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The Problem With Writing Hyperlocal Posts!

Real Estate Agent with Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com SAL.2002007747

December 18, 2011 10:42 AM

The Problem With Writing Hyperlocal Posts!

If you follow us, you know we write MANY posts about local events, organizations and things of interest. There's a LOT of value in that for us, although it may not lead to enormous amounts of phone calls from interested buyers and sellers for Warren County homes (at least not yet).

Our philosophy is this: FIRST, you have to convince people that you have a great place to live. SECOND, you have to establish that YOU are indeed tuned in to your communities. THIRD, you have to establish relationships with lots of local event organizers, small businesses, promotional organizations and more.

The more you do, the more tied in you are, the more likely someone remembers YOUR NAME when someone mentions buying or selling a home in your area or that Google search keeps turning up YOUR NAME all over the place.

Now it may be a less direct route than publishing posts about each subdivision in our area. With our market area including literally hundreds and hundreds of communities, we knew we couldn't keep up with that aspect. We just wouldn't be effective at keeping updated information out there.

By using the broader approach to local events and community interest topics, we've gained significant local knowledge that helps us better serve our clients (although we may have irritated some area residents with our pro-tax school levy stance).

The drawback to doing lots of localism posts? We learn and blog about MANY events we'd like to personally attend, but we just can't get to them all. In fact, we can't even get to most of them!

But fortunately, we do make some! For instance, we DID get down to the Cincinnati Ballet's The New Nutcracker on opening night Thursday! Amazing sets, amazing costumes, amazing dancers, amazing venue! No pictures though, we didn't want to get thrown out! :)

So if your market is similar to ours, you may want to consider adding a healthy mix of localism focused posts to your blogging agenda. You'll gain, and so will your clients!

Serving Warren County's residential real estate needs,
Liz and Bill aka BLiz

P.S. When you do those locally focused posts, send a link to the business, event or organization. They've got to know you're helping them for them to help you!

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Peter Pfann @ eXp Realty Pfanntastic Properties in Victoria, Since 1986.

eXp Realty, Victoria BC www.pfanntastic.com - Victoria, BC

Talk To or Text Peter 250-213-9490

HI Bliz,

Suggested, and Highly recommended you guys are the king and queen of local information for your community, and as such you have become the source to so many resouces in and around Warren County. We have much to learn and implement, but we love your guidance and directions.....

Have Pfanntasic Holidays and an awesome 2012

Dec 18, 2011 11:35 AM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Peter and Linda, We try to keep a good handle on what's going on around here :) Always more turf than we could cover unless blogging became our sole job!

Dec 18, 2011 12:03 PM

Greg McCown

Century 21 1st American - Tucson, AZ

Thanks for your expert advice on this. Where I am I face the same situation, many small communities. I was debating on how to do hyperlocal posts and this article is exactly what I needed to see.

Dec 18, 2011 12:09 PM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Greg, Glad to help you clarify the way you need to go :)

Dec 18, 2011 12:21 PM

Anita Clark

Coldwell Banker Access Realty ~ 478.960.8055 - Warner Robins, GA

Realtor - Homes for Sale in Warner Robins GA

BLiz: You know your area and your online local consumers, so if hyperlocal posts are working for you, no need to change a thing. Like Brenda, they seem to take me the longest to put together.

Dec 18, 2011 01:53 PM

Donne Knudsen

Los Angeles & Ventura Counties in CA - Simi Valley, CA

CalState Realty Services

BLiz - I totally understand wanting to attend all the stuff we blog about. Fortunately, a lot of the events I blog about are annual events so even though I may not attend when I blog about it, chances are that I've attended the event before in previous years. On another note, blogging about local stuff does get me and hubby out a lot more too, which is always fun too! :)

Dec 18, 2011 02:15 PM

Kathy Streib

Cypress, TX

Home Stager/Redesign

BLiz- I began writing localism posts a few years ago when Bob had a contest. While I'm not a Realtor, it helps me get my name and face out there. Store owners have been very happy when I wrote about their business and I had a call just today from someone who had seen my blog. I can't make every event but I do try to get pics to enhance the blog. And, as Donne (#15) said... it's a way to drag get my husband to attend these events with me.

Dec 18, 2011 02:35 PM

Mike Grumbles

Gray Fox Realty - Franklin, TN

The Relocation Engineer in Franklin TN

Bill and Lizz:

So true that we as agents are turning into market area journalists, without enough time to take in the events.

