Richard Silver’s Downtown Toronto Blog » Inman Real Estate Connect

What I Learned at Inman Real Estate Connect: August 2009 Day Two

Richard Silver — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 14:32:17 +0000

Jeff Turner of RealEstateShows (I am a big fan of both the product and the person) started off the second day with this simple truth:

Provide a great customer experience.

Jeff then spoke of Tech Tools to Leverage Social Media.

Use the tools that help you achieve your Social Media goals:

Look outside the real estate industry. What is happening in other industries…
Move Offline to Online (Find other modes to get the message out). Add clients to Facebook (take your client database and put them on Facebook)
Care deeply about something. (Don’t just give lip service…get involved)
Share openly and often. Always be free with your knowledge….
Listen with intent. Are you really listening or thinking about what to say next?
Target someone unreachable (David Armano). Great stuff on David Armano’s Blog.
Teach a newbie. Be a mentor.
Meet face-to-face. At the end of the day it is all about the face-to-face, the social media is a way of getting there.

Some great questions were asked through the balance of the day:

Does brand mean anything anymore?
Are they all the same?
Does it matter what brand a REALTOR has behind them?
As “Teams” have evolved within Brands, will they move to be Independents to have more control over the product.
Are Brokerages and Boards/Associations too numbers driven as a profit model?

Discussion about the use of the Amazon Kindle: Harper Studio led the discussion but it was not geared to potential uses in the future of Real Estate however it is interesting to note that usage is increasing exponentially. As a Kindle owner and user, I await applications that will allow listings to be viewed on the Kindle. Newspapers, Blogs and magazine’s are now downloading content to the Kindle overnight.

In another Discussion about Boards and market statistics….it was stated that Boards need to explain the data to the members to explain it to their clients…the Skinny. Short videos about the market down loadable to agents web sites and Blogs for content!

Houston Area Realtors HAR.com is now allowing closed Buyers and sellers to rate their REALTORS and the services they provide. They are also working on a REALTOR production analyzer that will be available to the Public and help the consumer shop for an agent by past success in different areas and price range. When I asked Bob Hale, CEO of HAR.comwhy they were moving to that kind of transparency, he rightfully stated that if the Board/Association did not provide this service, it was their belief that a 3rd party would soon be providing it and the quality of data from the trade association would be better.

In discussing tools for surveys Zoomerang.com, Redfincalculates bonus by surveying their Buyers and Sellers (Redfin’s Realtors are paid salary) on survey, the ultimate question, since reviews launched conversion rate has increased 100 fold. Before then, they had a lot of people using their web site to search but not converting to online Consultants/Realtors. At the end of the day however, it was suggested that the most important question to ask is:

“How likely are you to recommend this Realtor’s real estate services to a friend or family?”

A speaker from MRIS’ Homesdatabase.com had a great top 10 for Consumer Focused web sites:

10. Aim for a particular duck: Who is your consumer?
9. Turn the binoculars around: What is your consumer searching for?
8. The Wine is only as good as the grapes: Garbage in, garbage out…
7. Get the big picture and the big pictures…Large photos and lots of them…
6. Don’t set it and forget it: keep the content up to date and add more applications
5. If it’s real, it’s spectacular: if it is worth doing it is worth overdoing…(my words)
4. Build it and they will not necessarily come: make it easy. MRIS describes their site as the most comprehensive Registration-free MLS search.
3. Make it habit forming. Consumers will come back if there is always something to come back to…
2. Show me the money. Make sure that it is benefiting all your members and their Brokers in terms of leads…
1. Stop, look and listen: continuously monitor the site….and ask for feedback…

It was a great second day…and sadly the afternoon was divided into 4 different tracks…try as I might I could not be in all 4 at the same time but…still a great day.

What I Learned at Inman Real Estate Connect: August 2009 Day One

Inman Real Estate Connect: August 2009 Sano Stante’s List

Social Media: REBarCamp San Francisco August 2009

REBarCamp San Francisco August 2009.

What I Learned at Inman Real Estate Connect: August 2009 Day One

Richard Silver — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 21:17:42 +0000

It’s true, I am an Inman Real Estate Connect Junkie! Last week I sucked up as much information as I could in San Francisco and was upset when they offered four tracks on the second day afternoon because I could not sit in on four presentations at the same time…sick?? Sorry if the information below rambles but…trying to get bits and pieces from the best minds in the field…

So. Day One started off with Bloggers Connect:

Jim Cronin of the Real Estate Tomato started my day off with some simple tips and tricks to improve your blogs:

Search “Easter Egg” on RETomato.com or click here. Great suggestions about links images and abbreviations. Add it in the title link. Edit Alternate text… add related posts to the bottom of your article…calls to action…ask the expert questions and search for homes… Read it to get the full scoop!

