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Social Media Tips for REALTORS®
The world of social media can be a daunting place. It’s hard to know who to believe, or even what works from what you research on your own. The way is wrought with fast talkers and smoke blowers ready to promise you the moon and stars – and hopefully you’ve not had your taste for social media spoiled by them. If you’ve heard the hype and seen the success stories and are ready to start making use of social media we’ve got a few tips to help you get on the fast track.
First, let it be stated that social media is not the silver bullet for all your website ails. It is merely another tool to apply to your overall digital strategy. It is not guaranteed to boost sales, traffic, or leads; at it’s very core is merely another advertising medium.
Social media isn’t marketing. It’s prospecting. It’s putting yourself out there. It’s making yourself known, and available. Social media allows your potential customer to find you and interact in a conversational way rather than via a promotional one. So it’s important to: Be Interesting. Be Relevant. Be Rememberable!
Not sure what to say to get the conversation part of things going? Listen first! Keep an eye on what topics are trending in your industry, locally, or across the country. Listen to what your customers are interested in, then get to work. Otherwise, you are just shooting in the dark.
Be Persistent. Social media success is made up of the things you do every day. Every day. That means you need to be in there posting, working the system, nurturing followers on a daily basis to see the best results. Considering many systems have algorithms in place to limit your visibility to fans post frequently is often the best way to insure your posts get seen.
Don’t make it all about real estate. Yes, you are REALTORS® yes, it is part of your job to advertise listings – BUT – one of the biggest mistakes we see real estate professionals doing in social media is posting nothing but links to their listings. Sure, it’s fine to link to that Just Listed property, but look at it from a potential fan (who may not even currently be in the buyers market)…are they going to be interested in seeing 15 posts a day that just advertise your listings…or would they rather enjoy more diverse content that might include local event info, home fix-it tips, or other information…? EXACTLY. So, make your content about more than just hyping that next listing.
Use pictures. Social media is a very visual platform, because we as humans are very visual creatures. Text based information posts are great but be sure to mix it up with some good visual content as well. Now, that doesn’t mean just post pictures – unless you are on Pinterest – but be sure to include pictures now and again, with some good “hook” language to describe the image.
Social media isn’t about selling to the people you’re connected with, it’s about connecting with the people you’re selling to. Keep the relevancy of your content focused on the interests of your fan base to see the most success; be sure to keep at it!
TourRE: New Virtual Videos
We here at Tour Real Estate Inc are constantly striving to provide our customers with the latest in new real estate technology. As many of you already know video is the big hot button item in the online world of marketing. With the advent of Google Glass and other technologies video is really becoming something you will want to make use of soon. As part of this coming trend we are looking to get your feedback on a new project we have begun. Watch the video below for more specific details and tell us what you think!
In short these new video style tours will allow you to take professionally shot photographs of your listing and turn them into a high quality video – what’s more you’re not just showing the home, you’re showing off your services as well. Every buyer or seller wants to work with an agent or broker that is set to impress; this is one way to really wow your client.
A little camera shy? Just don’t have the time to get into the studio? We also will be able to provide stand-in actors and voice overs to help save you time or for your use in case you get lock-jaw when talking to a massive global video audience.
Once produced your finished video will be available for download to you so that you can place it anywhere you like – upload it to Youtube, embed it on your website, and distribute it on any of your social networks. We give you the video so that you can be in control of your own marketing.
Want to do video testimonials, or other buyer/seller advertising? Custom real estate video’s are available! Hype your own services, produce tips for new clientele, and wow them with commercial quality video for your message.
We’d love to get your feedback on this new concept! Comment below or contact us directly to let us know your thoughts or if you might be interested in getting your own video package started!
We Move Real Estate – and Our Office!
We’ve Moved!
Update your address books – we’re in a brand new office here in Meridian, Idaho! Same amazing real estate technology services in a great new location!
For over a decade Tour Real Estate has provided the very best online marketing for real estate agents in the Northwest; we continue that vision today.
We have many great developments in the works for the coming year and want to thank all of our customers who have enjoyed our sterling services so far – you have helped make us great!
For payments and meeting arrangements our NEW office is located at:
Tour Real Estate Inc.
