Carpenter Farm Supply for a story on CaryCitizen. Photo by Hal Goodtree.
Good Pictures Get Reads
People tell me all the time that they look at the pictures first and then decide whether or not they want to read the story. Moral: good pictures increase engagement and duration (time on page).
The Easy Way: Buy Pictures for About a Buck
Everyone knows you can't steal pictures from the internet. Technically, maybe you can, but it's not a good idea. Many pictures have tracking codes and you're liable to get an unpleasant phone call.
I use iStockPhoto to get pictures for about a buck. Massive selection, good search engine, buy the smallest size for web use and sleep well at night.
The Easy Way: Flickr Creative Commons
You can't steal pictures from Flickr either. But many photographers list their pictures as available for use with a link and credit. It's called a Creative Commons license.
To find these pics, search for a subject on Flickr. When the results are returned, clicked on "Advanced Search" (upper right). You'll see a whole page of options.
Scroll down to the bottom. Check off "Creative Commons." Presto! You'll see all the pictures that match your search and which are licensed for Creative Commons usage.
Here's a whole collection of stories on CaryCitizen where we got a picture from Flickr using a Creative Commons license:
You don't need a fancy camera to take good pictures. You do need a decent eye, steady hands and the ability to edit your shots. Here is a collection of pictures I took with my iPhone to prove that good pictures can be had from mobile phones:
Of course, DSLRs take great pictures. They have larger, more sensitive imaging areas than cheaper cameras and the significant advantage of great lenses.
A mid-priced DSLR will run you $1000-1500 but a used camera can be found on eBay for around $500.
Hire Someone
Lots of good photographers in your neighborhood probably willing to work for $25-50. Search Flickr in your area. Find someone you like. Make 'em an offer.
Make sure you ask beforehand to get a CD of all the images from the shoot and the right to use them for your business. That's what we offer. Call us.
Worth It?
Good pictures make all the difference in how people perceive your website, your brand and, ultimately, you as a service provider.
Cary, NC – From realtors to doctors, and from techies to tycoons, everybody talks about brand. Most of that talk is crap.
Based on 20+ years working for great agencies and companies including Saatchi & Saatchi, DMB&B, The New York Times and the NFL, here’s my take on brand.
What Is A Brand
A brand is the idea of your company.
It is not your product or service. It is your philosophy.
Brand Character
Brands are an embodiment of what you represent. Embodiment literally means turning something into a body, a person, a character.
Your brand character has the attributes you’d like people to associate with your organization.
I worked on Charmin for several years. Their brand character embodies softness, doing the best for your family and trustworthiness.
Brands Vs. Branding
Once you have a well-defined brand character, you can apply that concept to any related product or service.
Consider Nike Tennis Rackets. Nike started as a shoe company. At some point, they began leveraging their brand to include all manner of related sports gear.
“We should make a tennis racket,” someone must have once said. Great. But how to make it a Nike tennis racket?
Simple: apply the unique brand character of Nike to the generic object of a tennis racket. Make the new racket stylish, uncompromising and use top quality materials and workmanship. Make it excellent and cool.
Brand Unlocks Value
A cohesive brand differentiates products and services within a category.
I once heard ad legend Jack Bowen talk about TV sets in the old Soviet Union. All the TV sets looked the same and cost the same, but they were made in two different factories.
Let’s say one was in Moscow and the other in Siberia.
Soviet shoppers knew the TVs made in Moscow were far superior to the ones made in Siberia. Although both were priced the same in stores, shoppers would pay extra cash on the side to get a Moscow set.
Jack observed that this was an example of “primitive brand loyalty.” In a market economy, the Moscow plant would communicate its superiority in its branding, thus unlocking premium pricing for its product.
Brand and Your Character
A brand is an identity for your business. It is for others to consume. It is not a statement of who you are as a person.
My Brand
We offer a lot of services here at Goodtree & Co – photography, video, web development and copywriting. But that’s not our brand character.
Our brand stands for three things: Excellence, Creativity and Innovation. It’s baked into every email, post and picture we do.
Your Brand
What does your brand stand for? Can you define it in three words? Shoot me an email or post something in the comments.
Apex. NC – This is another website project from our friends at LiveOak Homes. Olive Chapel Park is a new neighborhood off Highway 55 just north of the center of town.
Something Different
We took a non-traditional approach for this site, avoiding the usual MLS hassle and building the entire site with WordPress. We made ‘posts’ for each property in the development and took unique pictures in each home.
