Work Smarter – 2 Hot New Social Tools Announced from HootSuite
I received a really exciting email in my inbox this week – there are some awesome new developments that just rolled out for HootSuite.
As you probably know by now, I am a huge HootSuite fan. In my opinion, it is the best product, hands down, for managing multiple social media streams, for managing your social strategy, for monitoring multiple conversations, and so much more!
Here are two of the cool new highlights HootSuite announced:
1. HootSuite Publisher
One of the best features of HootSuite has been the ability to post social updates to multiple streams with the click of a button. With one “copy and paste,” you can post a comment to Twitter, then re-work the verbiage a little to post it to Facebook, then re-work it again to post it back out to Twitter a second time the next day, and then post it to LinkedIn. Of course you could just post it once and have it go everywhere but to really be socially smart and savvy – you won’t be posting the exact same post to every social network!
According to the HootSuite blog you can now:
“Slice and dice the destination profiles for each message and drag-and-drop your updates into timeslots to match your editorial plans. While the whole power of daily/weekly/monthly calendar view is available with Pro and Enterprise plans, everyone can take the advanced scheduling functionality for a spin to see how calendar views can manage complex campaigns.
This publisher tool takes the place of the former Pending Tweets column – to get started, click the paper airplane in the Launch Bar and plan (and edit) your posts across networks.”
So instead of seeing all your pending tweets in separate streams, you can view them all at once; see how they overlap, and if you have any gaps anywhere. Great idea!
As a real estate pro you live and die by your calendar right? This new format makes it super easy for a real estate agent to view what posts they have scheduled, write additional posts, move things around as needed, and then move on to selling more houses and closing more deals. This new tool will definitely help you be more efficient with your social media planning and execution.
By the way, HootSuite does have a free plan, but I really recommend you look into their $5.99 a month plan – with extra tools and the analytics available are worth the extra expense. You can’t even go out to lunch for $5.99! 
2. Limited Profiles
This new feature allows someone on your team to write social media updates and then save them in draft mode for you or an authorized team member to approve. I love this idea for real estate agents who want to hire an assistant to help with social media updates. This way, the assistant can write the posts and the real estate agent or Broker can review them before they go out to ensure they are in line with their brand, their voice and the message they want to get out. It also offers you an opportunity to give that assistant (or intern) guidance on what you’d like to see posted. I think this is a great new option for real estate agents.
What do you think of these new updates? Are you using HootSuite? I’d love to hear your feedback, post your comments below!
P.S. Shameless plug, but I am SO excited to see Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite onstage for Real Estate Connect SF next month. His company has changed the way companies manage social media and I can’t wait to hear his take on the future of social media. If you can make it down to the Bay Area (my stomping grounds!) – I’d love to see you! Tweet me up or leave a comment below!
Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance
What Angry Birds Can Teach Us About Real Estate SEO
I had an opportunity recently to speak with Jeff Bernheisel (@JBern) who is the the Marketing Director for M Realty in Portland. Jeff has a proven track record for Search Engine Optimization results for his company when it comes to VERY competitive search terms like “Portland Real Estate”.
Jeff has built several websites that dominate Google including one that was dedicated to the ever popular Angry Birds game! In less than 5 months he ranked the site in the top 5 results of Google for the search term “Angry Birds”, in the process generating 20,000-30,000 hits a day!
I wanted Jeff to share in our interview some of his best SEO tips and how agents can achieve comparable results in their own market.
(Can’t view the video? Click here)
My takeaway? Content and links are king.
Angry Birds, Viagra and real estate SEO all in one interview. Surely worthy of 3 golden eggs.
I hope you enjoy our chat and if you have any specific questions for Jeff after watching feel free to leave those in the comments below.
Chris Smith, Chief Evangelist, Inman News, @chris_smth
FREE Webinar – June 16th: Leverage Your Reputation as an Online Asset
Please join us for a FREE Webinar!
Topic: Leverage Your Reputation as an Online Asset
Date: Thursday, June 16th
Time: 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. (PDT)
Any real estate brokerage that operates on the Internet is creating a reputation. Everything from the design of your website, to the way you interact on social media, to client reviews and testimonials, comes together to form your online reputation. In this webinar, you’ll learn strategies and techniques that will enable you to leverage the power of your online reputation as a positive asset that will help you drive sales and grow your business.