Widgets:

www.vflyer.com very cool marketing tools…
cut and paste the code into the sidebar using widgetbox.com.
Diverse solutions has excellent IDX widgets for your Blog…

The WordPress Plugin:

He had great explanations of My category Order, wordpress.org, Cforms II, Facebook Connect, Akismet, ListingPress (embeds MLS on my web site).

Facebook:

Be engaging, be conversational and add media…post on posterous.com…organizing Facebook friends for coffees! Set meetups offline, Ricardo Bueno and Craig Donato were great examples…promote other people’s content..

Promoting your listings on Facebook:

Facebook Marketplace: housing…posting is free…fueling conversations. Comment wall…add a new tab.
Blog.oodle.com newsfeed on Facebook. www.facebook.com/martketplace or www.oodle.com
Make sure there is Social in Social Media…
fish where the fish are…should I push my facebook people to my Blog or keep them on Facebook? Keep people in Facebook!

Some Thoughts from Sonia Simone (brilliant): copyblogger.com

What is it about your brand? What is the hook? It is for relationships and trust!
Resolve Underlying Objections! I don’t like Real Estate People! I don’t lake Salespeople!
Write articles and content about barriers…
Blog is part of a system. You have to be great to compete.. Personal and entertaining…friend and Authority…authority rules,
cookie content: content is too good to give away…that is where you want to be…
write your blogs for your consumers not other Realtors…more content geared to your prospect.
Specialized..communicate toward a perfect customer for your market.
Who is your perfect customer? Write special reports: Downsizing Gracefully…Write special reports: Getting your paperwork in order to list…
FAQ really FRO frequently asked objections…
Email newsletter!! aweber.com, have valuable content to give…is your blog a Ginger or a Maryanne? Use the hit reality show. Read Big Red Fez. Be transparent…

The Nicholays: Twitter: Nicole and Reggie have wonderful insights!

Closing business in 140 Characters, www.localtweeps.com
@RealtorTed, twitter how-to’s, username, people connect with people,
customize the background. Twitbacks.com, twitterpinch.com @cyberhomes…
fb 140 www. Twables/fb140 : Follow your Facebook friends on Twitter
twitterlocal.net, www.nearbytweets.com, www.twellowhood.com,
Become the Trusted advisor: listening, responding, broadcasting.
Be meaningful! The Tweet Plan: stay on track…make a topic list, identify resources, schedule drips , be spontaneous…google news…
Hootsuite.comget the Hootlet (amazing)
Farming Twitter: demandspot.com sign up for RSS feed..very cool Real-Time Lead Generation for Real Estate
Monitoring and measuring: hootsuite, cligs (helps you understand your traffic), and bit.ly (shortens URLs), tweetbeep ( Twitter Alerts by email) and twilert

MORE Twitter Apps: From the Nicholays

Cutting Edge Tactics for the Wired Agent: Ian Watt, Vancouver BC,

Outsources a lot of things, google Apps, google docs, Wiki,
Amanda: altos research consumer-friendly market research. Give your business personality!
www.chicagohomepartner.com
Be compassionate…do what you do best and outsource the rest!

Rob Hahn (he is very smart) and Kris Berg (Blogger par excellence)…spoke of the value of independence…

Brad Inman’s Opening Session: more positive…with Morgan Brown

“cost to rent and cost to buy is getting smaller”
“absorption rate is going down”
technology Trends: Trade Off by Kevin Maney (book), the middle ground is a wasteland
travel agency service coming back… More service…
look for new opportunities,
unlocked information,
social search..

Tools From Morgan Brown:

www.Issuu.com you are the Publisher
www.viralheat.com track what people are saying about you
www.drop.io real-time sharing
www.jimdo.com create a free website
www.feedmingle.com create your own Google News
www.mailchimp.com easy and fun email marketing
www.screentoaster.com record whatever is on your screen
www.geochirp.com GeoChirp helps you search for people Twittering for specific things in a specific area
www.tumblr.com helps you create sites
www.usertesting.com gives you Feedback about your site
www.99designs.com allows you to have people bid to design your projects