Video by Teri Lussier using the Flip camera.
A young convert:
Mary McKnight on SEO and social networking:
Much more at our YouTube channel.
Category: Marketing (page 72 of 191)
This is my column for this week from the Arizona Republic (permanent link). Watch this space. There should be a lot of Flip video coming out of Unchained.
The Flip digital video camera makes illustrating real estate ideas fast, convenient and fun
I’m becoming a fan of digital video for marketing real estate.
I’ve always hated the video home tour: “This. Is. The. Living. Room. This. Is. The. Dining. Room. The. Family. Dines. In. This. Room.” The images will be small, dark and grainy. The motion will be either jerky, swooping or both. And the tour itself will do nothing that could not be done better with digital photos.
But just lately I got a Flip video camera, and I can’t seem to stop thinking of real estate uses for it.
The Flip uses solid state memory rather than tapes to store its video. It’s a tiny little thing, about the size of a digital still camera, and you can operate it with one hand. It’s really only good for certain kinds of work. It would be useless at a wedding or a basketball game. But for capturing interviews, it is the prefect video camera.
Even better, it comes with a built-in USB connection and software for emailing videos or pumping them directly into YouTube or MySpace. Shooting, storing, editing and sharing videos are all painlessly convenient.
The first real estate application I thought of for the Flip was to collect testimonials from clients. That’s kind of self-serving, but the next idea was all about selling houses. In the past we have done video interviews with sellers or neighbors, but the editing process for normal video is onerous. But with the Flip we can just shoot the interview, upload it to YouTube and then link it from the web site for that property.
If I want to make a quick video to show weather conditions or traffic around a house, it’s easily done. I had a home inspector deliver a short video summary of the repair issues on a home for out-of-town buyers.
The breakthrough for me was thinking of video in the same way I think of still photography, Read more
The following is taken from The Intellectual Heritage Program of Temple.
“The Natural Rights philosophy that we study in Intellectual Heritage reflects the central ideals of the Enlightenment, also called the Age of Reason (1660-1798). John Locke and Thomas Jefferson are just two of the many notable thinkers and writers who share Enlightenment values.
A basic list of these values would include the following:
- a deep commitment to reason,
- a trust in the emerging modern sciences to solve problems and provide control over nature,
- a commitment to the idea of progress in material wealth and in human civility,
- a belief in the essential goodness of human nature,
- an emphasis upon the individual as master of his fate and fortune, and
- an engagement with the public sphere of discussion and action.
In short, the Enlightenment thinkers believed in the powers of humankind and saw themselves as part of a revolutionary development in history that would replace superstition and tired rituals and corrupt traditions with reason and productive energy.”
In many ways, web 2.0 is akin to The Enlightenment, at least the concepts and promises. We have to tweak a bit because I’m not sure many people understand “reason” like the Enlightenment thinkers understood reason, and as for science controlling nature, well, maybe technology controlling cyber-nature . Yet, as an eternal optimist, I believe reason is making a comeback — merely because transparency forces an acceptance of “what is, is”, independent of definitions proffered by presidents before grand juries. Nature is another story, but we learn about what “is” and “isn’t” as we go forward and allow all science to have a voice.
The internet gives voice to reason and presents scientific facts, so the answers are there for those who search, even if you have to wade through gobs of misinformation, which brings us to an “emphasis upon the individual as master of his fate and fortune”.
On a smaller, more mundane scale there is an enlightenment process going on in the real estate industry. I read yesterday where Gen Y (or was it X) is changing everything by questioning traditional methods. This is not particularly new — new generations have been questioning Read more
From the shady courtyard of the Heard Museum, Brian Brady talks about what you can expect on Sunday at the BloodhoundBlog Unchained Social Media Marketing Conference.
Or, per the revised forecast, you could hang out at your hotel and play in the pool.
The air will be very dry, so 107 degrees will seem very pleasant. Even so, I’m thinking I should refer you to our relocation page, which details all the interesting ways there are to die in the desert heat.
