Ever heard of  Google Fusion Tables? While Google announced it was dropping their ‘real estate listings database to mapping service’, it doesn’t mean they don’t provide real estate professionals with great tools to map listings.

A FREE data management and publishing application, Fusion tables makes it easy to present any data you have, say in CSV files or spreadsheets, visually online. If you’re looking for better ways to present data in posts, Fusions Tables will enhance you ability to do it!

What can you do with Google Fusion?

• Upload your data sets from spreadsheets or CSV files
• Host your data, and then easily embed it on other sites
• Visualize your data on maps, in timelines and on charts
• Pick who can access your data; hide parts of the data if needed
• Merge data from multiple tables
• Collaborate on data with others, track changes and discussions

Three simple steps: import, display, publish.

For real estate posts a Google Fusion Map, with data applied, can display where featured real estate listings are located. It can map where you have sold homes recently, as well as charts and tables for historical sales volume and values.  In addition these tables and maps can be set to be  interactive, allowing both visitor commenting and also just more information for visitors who want it. 

Other real estate pros have utilized market data and reports from sites like Zillow to create valuation maps.  There can be specific values of homes for sale or sold, as well as locations of homes that are for sale within a certain price point.  The tool is virtually limitless, allowing real estate professionals to maximize the information they want their sites to convey. 

You can display school locations in an area, as well as specific information on schools, including performance, ranking and more.

You can show hospital locations, including pop ups to display in-depth information about each hospital.

Even important local businesses you endorse… and the list goes on – go check out Fusion Tables!

I recently encountered an article written by Nicole Nicolay on MyTechOpinion that I thought was well worth sharing. The article is titled, “The New Rules of Content Creation & Curation“. Nicole embarks on a journey to educate business bloggers about the importance of creating and sharing good content:

“while some “experts” may be leading you down their automated paths or filling you up with hope of launching a comprehensive social media marketing plan in 5, 10 or 12 days….my advice is “think for yourself”. There are no quick fixes with social media, it takes work and it takes drive….just like with any successful marketing or business plan. Most importantly, it begins with content.”

This is such an apt statement! I was especially thrilled with her breakdown of “content creation” and “content curation” – a nifty thought and some nicely coined terms.   She explains – a content creator is someone who identifies target market needs and seeks to create original and highly relevant content.  A content curator is someone who identifies relevant and valued content from third party resources on the web and passes it on to their network via links, tweets, etc (much like i’m doing with this article). You can be sucessful attempting either or you can certainly be both.  We strive to do the latter.

To be effective in the spaces of business blogging and social media it’s always going to come down to how much of yourself are you willing to share. The more you put in, the more you will get out. The more you strive to provide good, relevent, timely information to your sphere – the more they will appreciate you. And, most importantly – the name of the game is not always about search engine optimization. What?  Yes! What happens if you optimize a bunch of articles using key word after key phrase and reciprocal link after reciprocal link but don’t think much about the value delivered by your content? Sure, you’ll get visibility and traffic – but will you get leads and followers, will you build that sphere into anything meaningful, will you connect with people, no.

In an effort to be not only a curator of Nicole’s great info but a creator of some of our own – I’ll leave you with some easy tips that I hope will be helpful with efficient content creation.   I like to see folks new to business blogging start out with a brainstorming session and a plan.  Here’s a quick overview:

1. Gather your colleagues and peers for a short brainstorming meeting
2. Determine who your “online” target audience is (keep in mind there might be several groups especially if you are niche marketing)
3. For each target group, ask yourself the following questions
   • What are their needs and wants?
   • What are their pain points?
   • What kinds of problems might they need to solve?
   • What kinds of topic interest them?
   • What might they realistically be searching for out there in Google or Yahoo?
   • What language do they speak when they search (I don’t mean english or french – but more importantly, are you using the same vocabulary? This is imperative – you must use the same terminology as your target audience to get the opportunity to connect with them in the search engines.)
4. Make a list of all these things!
5. Review your list and come up with a plan to use your answers as a guide for the creation of business blog articles and content.
6. Make a plan (create a blogging calendar) about how and when you are going to release content and get the team involved!

Another thing that I often see pretty regularly is the idea that you must start big when it comes to SEO, “if I can’t get the number one spot for my main keyphrase, then i’m not sucessful”. No offense to anyone out there, but this is BS. True search optimization comes with time and diligence. There is no magic and it won’t happen from Day 1.  It WILL however happen over time if you put in the time.

So… another nice thing to do when you are getting started is to start small. Choose a niche or a point of interest you’d like search discovery around and start your blogging career in a focused manner. Plan your first 30-day cycle around a very specific goal – don’t go for the whole enchilada right out of the gates! You are likely to be disappointed if you do. On the other hand, if you start with some specific terms for a specific niche with a specific timeframe goal in mind – you just might see some results right away!

It’s a great way to get acquainted with the process of how consistent, relevant and organic content creation can become a very effecitve online marketing tool. And once you’ve mastered the process – then by all means, tune your methods to hit some of those higher level terms. But never forget the small guys – remember when you connect with someone around a very specific subject, it’s likely those folks know exactly what they want and are more qualified buyers or sellers anyway.

Anyway, Nicole provided some great inspiration – please do yourself a favor and go read her article on creating effective online business content as well!

PS.  For those of you using a service to create content for you – don’t stop, just be sure to consider this a supplementary program.  You can’t blog every day or even every week – it’s nice to know something is still happening to keep your site active.  The best content is always going to come from you – the expert in your field and the true author that your readers identify with.

If you need help getting started with your business blog, social media campaigns or even creating relevant business content – Kinetic Knowledge can help!  Give us a shout anytime.