Blogging In The Rain Real Estate Marketing Blog

Week of 12/14/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 21:18:23 -0600

Week of 12/14/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

25 Essentials for Exceptional Email Campaigns

Complete a quick form and gain access to download this free guide from Lyris on how to create email

email campaigns. A few tips that caught my eye included:

Focus on quality over list size.
Test something every time- like deployment date/time, subject line, offers
Define your email value proposition.
Be prepared for email devices and social media.

There are a total of 25 tips and each tip gives solid examples and how to's. It's a solid no fluff guide for email marketing and a good read for any real estate professional who sends email campaigns and newsletters.

Barclaycard Waterslide Ad Campaign

Watch this Barclaycard Waterslide Ad Campaign that aired and keep in mind that Barclay Card is a financial Services Company.

Along with the video there was an interactive multimedia application that allowed people to play a "water game". The Iphone app for the Barclaycard Waterslide Game in July of 2009 was the #1 free app. in 57 countries.

The results discussed in Eyeblaster's Case Study: BarclayCard Challenges Finanacial Advertising Conventions were:

13.7 million impressions

4.6 million unique users

Total interaction rate was 58%.

All that traffic from a K.I.S.S. Concept of fun in the form of a silly water slide and a water game.

The EConsultancy's Innovation Awards 200: The Winners

An awesome round up of the who, what and why of EConsultancy's 2009 Innovation Awards winners.

I have picked a few of the worthy winners that stood out in categories that I felt relevant to real estate:

1. Innovation in Affiliate Marketing- EBay Partner Network-rewards affiliates based on number of transactions and length of customer's value.

In other words: Click to-transaction to-repeat transaction. Good study for any real estate professional considering advertisers on their blog/website.

2. Innovation in ECommerce-Glasses Direct- Has an Augmented Reality Video Mirror that allows customers to "try on eyeglasses" with views from different angles.

I can't wait for the day that this type of app. creeps into the real estate industry and moves virtual tours to a different level allowing prospective home buyers to walk thru houses as they are and truly get a feel before they go out in the field. This type of app. could save a lot of time and heartache but the key would also be to enable the buyer to walk the neighborhood, similar to roving about with Google Earth.

3. Innovation in Lead Generation Online- Eurpoean Directories and Skype- Online search conversion into phone calls with tracking. This is a real measure for the ROI of online marketing and where it's moving to and in fact some of these systems have been around for awhile.

Official Google Blog: Relevance Meets the Real Time Web

Google's official announcement of launching real time search to Google's SERP and their partnerships with Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku, and Identi.ca. Twitter had been announced earlier.

These are just a few of the checklist of considerations this video breaks down for solopreuners and business owners who want a solid online offering.

This is not without concern from the online webmaster and SEO communities who are concerned that social media may be dwarfing the static web and the credibility of information may become even more watered down in the process.

This type of search itself is a disruption to the older search methods but emphasizes the importance of getting your brand disbursed in many places online and creating full profiles and syndicating your blog to those profiles. It also further emphasizes and re-defines the importance of a content powered strategy. Content is text, audio, video, micro blogging and conversations across platforms on the worldwide web.

Are you actively engaged and involved?

Real Skillz appreciates its fans and is showing an attitude of gratitude. Every day in December look for a freebie tool/site posted through the Real Skillz real estate marketing fan page on Facebook. I'll tell you where to find it and how it is useful to your business.

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter provided by Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant.

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate professionals. If you treat real estate as a business then Real Skillz is a desirable real estate marketing solution. Call #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@realestateskillz.com.

Blogging- See my Blogging Tune-Up Website for Details
Social Networking
Niche Marketing
Marketing Strategy
Branding- See my Branding Sanity Website for Details
Offline Marketing
Online Marketing
Special Events Promotion and Marketing
Holiday Marketing
Marketing Campaigns
Email Marketing (Content and Design)
Reputation Management

How Deep Does Your Blog Content Go? 36 Resources to Help You Write Better and Create Blog Content that Blossoms Online

Thu, 10 Dec 2009 16:27:54 -0600

How Deep Does Your Blog Content Go? 73 Resources to Help You Write Better and Create Blog Content that Blossoms Online

I have chosen these resources to help you dig into your blog deeper and create content that will expand your current skill set. Writers are constantly honing their skills and perfecting their efforts, digging deep into the bowels of their works and often their mind and souls in the process. Given that blogging is a form of writing, and both writers and journalists have been exercising the skills of their trades before blogging came to be I have taken care to comprise this list mainly of writing and journalism resources that are relevant to blogging.

Here are 36 Resources to Help You Write Better and Create Blog Content that Blossoms Online

A/B MULTI-VARIATE/SPLIT RATE TESTING

How The Huffington Post uses real-time testing to write better headlines » Nieman Journalism- Article on A/B Testing
Mulitvariate Testing and A/B Split Testing- who provides it?- List of service provides for A/B split testing. Yes Google is on the list.

ACCURACY

44 Tips to Accuracy- Excellent tips to make sure your writing is accurate. Makes a great checklist.
Accuracy Checklist: Detroit Free Press | Committee of Concerned Journalists- It's funny but as a blogger almost all of the eight checklists will apply to the blogger as a one (wo)man writer.
The Journalism School- Columbia University- Event Archive- Three sessions that make sense to listen to: HuffPo's Ken Lerer's Nothing's Off the Record, Helping Writer's Write, Beat Reporting with Sig Gissler

BLOGGING BASICS

News University: Journalism Training. What Makes A Great Blog: Principles for Success: A Poynter/NewsU Webinar Replay- Free recorded webinar on creating a great blog.
Online Media Law: The Basics for Bloggers and Other Online Publishers- Free online course for publishing content online.

COPYRIGHT AND CITATION

Documenting Electronic Sources: Online Guides to Citing Electronic Sources- The OWL at Purdue-Citation and Style Guides
U.S. Copyright office- Copyright basics.
Copyright and Attribution- Reference list from J-Learning

FOCUS ON LOCAL

News University. Localism Training. Build and Engage Local Audiences Online- Free E-Course- How to build and maintain a local online community.
Targeting New Audiences: Finding Your Niche- Creating content for a specific audience.

HEADLINES

Headline Writing for Google, Social Media and Profit : Condomunity.com-Gigantic bullet list blog post of headline do's, why's and how to's.Gigantic bullet list blog post of headline do's, why's and how to's.
How to Write Headlines That Work | Copyblogger- Eight types of headlines.
Advanced Marketing Institute- Headline Analyzer- Gives you the emotional value of your headline. Very cool.

PROOFREADING

Proofreading Your Writing - The OWL at Purdue- Easy to follow tips for proofreading.
Wordiness, Wordiness, Wordiness List- Big list to help you declutter your blog posts.
The Communications Network- Jargon Finder- A list to help you keep your blog jargon free.

TYPES OF WRITING

Online Storytelling Forms - CyberJournalist.net - Online News Association - Tips and Tools- Article about the types of storytelling online.
News University: Journalism Training. The Interview-Free E-Course on effective interviewing.
News University: Journalism Training. Beyond the Inverted Pyramid: Creating Alternative Story- Free E-course on different methods of writing.
How to Write a Comparative Analysis- Good thorough exercise to help you write posts that focus on comparing programs, tools, etc.

WRITER'S BLOCK

Writer's Block/Writer's Anxiety-The OWL at Purdue- Overcoming Writer's Block
Stuck in a Rut? The Top 5 Ways to Change Up the Ambiance and Get in the Mood To Blog- 5 ways to break your blogger's block

WRITING COMMUNITIES AND GROUPS

Writing.com- Online community for writers and readers.
Groups and Associations for Writers/Poe War- Groups and associations across the country for writers.

WRITING EXERCISES

Writing Exercises | PoeWar-Great list of writing exercises that makes sense for bloggers to do.

WRITING TIPS

Writer Resources.com- 10 Tips for Better Writing
Get Me Rewrite- The Craft of Revision- Free E-Course on editing and revising content.
The Lead Lab- Free E-Course on what to lead with in your content.

WRITING TOOLS

Word Spy- Learn new words.
News University: Journalism Training- The Writer's Workbench: 50 Tools You Can Use- Free E-Course to help sharpen and create good writing skills.
Strunk,William,Jr.-1918. The Elements of Style- Writer's Style Book.
Skrbl- Online whiteboard.
Xmind- Mindmapping.
WriteRoom for Google Docs- Distraction Free Writing

How Deep Does your Blog Content Go?

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

*****************************************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Week of 12/07/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:58:25 -0600

Week of 12/07/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Personalized emails, Website for sales agents boost response: 5 Strategies to Lift CTR 23%

An article from Marketing Sherpa that discusses how a cruise agency integrates their email marketing and website offerings to consumers to create a winning proposition for their sales agents. There are noticeable similarities between this cruise agency's marketing campaign and a real estate franchise/company's marketing campaign and a few noticeable improvements that could be integrated into a real estate company/franchise's marketing campaign.

The article reviews the cruise agency's 5 step strategy,

Customize website on the fly
Send customized emails from sales agents
Automatically route leads to sales agents
Use internal emails to notify agents of leads actions
Send automated follow-up email to solicit trip reviews

This article is well worth the read. I found items #4 and 5 of particular interest. Reviews are particularly important to future prospects and customers and to tweaking and fine tuning your sales and service process.

Aardvark

I learned about this tool from ReadWriteWeb's Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2009. It's free and simple. Sign up, connect with your social circle via Facebook

Connect, and choose which topics you are willing to answer questions about. This tool will find people to route your question to and you receive any answers directly in your inbox. According to ReadWriteWeb's blog post the website has a 85% response rate.

I signed up this morning. Answered one question and asked a question to which I received two answers to in 3-5 minutes.

Think about social search here and this tool makes absolute sense by using the power of your extended network to gather information that you want/need to know.

Even better, here is the opportunity to answer questions you have knowledge and expertise in from those who are seeking it proactively.

Exclusive: Writing Better Copy for the Web 2.0 Landscape

An article from Bryan Eisenberg of Website Magazine with good copy writing tips for writing online. A few of these tips include,

Kill the jargon,fluff and hype.
Speak to customers in an authentic, human voice.
Format your copy for reading online.
Create multiple versions of headlines and sub headlines to find the ones that work the best.
Be as short as possible.
Be relevant.
Be credible.

