Did I just find a little known real estate technology secret?  Perhaps, read on…

In a quick search for real estate apps in iTunes, you get a menu of about 135 available applications (to do this you must have itunes installed locally).  Still surprisingly few.  By far the most interesting trend comes from enterprising agents racing to the real estate app scene with mobile access to their online IDX property search portals. Simple applications that funnel the “downloader” of the app to those personalized online real estate searches in various geographical regions.  Not a bad idea, in fact – why not?  A branded presence in the iPhone App Store – pretty darn smart.

So how are they doing it?  It seems many are using a service called MobileAppLoader.  I have no personal experience with this company so can’t give it a thorough review but a large percentage of the real estate companies listed in the iPhone App Store have used it.  This might not mean much other than that the process is easy and attainable.  It seems most of the apps they build follow a simple format:

• Contact page with one touch calling
• Info Page with active web links
• About Page with active web links
• Social networking profile pages (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube)
• Notifications which send alerts to customers
• Property Feedback function
• Loan calculator

Maybe a little clunky but a way to quickly and easily get in the game while not only branding your company but grabbing your main geographic target phrases for the name of your app – Maui Real Estate Search, Chicago Home Finder, Las Vegas Foreclosures.  There are a few different price levels for real estate as well as a fixed cost versus a monthly subscription.

I installed one of these real estate applications on my iphone just to check out the interface.  Not bad (nice graphics are important to the overall feel).  You will want to make sure that your existing IDX search website works well with mobile browsing before you jump on board.  All the app does for real estate search is provide a web link to your existing website’s IDX search page.  You will also benefit from having Facebook, Twitter, a YouTube page and a business blog setup before you jump into real estate iPhone app development.  This real estate app provides exposure to those mediums so be prepared!

Another real estate app developer visible in the app store is IDX, Inc.  These real estate applications seem more robust with potentially better connections to an IDX search interface.  They appear to really just be an IDX website search provider and serve the following MLSs.  Not too pricey; if you also need an MLS search website tool – might be worth a look.

I started this post with the intention of reviewing a few useful iPhone apps for real estate and ended up with a much different result.  Guess we’ll save that one for next time.  Perhaps this information can get you started developing your own iphone application for your real estate business, good luck!

If you need help developing your business social networks or creating a branded real estate blog, we can help – call or email us today.

Adding any application to your Facebook business page is not always the easiest of things to do.  Ideally you should make a connection between your blog and your Business Fan page and then “fan yourself” to get blog news to your personal Facebook profile page.  Facebook does not shine upon commercialization within your personal profile pages.

According the Facebook Statement of Rights and Responsibilities:

• You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized commercial communications (such as spam) on Facebook.
• You will not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).
• You will not engage in unlawful multi-level marketing, such as a pyramid scheme, on Facebook.

While somewhat vague, these points suggest you should really keep business news on your Facebook business fan page.  Here’s part one and two of a video that will help you figure out how to do just that!  You can use an application called NetworkedBlogs to get the job done.

Videos require the most recent version of Adobe Flash to view.

- Adding Your Blog News to a Facebook Business Page (Part 1)

- Adding Your Blog News to a Facebook Business Page (Part 2)

Good luck!

No time to hook up your own news?  Take a look at our blogging social media package or contact Kinetic Knowledge for more information today!

Hold the presses!  Here’s a new real estate blogging product alert that you can’t afford to miss.  Our friends at Diverse Solutions recently released a new Wordpress real estate plug-in for easily creating MLS listings pages, featured listings and widgets within your blog!  It’s called ds IDXPress and it’s nothing short of amazing.

All Kinetic Blogs are now capable of incorporating this Wordpress MLS listings plug-in with ease.  Real estate agents – this means with a little work you can have more great auto-generated and search indexed listings content for your blogs!

One of the things we love about it is that it is SO easy to use with your Kinetic Blogs!  Here’s a brief overview of how it works:

1. Talk to the folks at Diverse Solutions and make sure your MLS participates
2. Order the plug-in via Diverse, go through setup and get your activation key
3. Talk to us at Kinetic – have us install the plug-in and enable your widgets
4. With a little hand-holding (but this is easy we promise), start creating featured and neighborhood listings pages in your Kinetic Blogs with ease!

