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Why You Shouldn’t Limit Your Brand to Just One Social Networking Platform

October 18, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Social media is a valuable tool for businesses and organizations. While game-changing in many ways, they are simply the latest in the evolution of tools that allow people to easily connect with one another. Ultimately, it’s important to keep in mind that the purpose of social media is to generate interest in your product.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Friendster, MySpace, Xanga, etc… Anyone who has internet is familiar with these sites. Some of these sites have faded (Friendster, Xanga, etc.), leaving decaying individual’s profile. Yet, the fact remains that social media is of essential importance to anyone hoping to expand their brand. So the question is “Should companies focus on one social media platform to ensure success?”

In a blink of an eye, something beyond your control might affect the way you reach your target audience, especially when you just rely everything in just one social media platform. Take for example – Facebook.

Whether you’re a fan of change or not, it’s coming quickly to the social media giant, Facebook. They basically just dropped a bombshell and instantly changed the way we communicate online with their new newsfeed, timelines, subscriptions and a myriad of other enhancements and updates. However, if you have a fan page, you might have noticed a drop off in the amount of interaction you are getting on it. Facebook said they want to make it easier for people to connect on the web. But we have yet to find out what good does the new changes bring to Facebook pages.

See, this is what we have to understand. If our brand just circles around Facebook and if it’s the only way we communicated with our clients because we haven’t diversified enough and use other platforms, these changes could have badly hurt our business. Email, Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, Google, SEM, SEO, phone calls, QR codes, texting and prints all need to be used in conjunction with one another to drive people to your home base, which is your self-hosted blog. That is the only thing that you control! And if Twitter goes away tomorrow and you use other mediums to communicate with your clients, you will not be badly hurt & crippled. You cannot afford to put all of your eggs in one basket.

The first step of a successful (and long term) social media plan is to spread your brand everywhere you can and the main goal is to drive people to your site and give them a ton of quality content that will keep them coming back. More than ever, it’s important that you have a web presence. Especially in a Real Estate business, since it’s is no longer a short term -transaction game, but a long term relationship building process, that would definitely be strengthen by having a web presence. Your own website or a self hosted blog is the only thing that you have a 100% control over, so it is where your time needs to be spent first.

Here’s a pratical takeaway: Google your personal name and your company’s name. What comes up? If you don’t see anything about yourself or your business, none of the other billions of people online will see it either and you know wha to do.

Filed Under: Articles, Facebook, Featured, Must Reads, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings, Twitter

10 Social Media Marketing Tips Small Businesses Should Bear in Mind

October 12, 2011 By tlyons 2 Comments

Most small businesses usually focus on researching, understanding and managing elements related to their businesses. That’s good business sense. However, only few have the resources necessary to keep current with changes & have the time to monitor the daily changes that impact social media marketing.

Fortunately, small businesses don’t need to be experts to be able to promote their businesses through social media sites and connect with people quickly & spread the brand faster than ever before.

Here are 10 smart social media marketing tips:

1. Have A Social Media Marketing Plan

Businesses can take advantage of a lot of sites & applications that are available for free but you need to spend ample time to plan to make your social media marketing work. Set the goals you want to attain from social media & the actions you plan to take to achieve them. Determine the amount of time & resources you need to allot for every process to keep you on track. Make sure to write it down so you can keep track of your progress & focus on getting the results you want.

2. Do Things In the Right Place at the Right Time

After setting a plan, oftentimes small business owners tend to do everything all at once in all places. Being in all social networking sites is not essentially beneficial for every business. Do some research to determine which platforms work best for you line of business. Do a research which sites are your competitors and customers on. Start with the platform that you are familiar with and that you already have established network on.

3. Keep Track of Your Achievement & Return on Investment

Being a small business, you’re always pressed for time & you only have limited resources, so it’s very important for you to keep track of every aspect of your business to be sure you’re doing progress & that it’s worth your time and efforts. A social media program is no exception. Make use of some type of analytics that most social media applications have (google analytics, number of views on a video or blog), to keep track of your progress, for you to determine which ones are working and which ones aren’t. The success of your social media marketing will always be based on the feedbacks you receive, so keep track.