It's important when you are writing a blog post or website copy to adopt a different style than a magazine or hard copy marketing collateral so your readership and usability remain intact and viable.

SCORE.org's "Create An Online Presence"

A valuable online workshop sponsored and presented by CoCentric for Score.org. Register online and gain free access to this on demand video about having a website built. This is a great video to watch before having a website built or even if you are considering revamping your old website. It lends tips that include what to budget for when having a website built that include,

What is the cost of the design?
What is the cost of the hosting per year?
What is the cost of the domain name per year?
What will it cost for maintenance and updates per year?

These are just a few of the checklist of considerations this video breaks down for solopreuners and business owners who want a solid online offering.

Landing Page Optimization Silver Bullets

A blog post from Tim Nash on Web Marketing Today about how to optimize landing pages. Each set of

tips is broken into three categories,

Less is More
Personalize It
Test the Offer

I really liked this tip under test the offer, "Repetition of the call-to-action in multiple screen locations and formats".

In fact, I think these categories- Less, Personal, Test, could be applied to many types of actions in online marketing when you break it down simply.

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

68 Forums for Real Estate Agents to Connect with Consumers

Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:51:05 -0600

Scouring the Internet I have chosen 70 Forums and discussion groups that have had active participation within the past thirty days and have a real estate theme or topic of local information and are geared toward interactivity with consumer rather than real estate professionals only.

Using these websites a real estate agent can,

Get involved directly in discussions.
Observe and gather topics of consumer interest to blog about.
Find topics of consumer interest for guest blogger post topics.
Use to build a successful marketing campaign (See the last item on this post for more information on how to).
Combine with Question and Answer Websites for a powerful online internet real estate prospecting plan= Free Lead Generation.

Pick and choose forums and dicussions based on your niche, area(s) of expertise, and locality.

Here are 68 Forums for Real Estate Agents to Connect with Consumers

Buying/Selling Real Estate- General Forums

Bigger Pockets- Selling Real Estate
Bigger Pockets-Buying Real Estate
City-Data.com- Real Estate
HGTV.com-Buying and Selling Homes
HGTV.com-RealEstate
HGTV.com-Get It Sold
IQRealEstate.com-Ask an Expert
RealEstateForum.com-Ask a Realtor
Redfin- Buying Your Home
Redfin- Selling Your Home
Thefinanceforums.com- Real Estate
Topix.com-Real Estate
Zillow.com Discussion- Housing Markets
Zillow.com Discussion- HomeBuying
Zillow.com Discussion- HomeSelling

Financing Forums

Bigger Pockets- Creative Real Estate Financing
Bigger Pockets- Bankruptcy
Bigger Pockets- Housing Bubble, Credit Crunch, Subprime Meltdown and Real Estate Market
Loansafe.org-Loan safe lounge
Loansafe.org-Foreclosure Process
Loansafe.org-Loan Modification
Loansafe.org-Foreclosure Laws
Loansafe.org-Refinance
Loansafe.org- FHA Loan Requirements and Rates
Redfin- Mortgages
REIClub.com-Financing, Hard Money Lenders, Credit, Qualifying
REIClub.com- Commercial,Mobile Homes, Self Storage, Notes, Land Forum
Zillow.com Discussion- Mortgage

Foreclosure and REOs Forums

All-Foreclosure.com-Foreclosure Discussion
Bigger Pockets- Get Forclosure Help. Help Stop Foreclosure Forum
Bigger Pockets- REOs
Bigger Pockets- General Foreclosure and Pre-Foreclosure
ForeclosureUniversity.com-Foreclosure Forum
IQRealEstate.com-REO/Foreclosures
REI Club.com- Foreclosures,Short Sales,Tax Forelcosures,Tax Liens Forum

Home Ownership Forums

Loansafe.org- Homeowner Party. Homeowner's Unite to Fight Back
Zillow.com Discussion- Home Ownership
Zillow.com Discussion- Home Improvement

Location Based Forums

Bigger Pockets-Canadian Real Estate Forums
Redfin- Bay Area
Redfin- Boston
Redfin- Chicago
Redfin- Inland Empire
Redfin- Los Angeles
Redfin- New York
Redfin- Orange County
Redfin- Sacramento
Redfin- San Diego
Redfin- Seattle
Redfin- Washington D.C. Baltimore
Wired New York- Questions and Answers About NYC
WiredNewYork-Moving to New York
WiredNewYork-New York City Guide for New Yorkers
WiredNewYork-Events, Groups, and Meetups
WiredNewYork-New YorK Metro
WiredNewYork-New York Real Estate
WiredNework-Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx and SI Real Estate
Zillow.com Discussion- Local Topics

Niche Real Estate Market Forums

Bigger Pockets- Real Estate Deal Analysis and Advice
Bigger Pockets- Land and Farm Investing Forum
Bigger Pockets- Trailers and Mobile Home Investing
Bigger Pockets-HUD, VA's, and Tax Sales
Bigger Pockets- Short Sales
Bigger Pockets- Pre-Construction and New Home Construction
Bigger Pockets-Rehabbing and Flipping Forum
Bigger Pockets- Foreigners Buying in the USA
EscapeHomes.com- General Second Home Owner Forum
REI Club.com- Bird Dogs, Wholesaling, Flipping Properties Forum
REIClub.com- Sub2, Lease Options
REIClub.com- Rehabbing, Landlording

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

****************************************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

*****************************************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

A Real Estate Blogging Tool Kit from Real Skillz

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:24:38 -0600

The Journey of Blogging

I am entering my third year of blogging professionally and have enjoyed my journey immensely. When I started blogging I wrote to real estate consumers. After I started that I began to write to real estate professionals through my blog here on ActiveRain.

Both of my blogging efforts (B2B and B2C) required consistency, dedication, and a desire to learn what my blog readers wanted to know and how I could best provide and convey that information to them. My progression on my professional blogging journey has provided me with many lessons from my blog readers that I have been able to develop into effective writing strategies. I want to emphasize that this effort and these lessons did not come overnight.

The biggest lesson I learned was to listen to my blog readers. Most of what I have learned has been as a result of listening to what my readers were looking for, what they resonated with, and what they did not. Listening has been the greatest tool for my blogging efforts. When I blogged to real estate consumers, using tools like analytics when comments weren't as frequent helped me to understand what real estate consumers wanted to read and know.

Today I want to share with my blog readers the lessons I have learned in a cohesive fashion. One of my difficulties with blogging was trying to gather all the great information I was reading and learning in one lesson book. It always seemed to be scattered and no matter how great it was, sometimes difficult for a novice blogger to piece together.

Here is a Real Estate Blogging Tool Kit from Real Skillz for you to enjoy, use, and share

Choose the theme of your blog

Choosing the theme of your blog is critical to your blog's success. About 8 months ago I revisited my blog on Active Rain and realized that my blog posts lacked a consistency in theme. When I dug in and further analyzed my blog I realized I was writing more inspirational posts than marketing posts.

While I want my blog to be a healthy balance reflective of my personality,beliefs, and business abilities, my lack of consistent marketing posts was underscoring my skills and diminishing my business opportunities. I am glad I was able to catch this in my analysis and turn my blogging efforts around.

If I were given a do over, I would have spent the time to carefully consider the theme of my blog, from header, to description, sidebar to content and start off on better footing. Instead I did this by going through a remodel halfway through my blogging efforts and the remodel has paid off. I have increased my page views, PageRank, and readership by at least 25% and that figure increases monthly.

I have also increased my business (my end goal) by remodeling and sticking to my blog theme.

Here's a thorough exercise to create a new blog theme or remodel your old blog's theme.

A Roadmap Blogging Real Estate Professionals 23-Oct-2009

Gain Readership and Visibility for Your Blog

You can write great content and stick to your blog theme, but if no one visits and reads your efforts are wasted. Create relationships by reading and commenting on other blogs, both inside of your social networks and by seeking out and reading local blogs in your market area. Reading and commenting strengthens your blogging efforts. It makes you visible to the blogosphere and the internet community at large.

Another recommended strategy is to submit your blog to blog directories. This takes time to do but it does have its rewards. Make sure to syndicate your blog to your social networks and include a link to your blog in your email signature.

Keep your Content Consistent with your Blog's Theme

If you took the time to remodel your theme or create your theme you might still run into a trap from time to time of keeping your content consistent. One such pitfall is the inevitable blogger's block. Here are 5 ways to work yourself into blogging mood. Another pitfall is when you find yourself blogging about everything and anything other than what your target blog audience (this will differ based upon your blog's purpose, goals and of course theme) may care to read or know. If the goal of your blog is to inform and make connections with real estate consumers here are there detailed steps for consistent real estate blogging.

Use Your Blog as a Tool for your other Real Estate Marketing Efforts
Embrace a content centric marketing strategy. Google loves content, people love content, and content can be the maestro of all of your other marketing efforts if you work on synchronizing your blog. You'll find the notes of your posts will create a perfect harmony for your other real estate marketing efforts.

Redistribute your content by splicing and re-mixing it in simple and creative ways. Here's three ways to re-purpose your content.

Use your blog's body of work to make connections and create business opportunities offline. Your blog strategy can be integrated into an offline marketing campaign. Here's how you can do it.

Remember that to blog is to tell your Never Ending Story
Until you stop blogging altogether, blogging is your neverending story. It takes an effort and willingness to create fresh content that your blog readers want to read. As you learn more about blogging or there become new ways to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or new places to promote your blog you will need to dig back into the guts of your work and make renovations. I have been pruning my blog for the past three months in an effort to increase my effectiveness and reach my blog goal.

Following these 5 simple steps I have seen an increase in my blog grade by 18%. The great part is that I am not even done with this exercise so I know the effectiveness will only increase. The one bit I would add to these steps is to test your blog's speed. Speed will be an important component when Google Caffeine is launched after the holidays and is just a good common sense measure for increasing usability.

Enjoy your Real Estate Blogging Toolkit from Real Skillz

I hope you enjoy this real estate blogging toolkit. I have tried to cover the topics I feel of importance to real estate professionals who blog and if you read through you will find instructions on theme, content creation, consistency, commenting, visibility, seo, listening, storytelling, competitive analysis, analytics, and creating an integrated marketing strategy.

