I had written a post about the value of entertainment in real estate video. While I think video should be of fairly decent quality so that the consumer can judge the attributes of the home, the product doesn't have to look like it was produced by Steven Spielberg.

Okay- it can't look like the Blair Witch Project, either. Hold your hand steady, don't make the viewer sick by whipping around from side to side, and if you will be speaking, make your voice sound natural. To see my three favorites, check here.

That really got me thinking- about video, about blogging, about online interaction- and off-line as well, I suppose. I have heard people complain about twitter as far as interaction goes. I decided to scout out one of these people and see what they were up to and this was the total of their commentary:

Just posted on ActiveRain...

Just posted on ActiveRain...

Just posted on ActiveRain...

Just posted on ActiveRain...  Day after day, THAT WAS IT! Would you watch the station on TV that was all ads? 

Which leads me to this morning. I saw a post on twitter by @theRealClint (who is here on Active Rain- Clint Miller of RECR) with the comment "Google is Funny" and a link. Well, okay, I bit that bait, and saw this: 

Okay, maybe you might be offended by it, but dang! This is funny- and playful! I checked other words out, and I think Google is doing this intentionally on the broadly used words what, who, and where because I didn't see it for more narrow scopes. You can check it out for yourself if you have time.

But my point is this. If your interaction level on twitter is less than that of a search engine, maybe it is time to step it up before complaining. You have a chance to be seen before potentially thousands of people, and all it costs you is a little time. 

orig. published on my blog http://www.heyamaretto.com

Getting involved in these social spaces and wondering how to pass that information along? Just trying to fit your contact information and your purpose can be daunting.

Yes, Virginia, there is an easier way. There are several ways to store your contact information in online repositories and add the link to your business card, website or blog. These storage places are good looking and make a one-click bridge to the sites where you are active. Two of these that I have tried are Retaggr and Card.ly. Both are similar in their motivation. I have used both in my Yahoo email signature, which is kind of neat. I have used Retaggr for a long time, relatively speaking, but I am thinking I like the setup of Card.ly better. [Retaggr landing page] Retaggr lists all of your social media and "real life" contact information and has widgets that you can use to integrate interaction. It is more comprehensive than Card.ly- and that is perhaps why I prefer Card.ly. Card.ly offers 38 skins (some of them are premium, but most are free) and you can locate something professional there- regardless of your profession. You add your contact information in- just as you do with Retaggr- and choose the look:[Card.ly] So in addition to being embedded in an email signature, you can put that one card.ly address onto your twitter homepage, on facebook, on your business card, on your social media card- anywhere that listing all of your links is too "bulky".

Check out my card.ly profile at http:..www.card.ly/heyamaretto

I like this part of blog-building the best. You get to come out with something that looks like you and your business.

This is the part where you get to pick themes. A theme is like a skin, except to paraphrase a WordPress blog, it is more- it determines how the blog is set up, whether it has two or three columns, the typeface- the intent of the blog, really is determined somewhat by the theme.

This video is about 10 minutes long, and will take you step-by-step through the customization process. There is music on this as well, so if you are at work or where sound will disturb someone, turn the volume down.

You may want to have a few pictures that can be used as headers- sometimes you need to try a few out until you find one that works well with lettering in front of it. Like with the last one, it might be easier to work on your blog while toggling back and forth to the video. And I have shown how to switch themes- feel free to skip any part that goes too slowly for you.

Enjoy!

The first part of the Elephant:

This video will take you step-by-step through setting up a WP blog. A blog can be set up more easily in other places: at blogger.com and at weebly.com for example.

But WordPress gives you a world of flexibility. This blog will be set up on WordPress.com. If you choose to set up your own self-hosted site later, you can roll this blog over to it.

This video is about 10 minutes long, and has music. If you are at work, turn down the volume before viewing. If you are ready to set up, first go to WordPress.com and make an account (you will need a name, password and email). Then you can toggle back and forth between the video and your set-up, pausing the video when you need to.

Good luck! When you are ready to customize it, check out part 2.

An elephant is impossible to eat, isn't it? Not if you do it one bite at a time.

I have been reading post after post lately about social media. It is definitely the elephant in the room. Some people love it, some people hate it, and some people just plain don't get it.

But here is the deal: it can be an effective tool in your arsenal. It doesn't need to be the ONLY tool, but it might be smart to look at your overall approach, weed out the 2 or 3 methods of farming that you use now that don't work that well, and add in a couple of social media tools. From all appearances, it is going to be the way you have to go eventually, anyway.

How quickly you need to adapt depends on the demographic of your client base, most likely. You will have clients who don't have an email address, and of course social media will not be a way to touch base with these people.

First bite. Have a static website? Why not replace it with a WordPress blog? You can customize them until the cows come home. Here's one that I put together as part of a package that we made for Bill Bell of Gotcha Covered! in Delaware:

This is remarkably similar to his original static website (well, okay. I am partial to it and think it looks a little better). The big difference is that he himself can embed video and change the content by logging in anytime he wants. And the site benefits from the "Google juice" that frequently updated content brings.