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.

Kudos to Diverse Solutions for such a great new real estate blogging tool – ds IDXPress!

Back in September 2008, we profiled James Selig for his blogging effort to try and get people information amidst the destructive aftermath of Hurricane Ike. At the time Selig decided to shift focus from business and dedicate his Galveston TX real estate business blogging to local information, progress and the recovery in Galveston. The blogging, he says, helped many folks to know him as someone trying to help get them information at a time when they really needed it.

As karma would have, we were excited to see CRS ‘The Residential Specialist Magazine’ profile James in JAN/FEB issue in their ‘Up Close Profiles of people to watch’ .  What I thought was most impressive in the piece is his lifetime dedication to the Galveston TX area, not only as citizen, local business person but nowadays  as Galveston’s leading real estate agent.  Considering the above, he certainly deserves the praise!

Interested in the article about James?   You can review it in it’s entirety here Up Close James Selig in ‘The Residential Specialist Magazine’.

Paul Mydelski, Middlesex, Suffolk & Essex County Massachusetts RE/MAX Leading Edge Broker/Owner, recently 
committed to building a custom business blogsite for his firm. Local analysis showed there was buyer and seller 
demand for more current lifestyle, community and market information, so he decided to jump in and deploy a 
platform available for their whole team. Paul was able to share some information on his decision making process, so please read on:

Frerecks: So Paul, what got RE/MAX Leading Edge Massachusetts interested in adding a business blogging platform?

Paul Mydelski: We actually became interested in adding a Middlesex, Suffolk & Essex County MA area real estate 
business blogging platform after analyzing the profile of our buyers and sellers. Our network affiliation has 
afforded us strong brand recognition, but our consumers are often looking for information about the process of  buying and /or selling. Thus direct subscriptions are definitely a goal too. Additionally, we are looking for the  search engine optimization which can be achieved with a blog over a static website.

Frerecks: What will the focus of the RE/MAX Leading Edge Mass’ Blogsite be?

Paul Mydelski: Our website handles the dissemination of listing information, but buyers and sellers want to know about things like Middlesex, Suffolk & Essex county neighborhoods, community events and schools. Thus we’re using the blog to focus on these things to enable the consumer to make lifestyle choices along with their house choices. We also feel that if people buy into a community they are excited about, they are then inclined to contribute to that community and that’s what keeps property values high in towns like Arlington, Winchester, and Woburn… where we have offices. 

Frerecks: Will agents in the Arlington, Winchester and Woburn MA offices be entitled to blog?

Paul Mydelski: Our agents will most certainly be encouraged to blog as they are our “ears on the street” and will keep our content fresh and relevant. They will be asked to submit their posts to our blog manager for review before the posts are published.

Frerecks: Results- wise, what would you like to see in a years’ time?

Paul Mydelski: Our agents strive to become their clients’ “real estate resource for life”. Thus, in a year’s time we hope our existing and potential new clients will stay connected via our new visibility online and also direct email & RSS subscriptions. We hope they will rely on our market updates and (doesn’t everyone want to know what their home is worth?) current neighborhood news and event coverage. Hopefully the blog will also become a site for healthy discussions about things going on in the community, which may affect every local homeowner.

Frerecks: Thanks Paul. And if you don’t mind, let’s have a look at your progress with the RE/MAX Leading Edge  blogsite come the end of the year. And folks, if you’d like to reach Paul you can find him @ mydelski@leadingedgeagents.com / 781-729-5505.

Rebuilding The Google Index

According to Google, its’ spiders constantly crawl the world wide web in order to rebuild its’ index of web pages, topics, key words and key phrases. Why? Google intends to rebuild its index not only with more content, but the most timely information on every subject imaginable! What’s new in Denver CO real estate & community news matters to Google! 