If I'm missing something you expected to see, please don't keep it a secret. I'm listening. Tell me by commenting.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

Week of 11/30/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:36:21 -0600

Week of 11/30/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

2009 Online Holiday Shopping Trends: Interview with ComScore's Andrew Lipsman

Similar to the growth of online consumers shopping for real estate, business for online retail has increased. Online retailers have helped to keep revenue for from falling further in the negative as there has been a "20% growth rate in new buyers to the channel."

What I found extremely interesting in this article was this comment, "...Amazon is...becoming [consumers] first search engine when they know they're in the purchase funnel."

If you think about search this is fascinating. Now we have people using all these different forms of search- Twitter for real time and Amazon as a "niche" shopping search engine or purchasing decision engine. It really makes you think about marketing and how people are finding brands to purchase from and emphasizes that search goes beyond Google.

Good real estate marketing should move beyond Google.

The 7 Laws for Buying B2B

A timely blog post from Geoffrey James of BNet that recites 7 buying rules he shares from a

a professional buyer. I especially agree with the following two laws,

LAW #2. DON’T hire a vendor just because they’ve helped you in the past.

LAW #3. DON’T hire a vendor just because you’re impressed by their CEO.

As you create/finish your real estate marketing budget for 2010 here are six tips to keep your business finances lean and mean.

Research Shows How Much We Love A Blame Storm

A blog post from DirkTheCow on the Social Media Today Network about the "blame game"

bandwagon and how to circumvent this behavior. A few worthy tips to take away include:

Learning from your mistakes- "embrace failures and mistakes as something to move on from"
Positive affirmation- "people who affirmed their ’self-worth’, were less likely to point fingers."

Keeping the end goal in sight instead of ripping into another professionals' goals and efforts will only help you reach your goal more easily and maintain a level of integrity. Biting your tongue and walking away with your fingers off your keyboard helps too.

I know. I practice it regularly.

Stockpiling Blog Articles Gets You Ahead of the Game

A blog post from Kirsten Nicole of Blogging Tips blog on creating a system to archive and store content

as a book of inspiration to help keep the flow of blogging fresh content. The post makes some easy

to follow points to help keep bloggers block at bay, but I would have liked it anyway for the beginning

description of a blogger,

"Publishing this text in a blog gives you a sense of accomplishment. And having a permanence of legacy gives you a taste of eternity".

In my seminars I say something similar, "When you blog you now have a brand that is archived on the Internet and will remain part of your legacy" and even professionals who don't blog yet get that.

I often see their heads nodding up and down as they take notes.

The way that Nicole says it gives it a more poetic justice. Well said.

Build Brand Through Online Forums: Giveaway offer Receives 83%

A blog post about a tire manufacturer that created a marketing campaign centering around online

forums that resulted in a 83% CTR (Click-Thru-Rate) and an increase in sales. The article outlines and

details the following six steps of the campaign,

Create a high quality freebie

Build landing pages to accept requests

Identify appropriate forums

Write customized post content

Post content to forums

Important take away- Get involved where consumers are active. Question and Answer websites and forum are fertile ground for marketing campaigns and new business.

How to use Diigo to Organize your ActiveRain Blog Bookmarks

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:16:34 -0600

ActiveRain has a great feature called blog bookmarks where you can bookmark a post on the ActiveRain platform and return to it later to read. Bookmarking is a wonderful tool, but unless you have something in place to help you to come back to that bookmark the chances are that post that you thought had so much useful information will sit and collect dust.

There is a solution and it's called Diigo.

Here's how to use Diigo to Organize your ActiveRain Blog Bookmarks.

1. Download the Diigo Toolbar

The toolbar will be installed on your Firefox Browser and give you easy one click options.

2. Log into ActiveRain and go to your blog bookmarks page

Once you are in your blog bookmarks, right click your mouse and choose "open link in new tab".

Now you can go to the blog post, read it, highlight it and add sticky notes/annotate the post before you save it to your Diigo account.

3. Save your notes in your Diigo account.

Once you are done annnotating the post you can save your annotations and highlights by using the one click save option in Diigo, tagging the post, and then hitting saved. Your annotated bookmark can be public for the Diigo community or you can mark your notes as private.

You will be able to create a library inside Diigo of your saved links, annotations and notes for your use and reference. You can also invite people to view your notes or create a group inside of Diigo to share within the community itself.

If you are not ready to read the article/blog post you are on you can save it and mark it as read in your Diigo library. You can also upload other documents on the web, like PDF's.

4. Use the other options to help your content creation on the web

Diigo allows you to take snapshots of the pages you are bookmarking, you can twitter your annotated pages, and you can even blog articles or blog posts you have read and saved as bookmarks.

Diigo currently supports WordPress Blog, Blogger Blog, LiveJournal Blog, Typepad Blog, Movable Type Blog, Windows Live Space, Drupal Blog.

Before you reach for your blog bookmark button after you have read a post that you know you want to visit again, consider using the Diigo bookmarking tool. This way you can highlight, annotate, save, send, share, collaborate, create reports, or even a slideshow all from one FREE simple platform that is accessible from any computer and now even from your IPhone.

I have included a video that shows the ease and power of Diigo.

Diigo V4: Research ~ annotate, archive, organize from diigobuzz on Vimeo.

I hope that after you read this post you make it simpler on yourself and download Diigo.

UPDATE: If you are a staunch IE user and are not into Firefox, you can download a similar tool, WebNotes.net. The Personal version is FREE. I use both Webnotes and Diigo and like both.

You may find Webnotes to have less of a learning curve.

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******************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Week of 11/23/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 11:52:36 -0600

Week of 11/23/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Troubling Rise of Facebook's Top Gaming Company

If you're on Facebook you are most likely familiar with Farmville, a popular social networking game on the Facebook platform. What you may not have known is the ways that Farmville is able to make revenue. This article really makes you think about the "phenomenon of free". Eventually free has to cost someone something. Is it better to have free hidden behind the curtains or unveil free upfront and pay for value in exchange?

If you enjoyed this article, I would ask that you visit an older post that I wrote on the topic of free, "The Internet, Welfare and the Age of Entitlement" and share your thoughts on the subject of free.

Measuring Engagement of the Social Web: '07-'09

Ilya Grigorik blogs about Postrank's analysis of the engagement of blog readers on the worldwide web. The study's findings include statistics that find conversations about content happening "off property" on popular social sharing communities and networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Digg. The popularity of social sharing allows a blogger's content to have a more substantial shelf life than back in '07.

It is clear that a blogger should syndicate and leverage the communities that exist online in order to gain traffic and readership. When you syndicate your blog's content it's important to make an effort to become actively involved in the conversation that ensues.

Postrank has a great slideshare presentation that summarizes the study's findings and that I have included here.

Measuring Engagement of the Social Web: 2007-2009

View more presentations from Ilya Grigorik.

Anxiety Index Quartertly: The Best Brand Responses to the Recession

JWT Anxiety Index "Brand Answers for an Anxious World" reports the findings of a year long survey on consumer responses to various brands' marketing campaigns during the recession. Fill out a simple form and you will have access to their third Anxiety Index Quarterly Report that lists the top 10 brand findings with explanations on why the brands they've chosen are remarkable in their actions, offerings, and response via marketing during the recession.

One company mentioned is AMEX and the popularity of their social network,OpenForum and their Shine A Light competition aimed to help small business owners.

This is a great read and well worth the few minutes you will spend filling out the form to gain access to the study. It might spark some inspiring thoughts on how you can generate responsible and thoughtful marketing campaigns and online offerings for your real estate business during tough economic times.
- The Most Useful Marketing Posts About Facebook November 2009
A really impressive list of blog posts about Facebook gathered from Who's Blogging What. If you are marketing your services on Facebook this is a must read. Who's Blogging What has gathered posts on topics covering enhancements to your Facebook Fan Page, drawing a community to your Facebook Fan Page, and how to configure your Facebook Fan Page among many others.

While there are standard resources in the list like Mashable, All About Facebook, and DuctTape Marketing, I found a few new resources to bookmark and add to my RSS Reader.
- What Small Business Website Owners Need to Know About Page Speed
A great post from SearchEngineWatch.com's Carrie Hill on Google's new upcoming Ranking Factor.

Hill discusses her findings after using Google's Speed Checking tool. She emphasizes the and the importance of having a webmaster tweak and test your website and make the necessary adjustments for speedy website surfing.

Testing and improving your site for speed is an important "to do" before the holidays are over.

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter provided by Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant. If you like what your reading follow Blogging In The Rain on Facebook.

