Web Analytics Training at EpikOne

On Tuesday, Jan 29th EpikOne will be hosting one of their excellent online trainings. I highly recommend it for people who are interested in deepening their knowledge of web analytics, usability, and online marketing in general. Check out Justin Cutroni’s posts on the Epik blog, as well, for some more background on these folks.

Fans Wanted

Union Street Media has a fan page on Facebook. If you are on Facebook, we would love to connect with you there. Pehaps this is something you might want to try for your business?

Flip Video Fun

We picked up a Flip Video camera this weekend. I wrote about this in an earlier post – these are $150 digital video cameras which are really easy to use. We’ll report back soon when we have had a chance to play with the camera and see what we think. See theflip.com for more info.

Thinking about Podcasting?

My last post focused on using Web 2.0 website Zillow to boost your web presence, another great way to do this is by using Podcasts. Not only will Podcasting help you reach the tech savvy generations that are driving the market, it will also improve your web standing. Podcasts have enough searchable data that they are picked up by search engines and therefore influence your sites ranking.

Looking to get started in podcasting? Check out: Real Estate Podcasting Part 1 and Ultimate Guide to Podcasting, Part 2 on rsspeices.com. These articles have everything you need to get started. Once your podcast are underway, contact me to help you add this technology to your website!

Real Estate Internet Marketing “Map”

During one of the final panels at Real Estate Connect in NYC I was sketching in my notebook the process of how users get to websites, and what we ultimately want them to do when they get there.

I took a few minutes to draw it up when I got home, and this is what I came up with. It’s far from complete, but seems useful in explaining how firms like ours use “web 2.0″ technologies to get traffic to our client’s sites. I thought it might be useful in providing a visual framework to illustrate the process. Personally, I needed something to organize the constant flow of information, ideas, sites, tools, etc., that constantly cross my desk/inbox/RSS feed.

Do you think this is a useful and/or accurate way to represent this?

Vermont 3.0 Career Jam

Union Street Media is proud to sponsor the Vermont 3.0 Creative/Tech Career Jam.

Join the Jam’s Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=6871164116

Vermont is a great place for technology and creative businesses, and we’re delighted to support this effort. USM is also a member of the Vermont Software Developer’s Alliance, a group that is doing great work in the state.

Another Great Connect

The Union Street Media crew returned home from Inman Real Estate Connect in New York this weekend. We had a great experience there, as we did last summer in San Francisco. A group of five of us attended and focused on social networking, blogging, internet marketing, MLS issues, and much more. The panels were great, including an appearance by the ever-popular Craig Newmark of Craigslist.

One resulting inspiration was the Real Estate Internet Marketing Map that I sketched at the conference, and then gussied up once home.
After all was said and done, among the trends this year were video, of course, as well as “instant” response to customer inquiries. We added a plugoo chat widget on our site last night – if you come by, say hello. I do think we will see many more agents and offices implementing some kind of basic IM/live chat into their sites, and it’s something that we are beginning to recommend to our clients as something to strongly consider.

Also, we were intrigued by the inexpensive Flip video camera and will probably pick a couple up to start playing with.

It will be interesting to see how realtors and others use the social networking space in the coming year. Like blogging, this can be a good passive channel for attracting customers. However, we are seeing more and more active types of marketing on Facebook, like groups, fan pages, and of course, ads. At the San Francisco Connect in August you couldn’t go through a whole panel without someone saying ActiveRain at least once. By contrast you didn’t hear this as much at the NY Connect. Nevertheless, the ActiveRain community is still a great place to spend some time online.