Archive for the ‘Conferences’ Category

“The Music in ME” 2012 Maine Convention

Megan Bookless

by Megan Bookless

October 12th, 2012

After a whirlwind tour of the Northeast, my final stop on the conference circuit had me visiting Maine for the very first time. While each conference had it’s own personality and hot topics, Maine was a great chance to get back to basics. We met with a number of our clients and other REALTORS® who were already utilizing an integrated IDX feed on their websites, but most folks we spoke with were still stuck with old-school IDX options.  Many are either framing in listings from the MREIS site or manually adding listings to their sites, both of which have serious drawbacks for users and search engines.

English: Shot of Rockport Harbor, Rockport Maine

English: Shot of Rockport Harbor, Rockport Maine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Given the amount of Maine real estate websites using these older technologies, it was a great opportunity for us to explain how Union Street Media sites are built with a fully integrated MLS feed.  We’ve covered the intricacies of integrated MLS feeds before, but here are the basics: with an integrated feed, all listing information across the MLS “lives” on each client’s site instead of pulling in listing information and search tools from an outside source. This integration offers clients an opportunity to enhance their listing information on their individual sites for greater SEO value and offer their potential leads more seamless, comprehensive property search tools.

Also, because all information that is added to the MLS is being pulled into each individual site, there’s no need to do twice the work by adding listing information to two platforms or worry that information will be outdated.  We’re happy to note that our clients in Maine already get the benefit of an integrated MLS feed, thus keeping them ahead of the curve, and look forward to helping fill this technology gap for other Maine REALTORS® in the future.

In other conference news, John Merse and Dan Kompass will round out the Fall with the Century 21 Fall Fest at Mohegan Sun next week, but the rest of the team is now back in the office full-time now and looking forward to connecting with current clients and new contacts as we head into the winter season.

Special thanks to the following clients who stopped by our booth in Rockport: Don Plourde, Pam Natole, Betty Mills, and Rachel Anderson of Coldwell Banker Plourde Real Estate, Mike Baribeau of Century 21 Baribeau Agency, and Sandy Cox of Windjammer Realty.

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Our Award Winning Vermont Real Estate Clients

Minna Brown

by Minna Brown

October 10th, 2012

Congrats to the Union Street Media clients who took home awards at the 2012 Vermont Association of Realtors Convention!

We’ve been working with Vermont REALTORS for over ten years, and we are always impressed by the caliber of their real estate work, as well as their dedication to improving the communities they work in. In what can be a competitive and cutthroat business, it’s refreshing to see the evident camaraderie, commitment and spirit of giving back that these REALTORS share.  Since I have the pleasure of working with many of them as clients, it was a treat to be able to check in with the majority of them at last week’s annual Vermont Association of REALTORS convention.

Sitting at the awards luncheon,  I realized that I was clapping for a disproportionate number of our clients as various VAR honors were called out. While it didn’t surprise me given who our clients are, I wanted to step back for a moment and just acknowledge some of our Vermont real estate clients (to whom we owe our own success as a company) for their achievements.

Of note on the podium with REALTOR of the Year nods were:

Ken Libby, 2012 Vermont REALTOR of the Year

Addison County: Amey Ryan of IPJ Real Estate in Middlebury

Central Vermont: Martha Lange of Century 21 Jack in Montpelier

Orleans County: Lyell Reed of Century 21 Farm and Forest in Derby

Windsor County: Eric Johnston of Lang McLaughry Spera in Woodstock

Ken Libby of Stowe Realty and kenlibby.com in Stowe, was not only Lamoille County REALTOR of the Year, but he was also surprised to be Vermont’s REALTOR of the Year.  Ken is a long-term Union Street Media client, and while he may not have a lot of time to work on his website, he always has time to work tirelessly for the various groups he’s involved with.  It’s hard to keep track of all of the things Ken has worked on.  He’s the past Stowe Police Chief, has been active in youth athletics, serves as the Chair of countless organizational boards, maintains a high level of activity in the local and national real estate arenas.

Congratulations go out to each of our honored clients, and to their offices!

Despite tough economic times and natural disasters like Tropical Storm Irene, this is a vibrant and strong local real estate community and it’s refreshing to see our clients doing well.  We’re glad to be able to be a part of their success, and look forward to seeing even more of our clients’ names in lights across every state we service.

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On the road again – Union Street Media’s Seacoast Tour

Megan Bookless

by Megan Bookless

September 28th, 2012

Our beautiful summer weather has translated into a great Fall, too, although in Vermont we’re not foolish enough to think that Winter will be similarly dry and sunny. In any case, the sunshine and changing leaves have made for some great drives to Portsmouth and Providence where we’ve enjoyed seeing some of our current clients and meeting new folks at the 2012 Annual NHAR Convention and MAR Conference and Tradeshow.

MAR Recap:

The Massachusetts Association of REALTORS® Conference was a great opportunity for us to showcase the recent updates to our mobile platform and plans for our new detail and list views. When the new detail and list view layout is launched within the next few weeks you can expect to see a product that’s been designed and developed to offer users a variety of routes for exploring their search results and more easily locating the properties that interest them. Our clients who’ve previewed the new design, layout, and functionality at recent conferences were duly impressed and this newest upgrade is sure to be popular with our clients and their site users!