1406 N. Main St. Suite 109
Meridian, Idaho 83642
Not a Tour Real Estate customer yet? Why not!?
We provide some of the best, most dynamic real estate websites available on the planet! More than just templated websites we also specialize in custom REALTOR® websites for individual agents and brokerages. Connected Socially? So are we! We love helping real estate professionals make the most of today’s popular social networks – visit our website today to get just a taste of what we have available.
Brokers: Get Connected
Interconnectivity is the key to unleashing the power of the internet. Search engine algorithms are mysterious and unpredictable, social media is yet too unproven for many to trust solely for return on investment. For those brokerages looking for a solution Tour Real Estate offers this simple example of how we can leverage the internet’s greatest strength to exponentially increase your traffic and digital exposure.
Build a Powerful Network
Despite algorithm changes authoritative incoming links are still KEY to ranking well in search results.
We can connect each of your agent’s own highly optimized individual websites to your main office hub, using diverse keyword anchors to create a powerful flow of traffic.
Create and Optimize
Duplication is death. Automation, anti-productive. Search engines want fresh content for the top sites they present and your visitors demand the best online tools and features. Neither will tolerate a website that is hard to use or that works poorly.
We can provide elegant eye catching designs to envelope the sleek technological functionality of your dynamic website with us and offer some of the most comprehensive marketing tools for real estate professionals available today.
Develop Your Digital Destiny
Regardless of if we like it or not, use it or not, social media has arrived and is one of the most powerful means of exposing your services and listings to a vast – and growing – audience. We believe taking part in the social conversation shouldn’t be something that has to be cumbersome; offer extremely flexible strategies from simple consultation to full hands-on management.
We’d love the opportunity to talk with you about preparing an effective plan to help you grow towards a successful future in real estate online – contact us today in order to discuss your ideas.
UPDATED Realtor Website Function: Social Links
Due to your requests we’ve now updated our social links function in our client toolbox. Originally designed to allow our user agents to easily link out from their main websites to popular social networks, this function has quickly gained popularity among our more tech savvy users who know the importance of having everything connected.
So what’s new?
Our most recent available social networks are Google Plus and Pinterest. If you have active accounts there that you are using you can now link out to them by simply pasting your profile url into the toolbox in the proper place.
What is Google Plus?
While the jury is still out, many people jokingly refer to Google Plus as the social network that’s not there. Well, it may not be quite there YET but it is well on it’s way. With Google moving it’s “Places” function into Google Plus “Local” the search engine giants new social network will soon be playing an even bigger role on how consumers find things locally. Combine that with it’s AWESOME video chat functionality called “Hangouts” and no one can argue that Google Plus is well poised to begin a social takeover.
What is Pinterest?
Pinterest is the hottest new social sharing site. Mainly consisting of images, video is also supported, this new network encourages users to find amazing things online and “pin” them to their own digital walls. As this network is almost solely visually driven it is not only extremely powerful ( if done right ) but also very easy to get lost in.
Are you a REALTOR® with questions about social media? Tour Real Estate can help you make sense of the online world, including today’s most popular social networks. With search engine rules changing every other day man experts are suggesting that a strong social presence may be the best way to insure a stable digital presence and maintain exceptional customer service online.
REALTORS: Social Networking Success
The game has changed, but there’s still a lot to be said for a good name.
Technology has revolutionized the way real estate is done; this can both be your biggest challenge and your greatest asset. For a short while SEO alone offered a refuge for the small but determined individual, but with the recent changes to Google’s search algorithms the stability of those methods has come into question. While a firm foundation in solid search engine optimization is still the best place to start, in this increasingly competitive market you need a little more to get ahead.
Enter social media.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ve heard about Facebook, Twitter, and some of the other big boys of the social world online. You are likely already using at least one of these type of networks for personal use. And you’ve heard of others using these systems to increase their real world interactions and to create more business – you may even have business account setup – but aren’t really sure what they’re supposed to be doing to help.
Here are some things to consider when evaluating your social networking strategy:
Social media success is a lot more than just a lot of icons on a page. Just having profiles setup on those sites really isn’t enough.