35 Places to List your Real Estate Business Online for Local Search

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:15:15 -0600

35 Places to List your Real Estate Business Online for Local Search

BestofCitySearch- Nominate and vote for local businesses. Free
BestoftheWeb Local- Business Listing allows contact information, hours of operation, consumer reviews, about us. Free
CitySearch- Directory of local services. Can create ads and set a budget. Citysearch has a Mobile App for IPhone, a mobile app forBlackberry, and Palm Pre.- PAID Set a Budget.
CitySquares.com- List your Business profile. Free
Dex Knows- Local Search Listing- Paid
DiscoverourTown- Lists local businesses and city facts. Free
elocallisting-Optimized local business search marketing campaigns- Paid subscription fees. Need to register for information.
GenieKnows- Business Directory. Free
Geofollow-Location based twitter directory. Free
GetFave.com- Register your business listing, add maps, video, content. Free
Google Local Business Center- List your business on Google maps and add photos and video- Free
Hotfrog- U.S. Online Business Directory. Free
iBegin.com- Business listings for Canada and the U.S.; Geocoding.- Free
Insider Pages- Register your business listing. Free
Kudzu- Basic profile listing is free includes all contact information, link to website, hours of operation, and can respond to reviews.
Judy's Book- Contact to be part of Beta Group under Partners.
JustRealEstate.org- Contact for a business lising. Paid
Local.com- Local Directory of Businesses.-Free
Local Tweeps- Zipcode Level Twitter Directory. Free
Matchpoint.com- Submit your business listing and respond to RFP's. Receive Leads with Call Tracking and Management.-Free
Merchant Circle- List your business, add a blog, description, create coupons, network with local businesses, answer questions from consumers. Free
Metrobot- Submit a business listing. Free
Mojopages- Business listings for free with notification of user reviews and can also invite customers to review. Free
SeekOn- Submit site for a business listing. Free
Switchboard.com- Powered by Superpages.com. Business listings. Free
Topix- Single city business listings are free. Free
Trulia- Real Estate Listing Directory- List your real estate business, services, listings, local profile. Trulia pro accounts $19-$79/month
Twellowhood- Local Twitter Directory. Free
Tyloon- Business Listings for Free. Free
YellowBot- Local Search Site with user reviews. Free
Weblocal.ca- Canadian local search site with user reviews and video upload. $199 signup fee and $89monthly fee
Yelp- Reputation Management by user reviews. List your business. Recommend other local businesses. Free
Zillow- Register your local business. Free
ZoomInfo- Create your business profile and have people find you for new business opportunities. You can also register here to be notified when you can list your company...an upcoming ZoomInfo feature. Free

If you enjoyed this post then check out,

An Offering for Your Real Estate Marketing Toolkit: 45 Blog Directories

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****************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

5 Real Estate Take-Aways from PubCon Vegas 2009- Matt Cutts on "What Has Google Done for Users Lately?"

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:21:10 -0600

5 Real Estate Take-Aways from PubCon Vegas 2009- Matt Cutts on "What Has Google Done for Users Lately?"

One of the best sessions I attended at PubCon 2009 Las Vegas was Search Engines and Webmasters-The Smackdown. It was a session featuring Matt Cutts of Google and Nathan Buggia of Bing discussing their views of search and their companies unique offerings in the search space. I was very interested in Buggia's confirmation that Bing is committed to capturing 51% of the search space and the reaction from SEO professionals in the room which seemed happy for the competition.

My main takeaways from the session were from Cutt's presentation on "What Has Google Done For Users Lately?" as it is the search engine that currently has 66.1% share of searches in the U.S.

Matt Cutts ran down a list of at least 10-12 Google offerings, but I am going to pare it down to those tools I believe most pertinent to individual real estate professionals and real estate companies.

Here are my 5 real estate take-aways from Pubcon Vegas 2009- Matt Cutts on What Has Google Done for you Lately?

1. Google Chrome- This is Google's browser offering. I have it installed on my desktop and though I still prefer Firefox, I like Chrome when speed is a necessity.

I use Google Chrome when I need to search through several websites.

2. Google Wave- A new way to collaborate and make better sense of the increasing inefficiency of email by communicating in real time. I am just jumping into Wave now, but Cheryl Johnson has been posting on Wave and is great at giving clear, easy to follow tech tutorials.

3. Google Social Search-Taps into the power of your network to keep track of what they are doing, researching, reading, and posting online. One really cool bonus is if you do opt to try social search you can search by your name or business to find information on the last time Google Indexed your stuff. Cutts recommended this over the popular search using "site:____". I logged into social search and found it be very useful for just this feature alone. If you do not want people to see what websites you have searched at any moment you can log out.

4. Google Speed Test- Please take note this one is important. The update for Google's Algorithms, Caffeine, will be coming after the Holidays. Cutts said in the session at PubCon that the speed of your website might be an important factor in this update (hint,hint) because search users care about speed. Of the 200 factors that Google uses to index and rank for SERP (Search Engine Results Pages) Speed isn't currently a factor. You can test your website's speed with Google's Speed Test.

Don't forget to test the speed of your blog too.

5. Google Dashboard- I'm gonna wrap with this one. When Cutts asked the question "How many people feel concerned about all of the information Google has on them?" a good 50% of the audience's hands went up including mine along with a laugh at the results and the question.

Here is one example. If you've ever used Gmail you will notice that the ads that show up on the right hand side have to do directly with the content in the body of your emails. If you want to know what information Google has been collecting on you Google has created a dashboard. It was more than interesting to see this information and I will be checking out my dashboard weekly now.

As a side note, Chris Olsen's post, "Google Godzilla-Sized Eyeballs Will Soon be 360x360x360" discusses the increasing allure and possible bait of the worldwide web with its leader Google. It's a good read and topic for discussion.

The release of your information on the Internet should at some point give you pause for thought.

Here is a copy of Matt Cutts full presentation from PubCon Vegas 2009.

If you enjoyed this post then check out another PubCon Lesson,

Lessons from PubCon Vegas 2009: It's Time to Think About Local Search and How You Can Make an Impact Online

Subscribe to BloggingInTheRain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Week of 11/16/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:07:42 -0600

Week of 11/16/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Create and Manage a Team-Authored Blog: 8 Steps to Reap SEO Gains

Subscribe to a free trial to Marketing SHERPA to read this article with great tips on how to create and manage a team authored blog. Team authored blogs make sense for real estate professionals who have time constraints and who want to add a level of depth to their content by adding the written works of ancillary service providers. A team authored blog also provides an opportunity to network with local businesses and offer them the opportunity to contribute local information to your blog.

The article discusses creating an editorial calendar, keyword lists, creating a goal for your blog, and how to set deadlines for blog posts.

13 Ways to Network Beyond Facebook and Linked In

A blog post on Connectodex on OpenForum about taking your social media marketing beyond two of the biggest social networks. Jantsch emphasizes the importance of using social networks that have strong connections and interaction to your advantage. There are five networks listed for small businesses that I believe would be especially valuable to real estate professionals.

Biznik-Online and offline social networking for small businesses.
IncBizNet- Real Estate Broker/Owners for Privately Held Companies can apply for membership to IncBizNet where they can publish blog posts, create free online press releases, write an online business profile, and apply for the Inc 500/5000 fastest growing private companies list.
Sta.rtup.biz- Networking for startup businesses.
BizSugar- A social website to share small business news, tips, videos and strategies.
Entrepreuner Connect- A social site for entrepreneurs to connect and network.

5 Reasons to Use the New Twitter Lists

A blog post from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing that discusses Twitter Lists. I use a desktop application-Hootsuite- to organize my Twitter handles, streams, and searches, but Jantsch five reasons convinced me of why I should still use lists,

Monitor without following.

One button list follow.

Promote your lists.

Filtered by an expert.

Build a bigger following.

I recommend reading this post in its entirety. It's a quick and easy read and gets to the point of list building with Twitter

The 50 Best Innovations of 2009

Two of these innovations caught my eye on Time Magazine's 50 Best Innovations of 2009 that were in the Web 2.0/Social Media Space

Thru You- Described as "Footage taken on YouTube by amateur musicians and mixed together." Take a listen to Thru You on YouTube It's clear that collaboration, passion, and mashups are valued across industries online.
Tweeting with a Purpose- A project pioneered by University of Wisconsin doctoral student Adam Wilson and adviser Justin Williams in whichWilson tweets by thinking via a cap outfitted with electrodes monitoring changes in his brain activity. For what purpose? Research for those with locked in syndrome- which "which paralyzes the body, except for the eyes, but leaves the mind alert". Slow going now at 8 characters vs. the 140 characters twitter allows but can you imagine with further research if Twitter ends up being a vocal outlet for those with Locked-In Syndrome? Now that's tweeting with a purpose.

Exploring Loyalty Programs and Their Many Benefits

An article by Mike Phillips on Website Magazine about creating loyalty programs. Phillips uses 93XRT Radio Station in Chicago (a radio station I grew up on in High School) as an example of how to create brand loyalty programs and keep visitors on your website through a members only portal. He emphasizes the two key elements of focusing on the user and focusing on the brand as critical in creating a successful loyalty program.

Think about the concept of SOI and referral business and a loyalty program will make sense for your real estate business. Phillips keeps reality in check by emphasizing that loyalty programs are not set and forget marketing strategies. Loyalty programs require maintenance and promotion. 93XRT currently has 12,000 plus Facebook Fans and over 3300 twitter followers.

93XRT Members Only Registration here.

93XRT Facebook Fan Page here.

93XRT Twitter Account here.

Reading this article and touring the links of XRT's digital footprint can't help but make you think about your website offering and digital footprint for past clients who can refer business to you.

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter provided by Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant. If you like what your reading come join my business page on FaceBook.

Subscribe to Blogging In the Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you enjoyed this post please check out more freebie online reads and real estate resources,

Week of 11/09/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks-Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Week of 11/03/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Week of 10/26/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies- Issue II

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

How to Use the Power of Social Media and Local Businesses to Fuel a Local Charitable Online Marketing Campaign

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:17:54 -0600

How to Use the Power of Social Media and Local Businesses to Fuel a Local Charitable Online Marketing Campaign

It's the time to pay thanks and what better way for real estate professionals to become actively involved in their communities than to put the power of social media marketing to a charitable use online? Today I am going to use the GiveNGoble Campaign to illustrate how you can use the power of social media and your local business connections to power a local charitable online marketing campaign.

The Give'n'Gobble Campaign is Sherwood Oregon's annual 5Krun/walk and 10K run on Thanksgiving. The money and food raised during the run/walk goes to Helping Hands, a local food bank associated with the Oregon Food Bank. This year they have turned to social media to fuel their donations and WOM(Word of Mouth Marketing) and it has served the campaign well.

Here is what they did that you can emmulate to drive a local charitable online marketing campaign,

1. Bought a domain and drove traffic to a designated website for the charity

The website gives all the necessary information about the charity as well as an eye catching left hand side bar with 10 reasons why to participate and photos of the past year's events. It also includes a sponsor list, a map(would've been nice to see a Google Map also), a lists of sponsors (which are logos that link back to the sponsors websites) a form for volunteers, and a press release section.

I would buy a designated domain. Domains are pretty cheap to buy these days because domain dealers are currently holding an excessive inventory. I might even go with a .org instead of a .com. domain. If you are lacking time and resources to host and create a website, I would contact a local website provider and ask for a donation.

2. Used a flickr account to display photos

Consumers like visuals and do image search daily. Adding a flickr account for your charitable online marketing campaign just makes sense. Make sure to tag photos well and mark your distribution rights accordingly. Here are 14 other image search engines to consider for your campaign.