Next Stop:

Next week we’ll have representatives at two conferences – the VAR Conference & Expo in Burlington, VT and the MAR Annual Convention & Tradeshow in Rockport, ME. If you’re a Maine or Vermont REALTOR® make sure to stop by our booth for a preview of “Defender,” review of our most recent upgrades, features, and tools, and to be entered for our giveaways. Giveaways at the last two shows have included a free mobile site and copies of Jack Cotton‘s Selling Luxury Homes. We’re also offering a discount on new Premium sites to conference attendees! Fall’s just started and it already feels like Christmas.

Maine Conference Highlights:

In light of our update to a new, listings-centric mobile platform this June, we’re particularly interested in Chelsea Locke and Eric Flynn’s presentation, Mobile Agents Today, on Wednesday morning. This class looks like an interesting introduction to a variety of mobile-specific applications and programs for REALTORS to access on-the-go. This focus on “apps” as relevant to real estate sites and their users has been reflected at nearly every conference and trade show we’ve attended this year. A few key points to keep in mind:

  • A mobile site with Union Street Media is not an “app.” When we build a mobile version of your site, we include a bit of code within the site that allows it to identify mobile visitors from traditional visitors. Therefore, any visitor coming to your site, is automatically presented with the mobile version instead of the full site.
  • Mobile visitors are unlikely to read a lot of content – can you read page of text on that tiny screen while standing in the checkout line at the market? Real estate sites should provide mobile visitors with a quick and efficient way to search for listings and contact an agent or office for more information.
  • Google recently re-tweeted this statistic which we’re sure will see another increase in coming months – “10% of all conversions have a mobile element to them which is 180% increase over 1 year.”

VAR’s Blueprint for the Future:

Located right in our backyard, the VAR convention is always a highlight for us since we get to connect with all of our local, and often most long-term clients.  As usual, we’re excited to see many of our clients up at the podium to accept various REALTOR® of the year awards, and we relish the opportunity to kick back on the Northern Lights boat cruise of Lake Champlain.  But, there are also some great sessions that we hope to sit in on.  We also hope that those of you who are attending will stop by to tell us what you’re taking away from the presentations.  It’s no surprise that we’re most interested in Craig Grant’s two sessions covering “How to Run a Consumer-Friendly Website” and “Become a Social Media Superstar!” and will look forward to throwing ideas around with Craig.  As at every other conference this fall, we’ll be manning our booth and would be happy to set aside time to talk with any of you to go over your priorities and the advancements we continue to make in our system.

Special thanks to the following clients who stopped by our booth in Providence: Mike Ballow of Ballow & Hutchinson Realty Group, Colleen Kilfoil and Janice Stickles of ACapeHouse.com Real Estate, Deb Schilling of Re/Max Classic, Anne Mayhew of Sandpiper Rentals, and Bert Beaulieu of Northrup Associates Realtors.

 

 

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Marketers Just Wanna Have Fun – #Inbound2012

Tom Cull

by Tom Cull

September 19th, 2012

Hubspot recently staged their annual Inbound Marketing conference in Boston and it was brimming with talented guest speakers. If you are old enough to actually remember the 80s, you might be excited to learn that Cyndi Lauper was the special musical guest. She happens to be an advocate for SEO and inbound marketing.  Guess Internet Marketers just wanna have  have fun, too.

What Did We Learn About Inbound Marketing?

There were several high profile keynote speakers including David Meerman Scott, Susan Cain and Gary Vaynerchuk. My personal SEO hero happened to be there, too. Rand Fishkin is the CEO and co-founder of SEOmoz in Seattle and author of the Art of SEO, one of the best books I have read about Internet marketing. Rand’s presentation theme was throwing out old, irrational SEO biases, which he likened to online dating.

Let me explain.

His example was to show data where the majority of women excluded any potential mate who was under 5′ 9″. This irrational bias prevented dozens of other positive attributes these men had, from coming into play. As SEO has established many maxims over the years, what we think should be best practice, does not always equate to actual success online.

Here were some of Rand’s top irrational biases, which SEO practioners and their clients should be thinking about:

Bias: “Ranking Positions are all that matter”

While ranking number 1 will always be the Holy Grail for many site owners, understanding the behavior of searchers faced with a far more varied set of search results, including rich snippets, can be fruitful. By generating star ratings/reviews, creating blog Author profiles from your Google + account and leveraging social media and video, these types of rich snippets can be much more enticing for searchers.
Rich Snippet example

Rand’s Google + author profile

Rich snippets can encourage a higher click-through rate than the rather dry Wikipedia result or exhaustive online directory result at the top of the page. The ‘text only’ bias is becoming less important as social media, review sites, blogs and video increase their algorithmic value with search engines. Another related bias can be to “only focus on high volume terms.” which by now most people have heard and understand. The power of the long tail (and middle) often provides the majority of any given site’s best traffic. Tip: Use Google Suggest to mine for terms that people are using. Keeping up with the news in your industry will also provide insight into what will be searched on.

