Home : Blogs : David Gibbons : David 's Blog

Blogging is so 2008

I made this comment on twitter last week before leaving town and just returned from vacation to find that it started a fascinating discussion which moved to AR thanks to Courtney Cooper. Courtney further exaggerated my hyperbole and wrote a post titled "Blogging is Dead." The comments in response to Cortney's post are fascinating and range from deeply offended to deeply thoughtful -- if you haven't already, I recommend reading them. Anyhow, I guess I now have some explaining to do and thought that a video may be the best approach to take -- enjoy:

Posted by David Gibbons on 07/06/2009 07:40 PM

Comments (29)

Post is included in group: Zillow Discussion Group
Post is included in group: Blogging & SEO
Post is included in group: Addicted to Active Rain

29 Comments on Blogging is so 2008

JUL

There is some great advice in here David. Thanks for clarifing your Tweet. Great example on how Twitter and Blogging can work well together!

I heard the tweet couldn't remember where it came from and then read Courtney's blog.

Hi Dave~ I guess I will have to go to Courtney's blog to see all of the comments. It is so hard to have a remarkable blog!

David: Very nicely said... It is true that real estate blogging now is kind of 'main stream' (and not so unusual) so there is a whole lotta competition for the spot light. For me, it's more about 'taking your conversation online' however that might take place... If there's exchange, then you're getting somewhere.

Thx...

I like your hair better long ( in your pic). Grow it out!

I love it! Love love it love it! AND... I got you to blog on AR in 2009! AND you got a gold star! w00t :) I am going to go ahead and update my blog with a link here:) Thanks for the awesome video!

I think this statement may be true for those who abandoned blogging in 2009 but not true for those who haven't. Also blogging isn't all about promoting your business and marketing. That is only one take on blogging.

great advice thanks for the video presentation for clarification - we agree about re-evaluating social media strategies regularly and incorporating others along with blogging.

Great video that is very thought provoking. What you say makes a lot of sense. Constantly re-thinking is the key to staying ahead of the game. Thanks.

You've given me a few things to think about. I enjoy Facebook and am still working on Twitter.

There are many facets to an online presence and blogging is just one, and I don't think consumers who connect with someone find it irrelevant, at least according to my experience.

David I sat through all 8:48 seconds of your video and apparently no one told you my attention span is about 2 minutes max :) I am guessing it was your accent that kept me going...

Actually I agree with your video and I agree with the comment that Courtney had in her post

This is my favorite recent quote out of a great blog post written by Brian Clark on Copyblogger: "But the story remains the same: people who mainly want to socialize, share links, and post pictures of their cat should be using social networks instead of blogging, and that's exactly what's happening."

People were blogging because they didn't really have an outlet. Now that they do; they don't have to blog. I don't think that is a bad thing. Blogging is insanely hard work and just like those people that spend hours cold calling or knocking on doors, you have to decide what marketing you want to use.

Blogging is not for everyone, and ActiveRain has proven that over and over again with the agents that start and stop. The most important thing, I think, is to do whatever you choose well. If you are going to point someone towards your blog, website, facebook page, Zillow profile...make sure that it is done well.

JUL

David, I too get bored easily if I'm not being given something of value so thank you for keeping me engaged and learning! I just started blogging about a month ago and I can already see the value of moving in this direction. Like you, it takes me two or three days of editing before I hit the submit button. I'm so self-conscience about my writing.

Now if only someone would please tell all those vendor-boiler-room-monkeys that ~telemarketing~ is dead, maybe I could have some peace. :-)

I don't believe I've heard "throwing the cat among the pigeons" before.... but it was the accent that kept me there through the end of the video.

I have no problem coming up with posts and have a hard time understanding why people think it is difficult or time consuming.

Missed the 'blogging is 2008" tweet. I saw a David Gibbons tweet the other day I can not refind... the one about blaming the mortgage meltdown on Zillow... I can find the ladies blog who found Zillow a couple of years before it is on the internet but was unsuccessful searching for the tweet... that alerted me to it. Or maybe it was Drew or someone else w/ Zillow that tweeted it.

Nice video. It's not too difficult to come up with new content, but I blog both for consumers and realtors.

Good post w/ worthwile advice I'm sure.

Patricia

David nice that you answered with a video (another tool). I feel like a broken record saying over and over blogging is NOT THE ONLY vehicle needed to get around town! It's just one of the wheels... combine it with interaction on Zillow or Trulia even LinkedIn AND videos! Consistency is more of the advise I'd pass out. Pick a few things and be consistent!