3. Created a Facebook Fan Page to drive online awareness and donations

Some of the most effective advertising through Facebook Fan Pages has been as a result of viral quizzes, contests,giveaways and strategic campaigns. A Facebook Fan Page should be part of any online charitable marketing campaign. It should include updates on campaign activities and behind the scenes action shared through notes. It can include polls on the wall about topics surrounding the campaign. I would include stats on how the contribution will directly help the charity from past experience if you have those stats or in general if you do not.

Tap into the viral marketing power of Facebook by reminding visitors to share the page with a friend. Add the Facebook FanBox to the dedicated website for the charity.

4. Twittering with a Charitable Purpose

Micro blogging the charitable event before, during and after makes sense. Create a separate Twitter handle and list it in local twitter directories like Twellow. Geofollow, and localtweeps. Think about how contributions will serve the goal of the charity and that is how you want to craft your message on your Twitter Page to create an empowering call to action.

The GiveNGobble Twitter Page makes a smart call to action by directing visitors to its Facebook Fan Page.

5. Blog the charitable event before, during, and after it is over

Blog your charitable event before, during, and after it's over. The blog should be built into the designated website to increase search engine rankings for your targeted keywords. Include links to the blog in blog directories and pertinent web pages.

Invite guest bloggers who are either sponsors, volunteers or participants of the event.

Here's a few things I would add to the online marketing campaign mix

Radio-If you have an Internet radio show include 3 spots for the event- Before to build awareness, the day of to kick start the even, and after to discuss the results.
Video-Launch a YouTube channel for the event OR include videos of the event on your YouTube Channel.
Generational Marketing-Advertise the event through online resources where you can get volunteers like college websites.
Document Sharing- Include any marketing brochures or applications on document sharing websites likeDocStoc andScribd.
Business Branding-Give your real estate business some credit by including a link on the charitable website/blog to your website or at the very least a business citation. You will get some natural business branding by writing a press release and in return getting mentions in local and possibly national news.
Savvy Linking- Create buttons for sponsor, volunteers, contributors, to put on their website that will link back to the charitable website.

Don't forget that a key to success of this type of campaign will be to partner up with local businesses. Pop by in person or call them on the phone to get their assistance and their support.

It might be a bit late to ramp up a charitable online marketing plan like this in time for Thanksgiving, but Christmas is still a month away and there are charities all year round. You don't have to wait for a holiday to get buzz going and give thanks by helping others.

You can use the power of social media and local businesses to fuel a local charitable online marketing campaign anytime.

Subscribe to BloggingInTheRain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Lessons from PubCon Vegas 2009: It's Time to Think About Local Search and How You Can Make an Impact Online

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:34:35 -0600

One of my favorite sessions at PubCon Vegas 2009 was the Local Search and Mobile Optimization session. I have been following local search for the past five years from a marketing angle. Quite awhile ago I realized that the SEM field would have to address the needs of consumers. Consumers want to research and have a need to find local vendors online.

The local online space is fascinating because it's a space where the national players can be beat. Here's a few tips to getting it done in the local search space courtesy of Pubcon Vegas 2009,

Local business professionals can use national platforms to promote their brands, products, businesses, services and interact with consumers by leveraging their online business profiles,optimizing them, and getting links. Do you have profiles on MerchantCircle, CitySearch,Local.com,TrueLocal,Yellowbot,Yelp,hotfrog.com,, Trulia,your city directory or BBB?

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can create websites with local content and gain enviable SERP (Search Engine Results Page) rank. Do you have a website with content preferably fed from a blog built into your website?

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can build relationships offline with consumers and local businesses. They can reach out and advertise to them locally in traditional offline venues like local newspapers and local radio spots. They can extend to them an opportunity to guest blog or interview them. They can work on a local link campaign to get their website links on local business websites.

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can analyzeand track their referral sources from their website statistics, call ins, and walk-ins. In person or on the phone front office staff should be asking name, number, and source of referral. If online ask where and what keyword they searched to find you. This keyword research, whether online or offline is critical to local search success.

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can register all of their street addresses on Google, Yahoo, and Bing. On their business profiles local business professionals should be as robust as possible by including coupons, pictures, hours of operation and video which Google ranks well on Google local. It's important to offer as much content as possible on these business profiles because consumers may not want to go to the link out to the business professional's website.

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can search their keywords on theirand to their mobile phones locally and see who is coming up, take notes, and then take measures to make sure their businesses show up for those keywords.

A good time to do that is now.

Local business professionals can seek reviews from customers who they believe would complete reviews. Local businesses can also get Citations-a mention of their business name and address- on a website even if it isn't a link. Citations help boost local rankings.

A good time to do that is now.

Local search is exciting. It's a way for local businesses to win if they do the work. I just listed 7 items as your checklist. I must mention that two of the speakers on the local search panel were business professionals in service based industries- one was a chiropractor- they are getting business locally and have local marketing plans in place.

As Google increasingly adopts to user behavior and SERP is based on user behavior AND location isn't it time to consider your local search strategy?

It's Time to Think About Local Search and How You Can Make An Impact Online.

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If you enjoyed this post here are some more ways to win the local search space,

Week of 11/09/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:43:08 -0600

Week of 11/09/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Fr.ee- A website where you can search for free things online

Key in your search query and this website will produce results for your free stuff. You can also sign up for an account and this website will allow you to suggest websites that provide free stuff. Pretty simple, pretty cool, and a pretty good opportunity for savvy real estate professionals who provide free data to consumers to share this online on a website where consumers are searching for freebies.

Why Slideshare Is An Uber Cool Way To Reach Out To Your Customers

A blog post from Neil Sequira of buzz factory that provides four easy to understand reasons why adding a slideshare presentation helps to increase the value of your online content . This method should be added to your real estate marketing mix.

They are on-demand viewing

They are very sharable

They show up well in search results

They are engaging & educational

Important to note that slideshare also is a way to mix up your content and provide visual learners with the information they are seeking via the method they are seeking to learn it.

Facebook Announces Roadmap for Developers

Read Write Web's Jolie O'Dell' blog post on Facebook's publication of a developer roadmap takes the guesswork out of seeing what direction Facebook is moving in and how to use Facebook for your business in the future.

Facebook is an extremely important part of an effective social media marketing strategy. The developer's roadmap should leave you with a good sense of what your next marketing move on Facebook should be.

Trulia's E-Newsletter from November 5, 2009

A good template you can use as a guide on how to create better timely content. There are two things that I want to bring your attention to on this newsletter that you can make over for your own newsletters and/or website content:

Question of the week section should be easy to pull from any phone calls or emails you have received.

The section about interest rates makes good space for you to insert a local advertiser. Make sure to add the proper disclaimers. Remember to respect privacy rights.

Make sure to keep an eye on national players in the real estate vertical who are seeking to blow out the local vertical. They are already working hyperlocal avenues and will provide you with fodder for your hyperlocal online marketing plan. Add them to Google Alerts and study and track their latest moves. Then pull out your local expert trump card and go to work.

Your local strategy is increasingly important in your SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and SEM(Search Engine Marketing) maneuvers. Studying national companies who are alredy doing this and realizing you can do it too is crucial.

You can read more about the importance of creating a hyperlocal marketing strategy here and here.

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter provided by Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant. If you like what your reading come join my Business Page on Facebook.

Subscribe to Blogging In the Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you enjoyed this post please check out more freebie online reads and real estate resources,

Week of 11/03/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Week of 10/26/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies- Issue II

***************************************************************************

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

True or False? The Breakdown of Three Online Real Estate Marketing E-Myths

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:56:34 -0600

True or False? The Breakdown of Three Online Real Estate Marketing E-Myths

I decided to pull a Snopes and bust out on the three E-Myths of Online Marketing. These are common concerns I have heard in seminars, one on one consultations, or through the readership of my blog. I hope this will allay some concerns real estate professionals have about online marketing.

1. " If I don't know all the web 2.0 tools I will be left behind and my real estate business will suffer."

False. A tool should be used to help you implement your marketing strategy. A tool should not be used for the sole purpose of "keeping up with the newest gadget". Here are three factors to consider before you use a new tool:

Does the tool save you time?
Can the tool make you money?
Will the tool provide you with insight/information that would have been difficult to obtain without using it?
Does the tool provide you with a way to achieve your goal that you couldn't have reached without using it?

If you answered no to all of these questions, step away before you let the aura of web 2.0 talk make you the tool unwittingly. It is a trap that traverses all industries.

2. "I need to be on all the social networks that are available to me."

True. You should be on all social networks that allow you to create a profile and that have either a heavy consumer concentration or b2b networking opportunities.

Why? Because you should take advantage of the best real estate available right now to marketers and that real estate is online. Would you prefer to have your real estate sign in one cyber yard, or would you prefer to have your real estate sign in the yards of all available real estate across the worldwide web?

If you choose the later option then follow these steps,

Build a stock online business profile.
Copy and paste that profile in Google Docs.
Alter your profile as needed to fit the needs of your online social networks.
Use a tool to check if your handle(user name) is available across social networks. I am an affiliate of Know 'Em because I think it does the job well. You can click on the banner to the right. To check on your user name availability on this website is a free service.
Secure your brand name in the online social networks where it is available.
Remain active in your networks by choosing three to update and have conversations on regularly. Choose to remain active on other networks by syndicating your updates using ping.fm and by feeding your blog posts to your social networks.
Be responsive to conversations by receiving notification of comments and emails within these networks via email and then answering these folks in a timely manner.
Measure which networks your traffic comes from and how your presence on these sites rank on the search engines. I have joined some niche social networks that within 24 hours have brought me page 1 or 2 Google results.
See what social networks are coming up for your keywords and join and become actively involved in them.

There is prime property in cyberspace right now with a pricetag of Free. If this same property existed offline what would you do? Take that same action oriented answer and move it online.

3. "I don't have time to market my services effectively online."

False.You do not have time to get engaged in all of the distractions of the internet. You must make time to get involved in all of the lead generating, branding, and prospecting opportunities that exist online. The best way to do this is to make a plan and then create a time frame for your activities that you can monitor and track.

Don't expect to get results without creating a marketing plan. Measure your marketing plan's effectiveness by analyzing important data which includes time on site, bounce rates, top referrers, and keyword searches.