4. Do Not Underutilize Social Platforms for Branding

Every social media platform enables you to insert your brand messages and images in multiple fields. Many small business owners fail to take advantage of these and leave multiple fields on their profiles blank. Your company information, logo, contact number and any other links to your website should be available so potential customers would have an idea what you do and would know how and where to contact you. Make sure your company profile is complete and nicely done, it reflects

5. Engage & Listen to Others

Great salespeople are great listeners. The most critical communication skill for anyone in the business world – managers, innovators, salespeople, and customer service specialists – is effective listening. People don’t buy what you wish to sell. They buy what they need. Selling is not happening when you are talking. Selling is happening when your prospect is talking, and you are listening actively and passionately, listening to your prospect’s emotions to find the right fit.Engagement in social media gives you the opportunity to build authority in your field which leads to – sales

6. Address Negative Comments or Feedback

There will be times when you’re going to get negative posts or comments from customers or clients on your profile. The initial reaction is to delete the comment, which is not the right thing to do. Social media is based upon transparency and authenticity. The best thing to do, instead of deleting the post, is to address the concern and give solutions if needed. Dealing with it will earn your brand loyalty than you had before.

7. Be Consistent on Each Network Your On

You may not know it, but a lot of your company information is a matter of public record. Regardless if you want to be involved socially or not, your company might already be in Google Place and Yelp may have already list information about your company whether you’ve created a profile or not. Use this as an opportunity to expand your web presence. All of these services give you the option to control what’s shown about your company and how it’s shown. Claim all of the profiles that mention your company and update the information. Be consistent on each network so the same information is listed.

8. Don’t Skimp on Time

Having an online presence requires time & maintenance, so to speak. To fully get the results of expanding your network online, you need to consistently interact online, even if it’s just about 10-15 minutes a day. If you don’t have the time, might as well not start it.

9. Be Passionate

Passion drives you to give it your best and strive for perfection. Social media marketing cannot be successful without passion, as it requires a drive to be able to push through difficulties and setbacks inherent with managing interactions from people. If you have the resources, consider having one of your employees run the program. Social media can make a big impact on your business, but (like anything) you need to have a certain level of interest and passion to make it successful.

10. Know if Social Media Is Right For Your Business or Not

Just because lots of businesses are using social media, doesn’t mean you have to. For many small businesses, social media isn’t the right outlet. Know and assess your business, so you won’t be wasting a lot of time if you think social media is not really for your business.

Social media marketing, when done properly, contributes a lot to the development of your company’s online social presence which leads to improved search engine positioning and increases website traffic. It builds credibility and give people an opportunity to get to know and trust your business. So make sure to take control to get amazing results. Social networking is not just a fad, it’s a revolution.

Filed Under: Articles, Featured, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings Tagged With: Social Media Marketing Tips

What Should I Be Looking For in A Camera Used For Real Estate?

October 7, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

What is the best camera for real estate? Well, there definitely isn’t an answer to that question because there isn’t one perfect camera for everyone. What I will do is try and help you decide which camera model might be best for you and give you the knowledge to research them on your own.

I wrote this quick little post a few months back about my favorite website for camera reviews called DPReview. It’s an excellent website with all the info you need to make a smart decision in your camera purchase, but if you don’t know the things to look for in a camera for a real estate, you still might get stuck! So, I thought I would do a quick video and give you some tips in selecting a great camera to fit your budget… if you have one

Reference

Steve Pacinelli, “What Should I Be Looking For in A Camera Used For Real Estate? ”

Filed Under: Articles, Featured, Tom's Ramblings

Former ForSalebyOwner.com CEO Sells Home the Traditional Way

August 16, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Even the founder & former CEO of ForSalebyOwner.com, Colby Sambrotto gave up on his own listing & hired a real estate broker after six months of having his 2,000 square foot New York condominium listed through online classified ads and FSBO sites. He hired New York broker Jesse Buckler who immediately suggested a price change as the listing wasn’t attracting the right buyer.

After giving up on the DIY route, Sambrotto’s decision to hire a broker led to attracting multiple offers, closing for $150,000 over the original asking price. The Wall Street Journal reports the listing sold for $2.15 million including a 6% commission. It was no doubt a good financial decision.

