If Watergate happened today, Woodward and Bernstein would have a blog; and 'Deep Throat' would have contacted them through blogging instead of in an underground parking lot. That is the conclusion I reached after reading Chapter 9 of Realty Blogging. Why? Blogs have become a primary source of information for people, including reporters. Guestimate? 90 million or more blogs exist. That is a lot of information. When you read newspapers on line, more than likely you see that they have their own blogs. When the NY Times was looking at subject matter for their entry into the blogosphere,'The Walk Through' was one of them, because the Times knew Real Estate is a hot topic for consumers. I posted on my blog back in October about the Federal Office of Management and Budget using a blog to sway a vote. And it worked! Many consumers weighed in!
The question becomes, how do you glean through all the information on these 90 million blogs to make sure it's accurate, if you are a reporter. Well, the old fashioned way: check your sources.
What does this have to do with Real Estate Blogs? Here is an example from the book. Miller Samuels Inc. is a huge appraisal firm in NYC. They have two blogs: Soapbox and Matrix. Jonathan Miller said "....most of the [reporters] who cover the real estate market here read my blog a number of times during the week,...." and he knows this because "....they are telling me about stuff I wrote on it...." In other words, he is considered an expert source now, and wouldn't we all like to be considered an expert in an area of real estate so that people will come to us as well? Realty Blogging says, pick an area and become an expert source!
Are you a mortgage person and not a Realtor®? They have some facts on this as well (p. 126). Kiplinger's and Investor's Business Daily are using Alex Stenback, of the "Behind the Mortgage Blog" as an expert source. The popularity of his blog even allowed him to get his own radio show.
I got really excited a few months ago, to find out that one of my favorite reporters/writers, Joel Achenbach (you can find him in The Washington Post) got his own blog! So now I read it faithfully and of course can't help but comment occasionally : - ) The point is, if he wasn't hugely popular before (which he was) now it's rock star level (should I shout out to him that I mentioned him in Active Rain? That could be a hoot!)
What I read in this chapter that made sense of it's entirety is this (p. 129): "....The lesson to be learned from all of this is that you need to be publishing your content in a way that will appear on the media radar, and blog is the perfect tool to do exactly that...."
The ‘Old Way' of getting information, was to have the press report it, and then everyone would talk about it, write more about it; it would show up on the evening news AFTER it appeared in the morning paper. Now? This ‘push' system is replaced with what they call the ‘pull' system. The media are going to search on blogs to get the information and then doing their own stories!
Realty Blogging says that blogs are delivering ‘better and more effectively than any other advertising medium' (p. 130) They talk about the trust issue in the book; trust has eroded because we don't as consumers, automatically believe what we read in the papers anymore; this seems to be, in my opinion, the reason why blogging has taken the place of source material.
This blew my mind: a study was done on levels of trust in information received by everyone. Guess where bloggers came in? THIRD! The only two groups of people ahead of us bloggers were physicians and academics! I personally have a healthy skepticism of anything I read and it doesn't matter if it is in the paper, or on line. I remember the times I was quoted in print, the basics might have been right, but there were almost always some incorrect facts. So my own point about checking sources bears repeating, IMHO. When I was writing my last blog on John McCain's new bill, I found a source on line that actually showed the Bill. Otherwise I am not sure I would have posted it until I could check further.
There is a lot more to this chapter, and I highly recommend it for honing your conversational and information style of blogging. But I'm only going to touch on one more topic: Dealing With Negative Blog Comments. Since other people are reading our posts, we are not writing diaries in the corner of our bedrooms. We are all bound to get negative comments. Did a deal go badly last year? No matter why, couldn't your client come onto your blog and say something negative about you ? Couldn't someone who dislikes the real estate profession single out your blog to address the issue? This happened to a few people on Active Rain, yes? Here is Realty Blogging's opinion of how to handle it:
"....Treat [a negative comment] the same way you would treat any other public relations issue. Look into the complaint, and if it's fixable, fix it. If you can't fix it, create a blog post that links to the complaint, explain your side....., and describe the steps you are taking to address the problem. Don't sweep it under the rug - Nip It In The Bud." (p. 137)
I'm going to end this with a link to a few of the blogsites recommended in this chapter. You will have to get the book to find out more!
The News Tribune
Lake County Blog
Hot Property
"Top Rank" PR Blog
Miller Samuels Soapbox
Peace Out - 3C
;)
;)