This webinar is ideal for brokers, owners, and team leaders!
Register today >>
Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance
WordPress 3.2 Release Candidate
The first release candidate (RC1) for WordPress 3.2 is now available.
An RC comes after the beta period and before final release. We think we’re done, but with tens of millions of users, a variety of configurations, and thousands of plugins, it’s possible we’ve missed something. So if you haven’t tested WordPress 3.2 yet, now is the time! Please though, not on your live site unless you’re extra adventurous.
Things to keep in mind:
- With more than 350 tickets closed, there are plenty of changes. Plugin and theme authors, please test your plugins and themes now, so that if there is a compatibility issue, we can figure it out before the final release.
- Users are also encouraged to test things out. If you find problems, let your plugin/theme authors know so they can figure out the cause.
- Twenty Eleven isn’t quite at the release candidate stage. Contents may settle.
- If any known issues crop up, you’ll be able to find them here.
If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:
- Post it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums or wp-testers
- Join the development IRC channel and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
- File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac
To test WordPress 3.2, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip).
Happy testing!
If you’d like to know which levers to pull in your testing, check out a list of features in our Beta 1 post.
Connect Stories: Real Estate Connect, it’s Aptly Named!
Note: I’ve asked several people to share their thoughts and experiences about what Real Estate Connect has meant to them with our FOREM readers. Look for these special “Connect Stories” here on FOREM leading up to Real Estate Connect San Francisco, July 27-29, 2011. Our fifth Connect guest post is from our friend Jay Thompson, the Broker and Co-Owner of Thompson’s Realty in Phoenix (@phxREguy on Twitter). Thank you Jay! – Katie
@InmanConnect #ICSF
I’ve attended a half-dozen or so Real Estate Connect events, in both New York City and San Francisco. It’s been an honor to speak at a few of these events, but that isn’t why I attend.
Connecting is the Key
I am admittedly somewhat of a conference junkie. Having attended the National Association of Realtors Annual and Midyear Conferences several times, RE Tech South (a *killer* conference), many local, regional and state conferences, RE Bar Camps, and more, I keep coming back to Real Estate Connect.
Why?
The connections and networking opportunities are amazing. In attendance you will find agents, brokers, Association executives, MLS executives, real estate startup companies, developers and everything from the worker bees to the CEO’s of some of biggest companies inside, and outside, the real estate space.
How valuable is it to meet, speak with and be able to call VP’s, COO’s, CFO’s and CEO’s of companies like Roost, Trulia, Zillow, Move, and Realogy your friend? That’s a difficult ROI to calculate, but believe me, it is significant. How about connecting with visionaries outside of the real estate space like Social Media Megastar and best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuck, Craig Newmark (the Craig in Craig’s List), exec’s from little know sites like Google and minor media players such as the New York Times?
That’s cool stuff. And if you take the time to meet these people, to make a connection with them (and they are all very willing to spend time with the little guys like us), you are just about guaranteed to walk away with all sorts of nuggets of wisdom spinning around your head.
If nothing else, one cannot help but get a swift jolt of energy and motivation to come back home and start kicking butt.
Oh, there are sessions too
You’ll wish you could be three places at once. Picking and choosing which session to attend is not an easy thing to do. The nice thing is you can’t go wrong with whatever session you wind up in. Connect provides a ridiculous variety of speakers and topics.
An aside
San Francisco is one of my favorite cities on the planet. I get to leave the 900 degree heat of Phoenix in July and spend a couple of days in a remarkably diverse city with all sorts of attractions. Connect is held right smack in the middle of downtown San Francisco at a time of year where the weather is perfect. It’s hard to tear yourself away from the event, but take some time to explore San Francisco, you won’t regret it.
I hope to connect with you at Real Estate Connect!
(Here is a video Jay filmed about Real Estate Connect)
Do you have a Connect Story you’d like to share? Did coming to Connect profoundly change you, your outlook, your team or your business? All of the above? If so, I want to hear from you and possibly feature you here on FOREM. Leave me a comment below or email me katie (at) inman (dot) com.