Marlow Harris, Seattle Residential and Investment Consultant at Coldwell Banker Bain Associates told AGBeat, “The ForSaleByOwner.com founder’s dilemma is one we see quite often and is not unusual. Trying to sell your own property yourself or using a discount brokerage, is not the solution for everyone. Unusual properties, properties in the higher price range, these are more difficult to sell and often require specialization.”

Harris continues, “We see these choices across the board, from single family homes to huge housing developments. For instance, Vulcan, one of Paul Allen’s companies which has invested heavily in Redfin, does not use Redfin to market their many condominium projects. They use traditional real estate firms such as John L. Scott, Williams Marketing and Matrix Real Estate, finding that the do-it-yourself approach to real estate just doesn’t work for these types of sales.”

Real estate transactions involve one of the biggest financial investments most people experience in their lifetime.The stress of selling a house can be much reduced if you let a professional take care of the details for you. Realtors have a larger volume of potential buyers, they can save you valuable time & price the home correctly. If you’re still not convinced of the importance of a Realtor in selling your home, I don’t know what else will.

Credits to AgentGenius

Filed Under: Articles, Must Reads, Tom's Ramblings

Top 15 Home Staging Rules According to Studies

August 8, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Home staging is preparing a home to show in its most attractive light to the broadest number of potential buyers to sell it more quickly and for top dollar. Home staging focuses on creating a valuable marketing commodity so that it appeals to the general home buyer who is trying to visualize themselves in the home, as opposed to interior decorating where it prioritizes the personal tastes, personality and preferences of the home owner.

Studies show that the majority of home buyers make a decision about whether or not they want to buy a house less than 15 seconds after they walk in the door. Others may decide without ever getting out of their car, just basing on the exterior appearance of the house. First impressions are very important & critical, and can often mean the difference between a sale and another walk-away. That’s why home staging should be considered by every homeowner even before listing their home.

Duke University has conducted a study recently and here’s what Andrea Angott, Ph.D. said, “As far as we know, staging principles haven’t yet received empirical testing. Rather, they most likely evolved over years of experience and practice, and very experienced practitioners develop an intuition about staging. But, it is probably the case that some staging “rules” are more effective than others than others [sic] in terms of changing buyer perception and behavior.”

Dr. Angott noted that “some rules likely give you more “bank for your buck” in terms of cost effectiveness. This is what we are trying to determine. As psychologists, we are also interested in the psychology behind effective staging principles, on both emotional and cognitive levels.”

Whether you’re personally preparing your home to sell it or having it professionally staged, here are the Top 15 staging rules with the most important ranked at the top of the list:

Removal of personal items from bathrooms.
Using rooms for their intended purpose.
Removing evidence of pets.
Turning on every light in the home during showings.
Vacant homes should be furnished.
Removal of garbage cans.
Removal of personal photographs.
Removal attention-grabbing or personal art or accessories.
Neutral paint colors on all walls.
Removal of appliances from kitchen counters.
Never placing the back of furniture facing any room entrance.
“Tell a story” with staging (breakfast tray with mugs on bed).
Sheer or no coverings on all windows.
Use of scented candles, plug-in air fresheners or potpourri.
Chocolate chips baking in oven during showings.

To add, extremely clean, decluttered house with good curb appeal is also a must.

Dr. Angott reported that a few respondents felt the study was “too black-and-white” because “staging is an art that can’t be captured in a handful of rules.” Pertaining to the study, Dr. Angott said, “While we recognize the artistry of staging, scientific testing invariable requires simplification, and we feel that our findings will be useful despite this necessary simplification.”

Renowned real estate photographer Larry Lohrman said that from a real estate photographers perspective, “very few home sellers are good at getting their home in shape for a shoot. It takes a pushy listing agent to be on site while you shoot and help remove garbage cans, pet dishes and the like. If your client, the listing agent is not on site helping with this activity, you need to be pushy with the home owner to make the home looks good. Of course there are limits to what you can do.”

To sum it all up, the focus of home staging is to make your home inviting, comfortable and visually appealing. Highlight your home’s strengths, downplay its weaknesses & create points that speak to buyers emotionally about a lifestyle they can aspire to. A small investment for a much bigger reward of selling your home fast and for more money.