Bias: “Link Building is required for SEO”

We all know that chasing our competitors’ inbound links can be tedious and difficult. Have you thought about building your own links that are just as valuable? By building the relationships in the first place, you are more likely to get the kind of relevant and authoritative link that your competitor cannot buy either. A link that is good for a competitor actually might not do you as much good as them because of the relationship between that competitor’s content and the linking site.

We’ve heard that spending money on acquiring links skirts dangerously close to black hat SEO, but spending money in a different way on relationship building, can earn you those links. Examples include sponsoring local events, being involved in your industry as contributing authors or staging a launch party for a new product. Newsworthy events can earn a good link from a local or national newspaper, so don’t forget about the old fashioned press release to keep journalists in the loop.

Bias: “Only Facebook and Twitter matter”

Google+ is still trying to win over fans, but the fact of the matter is that it can earn as much traffic as Twitter and Facebook, and potentially better engagement. Google + also enables you to get your contributing author profile image into search results as Rand’s example above shows. You’ve heard about putting a name to a face, so ask yourself if you are more inclined to click on a search result link with a smiling face?

Google + profile

Cyndi’s Google + Profile

Do sites rank better if they have a Google+ account  set up? The answer is probably yes. If your ‘circle’ of Google+ friends grows and you become an influencer, then there is every chance Google’s search engine algorithm is picking up on this social signal. What Facebook and Twitter do not offer, is an equivalent amount of content to add to your profile, so this is something that you can take advantage of.

If you want to hear more about Rand’s presentation and other Inbound 2012 presenters, leave a comment or connect on social media!

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Next Stop – Providence, Rhode Island

Megan Bookless

by Megan Bookless

September 14th, 2012

One annual real estate conference down and four more to go for the Union Street Media team! This week, the NHAR Conference in Portsmouth, NH gave us a great opportunity to visit with current clients, connect with other industry vendors, and enjoy some fresh seafood.

Next stop:

Providence, Rhode Island for the MAR Conference on Wednesday and Thursday of next week. Although there will be a “Tech Tutor Corner” set up we’re hoping you’ll stop by our booth if you have any questions about your site or it’s features. We’re also happy to give you feedback on questions about social media, QR codes, or other forms of internet marketing.

NHAR Recap: At NHAR, we were thrilled to engage with over 40 REALTORS at our presentation From Lawn Signs to Social Media.  Although John Merse, our Marketing Manager and the presenter, could not accurately identify Freddie Mercury, he did offer some valuable insight into current internet marketing strategies and how to align them with more traditional forms of marketing. For those of you who couldn’t make it, here are the main takeaways:
  • When writing content and thinking about your overall search engine goals, focus on attainable keywords that are specific to your market. By focusing on the people who are actually looking for your services, even if you get less overall traffic, the “qualified” visitors to your site will improve.
  • Social media can be a beneficial and useful tool in your Internet Marketing arsenal, but try and focus on mastering one platform at a time without diving into all five at once. Also, you don’t need to see a slew of “Likes” or comments for your post to be effective. Social media platforms often act as referral sites – drawing additional visitors into your site to engage with its tools and search for listings.
  • Review sites like Yelp and Google Local are important to clients looking for a trustworthy, knowledgeable REALTOR. Make sure you utilize these review sites and monitor bad responses. Remember – a bad review is an opportunity – when you know someone had a negative experience, you can act on it.
  • Data should play an important role in making decisions regarding your internet marketing strategy. Make sure you have a working knowledge of tools like Google Analytics so that you can keep an eye on how effectively your site is reaching and engaging your clients.
  • Spend well, not more. Print ads still have a place in most marketing strategies but you may see more return on a Pay Per Click campaign or search engine optimization, which will boost exposure and site traffic. If people begin their real estate search online, then you want to reach them early in their search process, instead of relying on traditional outbound marketing outlets.
MAR Highlights

Although we won’t be hosting a presentation in Providence, we’re excited to hear from some other speakers, including Deb Agliano whose Don’t be a Twit – Social Media Etiquette course promises to be a fun, informative take on proper communication through social media tools.

We will have a booth at the conference where we’ll be highlighting our improved mobile platform, offering a sneak peek at our brand new detail and list views, discussing recent (free) system wide upgrades, and reviewing new options for agent sites. Hoping to see some current clients and new faces next week!

Special thanks to the following clients for coming by our booth to say hello at the NHAR Conference: Antonia Andreoli and Cindy Westover of Galloway Services, Vanessa Stone of Vanessa Stone Real Estate, Alan DeStefano of Granite Group Realty, Alan DiStasio and Linda Rosenthall of Four Seasons Sotheby’s International Realty, Ted Bateman of Exit Realty Leaders, Antonella Bliss and Rose Robinson of Coldwell Banker Wright Realty, Joy Tarbell and Suzie Laskin of JtRealty Lakefront to Mountainside, and Deborah Booth of Century 21 Highview.

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