Should Real Estate Agents Blog?

A very personal choice for the average Realtor. Are you comfortable expressing yourself in writing? Blogging will be a cake walk for you. Not so keen on writing? No worries, you can still Blog! Try a video Blog, or maybe you would prefer to Podcast, which is like an Audio Blog. Regardless of the method of Blogging you choose, if done correctly, Blogging can be the largest driving factor in your real estate business.

Blogging has many by-product advantages that may not be apparent initially.

The first advantage is the obvious one, that everyone understands.

1. Readers (or viewers or listeners) are delivered the full message of what you have to say, with out being filtered by the media. No need for the middle man to interpret or slant what is being said.

Also a known benefit:

2. Viewers feel more connected to you and feel there is a relationship with you, as they read your blog posts.

Some more advantages that is not quite as obvious on first glance:

3. Replaces the need to continually pay a web professional to add up-to-date content to your website. Also, you can update in a far more timely manner than having another party add this content.

Photos, links, articles, stats etc, can all be added to your blog and can be updated daily, or weekly or as often as you like. Blogs can redefine the purpose and utility of your website, with the website providing mostly long term, slow-to-change relevant information, while your blog provides the latest up-to-the-minute information you want to share with your clients and potential clients.

4. Frequent or a least consistent Blogging keeps you fresh on the minds of potential clients.

5. Blogs can be hosted on dedicated blogging sites that are free to create and maintain

6. Agents who blog are going to appear higher in search engines searches, than those who don’t. The more times you post , the more recent the information being feed into search engines, creating higher search rankings for you, your website and your blog. Being high in search engine rankings is still vitally important in today’s business.

To increase your search engine rankings, be sure to add tag words to your blog, as well as use these same words in your blog posts.

7. Blogs allow the public to respond. The internet is no longer just a one way communication, but a conversation between parties interested in your post or topic.

8. Widgets –can provide all kinds of additional information, fun, facts etc from other sources. For example, a most basic practical widget would be a local weather forecast. You may want to include a mortgage calculator widget, or a local restaurant guide widget. Polls are great fun to add to Blogs as they engage readers as well provide either fun or useful information for you. Example of a fun Poll: What are you doing this weekend? And have 5 multiple choice answers to choose from. Then in your next blog you can post the answers or Tweet them on Twitter or your Facebook Page etc.

9. Creates excellent content for you to provide to your other social media sites. Tweet about it and add link on Twitter. Add link and comment on it on your Facebook page. If it is a video blog, your YouTube followers will automatically see it. Post a message to your contacts on Linked In when a new Post is published.

Blogging does take time and may not be right for every agent. For those who give it a try, be sure to post consistently, respond to any comments submitted and then make sure you market it to all of your data bases! Happy Blogging!

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For more information contact Jessica Stoner at jessicastoner@remax.net or visit www.irealtycanada.com

Social Media for the REALTOR. Is it worth your time?

This is an excellent question, as social networking undeniably is time consuming. Used incorrectly, social media can a large powerful black hole in your productivity. 

Without a doubt, many REALTORS spend hours on Facebook, Twitter, Blogging and chatting on forums, all with the hope that it will lead to business.  But how many actually see a return on the time invested? 

Agents venturing into the social media scene, should keep the following 8 Tips in mind:

• 1. To start with, choose one media at a time, and work it consistently. Too many social media venues generates low quality attention to each, ensuring abundant time required, with low return on investment. One media site, attended to consistently allows the agent to create genuine relationships with those they are connecting with. 
  
• 2. Choose the media that feels best for you not the most popular. If Twitter seems like an ineffectual idea, try Facebook.  Maybe linked feels more appropriate for you, or blogging may be a more suitable venue. Other options you may not have considered such as  YouTube as a means of expressing yourself and you can garner followers through YouTube as well. 
  
• 3. More connections is not always better. To forge genuine relationships, your connections should be people that have a legitimate reason for connecting with you. They live in your town, or city, are actually interested in real estate in your area, are other industry professionals, are likely to send you referrals or can provide you with knowledge, advice or ideas that are valuable to you. 
  