Credits to AgentGenius

Filed Under: Articles, Featured, Must Reads, Tom's Ramblings Tagged With: Home Staging Rules

5 Facebook Pages That Everyone Must “Like”

July 13, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Your business can’t afford to not have a facebook presence. The social networking site has more than 750 million active users despite the headlines about security issues and the virus that began to spread claiming to have photos of him shortly after the news broke about Osama Bin Laden being killed.Good thing Facebook Security Page notifies people who “Like” the page about the virus so people were made aware to avoid computers to get infected.

We have to take the risk in order to take advantage of the benefits of Facebook. With the Privacy and Security settings available for us to find a comfortable balance between being social and being private, Facebook users need to somewhat accept the responsibility to secure and look out for necessary steps to protect ourselves.

Nevertheless, Facebook has a lot of resources to guide its users and keep them updated. Here are 5 Facebook pages that everyone is recommended to “Like”

Facebook Security

Like this Page to receive updates about how to protect your information both on and off Facebook.

Facebook Known Issues

“Like” Facebook Known Issues if you want the most up-to-date information about bugs and other issues on the site.

Facebook Marketing Solutions

This pages share news and best practices for marketing on Facebook. You will find videos, guides, interviews and links to live training events.

Facebook Pages

The guide provides best practices on managing a Page for advertisers and page admins. Your plays a very important role in your marketing, so you’d really want to stay up-to-date with all the changes.

You may also want to check out their guide on Facebook Page Marketing

Facebook Live

Facebook Live is Facebook’s official live video streaming channel, providing a deeper look into our features, partners & employees. They use this page to live stream product announcements, round table discussions and interviews with thought leaders. When you follow this page you will be notified of upcoming events that you may want to attend.

The reality is that Facebook membership is actually still growing. Social networking and data privacy are, in many ways, directly at odds and the solution comes down to user awareness and choice.

Filed Under: Articles, Facebook, Social Networks, Tom's Ramblings

Percentage of Social Media’s Influence on Purchase Decisions Rising Fast

July 8, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

In so many ways, social media and online shopping have grown up together. Everything has been said and done about taking advantage of social media to market & grow every business. Social media provides excellent outlets for people to share with their friends and family shopping experiences which have pleased them, and online shopping platforms are, in ever greater numbers, providing social media share buttons that help people get the word out about a certain businesses’ products or services. Therefore, influencing purchase decisions in a major way.
Knowledge Networks, an online research company, studied the purchase decisions of American and found that the probability of a consumer to learn and discover new products or brands is rising rapidly w/ 38 million 13 to 80 years old now influenced by social media, up 14% from just six months ago.

Millions referring to social media before purchasing.

Social media users in 2011 reported high levels of influence as follows:
1. 23.1 million discover new brands or products through social media (up 22% from 2010)

2. 22.5 million use social media to learn about unfamiliar brands or products (up 9% from 2010)

3. 17.8 million are “strongly influenced” in their purchase decisions by opinions in social media (up 19% from 2010)

4. 15.1 million refer to social media before making purchase decisions (up 29% from 2010)

5. Roughly 80 million people check social media from a mobile device

Consumers are now integrating social media as a part of their phone use with 40% of teens and adults who have ever used social media accessing it through their mobile device (up 28% from just 6 months ago). Location based services are rapidly increasing in size and popularity with Foursquare alone celebrating crossing the 10 million user mark. Mobile devices are playing an increasing role in purchase decisions as well with 27% of users comparing or checking prices via social media and 24% regularly checking reviews of locations, brands and services.

“Tying consumer interactions back to brands and purchase decisions is essential for marketers, in social media no less than any other platform,” said Patricia Graham, Chief Strategy Officer of Knowledge Networks. “While we have seen a dramatic rise in key metrics that quantify Social Media’s influence, we also have observed a wide variation of influence at the category level.”

“The on-the-go consumer is becoming more mobile in their social media usage,” said Chuck Martin, Director of the Center for Media Research at MediaPost Communications. “This move to mobility combined with the increasing influence of social media during the purchase process has great implications for marketers, who will have to look at location as well as which product purchases are most affected.”

Why Realtors should have social media presence?

