I will be making the changes as I write the posts (not as they are published… I usually write posts a little ahead of time).

The first part included adding a newsletter/email subscription form.  Over at Problogger, it was their first step in revitalizing you blog for 2012.

I already had a MailChimp (affiliate link) account, so I didn’t spend any time doing that.  I spent about 15 minutes creating a list on MailChimp for this site, installing the MailChimp Plug-in for WordPress and getting all of the settings right.

Image via CrunchBase

At MailChimp:

• After creating a MailChimp account, go to “Lists” on the menu at the top of the page.
• Click the big red “Create List” button.
• Don’t worry too much about the sign-up form… you aren’t really going to be using it, just make sure you have the info boxes on it that you want.
• Mouse-over “Account” on the top menu.
• Move down and click on “API Keys & Authorized Apps”
• Push that blue button that says “Add A Key”

Image via Wikipedia

In another tab, open your WordPress blog…

• Go to Plug-ins > Add New
• Search “MailChimp”
• Install the MailChimp plug-in.
• Under settings, the first thing it will want is the API Key… copy/paste it from MailChimp.
• Select the right mail list from the drop-down.
• Edit the settings so that you have the text you want and the widget looks the way you want it to look.
• Go to Appearance > Widgets to install the widget in the location you desire.
• Open up your site in a new tab… adjust the widget and settings as needed.

Like I said, it only took about 15 minutes for me to do all of that.  It might take you a little longer, or you might be able to knock it out a little faster… I hadn’t done it for a while, and had to stumble around and take a few bad turns.

Good luck kicking off your email list… and while you are here, why don’t you sign up for mine.

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Real Estate Professionals are becoming more and more convinced that blogging is a necessary marketing tactic.  So, the question is steadily shifting from “Should I be blogging?” to “Where should I be blogging?”

For Real Estate Professionals, there are a variety of choices, ranging from real estate specific blogging channels to general blogging channels to self-hosted options.  And each of them has advantages and disadvantages.  Of course, for those that aren’t blogging, the first hurdle is to get started… and the actual location, while important, isn’t as important enough to stop the progress while working out the location…

Real Estate Specific Channels – Utilizing a network that is tweaked towards real estate blogging has some GREAT advantages for the new blogger.  From a technical standpoint, there is built in SEO (Search Engine Optimization) with the platform since there are multitudes of bloggers writing about real estate.  Search Engines see the content and make it a trusted source more quickly.  Also, some of the networks have great user communities, leading to opportunities to learn more about blogging and technology, as well as build referral relationships.

Image via CrunchBase

On the flip side, you don’t control the platform.  Management might be GREAT at the moment, but what it the platform is purchased by a company with poor practices, or worse… by a competing real estate empire? What if they introduce advertising on the blogs, and your competitors can by ad space on YOUR content?  The bottom line is that you don’t have control over what goes out to the consumer.  You only control your content.

But, on the balance, this might be a great place to start, discover your voice and stretch your blogging legs.  You might find yourself outgrowing it, though.

Image via CrunchBase

General Blogging Channels – These carry most of the pitfalls and none of the benefits of Real Estate Specific Channels.  You still don’t have control of what may be presented to the consumer alongside your content.  Of course, it is much less likely that a real estate company will buy the platform, but not a lot less likely that a competitor could buy an ad or end up with a link on YOUR blog, without your permission.  And since the content is general, the SEO benefits are gone, as well.

But, in the case of WordPress.com, you will have the opportunity to learn the WP-Admin console.  And you actually can start writing.  You also might have al ittle more control over the theme (design) of your blogs graphic presentation.

Image via Wikipedia

Blogging on a general site is probably the weakest option, in my opinion.  It has all of the weaknesses of blogging on a platform owned by someone else, but few of the advantages of being on a site tuned for real estate blogging.

Self-Hosted Options – For the long term, this should be where it’s at, in my opinion.  You control almost everything about the platform and the content.  There are no worries about who may be advertising on your blog, nor about who might have their hand in the background.  You get the final say.