Measure the conversion of your clicks, call in's, emails and walk-in's that are sourced from your social media marketing efforts.

Be consistent and achieve your marketing goals by,

Testing your marketing actions.
Keeping track of marketing trends.
Delivering on your strategy consistently.
Striving to reach your goals.
Creating new goals that will help you achieve a new level of successful marketing.

Your success in your online marketing will be a result of how you allot and manage your time to perform these marketing goals.

True or False? The breakdown of Three Online Real Estate Marketing E-Myths.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you enjoyed this post about social networking and social media marketing than you'll want to read,

Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

I Am Going to PubCon and Want to Bring Your SEO Questions with Me and Get Answers for You

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:27:48 -0600

I Am Going to PubCon and Want to Bring Your SEO Questions with Me and Get Answers for You

Today it the last day I will be working from my home office for a week. On Monday I depart on a jet plane to Las Vegas where I will be attending PubCon, a conference whose focus is educating participants on Social Media, Affiliate Programs, Search, and SEO/SEM.

Along my journey I will be meeting up with the lovely ladies of Classified Flyer Ads, Misty Lackie and Candice Hidalgo. Classified Flyer Ads is a company I have worked with in the past and a company that I would personally recommend to any real estate professional. My list of recommended real estate vendors is not easy to make and I am happy to include Classified Flyer Ads.

If any of my readers or associates will be attending PubCon I would love to have the opportunity to have some meet and greet time. Just email me and let me know.

If you aren't going to Vegas I would like to present an offer to you. Send me your questions by commenting on this blog post and I will pack them up and take them with me to PubCon and find the answers for you. I will try to get as many answers as possible. All I need are your questions in the comments below.

If you want to spread the word about this open invitation to hunt down and retrieve SEO information, just reblog my post and let your readers know.

What kind of SEO/SEM Topics You Might Have Burning Questions About

To give you an idea of some topics, here are just a few of the sessions I will be taking,

Top-Shelf SEO: Hot Topics and Trends
Local Search and Mobile Optimization
Competitive Intelligence: Know Thy Competitor Well

I would actually like to share my tentative almost 99.9% for sure PubCon Itinerary with you,

Your PubCon Conference Itinerary(2)

Other topics include PPC advertising, affiliate marketing, twitter, landing page optimization, viral marketing and of course SEO/SEM tactics and strategies

I always have a thirst for knowledge and a willingness to share.

I am going to Pubcon and Want to Bring Your SEO Questions with Me and Get Answers for You. It's a daunting task but I am up to the challenge. Spread the word via reblog and send me your questions in the comments below.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

If you enjoyed this post then check out these blog posts written after the BlogWorld Convention 2008,

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate professionals. Real estate marketing services include

Blogging- See my Blogging Tune-Up Website for Details
Social Networking
Niche Marketing
Marketing Strategy
Branding- See my Branding Sanity Website for Details
Offline Marketing
Online Marketing
Special Events Promotion and Marketing
Holiday Marketing
Marketing Campaigns
Email Marketing (Content and Design)
Reputation Management

If you treat real estate as a business then Real Skillz is a desirable real estate marketing solution. Call #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@realestateskillz.com.

How to Cut Your Real Estate Blogging Time In Half and Re-purpose Your Content Three Ways with the Time Saved

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:27:44 -0600

How To Cut Your Real Estate Blogging Time in Half and Re-purpose Your Content Three Ways with the Time Saved

One of the burdens challenges of being a content creator is providing consistently focused content that will be of interest to your readers. If you are blogging 3-5 times per week or more content creation can become difficult for many real estate bloggers. Now if you add in the creation of email marketing campaigns, strategic micro-blogging on Twitter or Posterous, newsletters, and generating additional content for your business peers this challenge can be dizzying.

This is where the value add of web 2.0 tools comes into play.

Problem: Generating valuable content in a timely and consistent manner for multiple platforms and purposes.

Solution: Use Gmail and WebNotes to help you collect, organize, generate, repurpos, and syndicate your content.

Here's How to Cut Your Real Estate Blogging Time In Half and Repurpose Your Content Three Ways with the Saved Time

1. Use Gmail to Collect and Organize Your Research

Add a folder to your Gmail account labeled "Research-Blog". Everytime you receive an email newsletter, a notification of a new blog post, or even a question that you could use from a consumer/prospect as content for your blog move a copy of that email to your "Research Blog" folder. If you don't do this right away, at the very least, star the email so you can move it your "Research-Blog" folder later.

If you find content outside of your email account no worries, just write a quick note by emailing yourself and include a link. I personally do this all the time and find it to be simple, quick, and highly effective. Mark the subject line of the email to yourself "Research-Blog" so you can move it to your labeled folder later. In both Firefox and Internet Explorer there are options that enable you to email links and web pages to yourself.

2. Open an Account at Webnotes and carefully sift through your "Blog-Research" folder

Use Webnotes as your "go to" research tool. It will allow you to highlight and add sticky notes to web pages, blog posts, and pdf's (Pdf's only if you purchase the paid version).
Register for an account with Webnotes. I choose the paid version because I review several pdf's a week, and download the webnotes toolbar.
Go back into your Gmail account once you have downloaded the webnotes toolbar.
Use the time you have allotted to read and research the contents of your Gmail "Research-Blog" Folder.
Open up each webpage that you will use as a resource to create your newsletter and use the Webnotes tool to highlight and annotate the document. You do this by clicking on highlight and sticky notes right from the Webnotes toolbar.

The more thorough you are with your note taking the quicker it will be to create your content. This is where the time savings will really come into play.

3. Generate your Content

Once you are done researching it's time to create your content. Go back inside your Webnotes account. You can get there by clicking "View My Webnotes" on your Webnotes Toolbar.

You will see a results page that looks similar to this,

Webnotes keeps the title and source of all of your notes including a hyperlink to the original source. It also records your highlighted text and your sticky notes.

Open up your blog editor and start blogging your post. If you took copious notes the advantage is three-fold:

You now have a more conversational tone to write your post because you wrote the notes without hesitancy and in your own voice. You will also be able to check spelling, grammer, style, and switch copy around to have more of an active than passive voice.
You have written most of the content that you will need for your post minus a few tweaks and copy and paste actions.
You will be able to easily cite material correctly by giving proper attribute and you will easily be able to include helpful links.

4. Use the extra time you saved to work your SEO

Check for use of keywords frequently and effectively.
Tag your blog post with all appropriate keywords.
Take advantage of additional features (If you are in the ActiveRain platform or another social network) by adding your post to groups and taking the time to add your post to the proper ActiveRain Channel- an often overlooked feature.
Use Header tags properly.
Scan for visibility and make sure your images are aligned, crisp, and help to paint your story as well as marked with ALT tags.
Create a call to action on your blog posts.

5. Re-purpose your blog content in three ways with the additional time

a. Create an embeddable report

In webnotes you have the option of creating a report of your notes in html or pdf format. If you use the pdf format you can upload a copy to scribd or docstoc where people can subscribe to your notes and where they can be indexed on Google. You can also embed the report to Posterous if you have an account there or share it on your Facebook Fan Page or LinkedIn.

Summary Notes Report- Marketing to Women

b. Send a newsletter

Announce your research to your database via email. You may include all of the content or just a few items in a newsletter to your database. There also might be some lefotvers-items when you researched that you did not include in your blog post- that could be perfect for content in your newsletter.

c. Twitter with a real estate marketing purpose

In performing Step #2 if you find a resource/link that could generate a conversation and you have taken the time to annotate and highlight thoughtfully share it with the your Twitter followers. There is a share button in the Webnotes Toolbar. Click "Twitter" and you are good to go.

Use Gmail, Webnotes, and the method above to cut your real estate blogging time in half and re-purpose your content three ways with the Time Saved.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Week of 11/03/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 14:04:43 -0600

Week of 11/03/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

The Case of Modesty, In An Age of Arrogance-TIME

Arrogance is easy to find, but doesn't modesty provide a more valuable commodity? This article does reference technology and it made me think about the case for modesty in social networking and blogging. Modesty in Social Networking and blogging means to inform rather than induce fear and bully, empower rather than make others feel incompetent or a posture of superiority.

Great take away quote from this article as food for thought,

"Modesty in private life is attractive, but in public life it is essential, especially now, when those who immodestly claimed to Know It All have Wiped Us Out. The problems we face are too fierce to accommodate arrogance. Humility leaves room for complexity, honors honest dissent, welcomes the outlandish idea that sweeps past ideology and feeds invention."-Nancy Giggs, Time.com

Google's Eric Schmidt on What the Web Will Look Like in 5 Years

ReadWriteWeb has done a great job of excerpting video from Google's CEO Eric Schmidt at the Gartner Symposium/ITxpo Orlando 2009 on what the web will look like in 5 years and breaking down the highlights. There's an emphasis on the persuasion of user generated content, the increased demand of video, and the seamless use of multiple applications. Interesting to me was the comment that "Five years from now the Internet will be dominated by Chinese-language content".

Buckle your seatbelts for whatever the future holds for the Internet. All marketers and business professionals must prepare themselves to be flexible and ready.

CNN.com Gets Major Overhaul: What We Can Learn

Website Magazine's review of CNN.com's Website redesign provides 5 key insights that are useful to any company seeking a strong online portal:

Branding is Everything
Navigation is Key
Community is Driving Interaction
Advertising is on Even Ground with Content
Below the fold is not an afterthought

Signs of Twitter's Business Model Emerge Via Bing, Google Deals

No nonsense article on the Twitter dealings with Bing and Google. I have seen the indexing of tweets on Google as well as on Bing. If you haven't started adding Twitter into your online marketing, it's time to engage.

Make it easy on yourself when you do and use an application that allow you to search, sort, group, and manage multiple handles(accounts) either here, here, or here.