The Cliff’s Notes: Drink water constantly and wear sunscreen. The weather will be truly perfect, but it’s not like what you’re used to back home.
We’re ready like firemen. Can’t wait to see you Sunday.
Technorati Tags: blogging, BloodhoundBlog Unchained, real estate, real estate marketing
Colleen Kulikowski sent me a sweet card wishing us success with Unchained. Enclosed was a packet of Aster seeds. If I can get them to grow, I’ll take pictures.
Tom Royce sent an email note telling us to break a leg.
Kevin Warmath needs a roommate for Unchained. If you haven’t bunked up and want to split costs with a man who swears he’s not a Neanderthal, give him a call (678-438-3041) and work something out.
My post on transparency was picked up by my long-time friend and client, Richard Nikoley. Richard runs Provanta, a debt-reduction company. Partly owing to my influence, they’ve just switched their on-line presence over to a WordPress blogsite, putting them squarely in the warts-and-all Web 2.0 world.
I said this in email to Richard, an Unchained epiphany all its own:
What’s interesting is that everyone in our world shops this way: Full research, full knowledge of the pros and cons of everything. We might be at the right edge of the learning curve, but it’s all the same curve. Everyone is on it, and everyone is moving our way on that curve. Why would we market any way but as a reflection of how we shop?
Think about it, and I mean think about it a lot: Why would we market any way but as a reflection of how we shop?
That post was also picked up by The Innkeeper’s Resource, a blog for Bed ‘n’ Breakfast innkeepers. Their take: Anonymous reviews are a reality of their business. Get used to it. I offered this in a comment:
Brilliant.
Here’s an idea that can work in any industry that can be hit with an off-site review:
“When Mark and Marie Olson complained about our threadbare linens on TripReports.com, we saw red. Not because the charge was false. It was true, alas. We had let ourselves become so distracted by the big picture of providing a great experience for our guests that we forgot that big things are made up of little things. Not only did we add a quality control procedure to our laundry, we built quality control into every aspect of our business. And we gave the Read more
We list homes for sale like nobody’s business. I mean that: No one’s business is built like ours. That’s something I’m doing everything I can to change, by every means I can think of. It’s why I take such pains to describe the things we do, in the hopes that I can induce other Realtors to do those things, or others like them. I don’t think my job is to be a lead-producing machine. I think my job is to be a real estate marketing machine. I think that’s your job, too.
In any case, I have a no-fee referral in Boston (the South End, south and east of Berkeley and Tremont, near Peters Park). It’s yours if you can demonstrate to me that you deliver the goods for your sellers. We’ll even help on our end with a web site and hosting.
The seller sold his last house with us. We’re stronger now than we were then, but he knows how strong we were then. If you can come through for him, I’ll come through for you. That’s a better-than-decent trade, I think.
I should start thinking this way, anyway — compiling a list of listers and buyer’s agents who I think earn and deserve every penny of their commissions.
In any case, if you’re the lister I’m looking for — or if you know that lister — speak up. The seller is smart, experienced and very real estate savvy. He’ll keep the place in showroom condition, and he can help out with the marketing, too.
Technorati Tags: real estate, real estate marketing
Using Eric Bramlett’s green ribbon and a little bit of PHP, I have built a small widget to keep track of the accumulating body of weblog posts on Trulia.com policy of adding the “nofollow” tag to links back to its listing partners. Shown below is an image of the widget; you can see the real thing in the sidebar.
You can read the articles linked in the widget for clarification, but the issue in its essence is this: Trulia is using the listings you give it to enhance its own search engine performance on long tail search keywords even at is not sharing any search engine authority with you on the link back to your listing. Another way of saying the same thing: You’re buying Trulia.com dinner and it is scarfing down your dessert while you’re away from the table.
If you’ve written a post on this topic, let me know and I’ll add your link to the widget.
