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Top 5 Real Estate Blogging Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make

Suzanne Roy — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 12:00:53 +0000

Top 5 Real Estate Blogging Mistakes You Don’t Want to Make

I would guess that by now, millions of people (as well as businesses) have a blog. But when it comes to making them profitably effective, I would say that the vast majority are falling short. Really short.

So here’s an overview of the top 5 real estate blogging mistakes you don’t want to make, so on the flipside you can gain more readership, more eyeballs and more income.

Mistake #1 – Sporadic Blogging

How Often Do You Blog?
If you answer that question with once in a blue moon, then you are losing customers and ultimately wasting your time doing the little amount of blogging that you are doing. You need to have regular interactions with your readers, so they are drawn to come and read about what is going on regularly. Even if you only post new blogs once or twice a week, you must stick with those regular intervals. Anything can create a quick post, be it something in the news, an upcoming local event, or information you saw somewhere else that you can write in your own words. Be creative, think outside the real estate box that you may be stuck in!

Mistake #2 – Talking To Yourself

How is Your Conversation Going?
If you don’t open yourself up to conversation, your blog will die. You must open yourself up to allowing others to talk with you, and share their thoughts and ideas on the information that you are sharing. While you can certainly keep it all about you, sometimes people want to interact and leave you information you might be able to use. In fact, you can devote a day of the week to their questions and comments. Take it to a real-life scenario: You’re at a party and all you do is talk about yourself to yourself! Is anyone going to listen or engage in that conversation? I don’t think so!

Mistake #3 – Keeping Your Blog Hidden

Where is Your Blog?
This is one mistake many real estate agents fall into. Your blog will remain useless to many people if you don’t give them easy access to your content. Make sure that you have a blog that is linked to your social networking and website spokes. REMEMBER: YOUR BLOG IS YOUR ONLINE HUB! There are dozens of ways to link your blog automatically to your Real Estate Facebook Fan Page, your Twitter account, your LinkedIN profile and your website. Always include a link to it in your signature (or better yet, a revolving RSS feed) and on business cards as well. And of course, make sure it is optimized for search engines.

Mistake #4 – Confusing What Your Blog Is For

Your Blog Isn’t For Press Releases!
Sure it might seem like the perfect place to promote you and your business, but that is why you send out press releases, and place news on your website. The blog is designed to be conversational, relationship building and interactive – not for shoving information down the reader’s throat.

Press releases are designed to target a separate audience looking to try a new business, or product. Keep that in mind, and allow your social interaction to shine in your blog, and keep it free of self promotion.

Mistake #5 – Expecting Immediate Results

Results Take Time (but not as much as a conventional website!)
You might want to see people flocking to your blog with your introductory post, but, just as everything that is worthwhile, it takes time and work. There will never be an overnight success to a blog, but with consistent, relevant, user-interesting information, you will see results much quicker than your static website does. If your blog is easy to find, and is full of interesting information, people will be drawn to you, and they will take notice of all you do.

While it is true that blogging can be overwhelming to many real estate agents out there, when you break it down to bite size pieces and concentrate on what is important to include and remember what your ultimate goal is, it can easily become a routine like… brushing your hair! Make a point to add it to your calendar or task list.

In summary, be consistent, engage don’t promote, cross pollenate and most of all, have fun!

How To Add A New Custom Tab To Your Real Estate Fan Page

Suzanne Roy — Wed, 19 May 2010 15:52:23 +0000

Here’s a quick (real quick!) tutorial on how to add a new custom tab to your real estate fan page using the FBML app. This would be necessary if you wanted to create a new tab on your Fan Page for showing custom information not provided by the default Fan Pages (such as the Info Tab, Photos Tab, etc.,).

Remember, your Real Estate Facebook Fan Page is one of the MAJOR avenues for gaining new leads! Customize it so that it is something you are proud to display, just like your website and/or blog! Please let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment in the form below the video tutorial.

Check back again for another Real Estate Virtual Assistant Quick Tutorial!

