Posts Tagged ‘union street media’

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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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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Better Faster Stronger – PHP Conference

Evan Borden

by Evan Borden

September 12th, 2012

Time to check in with the geeks

It isn’t very often that you hear from the geeks on Union Street Media’s blog. We hide deep in the shadows, developing the web app that you’ve come to know and love; surfacing every once and awhile to fix a bug or introduce a new wizbang feature.

Communing with the hive mind.

Yum, knowledge.

Recently the geeks at Union Street Media went on a field trip to Boston to commune with like-minded individuals at the first ever Northeast PHP conference, held at the aptly named Microsoft NERD Center (New England Research and Design). This conference focused on web design as a whole with tracts in user experience, PHP development and other associated technologies. PHP is the programming language that the majority of our platform is built on, so it is a subject of great importance to us.

Northeast PHP was a great opportunity for our team to mine the brain trust that gathered for this event, with such heavyweights as PHP core developer Ilia Alshanetsky, user experience evangelist Jared Spool and VT’s own superstar Bradley Holt in attendance. Individuals came from far and wide to attend and speak, some even as far as the Netherlands. We even got to meet an individual that is close to some of our clients’ hearts: Debra Blair from LINK MLS.

Speed Improvements

10x Speed Improvements!

So we went to Boston, we talked code, we shared ideas — why do you care to read this? Well, just for fun I brought some charts! Yes, charts and fun in the same sentence. Like I said, this was a great opportunity to gain knowledge, and on returning we were able to use some of this knowledge towards windfall gains in site speed. From a side comment by Redis expert Ross Tuck our team was able to manifest a 10X speed increase in MLS search. This increase is gigantic and is only one of many ideas spurred by this conference. Northeast PHP was a forum for ideas that we’ll be able to use to help your site work for you.

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Four-Peat 7 Daysies Award for Website Design and Development

Ted Adler

by Ted Adler

August 10th, 2012

On the first day back at work from my wedding and honeymoon, I was greeted by fantastic news: Union Street Media won the 2012 Seven Daysies for “Best Web Developer” in their annual survey of Vermont businesses!  We’re absolutely thrilled to be the Four-Peat winners of this award.  Winning the Daysie is a great testament to the team we’ve developed and our extensive family of clients, 94% of whom stay with us year-after-year.  Thank you to everyone that voted for us!

How rare is a Four-Peat?  Hockey fans including Francis Gravel, our in-house goalie and application developer extrodinaire, know that we now join the 1976 to 1979 Montreal Canadians and the 1980 to 1983 New York Islanders as Four-Peat winners.  We also join the 1936 to 1939 Yankees, unfortunately, on that list.  (Worst of all, that team from New York also Five-Peat’d from 1949 to 1953, well before Todd Cummings, our Yankees fan and Creative Director, was somehow misguided into rooting for them).

The competition to win a national sports championship is clearly more competitive than a Daysie.  However, I hope that part of what made those teams successful is also reflected in our team.  We work hard to ensure our clients success, which we feel is the best way to ensure our success.  We collaborate internally, which includes the ability to argue well.  Finally, we have a lot of fun working together.  Whether it’s Tuesday office lunch or meeting up for beers after work, we really enjoy each others company.  One of my favorite things about working at Union Street Media is that I love to go to our Christmas party, which is nothing like the cliché, dreaded end-of-the-year office get together.

Will we Five-Peat next year to join the 1978 to 1982 Edmonton Eskimos, Canadian Football’s Grey Cup champs?  Time will tell.  What I do know is that over the next year, we will keep up the hard work and approach to our business that got us the first four.  And, of course, if you’d like your website to be built by an award winning team, please contact us!

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A Step-by-Step Guide to a Union Street Media Real Estate Website

Ariana Wammer

by Ariana Wammer

June 14th, 2012

So you are considering a Union Street Media website but are not quite sure of what our process entails? We’ve built hundreds of real estate websites and have created a process that makes building your new website personalized and easy.

At the start of each new site, you are assigned a Project Manager whose job it is to keep your project moving forward on a timely schedule. Our goal is to take as little time from you as possible and develop a website that will help you generate leads and represent you professionally. Working with you, we use your expertise in your market area and knowledge of what home buyers and sellers needs are to ensure your site is a success.

You won’t be working with just one person; we have a team of dedicated professionals behind every site. Your Project Manager is always available to answer questions about your project deadlines and status; you’ll also be working with a Graphic Designer, Training Specialist and your dedicated Account Manager.

Here’s how we do it:



Step 1- Orientation:

Once you’ve signed up for a Union Street Media website, you’ll be setup with a Basecamp account. We use Basecamp to manage projects, communicate and share documents. In the orientation message, your Project Manager will include a link to a survey with questions about your needs and goals for your new website. This is a good baseline for us to begin developing your new site. While you are working on the survey, we will schedule a kick-off meeting with you to go over any questions you may have on the survey, the proposed timeline for your project and the next steps in the process.

Step 2 – Sitemap:

Your Project Manager will work with you to develop a sitemap, which outlines the websites’ navigation and structure. During this process the features and functionality of your new site will be detailed out along with any recommended searches you want to build. If you have signed up for Internet Marketing, we take it a step further and optimize the sitemap for search engine rankings. Your Internet Marketer would schedule an initial goals interview with you to begin planning a strategy for your sites’ optimization.

Step 3 – Content & Design:

Once you’ve approved the sitemap, your Project Manager will generate a content worksheet where you can write, edit, or copy content for your new site. While you are building out the content for your site you will also be working with our Graphic Designers. The design phase consists of this initial conversation, a first draft of design, an opportunity for you to feedback, for us to revise the original draft before signing off on the design. This content and design phase is the most time-consuming for you so please plan accordingly.

Step 4 – Production:

Now that all of your website resources are finalized we can start the production of your site. Your site material will be handed over to a Web Developer who puts all the pieces together. Once we have finished production of your website, it goes through our internal review process where our entire team ensures that every part of your site is functioning properly.

Step 5 – Training & Launch:

Once our team has reviewed your site, your Project Manager will schedule a presentation with you where we will walk through a live test version of your new site. You will be able to review the site on your own time and send in any requests and changes you’d like done prior to launch. Now that you know how your site will work and function, you’ll be scheduled for training. Our Training Specialist will walk you through our real estate website admin system and show you how to make updates to your site and listings. Shortly after your training, your Project Manager will send you the technical specifications survey detailing important information needed to launch and the launch sign off form enables us to launch your new site!

Once your new website has launched your dedicated Account Manager will take over and our support team will be available to maintain your site. You will also receive a post launch survey where you will have the opportunity to let us know how the process went for you.

How long does it take? Our Premium sites are launched in 60 days. Our Enhanced sites, which follow a different process then the one outlined above as it entails more work on the client’s behalf, are launched in 30 days.

If you have any more questions about the process, please don’t hesitate to ask us. We look forward to working with you on your new website!

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