However, you also get to control things like SEO… and if you create regular and compelling content, you will be noticed by the search engines.  If you guest post on well known blogs, you will get important links back to your blog, and bring up your blogs SEO.

Image via Wikipedia

The bottom line here is that YOU are in control…  For some, that is great.  For others, it is terrifying.  It might mean that your blog languishes with a lack of attention, or it might mean that you have to hire someone to make it rock.  Or, it might mean that you have a platform that is unique and compelling and that costs VERY little money and pulls in a tremendous number of leads.

In each case, there are exceptions.  And there are sites that don’t really seem to fit in their mold.  Posterous, YouTube and FaceBook Pages are all examples of sites that can be useful tools, regardless of where your other efforts are focused.  Using them as part of a network of your own can build your blog into something greater.

Here is a (non-real estate) network I am building…

CoolCaroftheDay.com (self-hosted WordPress site)

CCotD on YouTube (YouTube Channel)

CCotD on FaceBook (FaceBook Page)

CCotD Quick Hits (Posterous Blog, primarily populated via web links)

Related articles

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• Lane’s Newest Toy… CCotD (gwinnettgarageguy.com)

The right tools...

Did you find them?

• Your winning smile
• Your firm handshake
• Your business card

Yep, 20 million tech tools out there, and most of them are free.  Some of them are even viral, but the absolute best ways to promote your blog are probably right there with you, right now.

For most of us, the people we want to read our blogs the most are actually the people we might interact with “in real life” (IRL).  They are local and you might even see them daily or weekly or monthly.

Walking up to a person, flashing your winning smile, shaking their hand with your firm handshake and handing them your business card, with a short explanation of what your site is about is WAY more likely to create a new reader than almost any other marketing you can do.  But there is another benefit, as well.  The cool side benefit is that the person you meet is also more likely to share your site with their friends… if they find compelling content.

I guess it often comes back to that compelling content, doesn’t it?

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Big question in the blogosphere…

Should blog comments be open or closed?

The argument for open comments is basically that it allows consumers (readers) to interact with you through your blog.  It is a very strong and compelling argument.  And while most blogs will NOT get an abundance of comments, tossing them without deep thought would likely be a mistake.

The argument for closed comments revolves around spam prevention and keeping undesirable commentors at bay.  And I have had my share of both…  In fact, on my Active Rain blog, Gwinnett Garage Guy, I have been closing comments for the last few weeks.  And I maintain a spam detection service for my WordPress blogs.  Active Rain has internal monitors to detect and kill spam.  There are also issues that can arise with negative comments.

Image via Wikipedia

Personally, I fall on the open comments side of the debate.  I think it is very important to allow readers as many avenues as possible to interact.  However, I am beginning to close comments on old posts that get spam comments.  I have had negative comments, and find that transparency is the best option…

What do you think?

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Image by kenjonbro via Flickr

Back in the mid 1990s, people started to say that you HAD to have a website.  So, you hired someone to code up a few pages and it was good…  You were done. 

Ten years later, those same people were telling you that you HAD to have a blog.  The cool thing was that you didn’t necessarily have to hire anyone, you could just toss one up.  So you did it… and then it kind of languished after the first couple of months because you didn’t get any direct business from it.  You were done.

A couple of years later, you finally started hearing from some of your peers that that blogging thing actually worked… so you dusted it off and started posting.  You were done. 

Seemingly, 30 minutes later, the consensus was that you needed a Twitter account.  But before you could call it done, you needed a FaceBook Fan Page… then you needed a YouTube Channel… and a Yelp presence…

Now, if you aren’t on Google+, you are just wasting time with the rest of your internet program… or so say “the people”.

When does it end?

Does it end?

Image by TheMBG via Flickr

Nope.  It doesn’t.  Technology and “what’s cool” keep marching on.  There is always a new site and there is always a new way to engage consumers.  There are always new channels and there always will be.

