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Getting Your Name Known for FREE

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Services for Real Estate Pros with Advantage Virtual Support

Active Rain                                                                                                                                                                                     Being on ActiveRain is a great tool for every realtor. For example: Let’s say you’ve sold a house in the past and that client is looking to get a hold of you. If he/she types your name in a search engine and you post or have a good ranking on Active Rain, your profile will come up for the website. Now all you have to do is make sure that your Active Rain profile is full of pertinent information, a link to your own website, and a contact number.

Myspace.comMyspace.com is a great way to meet people and let everyone know what you do. I’m sure you will find at least one person already on there that you know. When you add them as friends and they go visit your profile, they will see that you do real estate (if they don’t already know) and now they say “Hey, I know someone in real estate, we used to go to college together”, etc…

Wannanetwork.comThis is another website that is geared especially towards real estate agents and related fields (much like activerain). You get points and there’s even a guestbook to leave comments about yourself or to the person (although mostly used as advertising space).

CustomizingYour profile should be unique but uniform on each site. If your company colors are blue and purple, make sure you try to incorporate those colors into all your profiles (you’d be surprised how much you can customize each area of your profiles). There are free editors for your myspace.com profile that are awesome! People like profiles that stand out and are interesting. Haven’t you ever stopped to read something because it just looked so weird or different than all the other ones? I do it all the time!  

The great thing about these websites is they are all free and great for networking if you work them. However, it can get overwhelming and sometimes you forget all the places you have to post, etc… I’ve come up with a way to streamline this process.

  1. Set up a folder in your internet favorites specifically for the links to these websites. Group them all together.
  2. Then decide on a “visiting schedule”. All this means is set aside time every day or every other day (like 8:00 am every Tuesday and Thursday) to update and post, reply to other people’s posts, fix up your profiles, etc..  This way you’re not overwhelmed.
  3. Set up a folder on your desktop for ideas about things you would like to post or incorporate into your profiles (such as a new color scheme or link) so you can remember it next time you’re trying to come up with a topic.
  4. Outsource the work if you don’t have time. Let someone else post your daily blogs, update your profiles and add awesome html content to them.

If you're not already on these websites, join and add me as a friend :)

If you know of any other networking sites such as the one’s I’ve mentioned above, let me know!

Comments (5)

Leslie Bloss, Bellevue Real Estate Professional
Bellevue, WA
Excellent post Yoana -- you make it very clear.  I am not sure I want someone else posting my blogs though.
Oct 03, 2006 05:10 AM
Leslie Bloss, Bellevue Real Estate Professional
Bellevue, WA

Hi again Yoana,

 Can I copy this and send it to my folks that I invited to Active Rain and never got on board?

Oct 03, 2006 05:11 AM
Yoana Pedroso
Advantage Virtual Support - North Port, FL

Leslie,

Someone else wouldn't be creating the content for your blogs, you would simply either dictate to them what you would like it to say, or give some basic ideas, let them write the extra content and have you approve it. What some agents like to do is call up their assistant while they're driving or waiting in line and let them know of an idea they had for a blog, then the assistant can have it typed and ready in your e-mail by the time you get back to the office!

:)

Oct 03, 2006 06:00 AM
Judy Kincaid
Tampa, FL
This is very helpful information.....thank you for sharing...and to think I thought "MySpace.com" was just for kids!
Oct 03, 2006 07:18 AM
Brian Brady
Matthews Capital Markets - Tampa, FL
858-699-4590

I think you'll find that myspace is a very effective marketing tool, scantily-clad people and all.  It;s just like TV, you need to focus on the real content.

The demographics are astounding.  The under 30 market is going to fuel the next real estate boom in 10 years when the boomer start selling.  The myspace generation is huge! 

MLS on Myspace is here.   Over 900 carefully screened members belong.

My profile is here.
Dec 04, 2006 05:25 PM