Baton Rouge Area Homes Technology Blog

On the first day of class, my Social Media and Blogging students learn they cannot make it through the first day or move on to the second class without first signing up to Gmail to get a built-in Google account. I bring it up on my E-mail Marketing, Web Design and even Intro to Computers classes, as well, and even have a “Getting a Google Account” hand out.

While some of my students may very well have a Gmail address already, they are mostly unaware of the many benefits adhered to the wonder that is a Google Account.  For my AOL, Comcast, Earthlink, Yahoo and MSN users, it may not be so obvious why I seem to be obsessed with them switching to a Gmail account.

Today was a special day, though…I actually taught the first session of a series on Google Apps, which includes the use of Gmail, Google Docs and Google Calendar. I love teaching others to use technology devices and applications I love. It sure doesn’t feel like work!

What’s so special about Gmail anyway?

Gmail Labs

• Archiving – Keep your inbox uncluttered and “hide” messages you’ve already worked on. Find your messages easily by using the amazing SEARCH MAIL box or clicking All Mail.

• Message translation – If you receive an email in a different language, Gmail can translate your message into a language you can understand with just one click.

• Undo send – You can have a grace period of a few seconds to cancel sending, then edit your message before sending again. I try to put the e-mail address on there last, but this actually makes sense.
• Offline Access – Can you believe that Gmail can work when you’re not connected to the internet?  Wow…
• Labels – This is just such a beautiful e-mail feature. Anyone who loves organization like I do knows that labeling your items will make it easier to find them or access them at a later time. Labels work together with Filters to give us back control over our e-mail addresses.
• View Image – View PDF – You can preview PDFs  and images on your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox) without having to download them or open them with an application.
• Tasks – This feature is key in keeping me organized and on track. Adding tasks to your to-do list and checking them off as you complete them is sweet!  You can actually convert an e-mail message into a task. (Accessible on mobile, too). Too unbelievable!
• Text Messaging -There’s a short messaging system [SMS] built-in  Gmail. Send your text messages using your PC keyboard.  I love that!
• Set the Tone Theme – From minimalist grays to dynamic mountain landscapes, choose from over 30 options to personalize the look and feel of your Gmail account.
• Gmail voice and video chat – If you’ve used Skype, then you’re familiar with this concept… sort of.  Gmail users can actually view and listen to each other, by simply downloading Google Chat and having their web cam activated.

• Use Emoticons on your messages. A real wide variety of “expressive icons” on both chat and e-mail.
• Gmail for mobile 2.0. By going to m.google.com/mail on your BlackBerry (I have the World Edition so I can use it internationally), you can download this wonderful tool for offline e-mail capabilities.
• Gmail for AIM® friends. I’m a Yahoo! Messenger kind of girl, but many of my friends are on AIM®. I can now include them on my Google chat list without having to do an unwanted switch to AOL. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that…).  {AOL and AIM are trademarks of AOL LLC }
• Colored labels – Everything is better in color! This is true for your labels. I use my blue and green, of course.
• HTTPS by default - This protocol has been  To protect your Gmail account, we’ve turned on the option to “always use HTTPS” for everyone and encrypts your page to protect your password.
  
• Group chat – This Gmail option works fabulously for online meetings or “family reunions”. Multiple people and no multiple windows. Yay!

• Easy Access to Attachments- You can access Microsoft Word documents, Excel spreadsheets, and even Powerpoint presentations (as slideshows) without having to download them into your computer or opening an application. 
• 20 MB! The allowed size of attachments to your e-mail is double on Gmail.
• Get mail and send mail from other accounts – You can retrieve new and old messages from other accounts, as well as customize
  the ‘From:’ address, so they look like they were sent from another one of your email accounts.
• Message notifications - You will see updates to an e-mail conversation even while you are typing a reply. “That was fast!”.
• Forward all – You can forward a whole thread of a message, not just single messages.
• Offline Chat – You can leave “offline messages” to your chatting friends so they can see them when they logon next.
• Gmail.com/app – Download this application and and start accessing Gmail on your phone.
• Voicemail – If you use Google chat, you can send and retrieve voicemail right on your e-mail as an audio file.
• Put a face on your Contacts – You can set a photo for yourself and your contacts so it shows up next to the contact name.
• Vacation auto-responder – Tell everyone when you’re on vacation and will be back,  leave the name and number of someone who can assist them or your own contact information overseas, or whatever may be the case.
• Contact groups – You can send messages to a group instead of having to pick out the individual addresses every time. This is a great time saver.
• View as HTML – Now you can view Microsoft Office, OpenOffice or .pdf attachments as web pages. Download what?
• Auto-save – This is such a blessing. When you’re composing a message, it saves to ‘Drafts’ automatically so you don’t lose your information!
• Gmail on Google.com – If you use iGoogle, you can access Gmail from your personalized Google page.
• Free POP access and automatic forwarding – This is a great tool so you can use to access your e-mail messages via Outlook or Blackberry.
• Import Contacts -  You can move all your contacts from Yahoo! Mail, Outlook, and others to Gmail in just a few clicks. Exporting is also very easy, if you’re using e-mail marketing software and need a CSV file.
• Signature options – On the settings page, you will find an option to create a signature that’s automatically added to the end of all your outgoing messages. Mine has links to my Facebook business pages, Linkedin, YouTube, Twitter, blog, website and other contact information.

