Jessica Hickok
By Jessica Hickok
I recently got an e-mail from my Flickr photo sharing account stating that a map company had requested to use a photo I had taken. The photo was a tourist-y pic of Fremont Street in Las Vegas that was taken on a recent trip we made there last summer. The map company was requesting to use it for one of their online publication maps promoting the eclectic street.
Don’t get too excited, I’m not getting paid for them to use the photo, but I am getting a credit byline on the interactive online map.
Fremont Street
They asked me for the byline credit link and the default was set to my Flickr user name. Although I like Flickr, I mostly use it for personal photos and I don’t use it that often. So I changed the credit to be given to my Web/blog site instead of my Flickr user name. Within weeks, I was amazed that my Web tracking stats were showing hundreds of hits on my web site that were coming from this online map Web site!
Then it hit me, posting pictures on Flickr (real estate related or not) can be just another way to drive traffic to your Web site. I haven’t received any phone calls from someone wanting to buy that overpriced listing that’s been on the market since last summer, but you never know. Nonetheless I am getting people hitting my Web site and all I did was upload a random photo to my Flickr account.
The moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of social media and a life well lived outside your job as REALTOR®. You’d be amazed at how they all intertwine within themselves. However, be warned young Jedi Warrior, it goes both ways… You must think before posting those “other” Vegas pics.
Jessica Hickok, a self-proclaimed blogging- and Twittering-fanatic, is with Dizmang Properties in Springfield, Mo. Visit Jessica’s blog: www.jessicahickok.com.
Nobu Hata
By Nobu Hata
Has anyone else started having the “Google” question pop up during their listing presentations? Not your website, nor your blog, or your Facebook page inquiry – the “can you make our home show up in Google?” question. It may be just that my clients tend to be a little more tech-savvy than your average buyer or seller, but it’s beginning to freak me out.
It didn’t help that I saw a report from my own company saying GoogleBase was the number three Web referrer to my company’s website. (After Facebook, if you’re wondering.) Fortunately, my brokerage has been forthright and progressive thinking enough to start feeding GBase our listings, but how many brokerages haven’t? Do you use these tools to market your listings?
Google Base, Maps, Real Estate (the closest thing to a national MLS), the forthcoming mobile ads and augmented reality features; what freaks me out isn’t that Google is getting into the real estate game — it was inevitable… hello, revenue stream! — it’s the fact that our clients will utilize these tools before many of us will. Check out http://maps.google.com/realestate, in the area immediately surrounding my home, roughly half were the “Big Three” brokerages in my market, the others were FSBOs, knowledgeable sellers using Craigslist (which uploads to GBase) and the like. What’s yours look like? Continue reading »
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.
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