So, how does that apply to my real estate business?

• Have an active personal profile that really represents your true self
• Don’t be a douchbag (limited & moderated posts about politics or your kick ass workout)
• Have an effective business page that really looks professional. (or call Mike Mueller)
• Post at a frequent and consistent pace that’s not out of sync with your true self
• Listen and interact well

Simple.  Easy to remember.

What do you think?

The post Is Facebook Fading? appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

1) Indexable Listings. This feature could have been added to a “what to watch for” list for 2008, 2009, 2010, or 2011. Indexable listings are now a “must have.” Consumers know they can enter pretty much anything into their search bar & the first 3 results will contain what they’re looking for. Because of this, sign calls are down, and property address searches are way up. If your RETS/IDX system isn’t indexable, it’s impossible for you to show up in the SERPs for property address searches. While indexable listings won’t guarantee you’ll show up, it at least gets you in the game. Pay particular attention to how the indexable listings are presented: url structure, H tags, internal link structure, and especially title tags are very important.

2) Niche Landing Pages. Most real estate professionals have turned to the web as their primary source of new business, and those who haven’t, soon will. This means that high traffic terms like “city real estate” are much more difficult to naturally rank for, and are much more expensive to bid on. Online marketers have known about the benefits of long-tail traffic for years: Cheaper/easier traffic, and higher conversion rates. Your RETS/IDX system must allow you to create great niche landing pages at the neighborhood level, and it’s even better if you can get creative with niche landing pages. Add neighborhood pages, foreclosure pages, golf course homes, waterfront homes, school districts, and/or anything that’s pertinent to your market and business. Then drive highly targeted, inexpensive traffic that will convert. If you do it right, you should see conversion rates quadruple the industry average of 3%.

3) WordPress Compatibility. Wordpress is the best content management system (CMS) in the market for a number of reasons. There has been overwhelming adoption in the past 2 years, and it’s adoption rate is accelerating. Because of this, the project has literally taken off, with new features added constantly. There’s a large developer community to hire from, and plenty of online support only a google search away. WordPress is SEO friendly out of the box, and is relatively easy to learn. These are only a few of the great reasons to choose to build your website on WordPress, and why your RETS/IDX needs to integrate with WordPress.

6) RETS Compliance. NAR mandated RETS compliance for local boards a couple of years ago, but many boards are still maintaining their old IDX/FTP feeds. RETS data is updated in real time, while the IDX/FTP feeds are typically updated every 24 hours. The IDX/FTP feeds are also slowly being shuttered as many boards upgrade to new MLS systems. It’s important to make sure your RETS/IDX provider is already RETS compliant, or has a roadmap to RETS compliance that won’t cost you any additional fees.

5) Automated Follow Up. Many agents learn how to generate leads online, but fail to nurture those leads and turn them into real clients. Nothing will ever outperform actually calling your leads, but automated follow up via email definitely helps convert leads who don’t provide a phone number, or who don’t pick up the phone. A great drip email system built in, or the ability to interface with other great systems like Mailchimp or Aweber is imperative. Set up email campaigns that run for a long time – at least 12 months – and know that those who don’t want to receive your emails will simply unsubscribe, as many will. While we don’t want to ignore traditional drip campaigns, a smarter strategy is to set up property alerts for your leads. If they’re viewing a certain price range in a certain area of town, set up a search for them, and begin emailing them new listings. If your RETS/IDX system automates this for you through the use of a suggestion tool, even better. We’ve found these emails are opened over 30% of the time, and clicked through more than 15% of the time.

6) Customer Intelligence. As you generate more leads online, it’s important to prioritize which leads to follow up with. User activity like opening emails, logging into your RETS/IDX system, viewing properties, adding favorites, & emailing friends are all actions that indicate the strength of a lead. It’s important that you know when and how often your potential customers complete these actions. If your RETS/IDX triggers an event, like an email to you/your agent and the lead, based on buying signals, all the better. For example, if a lead adds multiple favorites and then automatically receives an email from you asking if they would like to view any of those favorites, it’s a powerful sales tool.

The RETS/IDX vendor field has become much more competitive over the past 24 months and creative new features are being released on a very consistent basis. Feature releases are becoming so frequent that it’s easy to become overwhelmed. As such, it’s important for you to “keep your eye on the sales ball.” When evaluating vendors & features, always ask the most important question “How will this feature help produce sales?” In order for a new feature to be productive, it must help generate new leads or nurture current leads.

The post RETS/IDX: What to Look for in 2013 appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

Unfortunately, one of our awesome rockstars was very sick! and could not present.

We don’t want you to miss out on this powerful session, so we’re bringing it to you via webinar next week!

