How Much Is Too Much?
Agree, agree, agree with thee! Two minutes on a video are just right. Sit tight, six paragraphs is about it to keep your reader from glazing over. I like the paragraph intro for market reports. Pictures, great always. Anxious to start posting my new Market Reports on my newly revised and almost completed Word Press Blog.
This morning, I read a post on a website where the author of a book, was defending some points in the book. As I read on and on, my head began to swim. After about seven paragraphs, two subject changes, and lots of rambling, I tuned out, not even a third of the way through. One of the comments to the author wrote it best, when he suggested the author just post the book, as it took about the same time to read.
So how does this apply to Activerain? How much is too much with blog posts? Let's look at a few areas:
Posts: Perhaps this depends on the end reader. If I'm writing a post to my fellow Activerainers, I might be a little wordy, since we talk the same language. But wordy to me is six paragraphs. For outside posts, hopefully I can keep it quicker than that. This is one of those subjects I'll defer to the folks, over at Activerain University. If you take a class (which by the way is a very good idea) you will get a great description of how much is too much.
Video: This is going to ruffle some feathers, but I'm going to ruffle my own. I think most real estate videos are too long. They are directed to the consumer, and I just can't see someone watching for more than two or three minutes. A friend of mine told me over the summer, that he caught one of my Youtube submissions from a way back. It was an interview, which meant I didn't have much control, and lasted nearly ten minutes. When I asked him how he lasted during that tedious thing, he told me he had a few beers that night and thought he would catch my act. So unless you plan on appealing to inebriated consumers, I'm not sure you want to go to long. Am I wrong on this one?
Pictures: Another category I find fascinating for posts is pictures. I like all the numerous hd, well done photos of lisitngs. But a growing number of agents suggest slapping a picture and using the space to direct the consumer back to your website. Similar to specializing in an area, this seems counter intuitive to the real estate professional, but one of the philosophies I bet is spot on.
Graphs and Data: J Philip Faranda wrote a featured post on how to write a market report earlier this week. Phil had lots of salient points, but one of my favorite, was his assertion that we only include one graph in a market report. As someone who has never done a market report with graphs, I'm a little bit biased towards this way of thinking. Maybe I can get a few done next month, if I can give the data, display one graph, and get my point across.
That's six paragraphs. So I'm outta here before I'm guilty of too much.
Scott Hayes
Austin Real Estate Agency
Extraordinary Service, For Extraordinary People
Direct: 512-786-8300
www.austinrealestateagency.com
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