We arrived a few days early and were able to take in some of the sites of San Diego and the REBarCamp San Diego  thanks to the great work of Jim Marks  and his team. REBarCamps are quite a phenomenon in the Real Estate Social Media World. They were begun by Todd Carpenter , Andy Kaufman , Mike Price  and Brad Coy , four energetic and crazy guys who decided that a “Un-conference” that gathered the best minds in the field in a large space with lots of viewpoints for a day of discussion might be fun. Little did they know that the idea would grow with BarCamps held across the States in one year culminating in the largest, held at the nightclub “Stingaree” in San Diego? It was my forth in the past year, filled with knowledge, networking and great conversation.

If you plan to attend an NAR Conference or an Inman Connect Conference , know that the REBarCamp is usually the day before so make sure that you add that time to your schedule. The REBarCamp is free to attend but to really benefit; you should participate as much as possible. I facilitated a group discussion on “How and if you could monetize Social Media”. The great thing about REBarcamp is that no position is right or wrong but great discussion brings great ideas…

Coming up is REBarCamp New York  on January 11^thand hopefully REBarCampTO on May 7^th or 8^th…more to come. 

NAR Conference San Diego 2009:

What follows is not all the sessions but highlights from them:

Max Pigman , one of the Social Media Speakers talked about taking a strong self assessment and growing your sphere of influence using Social Media. Those SM tools allow you to work smarter and leaner and suggested that REALTORS not spew Real Estate but also share personal information. He suggests short posts but ones that engage and that agents should leave comments and reengage old clients. He says that “commenting is like renting space in someone’s head” and that most would find greater success on Facebook than they might on email. He suggested using the chat on Facebook and make Facebook a major part of your marketing strategies.

He suggests that as well as a Fan Page on Facebook, you might want to create a neighbourhood page and invite your clients to share information about the “hood” that you work and live in with the odd listing being uploaded as well as specific content created for the community. I have created one on Facebook called the Cabbagetown Community Page and it is gaining momentum.

He pointed out something I love on LinkedIn which are the recommendations. Ask clients and friends for their recommendations and give them back.

For more follow Max at www.facebook.com/maxpigman

Another interesting session was on the Future of MLS:

A discussion of what the future holds is always interesting but the recent addition of RPR (REALTOR Property Resource) which marries parcel based information with Board/Association data makes the data richer than ever before and should help strengthen the REALTOR business proposition.

Jim Duncan of FranklyMLS.com  says that the consumer has good access to the data; REALTORS are needed to put it in context. The problem will come if the MLS is not perceived as the best data; the weak link is the Realtors.

I sat in on the Communications Committee of the National Association of REALTORS one afternoon.  

Interesting to note is that just before NAR San Diego Conference, Houselogic.com  was released in its Beta version. It is a public facing website wholly owned by NAR (REALTOR.com is not) that features all sorts of information about home ownership. I think it is a great move by NAR to try to make Houselogic.com the “go-to” location for homeowners.

NAR is also bringing Real Estate Today  to radio, another great move. They have also just released a Guideline for REALTOR Associations on Social Media. Feel free to email me and I will email you back a copy. It is the work of Todd Carpenter, the Social Media Manager at NAR and founder of REBarCamp.

There was a great Social Media course with Jeff Turner  (a perennial favourite) and friends: Amy Chorew , Dustin Luther , Rudy Bacharaty  and Daniel Rothamel :

As someone who has been involved now for a couple of years…the great thing about the SM movement is that the rules and ideas are still being defined and refined so that nothing is really hard and fast and few questions are considered “stupid”.

Some thoughts from the Friends:

• There are huge changes in marketing…
• The number of tools will expand
• New behaviours will be needed
• Keep your mind open to the new tools.
• Blog is hub…use the tools to drive people to the blog…
• Static has moved to interactive.
• Content gets pushed or pulled to other sites.
• The Consumer is the driver using it to search agents, communities…
• How do you connect and use the tools, how do you engage the consumer…
• Consumers are changing the way we interact…
• The consumer wants to be listened to by real people.
• Bring your personality online. It’s like having a beauty shot on your card and then showing up at the door…be real.
• Don’t allow a disconnect between online and offline.
• Develop a Social Media strategy. Think about it before you post.
• Every post should have a goal…
• Try to connect with friends of friends…F.O.F. marketing…creating content that friends would pass to friends is a huge game changer in Social Media.

Using Social Media to close more deals with Mike Parker  and Mark Porter . Some of their ideas:

•  14 percent trust advertising but 78 percent trust peer recommendations
• Make your Business photo pop: recently I had an Avatar created with the CN Tower in the background.
• You have to be true.
• Increase your friends every day by ten to generate more income.
• Not who you know but who knows me.
• Search for major employers in your area and add them as friends.
• Don’t post anything negative.
• Post updates 3 to 5 times a day

Going Beyond Listing Data:

• Listings are ubiquitous…now what else?
• Layers of data…communities, walk ability scores.
• Add video of the community and community photos.
• View and analyze your client actions on the web site.

Expanding your sphere of influence by using your Blog:

Here are some great Ideas from Ines Hegedus-Garcia , Teresa Boardman  and Mariana Wagner .

Ines:@ines

• It is ok to be yourself…
• Blog is the base.. it is the hub with “call to action” buttons on the site…
• Contact Flickr  users to post their photos, for permission to post photos of your Community.
• Anything you do online, be consistent.
• Social Capitol. The currency that you get online; your followers.
• Help put other businesses on the map.