• 4. Be sure to provide value to your connections. Provide useful stats, market up dates, new listings, interesting news items, fun facts, humor, etc. If you were connected to yourself, what information would keep you engaged?
  
• 5. Keep it part personal, part business. Blatant marketing and sales is inappropriate in  social media. People don’t want to be sold to in this environment. However, they are probably interested in your product or service, as they did choose to connect with you. Now days people tend to do business with people from with in their online social networks.  However they want to know who you are before they do business with you. Feel free to share more personal information than normally exchanged in business communication, but within reason. Share your delight about your afternoon golf game, but don’t share the fight you had last night with your spouse. Common sense prevails. 
  
• 6. Communicate one on one with your connections. Don’t just post things, engage people in conversations. If they ask a question, be sure to answer it! Ask people questions your self to get conversations started. Your relationships will never develop if there is no one-one-one conversations. 
  
• 7. Market the URL for your profile on the media you are on. People will rarely find you themselves. For example: if you blog, market your blog address in your email signature, on your business cards, on your website, in your print advertising, on your feature sheets, on your lawn signs, on your Voice Mail message…you get the idea. 
  
• 8. Keep positive. People really don’t want to hear about your dislikes. Really. 
  

Let’s recap:

Choose one media at a time, and make sure it a media that appeals to you, not necessarily the most popular one. More connections is not necessarily better. Select quality connections that you can forge a relationship with. Provide value to your network. Keep it part personal part business. Communication one-on-one with your connections. Market your URL everywhere. Help people find you. And keep positive! 

By following these guidelines, you will ensure the time spent on social media will actually result in business!

Follow me on Twitter at  http://twitter.com/iREALTYjstoner 

For more information contact Jessica Stoner at jessicastoner@remax.net or visit www.irealtycanada.com   

The Virtual Brokerage and First Time Home Buyers

 (To Learn More about the Virtual Brokerage Concept, click on the widget to the left of this page. Attend our Networking Event this Wednesday May 6th, at Metropolitan Grill Mount Royal, Calgary. See Video Invitation at bottom of Post)

We have a tough market to be selling real estate in. Prices have dropped, sellers are stressed and buyers are nervous about entering a volatile market. However there is always an upside, and it’s first-time homebuyers that get the silver lining at this time. With interest rates at rarely seen lows, extraordinarily high inventory of property to choose from, dropping prices and struggling current construction projects, those entering the market for the first time have many advantages. And they know it!

First time home buyers are leading the recent rebound in real estate sales in many cities in North America, the Calgary area included. For agents of a Virtual Office such as RE/MAX Alpine Realty (iREALTY), they can offer these clients what the traditional real estate agent cannot. The conventional brokerage model is sorely equipped to serve the modern first-time home buyer. 

First time home buyers tend to be a younger demographic. This same demographic is a far more tech savvy group, who not just understand and live technology, but expect the convenience of modern digital tools to be the norm. This generation of home buyers is naturally drawn to those providing paperless documents, online access to them and communication methods that suit them such as IM, Skype, Texting etc. Upon resale, this same group will expect a much more online presence from their Realtors and Brokerage, as that is where they spend much of their time. They would want to find their listing promoted on Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, Craig’s List, YouTube, Flickr, etc, in addition to some traditional means. They expect their real estate service provider to have the know-how and willingness to serve their needs which are different from previous generations of home buyers and sellers.  If first time home buyers are driving the market now, it will clearly benefit those who have the ability to cater to this demographic. 

iREALTY Virtual Brokerage model is designed to serve just such a group. The Virtual Brokerage model is much more than just “minimal office space.” It is much more than just “online documents.” The iREALTY model actively educates and provides tools to the agents to keep them on the forefront of this real estate WEB 2.0 revolution and first time home buyers actively seek out such a company to work with.

Our current first time home buyers are the future of subsequent home purchases and sales, at the same time as new generations of first time home buyers enter the market. The digital demands of this clientele will not reduce as they age, but grow as the tools expand. This is the current and future clientele of our real estate industry, and those who can serve them and their many needs will find a profitable long term career.