Search Engine Marketing USA Marketing Overview- November 20009

By signing up for a free membership at econsultancy.com you can download their free report, "Search Engine Marketing Trends Briefing November 2009". It's loaded with useful statistics from authorities around the worldwide web. I was able to pocket these three take aways right away,

According to an iProspect survey, seven out of 10 respondents said they clicked a search result within the first page of results, while 92% clicked a result within the first three pages of search results. [Source: iProspect via eMarketer, April 2008] - Take Away: Visiblity is limited to the first three pages and that is why there is an emphasis on using longtail keywords because they give you a fighting chance to make it to the first three pages without breaking your bank account.
A study of 1.5 million search queries found 80% of searches can be classified as informational, 10% transactional, and 10% are navigational. [Source: Penn State via Search Engine Land, March 2008]- Take Away: A content driven strategy is the winner for online marketing. The content you provide must be useful and consistent.
Image search makes up about 5.7% of all Google searches, and "up to 15% of all search is image related" according to Eric Enge, President of Stone Temple Consulting. [Source: WebProNews, August 2009] - Take Away: Posting your photos and images and tagging them with ALT tags is important, people are searching for them and Google bots are crawling for them.

Also very interesting to me was a tidbit about Google's financials which were reported as $5.94 billion Q3 2009,

"Of this, Google’s financial statements show that revenues from outside of the United States totaled $3.14 billion, representing 53% of this amount."- There is money to be made outside of the United States online. If this is viable in your real estate market, have you incorporated a strategy to reach the international market as part of your online marketing plan?

Discussion- Time Magazine posted a Special Report-"The State of the American Woman". Talking points and a discussion on this Report will be posted on the Real Skillz Business Page will be posted today,Tuesday November 3, 2009. Bring your opinions to the Real Skillz Facebook Wall**

5 Tips on Choosing The Right Days to Market Your Real Estate Services Online

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 16:46:41 -0600

How to Choose the Right Days to Market your Real Estate Services Online

Effective real estate marketing online has a lot to do with timing. There has been a lot of research conducted, mainly for industries outside of real estate (i.e.retail, hospitality, automotive) on the best days and times to market services and products online. Implementing the right timing to deploy marketing campaigns into your online marketing strategy is an effective way to ramp up your results.

Here are 5 tips on choosing the right days to market your real estate services online

1. Tweet Midweek-

You can tweet everyday of the week but for maximum effect make sure to tweet on Wednesdays and Thursdays as they are the most active days of tweets and retweets as found by HubSpot's State of the Twittersphere June 2009.

State-of-the-Twittersphere -
State-of-the-Twittersphere -
State-of-the-Twittersphere -

2. Publish Your Most Important Blog Posts Midweek

Frequency of great original content is still important in building your readership and traffic to your blog. I recommend to my clients that they blog a minimum of 3-5 times per week to be considered as a true content provider in the eyes of their readers.

That being said when is the best time for a blogger to publish their meatiest, most important blog posts? Darren Rowse of Problogger addresses the timing factor in When to Publish Blog Posts-Timing Considerations,

"If I have a very important post that I want to get as much attention as possible I generally will publish it on a Tuesday or Wednesday morning (my time)."

Rowse's post also gives some advice as to publishing posts on weekends and holidays that is worth the read as well as the comments on the post (82 so far).

Roger Parker of blogforprofit.com recommends that if you were to only blog twice per week to publish those blog posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Clearly publishing your most important blog posts midweek is a winning strategy.

3. The Weakest Link for Email Marketing is Saturday

You may have several email campaigns in your real estate marketing campaign: email flyers, email follow-up, email newsletters. Email marketing is a heavy hitter for real estate professionals but when is the most effective time for you to deliver your messages to your prospects and customers?

According to EMarketer.com the best days of the week to send email marketing are Mondays and Tuesdays and the least effective time by nearly 50% is Saturdays.

The best advice I found and agree with is to survey your email subscribers and ask them when they would like to receive emails from you.

We are approaching the holiday season so it is important to consider the times that people are online and actively shopping. Study these deployment times statistics provided on the emailstatcenter.com website before launching any niche holiday real estate marketing campaigns.

4. Engage your Fans on Facebook on Tuesdays

In findings from Virtue SRM (Social Relationship Manager) the best days to post on your Facebook Business Page is Tuesdays, followed closely Wednesdays with Mondays coming in #3.

**Allow me one deviation~ What I find more or equally fascinating is the 6.49% CLR (Click Thru Rate) of marketing campaigns such as polls and incentives that are run on Facebook business pages. Fans are clearly interacting with their friends on Facebook in a big way and their interactions are also being seen by their friends.**

5. LinkedIn Users Are Active In the Morning

According to a small study by SenderOK Statistics report which was based on a sample of 440 anonymous users the most activity on LinkedIn occurs in the morning.

"LinkedIn use is predominantly an 8AM-Noon activity with very, very little activity in the evening. Of particular interest is that LinkedIn users tend to arrive at work earlier than Facebook users do....Those serious early morning LinkedIn users will spend an average of 29 minutes reading real Email before they get around to checking your connection request which they could have read first if they wanted to."

While this is a small sampling of members on LinkedIn and their behavior I can attest that this mimics my LinkedIn use. The first online activity I do in the morning is to check my email(which of course includes my blog activity) and the first social network site I check is LinkedIn and this occurs normally between the hours of 7:30-8:30 a.m.

Take into consideration the times and days that people are online and engaging in these online activities when you create and implement your online real estate marketing strategy.

Once you taken action use an analytics tool to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. Tweak the times you deliver your marketing messages based on your analytics and direct feedback from your recipients.

Get your game on and use the 5 tips on choosing the right days to market your real estate services online.

** UPDATE FROM PUBCON VEGAS 2009-Post Your New Videos on YouTube on Thursdays and Fridays for the weekend traffic**

Subscribe to Blogging In the Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

Join Me on Facebook. Tuesday I'll be posting a discussion about marketing to women.

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Rebecca D. Levinson is a real estate marketing consultant with 17 years of experience serving real estate industry professionals.

If you need assistance with online marketing, offline marketing, social networking, or blogging contact Rebecca D. Levinson at #262-203-5231 or email rebecca@bloggingintherain.com.

Building A Real Estate Community Means Growing Your Internet Presence

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 00:41:49 -0500

Building A Real Estate Community Means Growing Your Internet Presence

Real Estate professionals are savvy to the fact that the majority of their consumers are online shopping for homes. Now with the expansive presence that real estate professionals can have online through various forms of social media marketing and content strategies like blogging they can take a proactive role in engaging with consumers online.

Some real estate professionals question the viability and productivity of time spent prospecting, selling, and marketing online. What they do not see is that at its core adding an aggressive online marketing strategy that is focused, yet flexible to change provides more opportunities then could every possibly exist offline.

Let's throw out the gobbledygook and get with some clear cut examples for a minute,

If you were a spider, would you want to crawl on four legs or eight?
If you were a table would you want two legs or four?
If you were an octopus would you prefer four tentacles or eight?

The way I see it, if you are a real estate professional who cuts out online marketing because you consider it to be a waste of time, you are cutting off an immediate 50% of your business opportunities. As the numbers continue to shift toward more consumers researching and shopping online for goods and services the 50% of business opportunities derived from offline marketing strategies start to show even more diminishing returns.

It's kind of like the goodies you used to be able to buy in a candy store for a dollar. Twenty five years ago I could walk into a candy store and walk out with a small bag of several pieces of candy that I liked. Today I could walk into a candy store and walk out with maybe three lollipops. Three lollipops may be good for three people for a one time deal.

Three lollipops split among more than three people is a short lived sweet moment where someone is bound to lose.

So if you are wondering what all this social media, online marketing and blogging is good for anyway or if you are engaged in social networking, online marketing, and blogging currrently but have lapses of faith or direction:

The purpose of online marketing is to grow your business opportunities by at least 50%.

The purpose of growing your business opportunities is to make solid business contacts...prospects that are more serious and that you can close.

The purpose of building a real estate community of propects, referrals, and associates is to create business for spring, summer, fall and winter.

The purpose of creating business all year round is consistency for your brand and revenue-short term and long term and perhaps a exit term (retirement).

It is very clear and you can see it here,

And Here

Building A Real Estate Community Means Growing Your Internet Presence.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

Halloween Trick or Treat Fun with Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools Website

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:50:41 -0500

Halloween Trick or Treat Fun with Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools Website

A few months ago I launched my Real Skillz Goodies website to capture the web 2.0 tools in one place that real estate agents could use for the real estate marketing. Today I am relaunching the site with a few tweaks and improvements and hope it will serve as your resource when you are looking for a specific type of tool to help you with your real estate marketing.

All the real estate marketing tools on the website are free or free with a paid version. I have also broken them up into categories that I think will make more clear marketing sense for real estate professionals along with a resource link for each category tab.

Every time I write a new blog post about real estate marketing, the tools referenced will be included in this site as it will serve as repository and reference for real estate professionals to use. Access to this website will always be free.

I'll be adding videos, audio, and more on this site to further serve as a resource for your real estate marketing needs. I hope you come on by and have some Halloween Trick or Treat Fun with Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools.

Enter the Real Skillz Newly Launched Free Real Estate Marketing Tools Website by clicking on my ghostly picture below.

For more holiday blog posts about real estate marketing subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog.

Real Skillz Halloween Treat~A Blogging Workbook for New Real Estate Bloggers

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:31:01 -0500

Real Skillz Halloween Treat~A Blogging Workbook for New Real Estate Bloggers

In conversations sprinkled throughout my blog and in seminars I have given to real estate offices and franchises I am aware that there are still many real estate professionals who are intimidated as to where to begin blogging. There are many great resources to get started, but with the crush of information that exists online the amount of resources can be enough to make new real estate bloggers turn on their heels and run away from the blogosphere.

That's a shame because a content fueled marketing strategy online is a winning proposition for real estate professionals.

Real Estate bloggers win SERP (Search Engine Results Placement) on Google, Yahoo and Bing with content.
Real Estate bloggers win relationships with other professionals which often leads to referrals.
Real Estate bloggers win new clients who get to know like and trust them by reading their blog for advice about real estate,information on local events, and a few posts that are just about the person behind the real estate license.

Real Estate bloggers win business online when they are consistent, thorough, creative, transparent, sincere, and genuine.

Today I want to share two free resources with new real estate bloggers. I thought about the lessons I have taught in real estate seminars and my own experience blogging to real estate consumers for nearly 2 years and put together this workbook and slideshow to share.