What’s worse… or better… is that they are unfolding faster than EVER before.  Newspaper dominated for centuries.  Radio dominated for generations.  TV dominated for decades.  Websites dominated for years.  Now we are down to weeks…  Maybe days.

But that doesn’t mean that you have to try to ride EVERY wave that breaks on the shore.  In fact, it means that you shouldn’t.  A hundred years ago, you couldn’t go big if you weren’t in the newspaper.  It would take a while before the next wave came in.  Now we have waves breaking constantly.

Pick your battles.  Figure out what you are going to be able to do… alone or with your team.  Learn ways to automate without destroying engagement.  Aggregation and Syndication can be your friends.  Link and leverage your networks.  Pick your battles. 

Image via Wikipedia

You aren’t done.

But you never really were…

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A few days ago I posted that (in my humble opinion) real estate blogs should be about real estate… not movie reviews, restaurant reviews, not recipes…  Real estate.  That is what the audience is tuning in for, give them what they want.  I gave a few examples of what I see from my traffic patterns, and generally tried to support my opinion.

But, real estate agents that are marketing online (should) have a LOT more channels aside from their real estate blog.  And I DO believe that there is a place in some of those other channels for items with less focus.  First, let’s run down a few options:

Image via CrunchBase

• YouTube
• Posterous
• Twitter
• FaceBook (Business) Page
• Delicious (Link sharing)
• Flickr (Photo Sharing)
• FourSquare (Location Sharing)
• Community Websites
• More…

Image via CrunchBase

With the exception of the community websites, EVERY one of those items listed is FREE.  Community websites might be free, might cost a few bucks a year, or might cost as much as $100 (if you have to have someone set it up).  But there is something that they ALL have in common, too.  They can all be support systems for your real estate website.  And they can all send links to your real estate website… they are all outposts, providing information and hopefully send a few people trotting off to visit your cyber-office. A community website is the absolute toughest to get going… and has the most reward if you get it right.

Image via Wikipedia

Video is hot.  You should have video of testimonials, communities, local events, YOU and likely a plethora of other things.  Host them on YouTube, embed them on your site (the ones that belong) and let them pull in a little traffic.  Flickr is much the same… but with pictures instead of video.

Posterous is COOL.  It is a great way to get some of the content to the other sites… and also share news and tidbits about things that are happening in the community.  Grab an RSS feed from your Posterous site and let it run on the sidebar of your blog.  Pull in calendar entries from local events, interviews with local politicians or business-people, news items, reviews or local places, etc.  Don’t make it the focus of your website… let it stand on its own, while contributing a little to your website.  Better yet, make it community specific, and find people in the community that want to load THEIR content onto it.  Be the publisher…

Image via CrunchBase

A great source of news is Twitter.  I have come to see Twitter as “broadcast media” rather than as person to person social networking.  Some will disagree, but I look at Twitter the same way as I look at the “newswire services”.  Filter it down to what is important, and then share that in a news feed on your site.  It isn’t terribly difficult in a geographic specialty… but a bit tougher with a lifestyle specialty.

Image via CrunchBase

Delicious is a link sharing site.  Instead of having a giant blogroll of all of the people you might know, share the links through Delicious… they can be tagged and categorized to make finding resources easier for your reader.  Again, publish a feed to your sidebar.

On FourSquare, do those reviews (in the “Tips” section of the location).  Have a great profile and point it back to your website.  If there is someone out there that will buy a house from you based on your incredible writing about an ice cream cone… they can still find you.

Image via Wikipedia

FaceBook could be 20 posts all by itself.  But, the basic idea is to make a Page about a community and then get the community to give it life.  You should be there to nurture it, cull out the junk (and competitors) and keep it moving along.  Talk about the parks, restaurants, movies, local parades and a zillion other things.  Let it be a virtual Town Square where people can gather at 4am in their underwear without being laughed at (nobody has to know).