It’s important because many people put up a static real estate website or an inactive blog only to wonder later, “why don’t I have better search engine optimization?” In this day and age search engines demand much much more, so the question should really be “am I current enough to interest Google?” And humans, for that matter!!

In a competitive world for traffic and leads, key word & phrase search engine relevance is NO static exercise. So long as you have well built site technology and you’re updating your presence with current coverage of your farm area you’ve got as good a chance as anyone to turn up high in consumer searches.

Being Current Is Good For Google … And Will Be Good For You!

Some refer to the constant motion as ‘the Google Dance’, but the fact is new information is always being crawled, consumed and organized by thousands of servers. Sites will raise their chances for being crawled deeper and more often [more topic, key word and key phrase indexing] by changing their content frequently. Google’s spider is capable of comparing previous crawls to the current one at light speed. If it identifies that new content is added frequently, it will revisit your site or blogsite more often. Think of it like, your web presence is being judged on each visit.

It would be highly inefficient for Google to crawl you often if you’re not producing new information. There is only so much crawl bandwidth and Google needs to satisfy its’ searchers in order to retain their search loyalty. In order to satisfy searchers, they must have the most timely and accurate information possible.

Note: due to the Google dance and constant reevaluation there’s no guarantee your key words and key phrases will hold the same position tomorrow they did today; however, being current sure gives you a much more competitive chance! 

This is a very new application introduced by Google called Goggles that may become immensely supportive to your real estate business.

Ben Rosales over at Agent Genius strikes again suggesting, “…it is a tangible way for consumers to get up to the minute property data, but even more importantly, an even better way to preview property listings that are from other brokers. Say you’re in the car touring property, and a client asks about a sign not belonging to you, simply snap a photo of the property, or even the yard sign and view the agent and property details instantly providing you with a warm on the fly opportunity to present a property the buyers are interested in. Imagine a client driving by your bus bench (I know, lame, but now made cool by Goggles) who snaps a photo and instantly obtaining your contact details along with everything you want them to know about you is now right there at their fingertips. The same principle applies to billboards or anywhere else you’ve plastered your logo (or face). The post cards you’re mailing are no longer useless to consumers in the sense that they throw away things they don’t want to store, they can now snap a photo and register your data right there in their phone, and the same could apply to a photo snapped of the front page of your website- hey, it’s you on the go!”

Ben Rosales post, ‘What You Can Do Right Now to Compete in The Real Estate Game‘ offers some sanity I thought everyone might appreciate.

“Social Media is a component of your business plan, not a silver bullet….Micro-focus on who is local to you and say hello, share a link to them that might matter to their putting food on their table- you know, like how they might go about fighting property taxes on their home in a declined neighborhood?  OR maybe discussing with them the new commercial development going into the neighborhood that is zoned for alcohol and what that may mean to local property values? This is hypothetical, but you get my point…” Rosales

Agreed Ben! – see In Real Estate, Local Community Event Blogging Generates The Most Activity!

Back in August we presented some data on what real estate agents are blogging. While it may or may not have been useful, a few people were quick to ask what others were seeing the most response too.

Based on some questions we sent out and also some direct conversations, it’s clear the number 3 most blogged subject on that list ‘community events’ should be number 1!  According to those we spoke, community events is consistently the most successful for generating traffic & activity, if not leads and new client business.

Community coverage is a broad stroke, but if it’s happening locally it’s likely there are a lot of local or locally interested people searching it… and they the folks that buy and sell homes?

Here are some of the experiences folks shared:

“Community events seem to generate more interest than anything from the general public. Certain events here get googled repeatedly and my postings on those events show up in the search results.”  James Selig Galveston TX Real Estate

“They want local knowledge, of neighborhoods, particular condos, lifestyle, schools, medicine – everything you wanted to know about an area but didn’t know who to ask. They want process knowledge – how do things work in your area/ in today’s market, etc. Photos probably bring the most immediate comments, but it’s the above content that brings the buyers and sellers when they’re ready. I continue to be amazed at how much people have read of my blog content when they finally contact me. ” Sharon Simms St Petersburg FL & Costa Rica Real Estate