You can use your Google DOCS, Google CALENDAR and events right with your Gmail.  A Gmail account is also a Google account, so you can access Google Reader, Google Alerts, Google Analytics, Blogger, Picassa, Chrome, and YouTube.

Are you still hesitant? If you’re not, welcome to revolutionary e-mailing!

For more information, connect with me:

About the Author: Elayna Fernandez is a proud mother, founder of the Positive Mommies Network, blogging/social media/web design instructor, and marketing/branding strategist.

Thank you for taking the time to reading my post. Have a powerful day!

This article is the sole intellectual property of Elayna Fernandez. Copyright Designed 2 Impress, Inc.

[originally posted on REtechy.com]

Advances in technology make using a smartphone a requisite for any real estate agent worth her/his weight. Many options are available, but two phones have risen to the top of the smartphone food-chain.

Is the Blackberry Bold or iPhone better for business?

How the heck can I answer that without subjecting myself to hostility? I can tell you this though - the Blackberry Bold is the best Blackberry ever created. The Bold was designed for business use and boasts features the iPhone does not have including: ability to edit documents & video recording. The Blackberry Bold’s security also makes a compelling argument. The Blackberry is a preferred phone for Supra eKEY (GE Security); BlackBerry users can now join the thousands of real estate professionals already enjoying the timesaving benefits of eKEY service on their Palm and Windows smartphones.

Before you go buying a Blackberry Bold let’s talk about the iPhone. Apple’s iPhone is the 2nd sexiest thing I have ever held (1st is you honey). The UI is beautiful, the web browser blows Blackberry out of the water, and did I mention it was sexy? Apple’s App store for the iPhone holds many great real estate related applications, with new ones churned out all the time.

Let’s remember the iPhone is designed for the consumer; you can hail cabs, order groceries, make fart sounds all from your iPhone. The developer community supporting iPhone applications is large and active. If you fall in love with an application, or two, the iPhone may prove to be the best phone for your needs.

 

For those of you that are iPhone users, I'm sure that you know that yesterday Apple released some info about the upcoming iPhone OS version 3.0.

There are many new features and you can watch the video over on the Apple site and get great reviews all over the web. My favorite is Ryan Block's at GDGT.com. The two things that I think are important for Realtors are:

1. Apple will now allow developers to access bluetooth to communicate with external devices

2. Turn by Turn directions

The first one has been what has kept Supra from being able to develop an application similar to the one on the Blackberry. I have spoken to (name withheld) at Supra and they have assured me that the app was being developed and wold be released pending Apple allowing this functionality. The iPhone 3.0 release will not be out until summer (hopefully June and not August) so I expect this app to follow shortly.

The second option is great for those of us who do not have navigation installed in our vehicles. Since the economy is not getting better quickly I'm not buying a car anytime soon. Garmin and TomTom have been developing proof of concept applications for the iPhone so I can assume they will be releasing apps this summer also. The one caveat here is, because of licensing issues these applications will have to provide their own maps. An entire map of the US stored locally could take up 750MB - 1GB of space. I have an 8GB version so this takes up as much as 12.5% of my storage.

 

There are two schools of thought pertaining to who to follow on Twitter. One is what I refer to as the Guy Kawasaki method which says, "forget the influentials," "defocus your efforts," and "get as many followers as you can." It's more of a mass marketing approach.

Up and until Twitter imposed limits on the number of people that I could follow in a given 24-hour period, that's pretty much the school to which I subscribed and just about anyone and everyone qualified (minus the spammers of course).