Join the Connect conversation on Facebook and Twitter (#ICSF)
Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance
Your Very Own Walk Around Jack – Uscapeit
I have a fondness for my iPhone. I know many of you feel the same. Waking up and checking Twitter, email and the like with one eye open is typically the way I start my day. Sometimes I feel like I am the only one, but the data we are seeing coming from the mobile space tells us otherwise. It actually tells us that there has never been a more rapid technology platform shift, ever.
So if I love my phone and you love your phone we need to concede that there is a decent chance that today’s tech savvy buyers and sellers love their phones as well! Do you have a mobile marketing strategy? Have you started using text message or QR Code options on your marketing pieces? Is your site mobile optimized? All questions for another day. Today we start with something simple to execute and sure to impress.
Uscapeit wants to become the Google “street view” for the masses.
They have created a must download iPhone only app (for now). Their inspiration seems to have come from Google. For those of you that are not aware Google actually sent cars up and down every street in the U.S. and took 360 degree images that they layered into their mapping systems. Uscapeit wants you to be able to do the same from anywhere, anytime including of course a home you are trying to market!
The process of creating what they refer to as a “Scape” is very simple. You hold your phone and spin around in a circle as to capture the entire 360 degrees from where you are standing.
There are a number of cool photo apps that accomplish this element already like 360 Panorama for the iPhone and Photaf for the Android. Where Uscapeit takes the technology one step further is that they allow you to stitch together the Scapes you have created into a collection and they then add Googleesque arrows between each one as to allow the end viewer to walk around the collection of images you have gathered.
You could start with a Scape of the front of the home, then lead into the foyer for another, the living room, master bedroom, kitchen, etc…
Many of you may remember the virtual tours of the early 2000’s on websites that would allow the web visitor on your site to control a camera in any given room and pan/zoom fluidly. This is a very similar concept but instead of being very pricey it is FREE and instead of being on the “regular” web it is mobile optimized which is where all of the eyeballs are rapidly shifting. No need to call a company and pay big bucks, just head over to the iTunes store, download Uscapeit and start creating great Scapes. Once the Scapes have been created there is one button share functionality with Facebook and email which makes getting them out to your sphere of influence a breeze.
Overall I am very impressed with the Uscapeit app as it relates to a potential marketing tool for Realtors.
They have several demo Scapes that you can check out inside the app including one of an apartment for rent which I feel really gives a good demonstration of the potential power of the app for real estate purposes.
Any questions feel free to leave those below. One that I anticipate is “How about something like this for the Android?” Let’s have some fun with that one and I will ask any Android users who find a comparable app to leave a link in the comments below.
Written by: Chris Smith, Chief Evangelist, Inman News, @chris_smth
Your Facebook Business Page is Worthless
Guest post by Maura Neill, CRS
A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of speaking at Inman’s Agent Reboot in Atlanta. The topic: Facebook Business Pages. The title of my presentation: Your Facebook Business Page is Worthless. It’s a little unnerving to take the stage and to start off by looking into all those eager faces in the audience and tell them that their Facebook Business Page is worthless. But it’s true – most of the time.
The majority of the agents I speak to express frustration with Facebook as a lead generation tool or as part of their marketing plan. But that’s because, to quote one of my favorite (terrible) movies of the 80s, Mr. Mom: “you’re doing it wrong.”
It’s not enough to log in to Facebook, create a business page, upload your photo or logo, and wait for the phone to ring. Like any piece of your business plan puzzle, your Facebook Business Page needs to be monitored, it needs your attention and – at the risk of sounding a little more touchy-feely than even I am comfortable with – a little TLC. In short, it needs your time* – and if you have time to give it, it may just end up being one of the best referral tools in your arsenal.
Here are a couple of tips to help you revitalize your Facebook Business Page and turn it from drab to fab:
1. If you work heavily in a particular area or neighborhood, create a Facebook Business Page for that market. This doesn’t mean create a page for every neighborhood in which you’ve ever sold a home (please refer to paragraph 3*). REALTOR® Raziel Ungar started his Facebook Page BurlingameBuzz last spring and had an immediate following in the town of Burlingame, CA. According to Raziel, since starting the page just over a year ago, the page has “impacted my business in a huge way.” Though it’s not a huge lead-generator, it has validated Raziel to his clients and potential clients and given him a huge competitive advantage over other agents. The City of Burlingame has even linked to BurlingameBuzz.com, which they would not have done with RazielUngar.com.