Teresa:@teresa

• writes a blog post every day about the ordinary.
• It builds trust if you can be yourself.

Note: Teresa is admittedly anti-social but has built a great business from photos of her home town and engaging customers.

Mariana:@mizzie

• You have to be transparent…
• write directly to the target…
• think about what it is you want and write about it.
• Picture the perfect client and write like you are talking directly to them.
• Remember that whatever you put out there is there forever…

 The bottom line of a NAR Conference is that there is a huge amount of information, some great networking and a four day whirlwind that usually leaves participants reeling. This year there was a large contingent of Canadian REALTORS that contributed and as usual at all Conferences a lot of work happens behind the scenes.

Next year the Conference will be in New Orleans but San Diego proved to be an excellent location to get 20,000 REALTORS together.

Seminar leader:
Richard Silver is a Salesperson with Bosley Real Estate Ltd. and an early adopter of technology and the Internet. He presently sits as a Director-at-Large with the Toronto Real Estate Board and is a member of the MLS® and Technology Council at CREA. He has recently been named to the Advisory Council for REBAC at the National Association of REALTORS®. His website is www.RichardSilver.com, Blog is www.Torontoism.com, or you can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

When I bought my 82-year-old father a computer, I never imagined the repercussions that act would have on our whole family. My father was no longer as physically active and I knew of other retirees that were keeping contact with ex-business friends on the Internet. Every member of our immediate family was online and in a total role reversal…the son bought the father a computer.

Dad had no computer experience whatsoever but my agreement with him was that within one week of set-up he would send me an email. That deed accomplished, I was amazed when the next week, he forwarded me a copy of an email that he’d sent to B’nai Brith Canada in search of the email address of the B’nai Brith in Uruguay. The body of the Uruguayan email held the answer: my grandfather, Harry.

80 years ago, after two trips back to Russia to bring my Grandmother’s family to Canada, my grandfather deserted his wife and two children(my dad and his brother), running off to South America with my Grandmother’s niece. My grandmother, not able to provide for her two children, placed my father and his brother in an orphanage. In the early 1920’s, it took seven years to declare her husband legally dead so that she could marry again and seven years later she reclaimed her children. The children had a new and loving father, but the scars left in my father’s psyche were deep. He never forgave his father’s flight.

In the 1950‘s, an Aunt contacted my father and tried to establish a relationship. From time to time she would furnish him with some news of his father’s family, but even what she knew was sketchy at best. My father learned that somewhere in Uruguay he had a half-brother and that other members were dispersed throughout the world. Their family history was similar to many Jewish families: dispersal and reunion.

Within one week of the now famous Uruguayan email he received a response titled “Your father’s family found”. Eighty years of pain melted as he was able to establish an e-mail relationship with his elder half nephew. Sadly, he found that his half brother had died just three years earlier, and his father had died in 1945. His half brother had three children: A daughter living in Israel and two sons in Uruguay, all of them on the Internet.

E-mails with old family photos began arriving and then were forwarded around the world. Finally, my father flew from Edmonton, Alberta to join us at Toronto International Airport to meet the elder half-nephew and his wife. We spent the afternoon trying to piece the family tree together and trying to soothe some of the hurt my grandfather had left as we began new relationships.

All my life, I’d watched my father struggle with abandonment issues from with events that took place three-quarters of a century ago. Years of pain seemed to fade away in the joy of coming together with our Uruguayan cousins. For us, Cyberspace has proved to be an excellent form of family therapy. I now know that buying my father a computer was the best money I’d ever spent.

Here is what I don’t get….I sell Real Estate and make a good living because I pride myself on returning phone calls AND emails as fast as I can. I have often found myself the REALTOR chosen because I do the small thing of returning calls and emails. If I am in meetings/away or cannot respond right away, I let the client know and give them good options.

The stats from service industry research say that service providers do not respond quickly to their emails. Someone sending an email is already on the Internet and moving at high-speed expecting full information. They expect responses and communication at the speed that they are moving. They are not willing to wait and come from a generation that thinks “Microwave” is slow cooking.

Here is what I really don’t get though…often when I send emails from my database, they bounce back telling me that the mailbox is full, over quota or that the email address is not active anymore. Email addresses are easily forwarded from one to another and boxes can be cleaned out. There is a lot of software that recognizes SPAM and deals with it so that you only receive valid emails. Changing your email address will only cut back on SPAM for a short while if you are using the web to market yourself and your services. SPAM is snail mail flyers on Steroids, bothersome but not the end of the world as we know it.

Most of us have numerous email addresses; choose one and make it your base email with all your other addresses forwarding to that email address. I suggest making it part of your branding which means it includes your name, so that if you move from one Company to another, your email address never changes and is easily recognizable as part of your brand. Make it your email address for life!

I am amazed that people in “Business” would change their contact information without notifying past clients or connections…..however my database proves me wrong, especially with email addresses. What is even more amazing is that I have been the recipient of business cards that have old and unused email addresses on them at the time they are given to me or I meet someone who tells me that “sorry…this is my old card or old email address” or says “OOpps, I don’t have my card with me!”

Our Industry Organizations are constantly trying to educate and update the members but are reporting big problems with out-of-date databases or members who do not want to use email.

So here is my solution! Do not get an email address, a computer, a Blackberry or PDA and whatever you do: DO NOT RESPOND TO EMAIL!!! Your market will be easy prey for those of us who do!

Technology will not take your business but competitors with it will! It’s time to get in the game and put care and energy in your email etiquette. You will reap great rewards!!