guidelines for use on the Internet taken directly from Realtor.org:
1. The term REALTOR®, whether used as part of a domain name or in some other fashion must refer to a member or a member’s firm.
2. The term REALTOR® may not be used with descriptive words or phrases. For example, Number1realtor.com, numberone-realtor.com, chicagorealtors.org or realtorproperties.com are all incorrect.
3. For use as a domain name or e-mail address on the Internet the term REALTOR® does not need to be separated from the member’s name or firm name with punctuation. For example, both johndoe-realtor.com and johndoerealtor.com would be correct uses of the term as a part of domain names and jdoe*realtors@webnetservices.com and jdoerealtors@webnetservices.com are both correct uses of the term as part of an e-mail address.
4. The REALTOR® block R logo should not be used as hypertext links at a web site as such uses can suggest an endorsement or recommendation of the linked site by your Association. The only exception would be to establish a link to the National Association’s web site, REALTOR.org, or its official property listing site, REALTOR.com.
For a full understanding of the term REALTOR®, here’s a link to its location at Realtor.org: http://http://www.realtor.org/letterlw.nsf/pages/internetuse. So the next time you’re in line at the grocery store or hitting up happy hour and you hear someone say ‘real-a-tor,’ you can turn to them and say “it’s pronounced REAL-TOR and this is what it means.”
Laura Rubinchuk
By Laura Rubinchuk
Has anyone told you recently that you may sell real estate, but you’re actually in the lead generation business? Yeah, it struck a chord with me too. Your next closing could be, and ideally would come from, your next lead. So how are you generating leads?
I like to the think of it as a big circle with spokes from different methods generating leads. The beauty of real estate is that there are so many different ways to be successful; you just have to find what works for you. So as an example, my “spokes” include:
- My Blog
- Social Media (primarily Facebook, Trulia, and Twitter)
- My Sphere (people I know)
- Open Houses
From Flickr: kr-crew
Your spokes may look different – calling FSBOs or expireds, newspaper ads, etc. But if you take out one of those spokes by not committing to them, the wheel will go flat!! Flat tires mean the bus goes nowhere, much like our business when we stop lead generating. It’s so easy to get caught up in babysitting current clients and contracts when things are busy, but if you don’t lead generate now, you’ll feel it in a few months.
Figure out your strengths and what will work for you and your personality. Stay true to what you pick because things may take a while to take off, but when they do, all the effort will be worth it! Get busy!
Laura Rubinchuk, GRI, is a real estate practitioner with Keller Williams Realty in McLean, Va. Visit her blog at www.ArlingtonRealEstateNews.com or her Web site at www.TheLJRGroup.com.
Jeremy Williams
By Jeremy Williams
You work hard to add content to your blog so why not allow all that great content to be shared to the masses. Two of the biggest social media platforms right now are Facebook and Twitter. Millions have chosen to get connected whether socially or for business networking purposes. Sharing your blog with Facebook and Twitter users is easy with just some simple html.
First you will want to create jpg buttons containing the following text: Share on Facebook, retweet, and tweet this. You will want to save these buttons on a site like Flickr or Photobucket so that the image will have an http reference. Once you have the buttons created you can copy and paste them into your blog. For this exercise you can reference my blog at www.activerain.com/blogs/williams4yourhome.
Now you will need to make the buttons in your blog a link to carry out the specific actions. Here is the html for each action that allows content to be shared with Facebook and Twitter users.
Share on Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=”link of blog post to be shared”
Retweet – http://twitter.com/home?status=RT%”link of blog post to Retweet”
tweet this – http://twitter.com/home?status=”link of blog post to tweet”
Allowing your blog content to be easily shared among Facebook and Twitter users is a powerful way to reach the masses. The more informative or interesting the blog post, the more likely people that read will share it among their Facebook friends and Twitter groups. Gain exposure through this viral means of social media marketing. More exposure allows for opportunities to develop relationships, which can lead to developing potential home buying and home selling clients. Start sharing…
Jeremy Williams of Keller Williams Realty NE in Kingwood, Texas specializes in the residential real estate market of Kingwood, Atascocita, and Humble, Texas. Visit his Web site at www.williams4yourhome.com.
Jessica Hickok
By Jessica Hickok
It’s been said over and over that social media can be a huge benefit to your real estate business. I have found this to be true on so many levels, as my company has received countless referrals off of Twitter and Facebook by talking about what I love to do. And yes, like you, what I love to do is sell real estate!
But what has also been asked by many REALTORS® who have embraced the numerous social media sites is… how can I save time by posting photos and updates to one site to send out to all of my other social media sites?
New things come up all of the time, but the flavor of the month is Posterous. Posterous is a free site that is simple because all you have to do is e-mail your file and it will post to your Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, blogs, and more within seconds.
Again, it’s free and it is super simple. I encourage you to give it a try.
Jessica Hickok, a self-proclaimed blogging and Twittering fanatic, is with Dizmang Properties in Springfield, Mo. Visit Jessica’s blog: www.jessicahickok.com.
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