Trulia Founder and COO Sami Inkinen joins Sherry Chris to talk about the relationship between technology and real estate brokerage in today’s market.
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Social networking becomes less complicated when you break it into simple steps. Last week, I presented this concept at NAR to a predominately broker owner audience. As promised, I am sharing an edited version of the presentation right here.
Click here for a larger version of this slideshow.
The four categories, as we see them are:
Social Media Profiles… or more simply put, personal profiles on the various sites such as Facebook, Linkedin, MySpace. Building your profile is the first step.
Text Platforms… blogging, microbloging. The second step is creating a platform to speak from and collaborate. WordPress and TypePad provide blogging platforms. Twitter is great for microblogging.
Visual and Imagery Platforms… add videos and photos to make your message more engaging. You Tube and Flickr bring your networking and your story to life.
Use Listening and Sharing Tools. Listen to what’s going on and spread the word. RSS, Digg are two of many tools that accomplish this.
Posted by Alex Perriello
President & CEO, Realogy Franchise Group
On October 8, I sent a letter to all of Realogy’s affiliated brokers and sales associates to announce that we are launching an initiative to help our neighbors and local communities by trying to prevent as many foreclosures from occurring as possible.
The positive support I have been receiving from our brokers and agents in response to this letter has been overwhelming, and I wanted to share the message with the wider real estate community. When Sherry offered me the opportunity to talk about it on the Clean Slate Blog, I couldn’t resist.
There are now hundreds of thousands of families all across America facing foreclosure because they simply cannot afford their mortgage payments, or they owe far more than their house is currently worth. To make matters even worse, the Mortgage Bankers Association reports that an astonishing 50% of homeowners who do lose their homes to foreclosure have never once contacted their lender.
With this stark reality in mind, I have issued a “Call-to-Action” to the entire Realogy franchise community to help “Save the Dream” of home ownership. Specifically, I am asking every agent and broker to find just one family in their local community who may be facing foreclosure and help them reach out to their lender or a housing counseling agency so that they can begin the process of exploring a loan workout solution and hopefully stay in their homes.
In real estate 101 training I was taught that you tell everyone you know what you are doing and then remind them every time you see them that you are selling real estate. One of my first lessons was to write down the names of everyone I knew and then contact them to let them know I was now selling real estate. For many new agents today that is done instantly via their Facebook profile.
Now that real estate 101 and Facebook 101 have met, there are amazing opportunities. I admit, it took me a while to figure this out, but recently it dawned as me as I was watching the updates of my selling agent friends on Facebook. They’ve been posting their new listings as newsfeeds and sharing status updates on their latest work-related activities. Facebook has become the Web 2.0 delivery vehicle for just listed and just sold cards. Cool!
Posted by Kevin Doell
This morning I was listening to the August 18th “For Immediate Release” podcast and heard about an interesting UMASS Dartmouth study on the uptake of social media. I thought it was pretty timely considering Sherry’s recent post on “Building a Brand Using the Power of Social Media.”
Posted by Jason Steele
Two weeks ago, my wife and I resumed our home search. This time we were exploring a new county. Yes, “county.” We still haven’t narrowed it down to a single location at this point. It’s all conjecture anyway because our only potential buyer to date drew up an offer with their agent and has not been heard from since.
It was an aggressive day with 8 properties to see in 3 different towns. With a new baby in tow, we don’t have a ton of time on our hands so we need to cram as much into a day as we possibly can. Our agent only takes 1 appointment a day so it is nice to not feel rushed with so many homes to see. Long story short, I will forever recall that adventure as “Bait & Switch” weekend. All I can say is that pictures only tell half the story and, on that occasion, the photos were actually more misleading than helpful.
Posted by Kevin Doell
Podcasts are the silver lining of my 35-mile commute. On a good day, they can erase the trip, making me feel as though I got beamed through a transporter. Recently, I listened to “The Real Deal” podcast hosted by Tom Merritt and Rafe Needleman of CNET (check out the full boat of CNET podcasts). “The Real Deal” claims to help listeners master the “confusing world of technology.” I downloaded a topic that covered off on the technology of email, something everyone in business has a real stake in.
For this topic, Merritt and Needleman interviewed Merlin Mann, author of the site 43Folders.com and purveyor of his Inbox Zero concept. I picked his interview because I had seen him speak at the Inman connect conference San Francisco. Smart guy. Super well spoken. I couldn’t believe I had never heard of him before last month though, apparently, thousands have. Over 23,000 follow him on Twitter. OK, make that plus 1.
Posted by Jason Steele
Over the past month I have been searching for the first addition to my staff. We posted the position internally and on all of the major job boards, monster, craigslist, Yahoo!, etc.. The position requires about 3-5 years experience and would most likely attract someone in their 20s. I had a hypothesis going into the process and it was to see how well my application of social media would shape each candidates interview process.
Before joining BH&G Real Estate I would go into an interview blind as Googling the company and prospective Executive leadership could only get you so far. When I was interviewing for the VP of Interactive Marketing position here it was a whole different story. I was on our Industry blog, read press releases on Realogy’s web site, investigated Sherry, Nicolai & Wendy’sbackgrounds on Linkedin, searched for any viral video on YouTube and lastly took a shot in the dark that they maintained Facebook pages (which they all do). I got to know each and every one of them personally and professionally via those sources before I even walked in the door. I was able to evaluate whether or not my vision for the brand and professional goals were shared amongst my prospective boss and peers. I assume you know what the answer was as you are reading my post on the brand’s blog right now.
Posted by Wendy Forsythe
At the recent Inman Connect conference in San Francisco there was a noticeable change in the voice of blog advocacy. In previous years technologist and vendors were on stage singing their praises to the power of blogging. This year practicing real estate professionals were on stage sharing their successes and insights into building and enhancing a real estate practice using the blogging medium.
A lively debate erupted questioning which is a better inquiry generator– a website or a blog?
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