2. Consider making your Facebook Business Page be about something not someone (i.e., not you). Do you have a hobby or an interest that you are passionate about? Bobbi Howe, a REALTOR® in St. Joseph, MO, started a page on Facebook to support a running group. Her small town didn’t have a running club, so she started her own – in under three months, she has already had two calls from members who want to work with her as their REALTOR®.
3. Think long and hard before you make your Facebook Business Page about YOU. Keep in mind that the average consumer is looking for information – not just a page that feeds your ego (I can’t tell you how happy I was to see the “Become a Fan” button disappear!). If you start a Facebook Business Page that is named for yourself or for your team, make sure that you still keep it consumer-centric. A great example of a group who does this well is The Corcoran Group in New York City. Their Facebook Business Page is a wealth of information: about New York, about real estate, about technology, about events…but very little about them. Feel free to post the occasional tidbit about an award you’ve received or other personal tidbit – it makes the page feel, well, more personal. But be cautious of posting those items too often.
4. Integrate your Facebook Business Page into your other social media and online marketing platforms. By itself, you will probably only attract people who already know you – and if you work purely by referral, this may not be a bad thing. However, most of us wouldn’t argue with a new client every now and then, so integration is key. Put the Facebook LIKE Button on your blog and/or website, so that people who discover you on the web can immediately like your page and enjoy your updates into their news feed. Post links to your blog posts as you publish them on your Facebook Business Page, so that they appear in the news feeds of those who like your page but may not be subscribed to your blog. Tweet about your page when you’ve posted something new. Post a link to your latest YouTube video on the page so it can be viewed directly from Facebook, without interested parties having to leave the site and go to YouTube. The possibilities are endless. Just remember to be polite and consider your readers: don’t post the same links over and over ad-nauseum – that’s a good way to get people to click the UNlike button. Post once and move on – if they’re interested, they will click.
5. Finally, remember to interact with those who want to interact with you. It’s a two-way street, after all. If someone takes the time to post a comment to one of your posts or links or to ask a question, by all means respond! It’s a great way to connect with your readers, you know, those people who took the time to click LIKE and are now taking the time to write something. Even if you’re just saying “thank you” to someone who wrote “great post!”, you’re still making a connection – and perhaps opening the door to a deeper connection down the road. If a person feels a connection to you, he or she will most likely be back…and they may turn into a client or a referral source down the road.
About the author: Maura Neill, CRS, is a REALTOR® in Atlanta, Georgia, and the creator of 365Atlanta.com, a hyper-local travel site for Atlanta newcomers and natives which has become a rich referral resource for her business. She is also musical theatre geek, dark chocolate aficionada, lover of dark beer, and shoe addict.
3 Lesser Known Ways to Use LinkedIn for Real Estate
Many call LinkedIn the “set it and forget it” social media. It’s a great professional network, but not as fast-paced as Twitter, and not as fun and interactive as Facebook. But, we all love LinkedIn for the professional quality it brings to the table. There are however three really cool things about LinkedIn that not a lot of real estate professionals seem to know about.
Here are three of my favorite LinkedIn “secrets” that are ideal for real estate professionals:
1.. Export your connections and add to your database
This is a fantastic feature! Did you know you could export all of your LinkedIn contacts? Go to “My Connections” to view a list of all your LinkedIn contacts. At the bottom of the page click “Export Connections,” which will put all this contact info in a format that works for your address book (Microsoft Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, etc.). This is an easy way to add 50, 100 even 500 people to you database. Add them to your drip email marketing campaigns, send them an invite to join you on Facebook or Twitter – the possibilities are endless!
2. Customize your URL
This is huge – instead of having a long URL that no one remembers, secure a custom URL on LinkedIn. Visit the “Edit Profile” tab and click “Public Profile” at bottom left. Once you’re on this page, on the far right you will see “Your current URL.” This is where you can customize your LinkedIn domain name so you can better brand your account. Your URL may want to be your name or your business – I recommend staying consistent with how you are branding yourself on your website, Facebook page, blog, etc. You can think take this custom URL and add it to your Facebook page, blog, website and email signature.