It’s called social networking for a reason. It works most effectively when all of the elements are interconnected and working together. It’s a fact, over 80% of all potential home buyers look online before they even think to start working with a REALTOR® and social media can help you improve your chances of being the one they choose.
More and more people these days will search and skip right past the first few results to see what returns show up from social networks. Many are even simply skipping a search engine altogether and searching directly ON the social networks in question.
The question is: what will come up when they search for YOU? Is what they find best serving your goals? If you’re not sure you may need to more closely examine how you are presenting yourself online.
You see, what shows up in those social results is just as important (maybe even more so) than the fact they show up at all. There is nothing more embarrassing or sad than clicking a link to a blog or twitter profile only to see “Last Updated, March 9, 2010″; the only thing close is to visit a profile and see nothing but the bare bones information or “coming soon” promise.
So the first best tip would be: if you’re going to have a profile on a social network USE IT. Make sure it is up to date – or if you don’t intend on updating it frequently make sure the content and information you put there will stand the test of time.
The last best tip would be: USE the social profiles you have. (sounds similar to the first tip doesn’t it?!) Social media, like your website itself, is just a tool and like any tool it can’t help you if you don’t use it. A $5,000 titanium alloy hammer will sit in the box and never drive a single nail if it is not used; the same thing applies to social media.
Social media can help you increase your digital footprint and gain more exposure for your website, listings, and services, but you need to make sure all your profiles are connected and presenting a consistent message.
Even in this technology driven industry word of mouth is still one of the most powerful ways to gain referrals and new clients. Social media is the digital form of word of mouth. If you are providing great content and maintaining interaction levels with your follower base you may soon be amazed at the fact that they are the ones driving the success of your efforts online as much as yourself.
By leveraging these networks and nurturing your audience you can in essence custom tailor the face you present to the world online. Isn’t it best then to make sure you’re wearing your best winning smile?
Have questions about using social media? Too busy to blog? Too tired to Tweet? We can help you understand social network marketing and even offer a number of social media management services for today’s progressive real estate professionals. Contact us to find out more!
Realtor Video Feeds from Youtube
What’s new? How about a Youtube Homepage Module?! You can now add your most recent Youtube video to your homepage. This function updates automatically any time you post a new video and adding this module to your websites main page allows you to share videos from your real estate Youtube channel with no extra effort.
It’s simple to add: Login to your Client Toolbox and click Social Links on the left. Make sure you’ve entered your Youtube channel URL (make sure you use the proper URL format displayed). Once that is entered just visit the Customize Homepage Content and add the Youtube module from the available default modules there.
Just one more feature for our dedicated real estate website customers – provided at no additional cost! Find out more about all of our great website functions by visiting our main real estate website page.
Get out there and make some videos and enjoy!
REALTORS: You May Be Online But Are You Social?
We’ve been preaching about blogging and leveraging social media for years; we’re glad to see so many great real estate professionals finally coming around. Despite it’s relative ease of use and wide availability however the fact is REALTORS® don’t want to be punching buttons on the computer all day, they want to be moving more real estate!
Tour Real Estate has heard your cries of frustration and in response have begun providing exceptional search engine optimization and social media management services for the real estate industry.
Our Gold Package SEO Service is an add-on service in addition to our standard real estate website services that will help improve your website’s search engine visibility and social exposure.
Here are some details regarding what the service includes:
Blogging – Blog Setup includes setup of an external blog which links to your site, an RSS pull of your listings, and multi-month blog posts targeted to your keywords.
Social Management – Setup of Twitter and Facebook Fan Pages with custom images and links to your website. Fan Pages also include conversion to the new Timeline format and a custom search tab that allows fans to search from within Facebook – driving traffic to your site! In addition to weekly posts to these social profiles we also manage and nurture your followers to help your fan count grow and to remove unwanted spambots.
Backlinks – Quality backlinks to your site come standard as part of the setup of your blog and social network profiles. Beyond that we also offer over 200 extra backlinks and in the future this functions power will grow exponentially as Gold Package customers will be available for a very special real estate marketing engine that we are developing — potentially creating thousands of high quality external links to your site.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – a review and consulting session on your target market includes a search engine results placement (SERP) report of your current standing in search results, as well as keyword research for your specific goals to make sure your website is optimized for the best keywords to get results.
