You don’t need a social media strategy

Instead, you should read this post by Chris Brogan. He outlines a tactic that will be very effective. Somewhere along the way, while using this tactic, you will figure out what your strategy should be.

Required skills (which are within your grasp to learn, no holding back please):

• Ability to use online spreadsheet or other data tool (think Google Sheets)
• Ability to use online communication tools such as email and Twitter
• Willingness to continually explore online social networks to find allies

Increasing Reach and Engagement: Integrating real estate search technology on your website

Sean Purcell nails it when he says “the premier ingredient in creating real estate success: lead generation.” Let’s look at how putting property search capability on your site can expand your reach and increase visitor engagement as part of your lead generation activities.

The search function on most real estate professional sites can be broken down into two types: integrated IDX property search and framed IDX property search. Since Union Street Media specializes in IDX integrated real estate web design, we’re often asked what the difference is and which is better.

Framed IDX is often cheaper. But if your real estate website is a part of your online marketing plan, there are significant advantages to an integrated IDX solution that should be considered.

Let’s start by breaking down the components of real estate search technology that matter most to online marketing.

Anatomy of real estate search technology

Search technology for property is a combination of four things:

• Data The MLS data can be hosted on a third party provider or on your site
• Search Interface Flexibility of the search interface to reflect your customers’ desires and your local expertise
• Visual Design Ability to keep your agent or office branding intact throughout your customers’ search process
• Technical Design The code used to display the listings and search results can have implications on your SEO and other marketing objectives

Understanding how these four elements interact can help you make an informed decision about what kind of search technology to deploy on your real estate website.

Your property search and Google

People looking for something will often start on a search engine. The NAR has said that over 80% of housing searches begin online (I bet you’ve heard this from every single technology vendor for the past few months). A fair share of those searches started at Google. You want your property search to be visible to Google in order to reach those people.

From a marketing standpoint, a big difference between integrated IDX and framed IDX is how they appear to Google. On an integrated IDX site, the property data is hosted on your website. That’s part of the integration. On a framed IDX site, the property data is hosted on a third party’s website and “framed” into your site.

Google doesn’t see visual design on websites. It only reads code and data. So while a framed IDX site might appear to be showing all the property data to a human eye, Google doesn’t recognize that the framed data is part of your site. This means that any SEO value from showing property on your site would be lost in a framed IDX site.

Your property search and your brand

Once people find your real estate search website, the next thing you’ll be wanting to do is provide them with an engaging experience. Engaging experience is web marketing geekspeak for “help them find stuff by making the search easy and effective.”

The design of a framed IDX search is often shared across a vast number of real estate websites. This can make integrating the design and branding of your office site with your search technology difficult.

Integrated IDX sites inherit the design styling of your site because the data is on your site. For this reason, it is often easier to maintain branding consistency on your site with an integrated IDX property search.

Widgets and other real estate tools

Integrated IDX sites also offer the capability to add widgets such as a quick search on every page of your website, easily configurable one-click real estate searches and other tools that you can use to promote property and encourage visitor interaction with your search technology. You’ll also want the ability to add extra information to your own listings on your site (if your MLS allows this) so that you don’t get a “duplicate content” penalty from Google. Some framed IDX searches offer these things and some don’t.

These extra tools and widgets have become more prominent and important in the past year as a way for agents and offices to differentiate their specialty knowledge in a geographic region, customer type or property type.

Some questions to ask your real estate search technology provider

Choosing the right technology for your real estate website will always come down to weighing the costs against the benefits. Here are some questions to ask your technology vendor (whether you’re using integrated IDX or framed IDX) so you can plan your online marketing efforts accordingly:

• Will Google and other search engines consider the property information part of my site for SEO purposes?
• Can I change the design and color scheme of the list and detail views to match my site’s branding?
• Can I set up one-click searches and provide links from anywhere in my existing site?
• What incentive do you have to improve your search technology in the future?
• Can I show extra information about my property that is only on my site (avoiding duplicate content issues with Google)?