David- Our little plot worked! You made some excellent points. One, you need to be meeting your consumers where they are. And second, a blog is a great place to have as your home base.

David: Perhaps the key is for all of us to be up-to-date with the latest. I think of Rhonda Porter, who is a local loan officer. She seems to really have it down as to how she markets herself online. It's all about developing a following. Where we choose to be should always be added to if possible. Thanks for the post!

Great advice...and yes I made it through the entire video. Our company is really trying to get our arms wrapped around the "right" message to brokers and realtors, and I think it is safe to say that blogging changes as fast as the technology we bought yesterday at Best Buy!

Blogs are a great way to stay in touch, but as you said keeping it fresh is the key -

Making a blog extraordinary is challenging, and I appreciate the challenge you present regarding marketing a blog. Very interesting and thought provoking. Thanks for taking time to make this video and for posting it. I can't wait for the next technology that helps us maximize our ROI!

Coming up with content isn't hard. Keeping it relevant isn't hard. Making sure it's fresh and pleasing to the eye isn't hard. Keeping people interested, enough to give comments and subscribe is the hard thing. Good post, like someone mentioned earlier referring to Copyblogger.com, because of the many social media devices available today, blogging has got a little more refined and more of a niche.

Great job David! See you at Inman! It will be great to be on the transparency panel together!

JUL

David,

One of the things about blogging that seems to keep people from participating is the fear that they will have writer's block. It's not really writers block in most cases, In fact, you sat down and did a video that could have easily flowed into a killer blog post. Blog posts are so much better than talking head videos in my opinion because they can be consumed easier and have the ability to be searched, archived, printed etc. You sort of contradicted yourself that it would take you two days to complete a blog post, when you probably gave us enough content in your awesome video for more than one post! It may be more convenient to produce a talking head video, but I am still not convinced that they are better than writing a post. Video is great if you're trying to show something you wouldn't be able to otherwise see. Someone still needs to convince me why it's preferred to writing.

Most people have a misplaced fear of blogging. If I worried about grammar, structure and all of the other things that are associated with writing, I wouldn't have made it past my first post over 3 years ago. People over-think so much when it comes to new methods and means of marketing and communicating. There are very few people in the world that don't have something interesting to say. The best way to do it, is to - just do it.

Everything you said in the video was pretty much dead on. Had it been a blog post you could have created a ton of hyperlinks to things you referenced, making the content even more valuable!

FYI, Digging the new hair cut. It'll look good with that awesome midnight blue vegas sport jacket.

Cheers,

JUL

Gibbons,

Loved many of the points made in your video. See you in SF.

JUL

Enjoyed the video David. Great points.

Just wanted to add my comment from Courtney's post (lightly edited):

Blogging and creating meaningful content beyond 140 characters is not dead. In fact, blogs have more outlets for distribution and sharing. In fact, many of the links on Twitter are to longer articles, including blogs.

Blogs also provide archival content which survives on Google and is extremely valuable to a real estate professional--it can also be socially bookmarked (you know there are 5 categories of social media, right?). For example, I coach my clients to post everything on neighborhoods in their market AND make it easily accessible-- not only is it of keen interest to buyers but it gets you indexed ahead of the portals. Conversations on twitter are just now being searchable thru newer search engines like Collecta. Facebook content is not even indexed on Google.

But newer (and growing) methods of communicating cannot be ignored. I remember dragging David Gibbons to Twitter, figuratively speaking, because Trulia was all over it (I knew because I use Tweetbeep to monitor the conversations there). Now, Zillow has surpassed Trulia in Twitter conversations (Zillow does have more co. folks out there twittering).

But David is right about pro-active marketing, incl. marketing your blog offline --- you can't depend on Google to market your content. You must use all the online AND offline channels you can --- and one of those channels is YOU.

My apologies for this long comment. For those who endured it, I pass on this gem of a social media site -- Meetup.com-- being from the old school (still a good school), you might find it more sensual (no, not in that sense).

The challenge is to tie your social media network together so if you are making brilliant 140 character conversations on Twitter, folks can link to your blog, LinkedIn profile and Zillow Advice answers (an agent can link to their Advice answers, right David?). Heck, every piece of marketing you send out, including your emails, should have links to your blog and your network-- check out unhub.com, which I think is a great tool for this.

http://unhub.com/Vvap

PS Hope you had a nice holiday ;)

Leave a response…

Name:

Email:
(optional)

Comment:

What does the graphic say?