3. Check out “Signal” and read relevant news and updates
There is a new feature on LinkedIn called Signal which allows you to monitor updates within your network. You can also filter information so you can also see what people in your extended network (2nd and 3rd connections) are posting. You can also do the same filtering by industry or location. I could see this as a really useful tool for real estate agents who are trying to build their business and meet people outside of their inner circle. This is the new way to meet “a friend of a friend.”
I know there are so many more great ways to use LinkedIn – I only covered these three lesser-known facts. I’d love to hear from you how you are using LinkedIn. Leave me a comment below!
Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance
How to do SEO for your Vacation Rental in 5 Steps
Guest blog post by Daniel Weisman
The question on everyone’s mind these days is, “how can I use SEO to get more rental bookings?”
The idea of Search Engine Optimization is that ranking highly in search results will lead to increased traffic and sales. While reaching the top of the Google search results seems to require black magic, keep in mind that it’s magic you already know: promotion. Doing SEO for vacation rentals and real estate mainly requires applying the promotional skills you already have to the tools available on the web.
The original references for all things SEO can be found here and here. For an approach tailored to vacation rental marketing, here are 5 steps to creating an SEO strategy:
1. Define Your Goals
As with any marketing campaign, SEO requires clear goals in order for you to work at it effectively, assess your results, and develop your strategy. Remember: Your ultimate goal is to book more rentals and increase your bottom line; NOT to be number one on Google.
The value of the #1 is intangible, but ROI is a reliable metric of success. Keep track of the time and money you spend on your SEO efforts, and you will be able to calculate the return on the campaign based on increased bookings.
Good SEO Goals:
- More bookings from search results
- Increased site traffic
- Lower bounce rate
2. Build a Website
You can’t have SEO if you don’t have a website! If you’re starting online marketing from scratch, then the first thing that you’re going to want to do is build a website. For vacation rental owners and property managers, Web Chalet, a new company, provides hosting and industry-specific site templates. Their product provides a quick and easy way to get all of your important information on a website with your own domain name and branding. For those who want more customization, wordpress.org offers a free solution for building robust websites.
Think of a website like a shop. You want a great location (domain name), an attractive façade (design), and a great product. Choose an address that’s easy for people and search engines to find. For example, if Paul owns a vacation property in Lake George, then he will be better off with a domain name like LakeGeorgeVacationRental.com rather than PaulsPlace.com. Be obvious and descriptive, and make it clear exactly what your site has to offer.
In addition to making your shop easy to find, you also want to make it inviting and pleasant. Make your site easy for people to navigate and you will be rewarded with love from the search engines and bookings. In their webmaster guidelines, Google esplains, “Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.” Keep things simple with clear content and easy navigation.
While we’re on the subject of building sites, we should talk about keywords. Keywords are the phrases that people search to find your site. Before you create any content for your site, think about the keywords that potential customers would use to find you. If I were searching for a rental in Lake George, than I would probably enter “Lake George vacation rentals,” or “Lake George cabins.” These keyword phrases are much narrower than a term like, “vacation rentals,” and they target more relevant traffic. You can do keyword research on Google by using the wonder wheel and related searches tools.
3. Provide Valuable Content
Search engines try to provide users with the best inforamtion, so make sure your site contains highly relevant, up-to-date content. Be sure to include a well-written description of your rental, high-quality photos, an availability calendar, guest testimonials, area information, pricing, and contact information. It’s also a good idea to keep a blog on your site with regular updates about the property, changes and improvements, area news, and special offers. The search engines like to see that a site is actively maintained.
If you already list your vacation rental on sites like FlipKey, then you may not need to create and update entirely new content for your site. FlipKey provides owners with widgets that display the booking calendar and guest reviews, among other tools. You can easily install these widgets on your site and keep all of your information up to date just by managing your FlipKey account.