If you found this article helpful, you may also be interested in the “Is your code hurting your website” post.

The Future of Online Marketing Has Already Begun

The Future of The Internet, is a very grand title, the new report from Pew Internet and American Life Project  doesn’t stop there however. This latest of three installments by The Pew Project focuses on how the integration of technology and communication systems will eliminate the concept of being “at work” or “at home.” To quote

“few lines divide professional time from personal time,” and those professionals are happy with the way work and play are “seamlessly integrated in most of these workers’ lives.” (Pew Report).

Regardless of your stance on that issue the future of wireless technology and the growing breadth of web applications has come a very long in not much time. This is especially true considering I had my first email account in seventh grade (I know I am dating my self there), which was a scant 14 years ago. When you think of how technology continues to develop at an ever increasing rate it is hard to imagine where we will be in 2020, which is the point which the study hypothesizes about. The iphone still looks like something out of Star Trek as far as I can tell. I am sure Steve Jobs already has one that has the ability to scan humans for sickness.

All this aside the report raises some interesting questions particularly for the online real estate market. To use my self as an example; as I told you before, I got my first email account in seventh grade and I just bought my first house, which I found … you guessed it … online. The generation of E-mail and blogging are buying houses and if you are not ready for them then you will be left by the wayside. Online applications are getting more and more important and the best sales tool that will be at your disposal in 2020 is only a glimmer in some programmer’s eye. Read up and stay ahead of the curve.

Here is a link to the full article – The Pew Report

Internet Marketing, “Memes” and Photography

I’ve been tagged for a “meme” again. Unlike the previous one, which focused on telling a few things about myself to the audience, this one involves a photograph. For those who are not familiar with blogger jargon, “tagged” is just like in a game of tag. One blogger chooses or “tags” another to carry on some specific “meme.” A “meme” is a small thought/challenge/trend or fad. Read more

Get two months free: Refer a Friend

Union Street Media is excited to announce our new Refer a Friend program.

It’s easy!  Know someone looking for a new site? Simply fill out the form on our Referral Program page and we’ll take care of the rest. All you need to provide is your name, your friends contact information and business type.

If your referral signs up for a new site with USM, you will received 2 months of FREE ongoing fees!

Related articles:

• Chamber presents Entreprenurial Spirit Award to Union Street Media
• G. Dewald to be a panelist at Blogger Connect

Mobile Internet Advertising with Google Adwords on G1 and iPhone

If your web marketing strategy incorporates search engine advertising and you want to reach consumers wherever they are: good news. Google is now setting up mobile-specific segmenting options that reach the G1 and iPhone operating systems only.

So, for example, if you have mobile real estate web templates enabled on your site, you can set up an ad campaign targetted at a mobile audience. And only pay for those who click through.

If you’re in ecommerce or retail, Google notes that “last Christmas, the iPhone drove more traffic to Google.com worldwide than any other mobile platform.”

One of the advantages of mobile search marketing is that you’re reaching a customer exactly when they are looking for something. Not when they’re at work or at home or tethered to a laptop. Right when they want to find something. Combine this with geo-targetting and things can get pretty interesting.

More details at allthingsd.com.

See also: Joel Burslem’s Future of Real Estate Marketing blog where he gives this practical tip to real estate marketers: “…create unique campaigns with mobile-ready landing pages as well as mobile-specific calls to action (e.g. “Call 1-800-XXX-XXXX for help with your home search”).”

Related articles:

• Target Google AdWords to Android and iPhone

Marketing for Real Estate: A Better Story to Tell

I usually try to stick to the internet marketing side of the real estate discussion and avoid getting into specific pitches and market narratives. But I just read a post I want to make sure my audience reads and discusses.