If you care about this issue, you should echo this widget. It’s easy to do. The widget itself is not complicated, and I built it to be shared. It’s designed to work flexibly in your sidebar without clashing with your look and feel. In other words, it should take on the characteristics of your Cascading Style Sheet, not mine. If you want to echo this widget, it’s dread simple. Copy this line of code:
<?php
include ("https://bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/TruliaTracking.php");
?>
and paste it on a line of its own in your “sidebar.php” file for your currently active theme. FTP that into the appropriate folder on your file server and you’re done. (Note: These instructions presume WordPress and an FTP connection. If you know how to deploy this code in another blogging platform, or if you know how to edit theme files from within WordPress, speak up in the comments.)
Will BloodhoundBlog get Google “juice” for doing this? Yes, but we don’t need it. Instead, I’m using my code and my hot-rod file server to host this widget for anyone who wants to echo it.
Will the posts linked in the widget get Google “juice” for being there. Big time. Riding on BloodhoundBlog’s sidebar Read more
Marketing is 1 percent budget, 99 percent execution.
Earlier this week, I posted a mock story about Number1Expert rebranding as Number2Expert due to their decision to automatically include Trulia widgets on their template sites, and thus give Trulia over 11k links.
Well, I never claimed to be perfect (only close,) and ummmmm, I screwed up. Number2Expert is actually providing Trulia with 36,400 links.
Let me explain…
I first checked the total # of links to Trulia from N2E sites. Because N2E currently tags every site w/ the text “Number1Expert” at the top of each page, it was pretty easy to find. I ran this link analysis.
But jogging through some of the link pages, I realized that many of the webmasters linking out were doing so on their own. Sites like this guy were putting the widgets on their home page, and I’m only concerned about the links that N2E is placing on the sites through corporate policy.
So this meant that we needed to find the template pages where N2E is automatically placing the widgets. N2E uses the same page naming structure on all of their templates, so again, it wasn’t that difficult. We already knew they place the widgets on all of the “myhomes.asp” pages, and are providing them 11,200 links on these. I dugg a little more, and found a TON of dynamically generated pages that all have “myhomedtl” in the URL.
I ran this link analysis, and found an additional 25,200 links coming from N2E sites. Add that to the 11,200 links coming from the myhomes.asp pages, and we’re at a total of 36,400 links that are automatically placed on Number2Expert sites.
To put it in perspective, BloodhoundRealty.com has a total of 48,600 incoming links. Activerain has a total of 13,500 incoming links.
Trulia has a total of 164k backlinks. Number2Expert sites make up over 22% of their link profile.
Do you guys think this might be partially responsible for Trulia’s rankings?
Here’s a basic resource on how to check backlinks using yahoo.
More in the blogosphere:
- Trulia Widgets Help Their SEO, Not Yours – Steve Castaneda, TechForAgents.com
- Trulia is Your Competitor, Not Your Partner – help Read more
Back on Monday, Jeff Brown wrote a post explaining in no uncertain terms why some real estate agents are failing. If you have not read that post yet you need to take a long look in the mirror, get your priorities straight, stop reading this post and go back to Jeff’s. Once you are done reading take another long look in the mirror and come on back. Yesterday Brian Brady wrote a post with no less than sixteen links on marketing as religion. If you are going to reference religion in marketing you had better use a minimum of ten links, so Brian is safe. If you have not read his post: Marketing is Religion you need to take a knee for a moment, get your priorities straight, stop reading this post and go back to Brian’s. Once you are done reading take a knee again, meditate or pray about your philosophy of marketing, then come on back. Go ahead, I will wait right here…
My two cents’ worth on creating leads has more of an athletic angle; if you don’t know me you might find this interesting. (If you do know me you are probably quite sick of the ‘sport as life’ analogy, to which I say: tough!) Two years ago I began racing Ironman triathlons (I use the term racing lightly here). If you are not sure what an Ironman entails, I will be glad to tell you. You start your day by jumping in the water with a little over two thousand other competitors for a quick 2.4 mile swim. This warms you up sufficiently for the 112 mile bike ride that follows and we cap the whole thing off by running a marathon. The cut off time for finishing is 17 hours and believe me, that doesn’t sound like much as the day progresses. So besides bragging, you ask, what does sharing this have to do with marketing for leads in real estate and mortgages? Plenty.