Good post and enjoy your holiday season.

Dec 18, 2011 02:39 PM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Anita, I think I'd prefer to write the posts similar to what you do on the communities, but I don't think we could cover the scope that you do to a degree we'd be happy with. We try to give similar treatment to the patio home niche. If over time this strategy doesn't work, perhaps we'll cherry pick some communities to conduct a virtual farm.

Donne, Hyperlocal blogging has gotten us to attend events we've skipped for 20 years. Just have to have some feet on the street to do them proper justice. We've also went to various stores (e.g. the fruit farm in the title photo) that we'd driven past for years without stopping. We should have done it long before!

Kathy, Perhaps Bob had more than one. I know we participated in a 2010 hyperlocal challenge and it took us a bit to get into the rhythm, but they're much easier to write now :)

Mike, We'd definitely like to attend more of the events, but time restrictions obviously have a different goal for us!

Dec 18, 2011 03:16 PM

Jane Peters

Home Jane Realty - Los Angeles, CA

Los Angeles real estate concierge services

I think a little bit of this and a little bit of that keeps things interesting. Whatever attracts you is going to attract similar-minded consumers. Nothing wrong with that.

Dec 18, 2011 05:40 PM

Marilyn Boudreaux

Marilyn Boudreaux, Century 21 Bono Realty - Lake Charles, LA

Lake Charles LA Century 21 Realtor

I think localism is great and establishes you as the go to person within the community. Almost everything I write is localism and I get calls but they usually want more info about the topic I blogged about!

Dec 18, 2011 06:37 PM

Conrad Allen

Re/Max Professional Associates - Webster, MA

Webster, Ma, Realtor

Hi Liz & Bill - How big is your community? The towns I work in have populations between 10 and 20,000 people.

Dec 18, 2011 10:40 PM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Jane, It's also why we'll dip into Cincinnati and Dayton for events. It's all part of the offering of living in our county.

Marilyn, We've gotten those calls too. Sometimes it's a challenge to get them to understand we're just reporting and NOT the hosts of the event :)

Conrad, Per last census, 212,000 people. That's spread over 13 zip codes and at least as many towns & townships. Some are just a couple of hundred, the biggest under 50k.

Dec 18, 2011 11:48 PM

Debbie Holmes

John L. Scott - Boise, ID

Gets the job done!

Also from and activerain point of view you get very little response on your blog....

Dec 19, 2011 01:13 AM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Debbie, True! Few comments, but with a different audience intended I can live with that :)

Dec 19, 2011 01:24 AM

Liz Wallace

Century 21 Sherlock Homes - Rockville Centre, NY

Broker C21 Sherlock Homes, Rockville Centre, LI, N

I get many calls about local posts and that's fine with me. I want to get my name out there. I just got two calls this month asking if I am still running the tree lighting ceremony in the Village and what time is it again. I tell them I am a Realtor and give them the correct time.

Dec 19, 2011 02:35 AM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Liz, We clarify if we get the call, but Murphy's Law at work....those calls usually come when we're no where near our computer with the complete information :)

Dec 19, 2011 02:40 AM

Carmela Jacobs

Carmela Realty - Westlake Village, CA

Ventura Co., Los Angeles Co., CA, & Global Realtor

Liz & Bill,

I post as many as possible, even if I can't attend them all at least people will have an option which one to attend.

Dec 19, 2011 09:34 AM

Liz and Bill Spear

Transaction Alliance 513.520.5305 www.LizTour.com - Mason, OH

Transaction Alliance Cincinnati & Dayton suburbs

Carmela, And that's about the best we can do. Put the alert out, and attend the ones we can/choose to.

Dec 19, 2011 10:38 AM

Amy Hahn

Pine Knoll Shores Realty - Morehead City, NC

Realtor/Broker - Crystal Coast, NC

You guys are awesome at featuring events in your area! As you know, I too love writing a Localism Post! I wrote one a few days ago and included a googlemap of all coffee shops in the area (I know you know about those), and after it auto fed to my FB page, I received a message from one of the local coffee shops. She invited me to stop by for coffee, I did and guess what? They are considering selling their house!!!!! There are definitely more ways than one to make a hyper-local work for you :-)

Dec 20, 2011 12:25 AM