Goodtree & Co. also adapted the WordPress theme (code and design) and did all the copywriting and photography.
Something Extra
In addition to satisfying all the needs of search, we were able to give viewers more info than they’d find in a standard real estate listing.
To create additional opportunities in search, we also created half a dozen blog posts about the community in Apex – shopping, health care and business. By building this inventory of information, Olive Chapel Park can appear many more places in search relative to their location in the town of Apex.
Don’t Be Shy
As covered back in January, WordPress websites have become a very attractive proposition for businesses of all types.
Get in touch if your business needs a fresh approach on the web.
Cary, NC – Three years ago, I inadvertently discovered that video can jump a client to the top of search in a crowded infospace. Now, RISMedia has put a number on the advantage: 53 times more effective than traditional SEO.
“Recent studies have shown that when done correctly, videos with proper tags are up to 53 times more likely to generate a first page Google ranking when compared with traditional SEO techniques. Studies also demonstrate that video is preferred over text by a 6 to 1 margin and is growing online at a rate of 40% a year.”
Traditional SEO Takes You Part Way
Everyone should use traditional SEO all the time. It can have great, long-lasting results, especially against niche terms.
Choose a narrow set of keywords and use them in blog posts, headlines, tags and descriptions. Do it on your blog, Flickr, web pages and social media. For WordPress blogs, we recommend All-In-One-SEO-Pack, a very handy plug in.
It works great for narrow terms. In real estate, target a neighborhood instead of the whole town. One of my clients has done this for every single neighborhood in Cary. Another client decided to focus on her own subdivision. In less than a week, we’ve moved up to the top of page one.
But broader targets can be hard to crack. That’s where you have to go beyond traditional SEO.
Cranking Up Page One
Back in 2007, we had a large medical practice in South Carolina as a client. One of their services was non-invasive surgery to fix varicose veins.
This is a very crowded field, with national competitors and local doctors willing to spend big on AdWords every month. In short, we couldn’t crack into page one search results with just some web pages and blog posts.
One day, I brought my video camera (a cheapo miniDV, btw) and recorded one of the docs talking about their magical procedure. I posted the result on my YouTube channel (properly tagged of course).
A few days later, I was searching for terms related to my client’s business. I searched on the term “varicose veins.” Guess who came up at the top of page one? Me!
Quickly, we set up a YouTube channel for the docs and basically transferred the benefit to them. The rest, as they say, is history.
Good Video vs. Bad Video
In the intervening three years, a lot of people have jumped on the video bandwagon. The results have not always been pretty.
As an example, let’s look at dentistry. In my town, every dentist has a video. They’re all dreadful. Poorly lit, bad sound and a parade of people uncomfortably mouthing marketing points. “I get great satisfaction helping people have healthy mouths,” says a hygenist in one. Earth-shaking.
Most of these videos get 30-60 views. That’s basically the staff and their relatives.
Late last year, I shot a video for my dentist. He was shaving his head for charity. I used the same cheap video camera, shot the event, and had him narrate it with voiceover.
His video got over 1000 views. In the first two weeks.
Can you do this with your cheap video camera? Probably not. But the cost of high-quality, professional video has crashed over the last few years, mostly due to cheaper editing and better low-cost cameras. So now, experienced filmmakers have the ability to whip off a project in a day without expensive rentals or a large crew.
How To Make A Great Video
This is what I told people in seminars at WordCamp and RebarCamp last year: It’s all about the concept.
A great concept trumps fancy production every time. This has always been true in filmmaking. Still is.
It doesn’t have to be complicated or “highly creative.” Simple is best.
Tell the video producers about your business and let them come up with the concept. It’s their job to propose something that’s interesting and can be done within the time and resources available.
My First Viral
Three years ago, I did my first viral for a Realtor. We were going to include a testimonials page on her web site. I said, “Why don’t we shoot a video instead?”
She gathered three of her best clients and I asked them a few questions about Julie (the Realtor). I intercut their answers, added a little music and kept the whole thing under two minutes.
The result: the average duration of visits to the page almost exactly matched the length of the video. People watched the whole thing. It’s also the second most popular page after the index (home page).
More Info
For more info, scan my posts tagged video. If you’re considering a video project, email me.
————————————————————————————
Picture above: on a shoot for The New York Times in 2004. We’re at the corner of 73rd and Amsterdam in front of the subway station. See the spot on YouTube and you’ll recognize the guy in the beige suit.
Cary, NC – Realtors have always been among our most savvy clients. Whether you're writing a Postlet, an MLS listing or a blog, I thought I’d share a few tips for writing an effective real estate post.