The bottom line is that there IS a place for all of that other content we want to use to show everyone how connected we are to the community.  It just might not be the main real estate website.

What do YOU think?

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I have been blogging about real estate since 2008… so over three years.  I can say proudly that I have a few thousand posts.  Of those, there are a lot that were NOT about real estate, but that appeared on my real estate blog.  Some were about cars (I just started a car blog JUST for those posts).  Others were about local news.  Still others were about local businesses, entertainment venues, parks and recreational opportunities.

As long as I have been blogging, the mantra has been to “Be the source of information about EVERYTHING in the community”.

But after years of blogging, and looking over my blog posts and traffic patterns… I’m not so convinced any more.  I see where my traffic is coming from, and I see which posts are the popular entry (and exit) posts.  BUT, I also talk to the people that call, email or contact me in other ways… and I ask them what made them make the call.

Let me make a few points…

• Almost without exception, my most read posts are NOT real estate related in any way.
• My most read posts are NOT about local issues, businesses, personalities or events.
• The post types that causes the most direct contact from consumers are market reports.
• I’ve NEVER had someone say they wanted to work with me because of a review of a local business.
• Most of my local name recognition has come from local event and local issue posts… but I can’t say one has ever brought me business.

Keep in mind, this is specifically about real estate blogging…

Here are the take-aways that I see from the above points.

• A real estate blog needs to be focused on real estate.  There is plenty of room for reviews, lists of area attractions and other local interest items, but they should not be the focus of the blog.
• Hyper-local news DOES belong on a good real estate website.  It shouldn’t be the focus, and even a “curatorial” style might be enough (rolling links to a variety of hyper-local news stories, for example… like a Twitter based local news feed).
• Market Reports are one of THE most important things to have on a real estate website.  Consumers want to understand the real estate market, whether they are buying or selling.
• Market Stats are nice… but people want interpretation of the stats.  They want to know your professional opinion is about the direction of the market… up or down.
• Community profiles are VERY in demand.  Buyers want to know about the communities and the schools that they are considering.  They might like to know about the history, school performance and local culture… but they REALLY want to know about prices, styles and economic outlook.  All of those items belong in the community profile, but some might be links to specialty sites, like GreatSchools.net or sections of a city’s website.
• Daily updates are overkill… but a good real estate blog needs to have depth.  After you have 40 or 50 solid posts, posting up 2-3 times a week might work… assuming that will cover the areas you need to cover.
• Helping real estate “Do-It-Yourselfers” is good business.  Give them your best tips for promoting their property, warn them of the most common pitfalls they may face (Fair Housing laws, for example) and give them the steps for a smooth transaction.  But don’t talk down to them.

Is this a sure-fire path to success?  No.  But it might help.  Don’t forget, though… it’s just my opinion.  Look for a related post coming up about Social Networking.

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Then you should be signed up for rebarcamp Atlanta.  Tickets are only $17.50… and that is for a FULL day of learning, sharing and networking with the most tech savvy agents and real estate professionals in the Atlanta area, and from around the Southeast.  AND, there are tickets available right now for just $10, with the “Almost Early Bird” special.

Many real estate “technology events” are really commercials for their sponsors.  After paying $50 or $100, you get to sit in a room as the sponsoring vendors parade across the stage telling you about their newest, coolest techno-must-have… that you can sign up for at the table in the back for a mere $499/year.

rebarcamp is VERY different.  At an average rebarcamp event, participants share what is working for THEM in their markets.  Sure, there are sponsors, and they are talking about their products, many of the sponsors are not involved in selling directly to agents…

But the big thing that differentiates an average tech event and rebarcamp is that rebarcamp is more tuned to participation.  Attendees decide what sessions should be featured.  They lead most of the sessions.  It is built upon attendees sharing… sharing challenges and solutions… rather than being built on presentations.

So, if you are a real estate professional, and you can make it to Atlanta on October 28th, rebarcamp Atlanta is the place you need to be.