Your prospective customers are going to research you online, read reviews, testimonials and comments about you. Having a social media strategy enables you to exert influence over the prospective customer during each stage of their research and buying process. The likes of Twitter, Facebook, Flickr and FourSquare, help millions of people keep in touch with each other. Basically creating a location based online community. If you’re doing it the right way, real estate agents can really benefit from social media advertising. The opportunity to reach the community, display listings and open houses to be readily available for everyone to share, being offered a legitimate feedback (which is high on the list of what helps a businesses reputation). Stores of all sizes, real estate agents and other local business owners who fail to have a presence on social media sites may find themselves falling behind their competition. Today, people are as likely to log on using their telephones to share information about a business as they are to log into their computers to read about a business. So make sure they find you.

Credits to AgentGenius for the statistics

Filed Under: Articles, Featured, Tom's Ramblings

Google Analytics Now Tracks Social Engagement

July 5, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

There are lots of ways for businesses to keep track of their social media activities and performances. Today, there are hardly any business which doesn’t have a Twitter, LinkedIn or a Facebook fan page. If you just invest enough time on these platforms, they can be efficiently and effectively used for businesses.

Google is getting social in every other way. The addition of +1 button and the release of Google+ invites are making waves in the social media platform. Now it’s the Google Analytics Social Engagement Reporting that makes the headlines. Google Analytics now provide new tool for tracking social interaction with their content in addition to Google +1 button. The tool compares the impact of different types of social actions on your website. It tracks Google +1 button clicks, Twitter tweets, Facebook “Like” and “Send” interactions and Del.icio.us bookmarks. The reports will give a neat review of how your site behaviour alters by these social button clicks, number of clicks on your site, compare the pages on your site that receive the maximum social button clicks.

Google says providing social reporting is just the start. ”As people continue to find new ways to interact across the web, we look forward to new reports that help business owners understand the value that social actions are providing to their business. So +1 to data!”

The social plugin tracking generates 3 different reports:
Social Engagement report: Displays site behavior changes for visits that include clicks on +1 buttons or other social actions.

Social Actions report: Lets you track the number of social actions (+1 clicks, Tweets, etc.) taken on your site, all in one place.

Social Pages report: Compares the pages on your site to see which are driving the highest number of social actions.

This addition is so essential that Google create the Social Interaction Tracking, a new functionality that will be used for social tracking only. The syntax is as follows:

_trackSocial(network, socialAction, opt_target, opt_pagePath)

Network: Name of the social network (google, facebook, twitter, digg, etc)
SocialAction: Type of action (like, tweet, send, stumble)
opt_target: Subject of the action being taken. Optional, defaults to the URL being shared (document.location.href). Can be manually set to anything: a different URL (if they’re sharing content that “points” to another URL), an entity (e.g, product name, article name), or content ID
opt_pagePath: The page on which the action occurred. Optional, defaults to the URI where the sharing took place (document.location.pathname). Can be manually set (like a virtual pagename).

All said and done, Google is in full swing.

Credits to Searchengineland.com

Filed Under: Articles, Google Tools, Tom's Ramblings

Easy Email Newsletters Using MailChimp

June 9, 2011 By tlyons Leave a Comment

Just about every real estate agent out there could benefit from sending a regular monthly email newsletter. I would strongly suggest to all real estate agents today, to send out a monthly email newsletter to their clients together with social media marketing medium like Twitter and Facebook. Sending a newsletter has been made simpler than ever and there really are no excuses for not having one sent out at least once a month.

The great thing with technology today is you don’t need to get a web designer just have a presentable looking email marketing template. One email platform that I like is MailChimp. I have been using MailChimp and I’m impressed. User experience is painless and fun. Large, clear buttons and text make it easy to set up a campaign even if you’re not very tech savvy. They have a lot of pre-designed templates that you can choose from and customize so you can create your own look and feel to match your email newsletter to your website’s theme.

Again, getting started is really easy, they have a guide that will walk you step by step and assist you to setup your contacts, templates and campaigns. They also include tips for writing subject lines attached to the FAQ section plus they have a fantastic customer support. The site also gives you the standard reports necessary to measure the success of every campaign. You can track click-through, sent emails, bounced, opened and more. For advanced users, you can integrate it with Google Analytics.

Overall, I find MailChimp great. It’s free, fun and easy to use service that gives you what you exactly need to promote services via email. Give it a try now!

Filed Under: Articles, Featured, Site reviews, Tom's Ramblings