By the time I start the marathon portion of an Ironman, I am not alone. I have a little buddy that shows up occasionally and runs along with Read more
by Brian Brady
Commercial Real Estate Finance Expert
Structured Debt and Equity
Licensed Real Estate Broker in AL, CA, and FL
“He’s Catholic but he’s awfully nice” was a comment you might have heard, in the 50’s. Now, I picked Catholicism but I could have picked Judaism, Evangelical Christianity, Islam… whatever. I’m using this as an example of how high the passions run when talk about a belief system. People are awfully defensive of their “mind-turf” and can be inflexible when it comes to considering a different school of thought.
Consider the RE.net. Do you like oranges or tomatoes? Did you cheer for Brady or Luther? Push versus pull? Will you call a lead a “lead”? It’s all seems stoopid yet it is ALL extremely important. Marketing is the new religion and sometimes our discussions escalate to the level of jihad.
…and that’s really okay. We’ll all get through it. Jew or Christian, push or pull, we’ll all achieve nirvana if we open our ears and listen…and be bold enough to act upon what we learn from each other.
I am a Real Estate Radio USA junkie. The Barrys are natural interviewers with just the right blend of doubt and enthusiasm. They are snaring some tremendous guests. Today, they interviewed Craig Proctor.
The Cliff Notes of what Craig Proctor said were:
1- Marketing trumps prospecting. AMEN
2- Marketing should be automated. Done properly, marketing automation allows us to spend 70% of our time doing our job rather than chasing business- AMEN
3- Direct response advertising trumps image advertising. AMEN, Brother.
4- Blogging is good to the extent that it produces leads and not to the extent that it (and I quote) “entertains or educates”. OUCH! Kinda stings, doesn’t it?
5- Marketing should produce so many leads that you should be able to pick and choose your clients. In fact, the most important thing in your real estate or mortgage brokerage practice IS lead generation. (We’ve heard that before). That is not to say that you should spend all your time on it but you must be OBSESSED with lead generation so that you CAN do Read more
That is the question. 
Whether ‘tis noble in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by not opposing them? To die:to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end.
I started this post with what I thought was a cute title, but then I looked at the actual Shakespeare soliloquy and saw that it was quite appropriate to this post. The “Z” in the title is for Zillow – the latest in a long list of challengers to Realtor.com for supremacy in Internet traffic for real estate eyeballs. There are other relatively new sites – Trulia, etc. – but Zillow seems to have captured the imagination of both the public and REALTORS®. Maybe it’s the cute name or the even cuter play on words with “Zestimates,” but the one site everyone seems to remember is Zillow. It has almost become a cliché term for Internet listing aggregators. Not bad for a site that has only been around for a year and a half.
But this post is not about Zillow; rather I wanted to explore the question of whether it make sense for local MLS systems to send their listing data to Zillow (or any other aggregator). A recent New York Times article provides a good framework of the discussion, but leaves out most of the “slings and arrows” that need to be considered before we willy nilly send MLS data to any site that wants it. Before you draw any conclusions as to my opinion on sending listing data to Zillow, let me say I could argue either “To Z, or Not To Z.” This post will focus a bit more on the slings and arrows, but Times article does a good job of making the other side of the argument. Frankly, I am undecided on this question and I encourage you to approach this discussion with an open mind.
We recently had this discussion in the Technology Group of the Charlottesville Area Association of REALTORS® (CAAR). There were strong opinions stated on both sides of the debate. Advocates Read more
I’m completely sold on the Flip camera. Unchained bought a second one for Brian the other day. We’ll use both of them at the conference, then each of us will take one home. We’re going to buy another one out of our own money for Cathleen. I wrote my Republic column for next week about all the real estate marketing uses I’m coming up with for this little video camera.
Why am I so sweet on the Flip?
- It’s second only to my digital still camera as an on-hand resource for recording and communicating real estate ideas
- It fits on my hip — just like my still camera — and that’s where it rides
- Because it’s so easy to carry and so easy to use, there is no aversion or impediment to using it
- It’s eminently useful for documenting traffic conditions around a house — or weather, as I did earlier today
- It’s simply excellent for doing interviews, whether those are testimonials, vendor reports for clients or video podcasts
The video shared below is a brief summary by Mike Elsberry, my all time favorite home inspector, documenting the repair issues in the home we looked at today. The buyers are out-of-state, but they get to see Mike’s face, hear the confidence and expertise in his voice and judge his level of concern with the issues he raises. This simply rocks, a completely different way of dealing with a remote-control inspection.
I want for Brain and I to both have Flip cameras with us all the time because of the ease of making video podcasts. Whenever we find ourselves talking to anyone with something interesting to say, we can turn the conversation into a podcast, a permanent addition to our library of Black Pearls.
Until now I have shouted down real estate video with my volume knob set to eleven. I still feel the same way about what I call the Lurch video, the painfully boring home tour with swooping and jerking camera movement and a voiceover narration punctuated by way… too… much… punctuation… Cathy shot an interview on Sunday with the seller of our listing on Lookout Mountain in Phoenix, Read more
…it’s really bad…
That’s what I woke up to this morning. Windy, cold and spitting rain. I had a home inspection in the nearby foothills and I had to sit through a brief brown-out — a cloud of dust so thick I couldn’t see to drive. The Russian Thistle were on the march — that’s Tumbleweed to you. In all, a brisk and challenging morning.
Is that what you can expect for BloodhoundBlog Unchained, if you’re coming to town this weekend? Not hardly. Sunny and not too terribly hot — for the Phoenix natives. Bring your swim suit. Should be clear and dry — what I think of as Chamber of Commerce weather. The conditions you’ll see this weekend have been selling homes by the dozens in this Valley since 1948.
Technorati Tags: blogging, BloodhoundBlog Unchained, real estate, real estate marketing
[With this post, Barry Cunningham will be taking his leave from BloodhoundBlog. Between Real Estate Radio USA and his burgeoning real estate business, Barry feels a need to regroup and redeploy his time. We’ll miss him here, but we’ll always be able to see him on the radio. –GSS]
I wrote an article Sunday that some misunderstood and thought was only based upon shock and awe. A campaign of that nature is merely one of a myriad of ways to be contrarian. Simply put, implementing a marketing campaign of this sort would be defined as that which is contrary to conventional wisdom and normal business practices.
Subsequent to that article I received a ton of emails from real estate agents asking how such a campaign could be implemented and how it could be executed WITHOUT being shocking or offensive.
My reply is that what is shocking and offensive to one, may not be shocking and offensive to another. It all depends upon the niche you are marketing to.
I interviewed Mr. Internet, Michael Russer recently and he told us about a few Realtors that were really doing some neat things in their marketing and their focus.
Jackie Youngblood is a Realtor in Pasco County, Florida that markets to nudists. Yes, her market is people who want to walk around naked and be around others that want to be naked as well.
Obviously, Jackie markets to a specific clientele. Being a nudist is not for everyone.Is her marketing contrarian? I don’t recall seeing many other Realtors marketing their services while being nude in a hot tub with 5 or 6 other nude people. So I’d have to say yes, this is very much contrarian.
Is it shocking or offensive? That would wholly depend upon the person visiting her website, receiving her marketing materials or viewing the properties that she represents. If it is shocking and or offensive then you are most assuredly not the client she is seeking to reach.
Does it make it wrong? Absolutely not! She has found her market. She is a nudist herself, and she is selling homes. More power to her!
Linda Jefferson, is the broker-owner Read more