This service is ideal for progressive real estate professionals looking to invest in their digital presence, but we realize it may not be for everyone. Some of you may already have a blog but just don’t know how to use, or simply are active on social networks but just want to understand it more.
We’re always glad to talk shop! By following this blog, or our other social profiles you can get a lot of great free info! Beyond that we can also customize a social or search engine strategy for you’re specific needs!
REALTORS: Create Your Own Listing Tour
Did you know you can create your own attractive photo tours for your real estate listings through your TourRE Toolbox – for FREE ?
That’s right! We’ve made the decision to go ahead and release the alpha version of our upcoming new virtual tour window early so that you can begin showcasing your listings now!
This early release is a very basic example of things to come. It currently includes a nice slideshow of your listings photos, property details, and quick tool links that allow visitors to request more info and get in touch with you!
Future features will include: multiple file uploads to save you time, audio and voice over capabilities, youtube movie creation, custom looks for your tour window, automatically publish tours to MLS, and MORE!
Want to start creating your own tours now? Login to your toolbox and go to the Photo Tours link on the left. Once there, click Add Photo Tour at the top. On the page that opens enter the address, then mls number for your listing and begin browsing to the photos you want to include. You can upload up to 36 photos. Once done, click submit. Once your files are done uploading you will be taken back to the main photo tour section where you can click View Photo Tour URL to retrieve the branded and unbranded links to your new tour!
REALTORS: Be Wary of Fast Talkers
Seems like the new year always brings a fresh round of fast talkers and smoke blowers to the arena of online real estate solutions. 2012 has been no different; while we always welcome a little friendly competition we dd want to make our REALTOR® friends aware of some things that they should be cautious of.
If it sounds too good to be true, they are likely trying to sell you something.
Some tech companies come in like lions roaring and raging about the effectiveness of their websites in search engines or capturing leads. When this happens, ask them how many of their websites actually show up in the top 20 search results for your market. Find out a good average of traffic for their domains; how many leads generally come in.
We Can Make You Number One in Google!
Be especially wary of anyone promising to get you to first place in any search engine. Google specifically states that no company can promise any sort of exclusive relationship with them; as search algorithms are always changing no search results can truly be guaranteed. One sneaky tactic is for them to indeed get you to #1 in Google, but not for a phrase anyone is searching for – you see it’s easy to rank for “purple zebra hacksaws” but no one is searching for that; even if they did it certainly wouldn’t help you move real estate.
We Syndicate Your Listings to HUNDREDS of National Sites
This is one of the biggest bragged about features that we’ve seen others waving a flag for. What they don’t tell you is that many of those sites like Zillow and Trulia scrape listing data all on their own – so really they aren’t syndicating anything. They’re still glad to charge you for the service…
Social Network Marketing is MORE than just Being There.
Some companies will charge hundreds of dollars just to setup a twitter or Facebook page. Once their obligation to create them is complete it’s hands off and you’re on your own. JUST having those profiles, and the little icon on your site, does absolutely nothing for you unless you are actively using those sites, and using them in a consistent and effective manner. There’s nothing more sad than visiting a twitter page and seeing “Last Tweet March 2010″ or a blog with default text right where it was created.
REALTOR® websites from Tour Real Estate are affordable and effective. They are search engine friendly from the start; feature the ability for you to control your content, links, and search engine visibility. We package all the online tools you will need to market your services and showcase your listings. TourRE has been revolutionizing the way real estate is found for over 10 years, we are a local Idaho technology solutions provider; our customer service and loyalty is unparalleled.
Too busy to blog? Too tired to tweet?
We can provide cost effective REALTOR® search engine optimization and social network management. We are even glad to help you learn more about using the profiles you may already have so that you can take control of your digital presence all on your own.
Already a TourRE client and want to make more of your site? We’re glad to help out!Contact us so we can discuss how you can improve your online visibility and gain more traffic in 2012!
Not a TourRE client? What are you waiting for?! For about the cost of a one time print ad you could have a powerfully dynamic real estate website online 24 hours a day seven days a week 365 days a year generating better business for you and helping you move more real estate!