Real Skillz Halloween Treat~A Blogging Workbook for New Real Estate Bloggers.

A blogging workbook

Conversations Are for Everyone-A Workbook for Beginning Bloggers

A slideshow on blogging

Conversations Are For Everyone Blogging

View more presentations from rebeccalevinson.

I hope you enjoy this Real Skillz Halloween treat~A blogging workbook for new real estate bloggers.

Subscribe to Blogging In The Rain, A Real Estate Marketing Blog

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Conversations Are For Everyone-A Workbook for Beginning Bloggers by Rebecca D. Levinson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Week of 10/26/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies- Issue II

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:21:48 -0500

Week of 10/26/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies- Issue II

10 Ways of Using Posterous at Work or Home- Ideas on using Posterous for collaboration, private blogs, image hosting and more. I like this article because it puts a focus on how to truly benefit from using this microblogging platform, rather than trying to make posterous another Wordpress/Typepad/Blogger platform.

Is Email Marketing Endangered?- Whitepaper from ExactTarget that explains the increase in usage of Email, the real threats posed to email, and how to capitilize on the opportunities email presents in a Web 2.0 marketing world.

Do the Hard Work for Your Readers- A blog post that discusses how doing your homework and writing for your readersreaps rewards by increased exposure and increased blog subscribers. This is a quick and simple read with a powerful and practical blogging message.

Get Your Brand On Every Social Network with KnowEm- An article from Website magazine about KnowEm, A Web 2.0 tool that allows you to scour the net for your username/brand and see if it is available on social networks (broken into categories). KnowEm will allow you to create a profile and it will then add you these networks and secure your brand name for $99 OR there is a free D.I.Y. version that will check to see if your name is available and then allow you to create your profile on these networks.

Twenty Online Web Apps for Learning- Aside from listening, learning is my favorite marketing tool. This blog post from Jeanne Meister of New Learning Playbook discusses twenty web 2.0 tools for learning. Great topic, great tools, and I pocketed three tools I hadn't heard of that I could use to help carry out my online marketing strategy.

Upcoming Real Estate Marketing Discussion- Time Magazine posted a Special Report-"The State of the American Woman". Talking posts and a discussion on this Report will be posted on the Real Skillz Business Page has been moved to Tuesday November 3, 2009. Bring your opinions to the Real Skillz Facebook Wall**

Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies is a weekly online newsletter for Facebook Fans of Rebecca D. Levinson, Real Estate Marketing Consultant.

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If you like what you're reading follow Rebecca D. Levinson as a friend and a fan on Facebook for more real estate marketing tips and real estate marketing discussions.

How to Re-purpose Your Real Estate Blog's Content To Grow Your Email List in 5 Simple Steps

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:57:56 -0500

How to Re-purpose Your Real Estate Blog's Content To Grow Your Email List in 5 Simple Steps
If you are blogging 3-5 times/week as part of your marketing strategy you should use your published original blog content to your advantage. Re-purposing the content from your published blog posts allows you an additional vehicle to brand your business and promote your services online.

One easy way to re-purpose your content is to to create an ezine from the content contained in your published blog posts. An Ezine is similar to a newsletter and is published in a PDF format which makes it easy for your readers to access, save, refer to, and share your content and information.

Ezines are an easy way for you to distribute your content and to grow your contact database.

Here are 5 Simple Steps to re-purpose your real estate blog's content to grow your email list

1. Decide Which Real Estate Blog Posts You Will Use as Content for your Real Estate Ezine
Before you create your ezine you will need to decide which of your real estate blog posts you will be using to create the publication.

Here are some recommendations of topics for your Real Estate Ezine:

Real Estate Market Reports- You could take 3 months worth of real estate market reports and create a quarterly ezine.
Home Maintenance and Repair- You could group by seasonal repairs/improvements or by type of repair/improvement (e.g. kitchen, living room, outdoor landscape)
Home buyer checklists
Home Seller checklists
Short sales 101
First time home buyer information
Relocation information
Any of your real estate blog posts that you have in a series

Once you have decided which blog posts you will use in your ezine, list the names of the blog posts on a document ( I use Google Docs) and the order in which you want them to appear in the Ezine.

2. Create your Real Estate Ezine
Go to Zinepal.com and take 2 minutes to fill out a form and create an account. It's free. Once you have an account an Zinepal you will log in and start creating your ezine. The first step is to enter the url of your blog or your blog's rss feed. Once you have done this the zinepal.com application will pull a list of your blog posts. You simply check the ones you want included in your ezine and zinepal.com will add them to a dashboard for you.

Check to make sure that you have the right blog posts for your Ezine in your dashboard and click the customize and create my ezine button.

3. Edit your Real Estate Ezine

Once you are in the Ezine Editor it will ask you to:

Enter your keywords and an introduction for your ezine.
Choose your logo for the header of the ezine, font type and font size.
Upload an image for advertising on your ezine (I'll discuss this later).
Save your ezine as a template for future ezines.

Editing your Ezine will take you about 5-10 minutes maximum. Once you are done you can preview your real estate ezine or hit create to publish and save your ezine.

4. Your ROI Is Dependent On How You Market your Real Estate Ezine

You will get a PDF copy of your ezine which you can download onto your computer and save in your documents. You will also receive a profile page on zinepal.com that will become a library for your Ezines. You can choose to keep this ezine profile page public or private. If you allow your profile page to be public visitors can subscribe by RSS to your ezine feed.

Here is how I recommend you market your Real Estate Ezines:

Decide which ezines you are willing to give away without requiring Internet visitors to fill out a form and which ezines you require visitors to fill out a form before allowing them to download.
Take your private ezines and upload them to a document storage and collaboration website and set them as private.
Create a simple form for Internet Visitors to fill out before they can access your private real estate ezines.
Embed this form on your website, email, blog, social networks and other places online where your advertise your real estate services online. After they complete the form it will take them to the URL where your private ezine(s) are located for them to download.
Expose your public ezines by leaving them public on your profile on a document storage and collaboration website. This will allow visitors to download and share your ezines by email, facebook, twitter, Digg and more. It will also allow the search engines to index your profile page thereby increasing the visibility of these public documents.
Use the RSS feed you are given from zinepal.com and embed it on your blog or website. Even though you may leave some of your ezines public, you can still use the RSS feed to gain subscribers and grow your email list).

5. Take the Marketing of your Real Estate Ezine to the Next Level
The simple repurposing of content from your real estate blog into real estate ezines can provide a wealth of viral branding avenues for you to explore and create new business opportunities. Taking the marketing of your ezine to the next level means marketing your ezine in both offline and online venues.

Here's how you can take the marketing of your real estate ezine to the next level:

Use the advertising space when you are creating your ezine to promote your business, another real estate vendor or local business (possible paid opportunity- add disclaimer), an upcoming home buyer's seminar you are giving, or a charity you support.
Advertise your ezine in newsletters you send to your farm or in expired postcard and letter campaigns.
Offer your ezines as printed publications in local businesses that you network and partner with and/or on their websites.
Contact your local library if your ezines are of educational value on local or newsworthy issues and offer to allow them to be distributed in printed format and/or electronic format on their website.
Submit your ezines to ezine directories.

Pull and push your content heavy ezine for the maximum ROI.

It's up to you to take action now that you know how to repurpose your real estate blog's content to grow your email list in 5 simple steps.

A Roadmap Blogging Real Estate Professionals 23-Oct-2009

Crush the box. Somebody's gonna do it and it should be you.

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Week of 10/20/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:11:47 -0500

I am giving the readers of Blogging In the Rain a preview of the weekly newsletter I launched this week from my Facebook Business Page, Rebecca D. Levinson, dba Real Skillz Real Estate Marketing. My Facebook Business Page distributes weekly newsletters, daily reads, and bi-weekly discussions.

If you are on Facebook friend me and fan my Facebook Business Page so that you won't miss out on these Free Real Estate Marketing resources. I look forward to getting to know the less "business" side of you as a Facebook friend and to giving you more real estate marketing tips as a Facebook fan of my Real Estate Marketing Business, Real Estate Skillz.

Week of 10/20/09- Real Skillz Freebie Picks- Free Online Reads and Real Estate Marketing Resources for Real Estate Agents and Real Estate Companies

Are The Right People on Your Marketing Team?- A Free E-Book from HubSpot that real estate companies can use to gauge their internal marketing departments and that real estate professionals can use to gauge their current social media marketing efforts. The link to the Free E-Book is in the body of the blog post, "Inbound Marketing Book Launched In Stores Today".

Score.Org Small Business Community- Connect with other small business owners in groups, discussions, questions and answers and on the Score.org Blog. A unique feature that separates this social network among others is their "Find Properties for Sale" "Find properties for Lease" option- good opportunity for real estate professionals who carry commercial listings.

Moving Beyond the Wire: Tips for Making the Most of Online Distribution Channels- A free whitepaper from Vocus (company who provides on-demand software for public relations management) that dicusses how to distribute and syndicate your news. An easy to read whitepaper that breaks down some basic PR and online distribution strategies but also this whitepaper has some gems in the references it uses and links to making it worth your time vested in reading.

Moosylvannia's XL Marketing Trends Chapter 3- Social Networking Whitepaper- This is whitepaper #3 in a series of 10 marketing trends Mooslyvannia, Specializing in Digital, Branding and Promotions, is publishing whitepapers about so make sure to download the free social networking whitepaper. While your at it I want you to take a look at the homepage of the Mooselyvannia website. Notice the plane zooming across and what it is "skywriting" and the Twitter hot air balloon. Move your mouse around and hover on some of the images and click thru.

Pretty clever.

"What Web SuperStars Won't Tell You But We Will"- A motivating article from Website Magazine emphasizing leadership and Ingenuity- two of my favorite topics. An easy to read and inspiring article.

Upcoming Discussion- Time Magazine posted a Special Report-"The State of the American Woman". Talking posts and a discussion on this Report will be posted on the Real Skillz Business Page on Friday. Bring your opinions to the Real Skillz Facebook Wall**

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If you like what you read follow Rebecca D. Levinson as a friend and a fan on Facebook for more real estate marketing tips and real estate marketing discussions.