Basic Guidelines for a Real Estate Post
Write proper sentences - Be grammatical. Proof-read to make sure you didn’t make any errors. Avoid all-caps, abbreviations, exclamation points and ellipses.
Sell it – Tell the reader about the charms of this particular property. A real estate post is most effective if it is more than a laundry list of attributes.
Use bullet points - Make the copy “scan-able” for key info like square footage, bedrooms and price.
Include your contact info – Sure, it may be on the page, but go ahead and stick it in the copy too. Make it as easy as possible for people to contact you.
Examples of Weak Posts
These all came from a cursory viewing of homes for sale in the Winston-Salem market. Each could have been a more effective pitch for the propeties:
(Too many abbreviations) Immaculate 3BR, 2.5BA Manufacture Hm in Davidson Co. Perfect 1st Time Hm. Featuring Pine HW s in the Kit. & Den. Kit. offers Oak Cabinets & Island. Forma,l DR graced with Mouldings. LG Master w/ Updated WIC. 2′ Blinds/Ceiling Fans Thru out. Ledford Sch.
———————————————————————————————–
(All upper case is hard to read and may come off as shouting) PRE-FORECLOSURE, PROPERTY SOLD AS IS CONDITION, NICE LEVEL LOT, WALK-IN CLOSET MASTER BEDROOM, EASY TO SHOW
———————————————————————————————–
(Sloppy, disjointed, typos) Downtown Living! .. Approx 1700 sqft 3BR/2.5 Bath Updated Home .. Kitchen & Breakfast with Tile Flooring and Pantry, Laundry Closet, 1/2 bath on Main.. New carpet in Livi,ng Room and Formal Dining Room.. 3 Bedrooms upstairs with 2 full baths.. Master Bath with Garden Tub and Walk in Closet, Landscaping in Progress.. Fenced Backyard with D,eck.. Great Skyline view of the City, Well Kept Neighborhood with Walking Trails.. Ready to move in!
More Info
If you’d like to chat about copywriting for real estate or hear about our private seminars, please email me.
Photo of Marcus Baxter Dry House in Cary, NC by Hal Goodtree.
Cary, NC – We try to overhaul our website once a year. Wipe the slate clean a tell our story without any preconceptions. This year, we decided to go with a blog site, a CMS powered by WordPress.
The advantages are easy to enumerate:
Low cost set-up
Easy to maintain
Professional look out of the box
Well-connected to search
Here’s a little more detail in case your business is thinking about a new site in 2010.
WHAT’S A CMS?
CMS stands for Content Management System. It allows users to add content with little or no programming skills. Need to change a page? No problem if your website is built around a CMS. Enter the info and hit publish.
WHAT’S WORDPRESS
WordPress is the Number One blogging platform in the world. It’s open source (that means free) and has a large population of developers supporting it with upgrades to the code and special add-ons to accommodate almost any functionality.
THE GROWTH OF WORDPRESS
Over the last couple of years, more and more developers have been seeing the possibilities of WordPress as a CMS. Around the world, programmers have been extending the uses of WP to include video content, maps, e-commerce, real estate, social networking and portfolio sites.
For the end user, most of this activity is visible in the growth of themes. Themes are skins over the WordPress installation that create an instant look and functionality for your site.
THEMES GO PREMIUM
A couple of years ago, most themes were free. They were an improvement over the standard WP theme (called Kubrick) but support was sketchy. As WordPress grew, free themers had a difficult time keeping current with the code. What looked pretty cool last year barely worked twelve months later.
In the last six months, the development community has switched over to Premium themes. In short, you now have to pay for the best themes. But competition has undercut the pricing – just last summer, we bought and installed one of the first really robust premium themes (called TV Elements). It cost about $100.
Now, great themes have fallen to about half that price. The theme powering this site (called Display) cost less than $50.
$50 doesn’t seem like a lot for a top notch theme with about 90% of the coding baked in.
SAVE THOUSANDS
The bottom line for business is that the growth of WordPress as a CMS and the development of premium themes has lowered the cost to business for a truly modern website. Development time is quicker and many businesses can now afford a slick look that would have previously been out of reach.
Can you do this yourself? Probably not. Not unless you’re a closet hacker. But the important point is that you’ll pay a lot less for development and get a world class site.
SOME EXAMPLES
This is not your Daddy’s blog. WordPress can now be easily configured to powered the most complicated websites. The New York Times runs on WordPress.