4. Promote Yourself and Your Site
Even the best shop can fail if no one knows about it. You need to go out and do the legwork to get other websites talking about your site. Most of all, you want to get other websites to link to you. The search engines see these links back to your site and have an easier time finding your content. How do you get people talking?
Listing Sites
Most listing sites, like FlipKey, will provide you with a link to your personal website. You want to list on some of these sites anyway, so make sure that you take advantage of their authority and provide them with a link to your site.
Chambers of Commerce
Chamber of Commerce sites are good places to get noticed on the web. Join your local Chamber and make sure that they include a link to your website in their accommodations section.
Destination Marketing Organizations
Find the local destination marketing or visitor and convention bureau website and see what the options are for getting your site listed. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. You may also find local travel guide sites and directories – if they are ranked highly in search results, then it’s worth talking to them about getting a link to your site.
Local Bloggers
Bloggers are a tougher community to crack, but also a valuable community to be a part of. Think of blogs as your shop’s neighbors. Many of your customers are going to have lunch at the restaurant next door and then ask for a recommendation for a place to shop in the afternoon. If you’re friends with the maître d’, then he’ll recommend your store and not your competitor’s. Get to know the bloggers who write about your area and they will be happy to recommend you to their readers.
Social Media
As I wrote in my article on Social Media for Vacation Rental marketing, Facebook and Twitter are great platforms for promoting your property. As with bloggers, these sites are all about being social and not about hard-selling. Claim a Twitter handle and a Facebook page and get involved in conversations that interest you. You’ll meet some interesting people and find some great supporters to spread the word about your awesome rental.
5. Track Your Progress and Adapt
Finally, make sure you’re tracking your progress. There are plenty of tools available for keeping track of website traffic, but the industry gold standard is Google Analytics. You can create a free account and install Analytics on your website just by following Google’s instructions.
Once you have Analytics up and running, it’s easy to get carried away with the numbers. If you want to see how your SEO efforts are doing, then you will want to pay attention to the Search Engine traffic, which you can find under “traffic sources.” There’s a lot of information to take in here, but if you see the traffic generally trending upwards, you’re on the right track!
About the author: Daniel Weisman is a Social Media Specialist at FlipKey.com, which features more than 100,000 vacation rental properties around the world. You can read more of his writing on The FlipKey Blog and connect with him on Twitter @flipkey.
Connect Stories: The Highlight of My Professional Year
Note: I’ve asked several people to share their thoughts and experiences about what Real Estate Connect has meant to them with our FOREM readers. Look for these special “Connect Stories” here on FOREM leading up to Real Estate Connect San Francisco, July 27-29, 2011. Our fourth Connect guest post is from our friend Brian Boero, the Co-Founder and Partner of 1000Watt Consulting (@1000wattbrian on Twitter). Thank you Brian! – Katie
@InmanConnect #ICSF
Real Estate Connect in San Francisco is the highlight of my professional year.
I get more networking value out of these three days then the 362 that follow. And I come home with a dozen ideas I’m excited to act on.
That may sound over the top. But it’s been a matter of fact for me for years.
I go to a lot of real estate events. Some are for brokers, some are for agents, some are for MLS folks. Many of them are valuable.
But Connect remains unique because everyone’s there.
The tech people. Brokers. Agents. Brand executives. MLS leaders. Entrepreneurs with designs on disrupting our big, complicated industry.
They are together, at Connect, mixing it up.
It makes for great conversations – in the sessions and in the halls – and knocks people out of their comfort zones. That’s a good thing in my book.
I am severely and proudly biased here. I started working at Inman two months before the first Real Estate Connect event in July of 1997 and left in 2005 after producing a bunch of them. This event is in my veins.
But trust me – I’m putting my time and money where my mouth is. I’ll be San Francisco this July, learning, meeting, re-connecting and squeezing every last moment out of this very special event.
I hope to see you there.
(Here is a video from Brian at Real Estate Connect sharing more of his thoughts about Connect)
Do you have a Connect Story you’d like to share? Did coming to Connect profoundly change you, your outlook, your team or your business? All of the above? If so, I want to hear from you and possibly feature you here on FOREM. Leave me a comment below or email me katie (at) inman (dot) com.
Join the Connect conversation on Facebook and Twitter (#ICSF)
Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance
