Being an Entrepreneur in the Great Recession

There is an excellent blog post by Bill Taylor I recently read on the Harvard Business School blog that discussed the difference between entrepreneurs & MBA’s and who has the upper hand the economy we now face.  In this topsy-turvey economy, with desperation being the mother of invention, we’re seeing both an increase in graduate school applications and start up companies.

Let me start by saying that I see myself as an entrepreneur. I’ve been one since I opened my lemonade stand to finance my baseball card collection in fourth grade. A number of our clients are entrepreneurs too: REALTORS, hospitality businesses, social entrepreneurs such as Choose Responsibility & Given Limb.  The list is extensive.  There are a lot of people out there starting things and when you start something, you inevitably need a web site.  One of my favorite parts of my job is working with entrepreneurs to help them further their initiatives.

On occasion I have been asked to speak to student groups about my experience as an entrepreneur.  I’ve often said that when one is considering starting a business, they should envision the worst case scenario, which is normally something along the lines of “My business idea fails. I lose money. My lifestyle is negatively effected” etc.  I then ask them if they’re willing to accept that scenario as fact?  If the answer is yes, then I encourage them to move forward with it.

When I started Union Street Media in 1999, my worse case scenario was “the company dot-bombs, I’m 24/25/26 years old, I have a great story and I apply to business school.”  Well, the dot-bomb didn’t happen.  I’m now 32 and still haven’t managed to get to business school.  A few years ago when I was asked to speak to a panel of Tuck MBA’s their first week of class that line got the best response of all. Read more

Real Estate Blogging Objectives

Tired of blogging? No Time?

Recently I came across this forum post by a beleaguered, blogging Realtor.

“when i first began blogging i was very excited i found out a way to reach the world and express my thoughts.My Real Estate blog began to be filled with content and awesome articles. As i continue to blog and expand my audience and continue to grow my business i have found myself exhausted and overwhelmed. I am exhausted every article requires time and thought something that i really dont have. i recently began looking for a ghost blogger but guess what i haven’t found one yet. Does any one have any suggestions?”

As the season gets busier for Realtors, a common issue is finding time to sit down and write a well written blog post with good content. It is wiser to keep a consistent output rather than flurries of activity, so if you only blog once a month that is preferable to a high frequency of blogs and then nothing at all for long periods. Readers will check in at regular intervals but if there is nothing there for ages you run the risk of losing them completely as they think the blog is dormant. Rather than leave your blog dormant until you find the time and energy to jump back in, consider this:

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Real Estate Apps on the iPhone

Apple is running TV commercials focusing on the applications available on the new iPhone.  They recently released one that highlights a real estate application geared towards students looking for apartment rentals close to campus.  You can see the advertisement here.

Although college students perceived as market leaders when it comes to technology adaptation (just behind middle schoolers), they’re not the only ones using their mobile devices to look up real estate.  As iPhone sales skyrocket even in this down economy, users are expecting that your site will load on their mobile device.  The trend is catching on amongst real estate data sites too.  Some newspapers like the Gainsville Sun and sites like Trulia & Zillow are making their sites easier to search using a mobile phone.

You should check with your web developer to make sure your site is mobile friendly.  Some real estate web site developers (like Union Street Media), can create a new mobile template for your site that strips away non-core images & content, which increases the speed that the site loads on the mobile phone.  Check out the two variations of Brian Boardman’s web site to see what it looks like on a web browser and on a mobile phone.

We generally see three types of REALTORS requesting mobile-friendly sites:

• REALTORS who are technology savvy and browse the web on their mobile phones
• REALTORS who’s clients are technology savvy and use mobile phones for real estate searches
• REALTORS in a second home markets

Check out www.adamdow.com if you’d like to see one person that fits all three categories (and was one of the first clients to get a mobile-friendly site from USM).

There are a lot of other cool examples of mobile-friendly real estate web sites out there.  Please share any that you have come across in the comments section below.  Thanks!

Mt Ascutney Hospital Wins Web Site Award

Great news just through that one of our site designs, Mt. Ascutney Hospital, scooped a silver award at the National Aster Awards in the website category.

Adopting video at the right time

Getting into the ‘early majority’ phase

In 1957 at Iowa State College Joe M. Bohlen and George M. Beal developed a simple analogy called the technology adoption lifecycle, which examined a way to look at when people adopt a new technology.

A more in depth explanation of this curve can be found here, but this is basically how it breaks down:

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Targeting homebuyers through social networking

This article from the New York Times highlights how savvy real estate agents are using social networking to target their buyers.

Some important points raised in the article include how the new trends on the web are reaching younger audiences for free. This more tactile marketing by many web-savvy professionals are now sending messages on Twitter, getting referrals on LinkedIn, posting blogs, uploading virtual tours onto the Internet and sending text messages and alerts to customers’ phones when homes come on the market.

Bettie Meinel, vice president for career development at Century 21 Laffey Associates, based in Greenvale, said that because consumers are already online seeing the photos and virtual tours, “that is their first showing.” Actually touring the house shows more serious intent, she explained. “If they like it enough, they make an appointment to come and see that property; that is the second showing,” she said.

Also check out other blog posts on these topics in the social media and video sections.

Link Trading: Advantages and Pitfalls

The world of SEO is a dangerous place to have a baseline level of knowledge. People can read a few blog posts, understand the basics (Keywords, Content and Links) and go to work on their websites. There are many mistakes to be made in this situation, especially in the world of link exchanges. At its most basic level, it is generally understood that the more inbound links a website has, the better its ranking will be. This understanding has spawned a whole link-exchange industry. You can join link exchange directories and if you are the primary contact for a website you have undoubtedly received countless emails – both spam and legitimate – from people who want to exchange links with you. As with so many things in the online world, link exchanges are not as simple or straight forward as they appear.

The best way to think about a link is as a recommendation between websites. When you link your site to another website, search engines count it as a recommendation of that site by you. As with any recommendation, its importance is totally dependent on the source of the recommendation. Online, this all breaks down to what Google calls Page Rank. Page rank is tabulated from a complicated algorithm involving a multiplicity of factors but that can be effectively represented by a number between 0-10 with 0 being the worst and ten the best. [Note: Don't confuse Page Rank with SERP rank. The former is a quality index which impacts the latter. The latter (Search Engine Results Page rank) is the position of your site's link on a search engine results page.]  If you spend lots of time on your website adding pages and pages of unique keyword rich content, it is updated frequently, and other high-page-rank sites link to you, then Google is going to rate your site towards the top end of the scale. (To give you some context, whitehouse.gov and harvard.edu each have a page rank of 9. Most Real Estate sites are a 2, 3, or 4 although a rare few rank higher.)  A favorable page rank will inspire other sites to want to exchange links with you because a link from your site will really help their own Google Page Rank. There are two factors that you need to be aware of in this situation.

• First, you want to make sure that the site you are linking to has good content that will add value to your client’s experience. For example, if a client follows a link off your page and it leads them to a bogus website it will not reflect positively on you. On the other hand, a recommendation by your site that proves useful will encourage people to come back in the future and trust your opinion.
• Second, you need to be aware of whether the reciprocal link from this other site will do you any good. This is where page rank comes in. If your page rank stands at 5 and the site you are linking with is at a 2, then the link will really not help you in the eyes of Google and thus you should not waste your time with it.

Of course, this second consideration can be overlooked if the site to which you are linking has information that will be useful to your clientele or you have some other motivation such as a close personal or business relationship. However, if you are purely linking for linking sake, then you will want to be discriminating in you choices. There are many free online utilities that check page rank but the best of the bunch is a plug in for Firefox called The SEO Toolbar. This little toolbar sits below your other toolbars in Firefox and can give you immediate data on any site you happen to be visiting. By using these tools to evaluate the quality of the websites that are contacting you, you can make informed choices about which you want to link to and which you want to ignore.

Link building can be a very good avenue to pursue in your ongoing work to optimize your site. But like all decisions you make about your website, it is imperative that you utilize the tools that are available to you and make sure that your decisions are based on data.

The Value of Real Estate Video-Bios and Testimonials

In a new era of ‘social’ media and more direct communication with buyers, it’s important to remember to be sociable without the appearances of a hard sell. Realtors are very much used to the meet-and-greet with prospective clients so a natural extension of this is to display these skills on the web.

When we here at Union Street Media talk to our Real Estate clients, we frequently hear that before the dominance of real estate websites they received many more direct calls from perspective clients. These days, they say, there are so many more barriers before that initial phone call happens. Many potential clients want to avoid the pressure of a face to face meeting and are more inclined to make contact via email and contact forms. In this sterile online environment, the opportunity for the broker to display his or her knowledge and personality is limited, thus reducing their direct impact on the buyer. In effect, there is so much more run-around before the broker and buyer actually meet and make a personal connection. This is where the video-bio comes in. If used correctly, the video bio can break down these communication barriers to get across the knowledge and personality that you just can’t achieve through email.

We are proud to present our own video bio for Brian Boardman here, which we produced in-house. Clearly comfortable in front of a camera, you get to see a more personable view of him and not just a slick advertisement.

What are the advantages to video bios?

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