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Image via CrunchBase

I have a thing about ‘To Do Lists’…  I don’t know why.  But, I do.  At least on my computer.

I use WP Editorial Calendar to schedule posts, and ToodleDo to keep track of what posts should be upcoming, along with other tasks.  Without these tools I would be completely lost.  Even with as bad as I am at updating this blog on time, I still produce around 20 blog posts a week.  It needs to be closer to 25.

At any given time, I have 15 or 20 tabs open in my FireFox browser.  The tabs have a variety of things, ranging from website where I am tracking things on a daily basis to articles or posts that I want to blog about.  I also have source articles for things I am researching for blog posts.

And I have a new one that I am really liking…  SpringPad.

Image via Wikipedia

I picked up a Tablet computer a few weeks ago (Toshiba Thrive).  This is in addition to my laptop and my smartphone (T-Mobile G2).  I work on all of them.  And one of the things I was missing was a way to keep information (not just files) synchronized between all of my devices.  There are tools like DropBox, which I love, but it required that I have a way to edit the same filetype on all of my devices… or the devices of others I might share an item with.

SpringPad is a bit different.  There is a website (SpringPadIt.com) as well as device apps for my Tablet and SmartPhone (both are Android).  They also have a suite of apps available through the iTunes Store for Apple devices.

One of the nice things with SpringPad is that it has a built in editor to write notes, build out To Do Lists and even surf.  There is a plug-in for FireFox so that I can clip items while surfing and send them to notes in SpringPad.  I can email items (forwards, especially) to a notebook.  I can also add resources to a note like links, videos or photos.

Image via CrunchBase

Like DropBox, users can share their content with other users… unlike DropBox, notebooks can be sent via email to others that are NOT users of SpringPad.  And while DropBox is better for some file types, especially those that involve a lot of editing (manuscripts, images, etc.), I find that SpringPad is a little better geared towards sharing information.  In fact, I can even share things on FaceBook, Twitter and through RSS via SpringPad.  Content can be organized and tagged, as well. Sync’d content is also available when you are not online (except for the website… but if you don’t have a data connection on your phone or tablet, you can still access and edit notebooks for syncing later).

Right Now…

At this moment I am working on a Winter Pack Trip for our Cub Scout Pack.  In order to do this, I have to keep the input of all of the Pack Leaders in mind… and keep them abreast of what is happening.  I also need to keep track of which resources belong with which venue.  I’m tracking costs, things to do, amenities and timelines.  And I can share as much or as little as I want with as many or as few people as needed.  And there is a Social component to the SpringPad network.  You can share items with your SpringPad friends and use it for collaboration.

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And that is fine…

But it leaves me thinking something…  That since Google+ is the shiny new object in the room… the new kid that all the girls think is “mysterious”… is it getting a pass? 

Or, am I just the stodgy old dude that doesn’t like change?

Frankly, I think I do like change, but I also don’t dive on every new toy.  And I like FaceBook.  I never warmed up to Twitter.  FourSquare took me a little while, and it isn’t on the top of my mind.  There are probably 20 social networking options that I have discarded in the last few years because they didn’t thrill me.  In fact, Google Wave and Google Buzz would be two of the platforms I dropped well before they went away.

And don’t think for a minute that I think Google+ is going to go the way of Buzz and Wave.  Google+ is too good for that.

But, personally I don’t think it is the coolest thing ever…  I think we have a case of Social Media Bias.  Right now, Google+ is made up of early adopters.  And early adopters, in general, are people that like the shiny new objects.  And because early adopter love the new stuff, Google+ is in a Honeymoon phase…  it is getting the love and it doesn’t have to prove itself.

The question is this…  What do YOU think?  Is Google+ all that and a bag of chips, or does it need to bake a little longer?  Is it easier to work with that FaceBook, or is it that the users are those that are generally quickest to adapt?

Image via exceptnothing.com

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