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Ben Rosales Speaks Out On Improving Social Media Instruction

September 20th, 2010 • By: frerecks • SOCIAL NETWORKS

One of things we’re often carrying on about here is that in order to be successful you need to establish a current brand of your own [online]… where you actually demonstrate value.

Ben Rosales, AgentGenius.com, has some great points in his post about the shortcomings coming through areas of social media instruction these days.

In it he says, “[Social Media Instructor] you’re teaching the virtues of pulling, but not teaching where they’re pulling to, nor constructing and delivering a point of value (POV) in which to capture community within an agent or broker’s web property. In other words, you’re low level, teaching low level ideals and principals, not building the value of the agent in the eye of their consumer. Teaching facebook or twitter to an agent that has *no place to call home* is the equivalent of the homeless man on the corner begging for change.”

And social networks are incredible channels, but NOT your brand. The audience is valuable to your business, but the environment is not in your control … so, go there and participate BUT leverage the effort for engagement with your own brand!

And give Ben’s post ‘Social media gurus, are you listening to the crowd?‘ a good read because it makes several important points about sorting through it all!

Related Posts:

Sure, You Have A Blogsite & Social Network Accounts, But What is Your Plan To Succeed?

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chris@kineticknowledge.com


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Email Marketing That Works? Pack a Punch and Escape Rejection!

September 17th, 2010 • By: Kristen Belschner • EMAIL MARKETING

I saw an article on email marketing that sparked my interest the other day. I found some great tips so I thought I’d share a link and an overview. First of all if you haven’t been introduced to Naomi Dunford (Owner of IttyBiz and Author of the article, 7 Ways to Make Damn Sure Your Email Gets Read), then you’ll want to take a look at IttyBiz.  Be prepared for shock and awe and some colorful language, aside from that you’ll also find some very insightful online marketing gems as Naomi knows her shtuff.

I don’t know about you but I find sales emails a tough nut to crack. Once you get through the spam filter, you face rejection or even worse – angry readers. So before we bust into a review of Naomi’s tips, it’s important to have just a small discussion about permission based lists. Nobody likes spammers – so how do you get the exposure you need? You may not be thinking this, but blogging actually goes hand in hand with email marketing. Why? Because this is the vehicle that allows you to easily develop an opt-in mailing list. Feedburner provides a mechanism to allow readers to sign-up to receive news from your blog. If you provide the interface for sign-up, readers can freely ask you to connect with them. Then each time you blog, the article automatically gets sent by email to your growing list. Enticing sign-ups is another matter entirely (in fact, most of Naomi’s tips are relevent for this as well). Perhaps we’ll delve further into that one another day. The bottom line however is that you should be using permission based email lists. Only hit those folks who have asked to receive your message over the years and you won’t get spanked with rejection (and by all means, focus on growing the list!).

Ok, on to the good stuff…

This is just an overview so please go read 7 Ways to Make Damn Sure Your Email Gets Read in full for all the juicy details.

  1. Have a subject line people care about
  2. Incentivize the open
  3. Give surprise rewards
  4. Normalize the process
  5. Break it up
  6. Make it urgent
  7. Feedback is good

Subject lines: With email you don’t have to worry about SEO, so you can get as creative as you want! Don’t be lazy, think about what sizzles and peaks people’s interest. Here are some specific tips on email subject lines from Copyblogger.

Incentives: Let’s face it, they work. Coupons, gifts, “best-ofs” – what do you have to offer that those readers will find useful. It doesn’t necessary need to cost you anything, it just needs to serve up perceived value.

Rewards: In my view, the point here is ‘surprise’ rewards. If you give freely, you tend to get in return. Every now and again, just give something away to your sphere to say “thanks, i’m thinking of you”.  Who isn’t going to appreciate free stuff?

Routines: If you create a routine, your readers will fall into habit. Think about always sending on a specific day of the week or including the same introductory content idea everytime (an exercise, tip or joke). Something that consistently ‘brands’ your email.

Keep it Changing: Consistent but not predictable is key - long one time, short the next. Referral links one time, unique content the next. Mix it up, keep them guessing and wanting for more.

Urgency: I loved Naomi’s message here – Urgent does not necessarily have to be ‘buy in the next 10 minutes or lose out’ – it can simply mean, I have solutions and can fix your problem right now.  It’s urgent you pay attention.

Feedback: Oooh, such a great tip from IttyBiz – think about feedback in a different way. If a reader gives feedback they have completed an action. If you get them into the habit of following your requests – think how much easier it will be to get them to take your suggestion and buy something when the time comes.

Can it really be so simple? Well, probably not but this is a good start. Whether blogging or creating marketing emails, always think about your value proposition. What information do you have that solves a problem for your target client? What can you freely give that might tempt them to later engage your full service? Once you nail these things then the list above becomes a whole lot easier to follow and put into action.

My first tip? Go read Naomi’s article – this woman is a very successful online marketer (and she’s funny so it’s an extra bonus)!  New to business blogging? We can help! Find out how blogging can be your foundation to all online marketing efforts, contact us.

Bonus Blogging Tip:  Do you ever pay attention to your blog post slug?  Huh?  Yes, I said slug.  A slug is the actual portion of the url that gets created to represent your blog post.  Blog systems create URLs in different ways but it’s often something like: ‘rootURL/date/slug’ or ‘rootURL/category/slug’.  Take a look at the URL in the top bar of your browser on this page it’s http://www.realestateblogsites.com/2010/09/17/email-marketing-that-works/.  Do you notice how the slug portion is actually different from my blog post title (by default they are created the same)?  If you want to get creative and make a jazzy blog post title to peak reader interest you can always focus your SEO efforts by tuning the slug in your URL.  Or consider perhaps optimizing for a mis-spelled keyword (Yes, people do get traffic from misspellings!  You wouldn’t believe how much traffic we got from a post where we spelled Zillow – Zilliow.  Accidentally in this case.) – you wouldn’t want to misspell the word in your actual blog post title, but how about hiding it in your slug?  Food for thought.

Contributed by Kristen Belschner
kristen@kineticknowledge.com


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Social Media Marketing for Real Estate

August 25th, 2010 • By: Kristen Belschner • SOCIAL NETWORKS

Now that social media is on everyone’s radar – some of you are wondering… how much time do you have to put in to become a success?  I recently read an interesting article from AgentGenius on the subject.  Here’s the gist: it depends on you.  The author of the article gives two examples – one of an agent just beginning to dip their toes in the social media waters and another from a veteran.  The examples range from 25 minutes a day to almost 4 hours.  Most of us likely fall somewhere in between.

Asking how much time you should spend on social media marketing is akin to asking how much time you should spend on the phone or in the car. These are necessary parts of every real estate agent’s day. ~Agent Genius

An apt statement – there is no right or wrong, the time you spend on social media is entirely up to you and the business goals you’ve set.  Like anything, the more you put into something – the more you get out of it.  If you are someone that requires a regimen to achieve tasks each day then it may be appropriate to schedule time blocks for blogging, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn updates.  If not, then you can easily manage these spaces in between other daily tasks.

Whatever the choice on timing, one thing is clear – there is business to be had and a target audience to connect with out there.  Don’t underestimate the potential of these free and incredibly viral online tools.  Two things will be important in the long run – what kind of value can you add and what is the return on your time?

Need help starting a real estate blogsite or taking advantage of automatic social media updates for your existing site?  We’ve got you covered!

Contributed by Kristen Belschner
kristen@kineticknowledge.com


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The Legal Aspects of Social Media

August 17th, 2010 • By: Kristen Belschner • SOCIAL NETWORKS

Tune in to Blog Talk Radio on Thursday, August 19th for a free one hour presentation from Darity Wesley – Walking the Social Media Tightrope!

Darity will cover topics that bring you up to speed about content risk management on your web and social media sites.   She is very knowledgeable on the subject so this is one discussion not to miss!

Walking the Social Media Tightrope

Call in Number: (718) 664-9282

Here’s the event page on Facebook with more information

Contributed by Kristen Belschner
kristen@kineticknowledge.com


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IDX Broker Now Offering a WordPress Real Estate Plugin!

July 27th, 2010 • By: kinetic • ONLINE TECHNOLOGY RESOURCES

That’s right!  Popular online MLS web search provider, IDX Broker, recently released a new WordPress plug-in that allows you to easily blog listings direct from the MLS by data type. You can also incorporate property lead capture on your blog and increase your visibility in the search engines.  This plugin appears to be very a similar competitor to the dsIDXPress WordPress Plugin from Diverse Solutions that we previously blogged about.

With the new IDX Broker WordPress plug-in you can:

  • Display IDX search forms, widgets, and links on your Kinetic Blog
  • Choose one design for all of your IDX results and details pages
  • Use the IDX Broker WordPress plugin to add IDX lead capture and indexable idx page links to your Kinetic Blog

For those of you already using IDX Broker, the plug-in appears to be included with your existing IDX search service.  Take a look at the real estate demo site with the IDX plugin activated.  Give them a call to find out how you can access the power today (your MLS may need to be on a participating list in order for you to utilize this tool)!  If you have this service, we can easily install and configure the plugin for you within your Kinetic real estate blogs!  Just give us a call.

So what are you waiting for?  Email the Kinetic sales team to get your real estate blog with auto generated MLS listings started today!  We couldn’t be more excited for you.

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