“I’ve found that neighborhood specific content has been very good for seller leads. I think sellers Google their neighborhood to see what comes up and we need to be there!”  John Michael Poltrock Murphy NC Real Estate

“The pumpkin patch post generates the most traffic every year.” – Kathy Toth Ann Arbor MI Real Estate

“Two blog topics stand out: A blog about the change in our State property tax law generated the most comments. My blog explained the new law and asked buyers to beware and informed. I received several responses from angry buyers who shared their stories of having bought and they were informed of the new law by their agents and they were very angry about it. The writers wanted me to print their complaints and comments and they were long, detailed and emotional. The respondents who were angry about the new tax law were NOT informed about it by their agents. The clients were ambushed and angry. A [second] blog about our annual Memorial Day Community Service brought several responses from servicemen. I published the entire speech of the guest speaker who was a Medal of Honor Winner. The speaker quoted in his speech the number of total servicemen killed in the Beirut barracks bombing correctly, but according to the respondent, the speaker quoted the incorrect number of sailors that were killed that day and the respondent respectfully corrected the number. The respondent was a member of the Beirut mission veterans’ group. I have no idea where this respondent lives and he may not live anywhere near Hilton Head Island where the ceremony occurred.”  Richard Kadesch Hilton Head Island SC Real Estate

Related Posts:

Survey: What Are The Top Subjects Real Estate Agents Blog?

What’s Going On Locally Has Everything to Do With Your Real Estate Brand!

Are You Getting The Targeted Real Estate Traffic You’re After?

Business Bloggers, You need to consider yourselves a source of [modern day] Trade Media!

Can Blogsites Replace Websites?

A number of people ask us about blogsites versus websites and whether or not blogsites can replace websites. In a nutshell, the answer is “yes.”

Know that websites can do a number of great things, features depending on the company building them; however, blogsites differ in that they allow the layperson unlimited publishing without any need for programming. It’s a huge advantage for the average business person concerned with visibility, time, resources and cost because search engines [and most humans, for that matter] favor sites that produce timely coverage. Unless you pursue additional advertising, SEO services or PPC, you’re unlikely to drive visibility or traffic with a website; whereas, blogsites can make visibility standard, cheap & simple!

Blogs also auto-prepare content for syndication, meaning that all content can go anywhere it is wanted or needed. Another huge advantage!! Blogs can also support the optimization of an existing website, via strategic linking strategies… so they can easily work well together. 

“Kinetic has the comprehensive platform [branded design, self publishing, lead capture, SEO, IDX Integration, service] to provide exactly what I need! Goodbye status quo website, hello dynamic blogsite!” – Kathy Schmidt Edmonton AB Real Estate.Summarized, blogsites [used correctly] are advertising, branding, lead capture and direct marketing tools… all in one!

With Sites, What Do Real Estate Marketers Need?

Ultimately the question stems from what *the real estate marketer* needs online and that probably includes:

1)Brand Design… Sustainable, Long Term Repeat Impressions
2)Search Engine / Web / Social Network Visibility… Broad Advertising
3)Subscription… Repeat Direct Communication
4)Lead Capture… Get Them Whenever Possible
5)MLS Search / Featured Listings / Lead Capture / Email Drip = IDX / MLS. IDX / MLS is integrated into a website or blogsite environment in essentially the same way.
6)Customer Service… got to have it!
7)Marketing / Advertising Education… Without it, Learning Curve Can Be Enormous”

The average age of sellers is 57 while the average buyer is 32… We are now in a buyer’s market, so there is a strong need to ensure that our marketing appeals to a younger demographic. NAR stats support the decision to focus on the web, with the majority of buyers beginning their search online. I just knew I wanted to have a site that was absolutely current, and a forum where I could communicate with clients and the public about local real estate. We are aiming to use the current market as an opportunity to increase our market share in 2009 and see our new Edmonton AB Real Estate Blogsite as an integral part of that process.” Kathy Schmidt Edmonton AB Real Estate.

Get in touch, we’d love to answer any questions you might have.