There are navigation tabs that lead to information about the company- information that he wishes to have available all of the time that won't be buried in blog posts.

Check it out here. 

Next post will be about how to build a free blog on WordPress.com

Great advice. It always takes me forever to do this- trying your method next time, J.

I have been seeing that a lot of people get involved in groups, and say afterward- I don't get it. How is this going to help me? 

For instance, the user return rate on twitter is pretty sorry. According to the Nielsen Wire, "more than 60 percent of U.S. Twitter users fail to return the following month, or in other words,... Twitter’s audience retention rate is currently about 40 percent." This just accounts for those that do not return at all- those that bebop in for a couple of tweets are counted as active.

I was speaking with someone who was involved with venture capital and setting up startups. She mentioned that one business women's group had a 20% retention rate over the course of a year. That's a lot of people who are joining something that they apparently think will not be useful a little further down the line.

I guess the first thing to ask yourself is this: Why am I joining a group? Is it for pleasure, for business contacts, to grow a consumer base? And don't think for a moment that these motives are mutually exclusive. If someone respects you for your knowledge base in, say, your hobby, that respect will roll over to your professional personna.

Then match the groups to your goals. This narrows your choices even before you begin so you aren't spread so thin that you can't be a valued member in any of them, and makes the communities a joy rather than a burden to be part of. And really- this is what it is all about: joy! Happiness and a true positive attitude attract people- business contacts, consumers, people who share your interests.

For more information about to get the most out of a group, click here.

It is funny how what you are today is the sum total of your experiences. Your parents, and their parents, built the beginning of the road you are traveling on. You can try to build a better or completely different road if you don't like the scenery that came before you, but most of the time you end up with a road that runs parallel to the original one- or at best perpendicular. That original road is always the touchpoint.

My father has been gone 20 years now- but he is still vividly with me. When I feel that I am at the bottom of my reserves of strength, I hear him telling me what he told me soon after my first daughter was born. She had obviously never heard the expression "sleeping like a baby" and on top of that was plagued with colic. Since I was nursing, I wasn't even able to self-medicate my way through it, and I looked fairly desperate one day when my father came to visit. He took my daughter from my tired arms and sat with her in the other room, saying to me, "Just when you feel like you are at the end of your rope, your trouble always ends."

My baby fell to sleep in his arms. While I was fairly certain that his advice was simplistic at the time, I have come to respect it and apply it more generally to my life as he intended,not just to episodes of infant colic. There are times it has become my mantra- "This will end- this will end- this will end." Horrible times end- or at least scab over- with time; everything is finite. And the really good times end too.

And I guess this is okay- because it has to be. Each of these little good and bad bits make up the cobblestones of the road you are building and there are times when the road is damned bumpy. 

This must be what fathers are for- to walk you down that aisle whether they like your choice at the other end or not, to take the baby from you when you are near the end of that rope, to teach you how to hang wallpaper and hang in there.

I miss you, Dad, but I always hear you.

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that I am a card-carrying member of the TwitterQueens. See? I'll prove it:

So there you have it. What are TwitterQueens? Well, it started out being a group of mainly women who chatted online, forming friendships and helping each other out online. It was mostly women, but not all; they were mostly REALTORS, but not all. Later we added the hashtag #twitterqueens so that we could keep track of the conversation in one stream- if you add the hashtag, you can filter out all of the responses with that tag if you use tweetgrid, tweetdeck, seesmic desktop, or twitzap.

Later as the group grew, we had members that were very new to social media, and decided to create a community where they could go and see posts with information (here's one on SEO), share leads, ask questions and get answers, and share video and pictures. We now have nearly 250 members, probably about 15% men.

The "Boys Allowed" issue caused a little stir but we made it through. I think that none of us really was aware of how fiercely people identify themselves and define themselves within a group context, but I guess I do too. I would have to say that- male OR female- most of my best friends are members of this group.

That is why I am really REALLY looking forward to our first tweetup/social media boot camp. This is going to be on June 27 at the Grans Hyatt in NYC, and I am going to get to meet the people that I am so excited about online face-to-face (some for the first time, some again). Bill Lublin , Morriss Partee, Jennifer Shaheen and Rebecca Corliss from HubSpot are among those either speaking or leading sessions, and Lesley, Maya and I will likely throw our hats into that ring too.

So here's the deal: We have decided to offer a free VIP stay with us, which means a hotel room and free pass to the day's event. One lucky person (man OR woman) will be chosen from among the people who tweet the following before Saturday June 20 at 4:00-

#twitterqueens- choose ME for VIP event reg because (then give us a great reason).

Yes, you will have to sign up on twitter.com and at least put out one tweet, but it will be worth it if you win!

See you in NYC!