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How To Create Your Feedburner Account For Your Real Estate Leads

Suzanne Roy — Mon, 03 May 2010 12:59:25 +0000

How to create your Feedburner account for your real estate leads

Ever sat back and wondered why you were messing around with the whole social networking, social media and online marketing aspect of your business? The obvious answer may escape you every now and then, but I can assure you that you are doing it for one reason and one reason only – to get more real estate leads!

Within all of your real estate social networking efforts, you MUST have opportunities for your potential clients to give you their information. To do this successfully, you have to think about what THEY want, not what YOU want to give! We all know that people are interested in getting into your MLS searches and looking for homes for sale. But the general public that are interested in your market area also are interested in what’s going on in your neck of the woods – local events, area attractions, restaurants to check out, and more.

A simple way to gain more leads through your real estate social networking endeavors is to add opt-ins wherever possible. You’ve all probably heard of RSS Feeds, but you may not be completely aware of just how important they can be to gaining additional real estate leads, and the thought of putting these opt-ins in place may make you queezy! But have no fear, below is a quick tutorial on how to get your RSS feed set up so that you can then create opt-ins all over your social networking sites! Remember, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by leaving a comment below or clicking on our Contact Us above.

Such a post would be completely amiss without a RSS Feed email subscription included! Enter your email address below to receive future posts automatically emailed to you (including tomorrow’s “How To Add Optins To Your Real Estate Blog, Facebook Fan Page and More“:

Real Estate Facebook Fan Pages – Roost’s New Social Media Application

Suzanne Roy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 14:36:42 +0000

Real Estate Facebook Fan Pages

Roost’s New Social Media Application

Just as Facebook takes a sudden turn to disallow interactive embedding of IDX applications to Real Estate Facebook Fan Pages, Roost (the well know Real Estate Technology company where last month Tech Savvy Agent was named as one of the Top 50 sites to follow) has come out with a brand new Application (app) that will essentially fill this void.

Released March 5, 2010, the beta version of this real estate facebook app allows brokers and realtors to pull listing information into a custom tab within their Fan Page through their respective local MLS, in addition to market trends graphs from Altos Research, school data from Education.com and walkability data from Walkscore.

Here’s a quick video from Roost’s Senior Director of Marketing and Social Media, Derek Overbey describing how this works and how you can add it to your Real Estate Facebook Fan Page:

Take Note – Derek mentions that this Realtor that was a tester of this beta version app has links to her BLOG and not her website in BOTH areas of the fan page application design.

Roost’s CEO, Alex Chang, stated, “we kind of had three goals for the application: 1. to help Realtors use Facebook in a productive way; 2. (to position) you on Facebook as an expert in your local market; and 3. to offer an incredibly easy-to-use application that takes no time to set up.” This application definitely does this and as a real estate virtual assistant and social networking expert, I would definitely concur.

Here’s the most amazing part of it all!

Still in its beta mode, it’s full form will be released in the coming months; the full version will include:

multiple listing service real estate search

lead generation, and

drip marketing tools!

This will be a MUST to have on your Real Estate Facebook Fan Page! Lead Generation on Facebook is truly just around the corner!

Until then, if a consumer wants to search listings for sale, they can click a button to see all listings and be directed to either an IDX (Internet Data Exchange) search site that the agent has hired Roost to power and host, or that agent’s blog or web site.

I’ll be keeping a close eye on the release of the full version and will keep you posted – keep checking back or enter your email address below to get an automatic update of when it has been released.

Real Estate Facebook Fan Page vs. Profile – What’s The Big Deal?

Suzanne Roy — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:23:37 +0000

Real Estate Facebook Fan Page vs. Profile

What’s The Big Deal?

This is a HUGE Deal! You absolutely MUST understand the difference and lock-in on the ongoing surge of traffic that you are undeniably going to get pouring into your real estate blog and website!

Watch the following short video to learn the major differences between a Facebook Fan Page and a Profile.

*** Remember, you must have a Facebook Profile first to be able to make a Fan Page – you do NOT want (or need) to make two separate profiles to create your fan page. Your real estate fan page will be within your facebook profile.

Still have questions? Leave your comment/question below and I will respond to you immediately.