In the spirit of Twitter, this week in review is done in less than 140 characters per item. Enjoy
Use Facebook as a marketing tool. Practical tips from Joel Burslem.
You’re jumping Twitter like it’s Friendster to MySpace. Jay Thompson gives you tools.
Transparency is more than a buzzword. Nick Bostic gives us examples.
Google just announced that they have made some improvements to how they crawl (i.e read) Flash content.
Some highlights:
There’s a few more points so if you’re geekily inclined, read the Google Flash announcement.
With many realtors and real estate agents starting blogs, micro sites, secondary sites and so on, the issue of picking and registering a domain name is pretty important. Here’s some current news on an important aspect of domain name registration: who do you choose?
For awhile now, Network Solutions has been involved in a controversial practice referred to as domain frontrunning. When you look for a domain at Network Solutions by typing your idea into their search box, they automatically register the domain. If you want it then you buy it from them… for significantly more than you might pay elsewhere. They hold on to the domain for a few days.
But even if you wait for a few days for Network Solutions’ lock to expire you may run into trouble. Many domain-name campers have the ability to monitor domain registrations and since interest is being expressed in your domain idea (Network Solutions tips off the campers when it “pre-registers” or engages in domain frontrunning with your URL idea). You will be competing against automated domain-name campers if you choose to wait out Network Solutions.
The obvious solution to the issue is to not use Network Solutions for your domains.
More reading on this topic:
Network Solution faces lawsuit over domain frontrunning
The group that governs domain name registration may ban domain frontrunning
Details on how Network Solutions engages domain frontrunning (complete with pictures
You’ve been waiting for a more palatable way to learn about search engine marketing? Here it is:
Just a quick update to my post about why real estate bloggers might want to take on the 4th of July:
With Independence day just a few days away, people are looking for some information on the upcoming fourth of July fireworks in Burlington. They found my post. I bet they’ll find it next year too, and the year after and the year after… If someone has a link to their blog post about the fireworks in Burlington let me know so I can help these folks out.
Now remember, this whole “blog the cool local events” thing is definitely a tactic that fits squarely in a long-tail strategy so if you aren’t into that, then this won’t convince you to bring your camera to the show.
As a side note, notice how the searchers use semi-natural language in the search as well. Worth thinking about…
Viral marketing is typically reserved for programs where the advertising is talked about as opposed to the product itself. A good example are viral videos, where the humor trumps the brand, ala Cadbury Schweppes drumming gorilla video—humorous partly due to the Phil Collins soundtrack, of course—and the parodies which followed). Word of mouth is the actual sharing of an opinion about a product or service between consumers. Your viral marketing only works if it gets people talking about the product itself. If it doesn’t, you might create some laughter and awareness, but there won’t be a change in sales.
If we can do it, we want for buyers visiting one of our single-property web sites to move into the home in their minds — just from the experience of the web site. If we can’t get them that far, we want to answer every question they might have, passively, from the web site — both to satisfy their itch to know and to establish our transparency. We want for buyers to long, to marvel, to exult about the tiniest details in our homes, treating our single-property web sites like the Christmas Wish Book. At an absolute minimum, we want for our sites to dominate their time. The more time they spend on our site, the less time they have to spend looking at other homes.
I think we can all agree that building a relationship is the truest segue to creating a client. But when real estate emerged online over a decade ago it made a conscious decision to forgo that time honored method of building business. Instead, it lunged at the consumer. Baited. Switched. You know the rap.
My fave Bad MLS photo this week is for all you Harry Potter and/or fixer-upper fans.
VARBuzz is running a survey on the effectiveness of blogging/social media. Please take a moment to fill out the survey if you are a real estate blogger. Thanks to Mark Eckinrode for the heads up.
Daniel Rothamel, newly-minted Community Manager for Inman News, is giving away a free ticket to Inman Connect ‘08.
It involves using Twitter. But luckily you can find all the great Twitter resources you can handle over in the sideabar.
Coming up with stuff to write on a blog is one of the constant challenges facing new (and even not-so-new) bloggers. Here’s one quick idea my US real estate blogging readers might be able to put to use within the next week: Fourth of July. Apologies to my non-US readers; please follow along and find the right synthesis for your country and let us know what that is in the comments.
What does Independence Day have to do with real estate? How can you move property or get listings by writing about it and photographing it?
This week I’m going to focus the WiR on posts that contain some directly applicable information. I’ll sort them out from easiest to use to more advanced things.
These are things you can do yourself, right now. Without paying anyone anything at all.
These are things you can probably do yourself. Have the courage to give it a go. Or if you’re too busy or anxious about it, call Amanda or me (or your own team). But get your feet wet by reading these posts.
Ok these might make your eyes glaze over. But give them a try anyway. Same as above, when in doubt call in the internet marketing team.
I can never get enough of Bad MLS Photo of the Day.
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