We predict strong growth for WordPress sites in 2010. Even compared to CMS stalwarts like Joomla and Drupal, WP offers a compelling value.
Here are some examples of our recent work with blog sites:
Summary of my presentation on videoblogging at WordCampRDU this weekend at NCCU.
1. WORDPRESS & VIDEO
The most basic question about video blogging might be: how do I get my video content into my blog? We recommend:
Video —> YouTube —> WordPress
Upload your video to YouTube, grab the embed code and paste it into your blog. Make sure you paste it in “HTML” view in your WP blog.
Why not upload your video directly to WP?The answer is Search.
Search engines, and Google in particular, love video content. It is often returned above websites in a search result. Additionally, posting to YouTube gives a chance for a wider audience, better syndication and distribution.
Finally, don’t forget to use consistent tags when you upload your video to YouTube and WP.
2. EDITING IS GOOD
Editing is crucial to successful video production. Let’s start with available programs that are either free or under $150.
PC - Pinnacle/Avid, MovieMaker
Mac - iMovie, Final Cut
The key things you need to be able to do with video editing are:
Edit sound and picture separately
Decide the order of shots
Decide the duration of shots
Those three are the biggies, but video editing has other key benefits as well:
Ability to add music
Add titles
Add transitions (btw “Cuts” are 95% of all transitions)
3. PRODUCTION
Production (shooting) can be great fun. Here are a few tips and tricks to get a good result.
A. Composition
This is how you frame a shot in camera. Consider these four guideslines:
i. No need to move the camera
ii. Web video is a close-up medium
iii. Rule of Upper Thirds - place the subject’s eyes about a third down from the top of the frame.
iv. Keep it Square - pay attention to the horizon line.
B. Coverage
Make sure you get everything you need when you shoot.
i. B-roll and cutaways help illustrate the story
ii. Use different angles to provide variety
iii. Use the “short” end of the lens as much as possible (that is, stay wide and get close)
iv. Avoid zooms
C. Interview Technique
i. The person on camera should look at the interviewer, NEVER the camera.
ii. The interviewer needs to “hold the eyes” of the subject. Be nice, act interested, smile and nod. Don’t look down at your notes.
iii. Don’t talk over the talent. It generally ruins the take.
iv. Get the subject to restate your question in their answer (”statementize”)
D. Cheap Gear
Tripod
Low cost lighting - Home Depot aluminum reflector and high output CFLs
Microphone
It’s also good to have a power strip, extension cord. some duct tape and a big plastic bin to keep your kit together.
E. Some Sage Advice
i. Plan your shoot in advance / develop a shot list
Sharpen your blogging skills and rub shoulders with the Triangle's social media elite. Sign up now for WordCampRDU, this Saturday 6/13 at NCCU in Durham. $25 in advance - no tickets sold at the door. Beginner and Advanced tracks. Keynote speaker is Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress.
Stimulate your mind and find out how to get more from the valuable time you spend blogging. Sign up for WordCampRDU right now.
Attention all bloggers: WordCamp is coming to the Triangle. Sharpen your blogging skills and meet other members of the NC business community at this all day event at NCCU in Durham on Saturday, June 13, 2009.
Beginning and advanced seminars cover topics including:
Building a successful blog
Search Engine Optimization
Social Marketing
Keynote speaker is Matt Mullenweg, the founding developer of WordPress.
Here's another example of producing broadcast-type work with a home video camera. This is a cable spot for J. Alane's Fine Lingerie in North Hills. Shot entirely on my Canon 800 mini DV camera and edited on my laptop. We even composed the music in Garage Band.
Video is truly the most powerful of marketing tools. And it has become more affordable than ever. Contact us if you have a great television idea for your brand.
Disclaimer: ActiveRain Corp. does not necessarily endorse the real estate agents, loan officers and brokers listed on this site. These real estate profiles, blogs and blog entries are provided here as a courtesy to our visitors to help them make an informed decision when buying or selling a house. ActiveRain Corp. takes no responsibility for the content in these profiles, that are written by the members of this community.
Cary, NC – We try to overhaul our website once a year. Wipe the slate clean a tell our story without any preconceptions. This year, we decided to go with a blog site, a CMS powered by WordPress.
Sharpen your blogging skills and rub shoulders with the Triangle's social media elite. Sign up now for 
Attention all bloggers: WordCamp is coming to the Triangle. Sharpen your blogging skills and meet other members of the NC business community at this all day event at NCCU in Durham on Saturday, June 13, 2009.
;)
;)
