Bloggers Connect –Readers Digest version of the one day event.

Bloggers Connect was part of the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in New York. All the issues discussed during the workshop have been extensively covered on Active Rain. If you are interested in blogging and have been on the Active Rain forum for a few months, most likely you already read about the technical and other aspects of blogging that were raised at the workshop.

The major point that I took away is that blogging is not science, at least not yet. Even bloggers with experience and recognition as experts have opposing views and do it the way they found successful for their objectives and market.

The sessions were organized as panels and many did not quite correspond to the title of the session. Perhaps the most value of this post would be in the links of the panelists, so you can read their blogs and experience their craft first –hand.

Here is the brief overview of some of the sessions.

Avoid the Content Brick Wall
Pannelist: Rudy Bachraty, Co-Founder, Sellsius & Founder, Kiosk Realty
Kris Berg, Broker ,Associate Prudential California Realty
Jeff Corbett, Author, The XBroker Blog
Dan Green, Chief Blogging Officer, Bring the Blog

All the panelists are prolific writers and writers block did not seem to be their problems. It is usually not my problem either, which probably explains why I did not have any notes written down at this session.
There was a discussion of how much personality these bloggers included into their writing. The opinion varied, just like on Active Rain. The important point was that the local markets and neighborhoods provide enough content to write about.

Videoblogging and Podcasting
Douglas Heddings, Senior Vice President, Prudential Douglas Elliman
Rachel Natalie Klein, Founder, IntoTheBox.tv
Daniel Rothamel, Realtor, Strong Team REALTORS; Blogger, RealEstateZebra.com
Mike Price, President, ML Broadcast

Jeff Turner moderated the panel. The participants ranged from professional video journalist, to someone who subcontracts video blogging to professionals, to someone who is doing it by himself.
The messages in this session: video blogging can be very successful, but it requires time, or money or both. 

The keynote address -The Future of Blogging
Lockhart Steele, Founder and Publisher, Curbed.com

Curbed.com is a blog about neighborhoods in New York City. They operate as a news provider on a micro level, trying to get the news before others and focusing on builders, neighborhoods, and apartment buildings.  The business operates on the ad revenue, and in that sense did not have much relevance to me. Mr. Steele talked about the importance of the editorial content, distribution channels and community building. He described how their blog gets sometimes “taken over” by the readers, who continue to have a conversation on a post, long after it was written. In that way the blog serves as a forum for local conversation.

Marketing Your Blog
Erik Hersman, Principal, Zungu LLC
Drew Meyers, Community Relations Specialist, Zillow.com
Reggie Nicolay, Regional Technology Director, Fidelity National & Author, MyTechOpinion.com
Brian Rothenberg, Product Manager, Yahoo! Real Estate

The main points of the conversation were about increasing traffic through quality links, commenting on other people’s blogs, using analytics to understand your readership, and syndication. This information has all been covered on Active Rain.
There was a discussion of the importance of the title and H1 Meta tags –nothing different then we read on Tomato Blog or RSS Pieces and other blogs.  There were differing opinions on the “call to action” button, which followed the same pro and con arguments as on the numerous Active Rain posts.  There was also no unanimous opinion on the use of a blog’s side bar.

Brush Up Your Netiquette: Blogosphere's Best Practices
Teresa Boardman, Realtor/Broker, Keller Williams Integrity Realty
Jay Thompson, Designated Broker, Thompson’s Realty

The discussion covered the importance of protecting ones reputation on the Internet, the care to be taken when writing for a blog, dealing with the plagiarizers and annoying commenters. Teresa and Jay both have pretty liberal policy of allowing comments and disagree when they have to in a patient and respectful manner. They are not tolerant of plagiarizers. When a plagiarizer took Teresa’s post in it’s entirety she substituted her original photos with the “bad variety” ones. 

Steer Your Blog Toward the Long Tail
Moderators:
Brian Brady, Managing Director, Worldwide Credit Corporation
Dustin Luther, Founder, 4realz.net Consulting

Brian focused the audience on the question of having a plan for their blog and having permission from the readers to market to them. Mr. Luter talked about the content being the most important thing. The issue of the “long tail” did not come up till the very end, when the concept was explained – you can get more readers in aggregate from the long tail then from the top key words.

The Housing Debate: Bull vs. Bear

Moderator: Andrew Ross Sorkin, Assistant Editor, Business & Finance, Chief Mergers and Acquisitions Reporter, The New York Times
Panelists:
Dottie Herman, President & CEO, Prudential Douglas Elliman
Barry Ritholtz, Chief Market Strategist, Ritholtz Research & CEO; Director of Equity Research, Fusion IQ
Noah Rosenblatt, Founder, UrbanDigs.com/Licensed RE Salesperson, Citi-Habitats
Professor Nouriel Roubini, Co-Founder & Chairman of RGE Monitor; Professor of Economics, New York University’s Stern School of Business

This 45- minute session boiled down to the “ the biggest crash in the history does not have an end in-site and repercussions will be severe and long lasting”. The only one representing the bulls was Ms. Herman, who suggested that people still need to buy homes and that the current housing market set back is necessary as a price correction.