In the not so technology advanced sleepy town of Naples, I'm often asked about this "blogging" thing.  This "blogging" thing...hmm..this "blogging" thing...so here's what I think, what I know and why I do it.

My favorite part about this "blogging" thing is that it helps me attract people who are attracted to what I blog about.  That's why it's important to blog about stuff you like, stuff you're interested in and stuff you want to be listing and selling.  If you're blogging towards hot topics you don't give a hoot about well...you're blogging to people you're probably not going to have a great deal in common with which counteracts that whole..."I love doing what I do" thing. 

(Now I must apologize to the blogging gods right now because this season brought forward a weird group of people I was NOT intentionally trying to capture and it freaked me out so bad I all but stopped blogging.  After a serious heart to heart with one of my favorite bloggers, Chris Griffith who is also a fellow Rainer, she convinced me not only was I not going to escape the creepy people by not blogging but that I would stop attracting the great people I was attracting before when I was blogging.  Oh crud! So with a bit of anxiety of sneaking back into the blogging world for fear of stirring up the crazies and with a super colleague ambitiously after my lead spot for Naples Florida...here I am blogging away again).

I don't know what it's like where you are but in Naples, REALTORS get busted in the chops for everything from sending mailouts, email campaigns, making unsolicited phone calls and heck, in Naples proper it's just completely against the law to door knock.  But truthfully...all of those forms of prospecting are very, very spammy.  Most of the time it's unsolicited and with the more solicitations we get the less excited we are to get more...people are just plain sick of being approached.  Now this isn't to say that all of those things don't work...but it is to say that maybe...blogging works better! 

Here's why:

The National Association of REALTORS 2008 Profile of Homebuyers and Sellers report states that 87% of all homebuyers used the Internet to search for homes...I'm almost positive that's the same percentage that was reported last year but they added 94% of buyers aged between 25 and 44 used the Internet to search for homes...94%??? Ok so if I blog and I blog smart...I can reach all but 6% of the prospect base out there.  Uh...I'm in!  Not to mention a blog lasts as long as you have it posted (another reason why you want to blog smart)  It's also dated so unlike a website, the information is good...the day it is written...maybe longer but it doesn't require you to continuously update like you do your website. 

The other part about this crazy Internet thing is that it's not going away...despite all those agents out there who are praying to the computer gods that it will, I think the Internet and blogging are pretty much here to stay.  There's too much of a demand from the consumer for it it just disappear.  That also means that search engines like Google who thrive on more seasoned content are going to give great content with history a better rank than newer content...at least for now so there's recognition for not just being first but for being best and first.  Can it get more fair than that?

Here's great news for some of the more progressive markets out there and (for now) not great news for areas like Naples.  That "content is king" saying....REALLY MATTERS! Real estate used to be a local thing but with more and more people hopping on the information super-highway to do their scouting around, their interests are only going to lay where they can be searched and if you're in an area where there are few bloggers and just a tiny amount of interesting content...good luck competing with more tech savvy locations who have already figured it out!

That's about all I have to say about this topic today...

Best Regards,

Your Naples Smart Girl!