Since then, I've had to be more discerning and have actually found that to be a good thing. So, here are fifteen suggested Twitter follow dos and don'ts based on my current Twitter follow modus operandi:

Dos...

1. Focus your efforts - If you're in sales and marketing, hopefully you've outlined specific target markets based on demographic, psychographic and technographic profiles. Maybe you've even created a persona of the ideal client or customer. Find those folks and follow them.

One good way to do that is by using Twellow, which is a Twitter "yellow pages." It categorizes Twitter followers based on geography and industry and covers everything from aerospace to Web development.

For example, a search on my city, Lafayette, LA, brought five pages of returns totaling 100 people. Not a lot, but consider that a) Lafayette is a small city by comparison and b) it's in the deep south which is often the last to catch on to new trends. If you're in a more metro area, chances are your returns will be manifold times this.

What might be more relevant is search by category. For example, Bizzuka, the company I serve as marketing director, is targeting the legal industry. A search for lawyers brought over 930 returns. We are also targeting healthcare. A search returned almost 100 hospitals.

Apply that same methodology to your own situation and see what comes of it.

Twellow defaults to ranking returns based on number of followers, but you can also sort by
recent activity and/or whether the person has verified their Twellow account.

Each person listed has a profile associated with their entry which, depending on whether they've verified their account or not, could contain lots of information, including a bio, latest Twitter updates (good for knowing whether they're an active user or not), and link to their Web site or blog.

2. Follow those with real names - That's one way to know it's a genuine account. (It's always a good practice when setting up a Twitter account to use your real name.)

3. Follow those who follow you - In most cases it's a common courtesy. Chances are they're in the same industry or have some relevance to you.

4. Follow those following the people who are following you - Same rationale as #3, just once removed.

5. Follow those following the people you are following - If you've chosen to follow a particular individual for whatever reason (maybe they fit the profile mentioned in #1), there's a good likelihood at least some of the people following them would be relevant for you as well.

6. Follow those in your industry - Obviously, one of the best uses for Twitter is as a vehicle for networking, gathering feedback and getting advice. It's a great tool for meeting others in your industry or discipline.

7. Follow those you find interesting and/or entertaining - In all the mad rush to turn Twitter into a business communications and marketing tool, leave a little for pure fun. If you find someone's posts interesting, maybe they're worth following as well.

8. Follow those who use the same hashtags (ex. #nms08) to follow a conversation - Again, if they're interested in the same things as you, consider following them.

9. Follow those who @reply you - @replies can be sent into the public timeline addressed to people you're not following. If a user has addressed you in that way, might be fruitful to add them.

10. Follow those interacting with people you follow - If you see a tweet with an @reply addressing someone you're following that comes from someone you're not, they may be worth following. Check em out!

Don'ts...

11. Don't follow those with numbers behind their names - This is a technique often used by spammers (Twammers) due to the fact that have multiple accounts. It's a dead give-away. (One word of caution: When setting up your Twitter handle, don't use numbers. Your real name will do nicely.)

12. Don't follow those with no avatar - If you can't see their face, company logo or some sort of avatar, don't follow.

13. Don't follow those who only broadcast - Unless you know it's an account set up strictly for that purpose - a news, shopping or "tips" type account - don't follow. If they don't participate in conversations with anyone else, they won't with you either.

14. Don't follow those who aren't active - I don't know the number or percentage, but I bet the number of people who've subscribed to Twitter and aren't actively using it is sizable. If a user is not actively maintaining the account, chances are it's dead.

15. Don't follow users based on their follower count - In social media, it's not necessarily how many eyeballs that count but who those eyeballs belong to. There are some very influential people who may not have huge numbers of followers.

There you have it - 15 tips for know who to follow and who not to. That's my list at least for now, though I'm sure I'll add to it. BTW, you can too! What criteria do you use in determining who to follow. Please share it in a comment. Thanks!

Finally, if you're not following me, please do. My Twitter handle is @pchaney.

Get the Complete Guide to Twitter for Business, only $9.95. This 35-page ebook equips you with everything you need to know to begin using Twitter to grow your business. Order today!

(First, sorry for my latency in posting of late. Was away with my wife Amie on the trip of a lifetime to NYC! Travels are over; getting back to business.)

One of the questions I'm getting A LOT is "What's up with Twitter?" and "How do I use Twitter for business?" Let me say at the outset it is an amazing app with manifold uses. Companies as large as Dell have created a business model around it and solo entrepreneurs (real estate agents included) are proving its case as another channel for business development.