Cindy Carnahan joins Xplode Conference and CRMLS for a 45 minute webinar on April 5th at 1pm PST

Click Here To Register (limited space available)

Cindy is the most successful real estate agent in the Wichita, Kansas, market with $60 million in transaction volume last year. She has been the highest ranked agent at J.P. Weigand for the last 18 years. She has 30+ years in the real estate industry and considers herself a “low-tech girl in a high-tech industry”. Cindy is constantly looking for ways to improve her business and has grown her business from $9 million in transaction volume to $60 million in the last 5 years – a tremendous accomplishment in today’s real estate environment.

The post Xplode Conference & CRMLS Host Webinar with Cindy Carnahan appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

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Xplode Conference is headed back to Florida again this year.

The event in West Palm Beach Florida is set for May 21, 2012.

As always, we’ve got some special surprises in store for our friends in the Sunshine State!

This conference is happening at the Hilton W Palm Beach Airport

Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

The post Xpode Conference Announces W Palm Beach 2012 appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

My friend Robert is now a great blogger.  He’s a great blogger because he’s a great writer & story teller.

Robert is one of those people who ALWAYS has a story – and he always tells it well.

He’s only been writing on his blog for 11 months.  He’s a newbie really.  But Robert has developed more quality content and engagement on his site than anyone else I know.  It’s remarkable.  He’s composed nearly 10,000 words!  (psst… how many words have you ‘penned’ this year?)

So, what can we learn from Robert when it comes to blogging for real estate…

#1.  Be Consistent

#2.  Be Yourself

#2.  Tell a story

#3.  Write ‘for you’

Be Consistent

Robert writes a LOT.  He posts 3 times per week.  He’s usually way ahead and has posts in the que.  He stays on his plan and has pushed out a huge volume of great stuff over time.  (Robert is actually ‘annoyingly consistent’ in all things.  Drives me nuts!  But I love him and you will too)

Be Yourself

Part of what comes through loud and clear on Robert’s blog is that it’s the ‘real Robert’.  Every word, every emotion, every thought is uniquely Robert.  That’s what great bloggers do.  (I wish I was one.  But I know it when I see it!)

Tell a Story

If you are selling residential real estate in Yourtown, USA then tell me the story of Yourtown.  What happens there and WHY should I care about it?  Why should I move there?  What’s the market doing there?  What homes are available? Why should I connect with you specifically?  Tell the story – and tell it with passion if you want me to care.

Write for You

This is tightly connected to ‘Tell a Story’.  You have to care about what you are writing.  If not, we’ll know.  You should be writing – first and foremost – because you actually care about Yourtown, USA and about real estate transactions and such. If you can’t pull that off, then don’t bother.  Your blog might just suck (like 95% of the others do for the same reason)

If you are going to blog, then do it often, be yourself, tell a story and do it like you care.

The post Great Bloggers Tell Stories appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

It’s a twist on Hootsuite – if you’ve used that.

Both apps allow you to manage your twitter & facebook status updates – and for multiple accounts. (I’m over simplifying it I know but that’s what most people use it for exclusively, self included)

Usually, I like ‘the first’ of something and then never find myself willing to migrate over to what comes next – atleast not very quickly.  I’m deeply skeptical about any new apps now.  When someone mentions it, I’ll take a quick look, set up a profile, but then leave it alone for a while to see if it gets traction with others.

This one might be different!  I like it a lot.  I think the user interface is much more elegant than hootsuite (something I care too much about probably).

It also has a cool feature that suggests random quotes that you can use in your status updates if you want to.  AND, it selects the best times to launch those updates to maximize response.

Like all new toys, it’s really a matter of your individual preference.  Does it work best for you?  Do you like to look at it?

Love to have your comments about it when you take a look.

The post Hootsuite or Buffer for Social Media Control? appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

OK, I think it’s official. Foursquare is dead.  Some might say it even sucks.

I am declaring it early.  (you may not have even joined yet.  don’t)

Guys, I tried really hard. I liked the app. I was on it ‘since the beginning’.

I checked in pretty religiously (yes, even at my Church).

Here’s the thing…

It just doesn’t matter. Not at all. There’s no meaningful consensus.  You check in and then (insert dead air) nothing!
Facebook blows it away (and remember, I didn’t actually WANT to believe that). All my friends and family are checking in on facebook. Heck, most of them don’t even know what Foursquare is!

Redeeming Value…

The only place and time where foursquare ever made sense was at a conference where many others were using it. That’s it. But, frankly, I think it’s dead. Y’all should just kill it now instead of just letting it moan and groan like a dog that’s been kept alive way too long

Heck, follow me.  But it won’t matter

The post I’m Quitting Foursquare appeared first on Real Estate Conferences on Technology & Marketing.

Some of the best groups you can join (but not all are open):

• Raise the bar in real estate
• What Should I spend my money on
• Tech Support group for real estate agents
• National Association of Realtors
• Real Estate Success Principles

Of course there are plenty of other groups, but those listed above are pure gold for your real estate business.

Oh, and, don’t forget to catch Xplode Conference at Facebook.com/XplodeThis

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The phone number for the Wyndham is (214) 357-8500

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