Seth Godin has a recent post using the marketing of the scientific concepts of evolution and gravity as a metaphor for understanding how you pitch and position your product. The post is brief and uses real estate as an example throughout. The basic premise is that gravity is accepted more easily than evolution because gravity can be quickly demonstrated (drop something vs wait multiple generations to see evolution at work) and because there were no previously held beliefs with which gravity was in conflict.

To restate, what makes a concept easier to sell:

1. Concept does not displace, refute or disagree with a previous concept
2. Concept can be demonstrated very quickly

Seth uses real estate as an example of an easier concept:

Five years ago, if you wanted to persuade people to buy real estate as an investment it was pretty easy.

1. The existing worldview was that real estate was a pretty good investment.
2. You could see, in the course of weeks or months, the price of homes going up.

Magic. Who’s in? Bid, bid, bid.

Of course, now times have changed. That first premise (real estate is a pretty good investment) is a bit shaken. People don’t see their home prices going up. In the face of this changed sentiment, Godin notes:

Real estate, of course, has a long row to hoe now. While there may be a long-term story to sell, it’s in conflict to a painfully learned new worldview, and it’s happening slowly. Perhaps there’s a better story to tell.

Sadly, he doesn’t go on to elaborate what that better story is. But those of you who are working in real estate can and should be able to find out what that story is. You’re also in a better position to develop that narrative than anyone else.

Seth does give two tactics to consider when developing your new and better story:

Tactic 1: Try to tell a story that complements an existing story rather than calling it out as false.

Tactic 2: Try to make the ‘proof’ as vivid and immediate as possible. Like an apple falling on your head.

I like to make sure that there are tangible things you can do with information and strategy so I’m going to wrap this up with the following to do list for my real estate audience (and as usual, I bet even if you aren’t in real estate you can find a way to make this stuff work for you):

1. Develop a two sentence version of a real estate marketing “better story” that conforms to the two tactics outlined by Seth Godin above.
2. Change the text on your most visited web page to reflect this new and better story. For backup on this, read my previous post about your making your home page reflective of the current world view.
3. Report back how this works for you. Help some other people change their story in their market.

Twitter for Real Estate: Who to follow?

You’re starting to use Twitter as part of your online real estate marketing plan. You’re ready to start following people to see what kinds of things they talk about, what topics and brands are discussed. That sort of thing. But where to start?

If you’re interested in data-driven internet marketing or enjoy this blog, follow me. If you’re focused on using Twitter for your business then find other people in your industry that are using Twitter and see how they use it. I’ll give some examples below.

Real Estate Twitter Users to Follow

Let’s face it, real estate professionals on occasion get criticized for being too pushy or too marketing focused. Like the person at a cocktail party who talks very loud and hands out their business card to everyone but doesn’t really listen very much. You don’t want to be that person. Here are some lists of people to follow on Twitter to get some ideas of how others interact.

• Many of the readers of this blog are in real estate. If you’re looking for a few examples of “good behavior” real estate agents to follow (to see how they use Twitter), There’s a list of ten great realtor Twitterers on Tom Carpenter’s blog.
• While I’m at it, here is Brad Nix’s list of real estate people to follow.
• I started a thread at Inman to be a sort of digest of real estate Twitter users. Check that out and add your information in the comment thread and I’ll put you in the list as well.
• Another compilation, drawn from many of the sources above, but containing profile info and blog addresses of real estate Twitterers as well can be found at HomeValueComp.com.
• Pat Kitano has come up with a clever scenario whereby you follow one of his Twitter accounts and he follows you back. This creates a list of real estate twitterati because they’re all following his account.
• There is a list of Real Estate Tweeters at Just Tweet It. It’s an open/unmoderated sign up which makes it fast and nice. Of course, spammy NJ Electronics repair places also get into the list. But it’s there anyway.

This article is part of the Twitter for Business series. If you liked this post you might also like the Using Twitter for Listening and maybe the Twitter for Lead Generation articles. All of these sections are updated  as I find more articles. Let me know if I’m missing a good one out there.