It's my aim to answer the above questions, at least in part, by not only sharing my own thoughts, but providing links to others who've addressed these as well. It will take me far more than the 140 character limit Twitter allows. :-) In fact, this will be a multi-part series.

Let's start by attempting to define Twitter.

Wikipedia Definition

First, the wikipedia definition: Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users' updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

OK, stop right there! What the heck is "micro-blogging?" While I don't know who cooked up the term, it's a suggestion that Twitter is a blogging tool, one limited to 140 characters. Hence, "micro" blogging.

Why 140 characters? Because the guys who dreamed up Twitter (Biz Stone and Evan Williams, the same guys who created Blogger) saw it as an SMS (text messaging) tool. In other words, it was first conceived as an application for mobile devices, but one with a web-based interface.

Even though it started that way, Twitter's user-base largely ignored the SMS side of things in favor of the web-based version. At one point, due to bandwidth and thru-put demands on Twitter's servers, SMS capabilities were actually shut off. Essentially, Twitter started out as one thing and became something else. (More on that in a moment.)

Better Definition

A better explanation was one given to me by a gentleman (whose name I don't recall) I met at a social media conference in Houston a few month back. He referred to Twitter as a "high latency instant messaging application."Huh?

Twitter is like Yahoo! Messenger or AIM or any number of instant messaging applications, only you aren't compelled to respond immediately, if at all. Hence the term, "high latency."

Best Definition

In my opinion, Twitter is best defined as a social instant messaging application. "Social" in that you friend others who then see your posts and follow them (the term in Twitterese is, in fact, "follow," though it means the same thing), and "instant messaging" in the sense that it has that feel to it.

What it really is is a conversation stream that you jump into at any given moment in time and start talking. Participation is the price of entry. (More on that in a later post.)

More from Wikipedia

"Updates are displayed on the user's profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them," says wikipedia. "The sender can restrict delivery to those in his or her circle of friends (delivery to everyone being the default). Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, SMS, RSS, email or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook."

Twitter's Evolution

As mentioned above, Twitter started out as a mobile application, but morphed to something that was largely web-based, thanks to its users. And, I mean, let's face it, if you're following a few hundred people, do you really want to get text messages from everyone of them? You can pick and choose who to receive such messages from of course, but even if you've limited it to a handful, if they're avid Twitter users, you're phone will still be dinging all the time. In my view, it's overkill. If you like the SMS component, that's fine, but I'd limit it to a select few.

Back to the evolution...

Speaking of the user-base, Twitter's founders have been fairly well-receptive to the way Twits (one term for Twitter users) are using the app. For example, at some point people started using the "@" symbol to address a single individual via their Twitter handle (e.g. @pchaney). It was a way to delineate that the message wasn't for everyone, but for that specific person.

It wasn't long until Twitter incorporated the activity as part of its functionality. Not only that, they added a direct messaging capability enabling users to send private messages to individual users.

That's enough for this post. I'll be back tomorrow soon with another talking about how to use Twitter, explaining proper "Twittiquette" and sharing the rules of the road.

In part 3 (yes, there will be a part 3 and a part 4; I told you it would take more than one post.) I plan to delve into some of the applications that have developed around Twitter thanks to its API (A geeky acronym which stands for Application Programming Interface. It's a way for one application to be used by or integrated into another.)

Part 4 is where the water really meets the road in terms of how to use Twitter for business. I'll provide some practical, real life examples, including some from fellow agents. Look for that early next week.

Fresh off the buzz of attending my first tweet-up, I noticed a tweet about a blogging class being given the next morning by Missy Caulk, Michigan's own online real estate superstar. Plus special ActiveRain guest Bob Stewart was going to be speaking. This was something not to be missed.

The next morning, the room was packed and overflowing. Not only were agents from her company there, but several of us from the Twitterverse were as well, including Edward Vielmetti, a well-known local blogger who 'live-blogged' the session. He had found out about it by reading a tweet just that morning!

The two hours went by quickly with everyone furiously taking notes and a few of us tweeting (including the photo to the left which appeared on my photo blog).

Many of those in attendance were just getting started and Missy's message was to be authentic, transparent, and personal. Bob demonstrated how easy it is to get started on ActiveRain.

From Edward's precise notes and real-time tweets to Missy's sage advice, the seminar was a "happening". The icing on the cake was meeting people face-to-face for the first time.

The Social Networking Buzz: Getting Started, Twitterland, TweetBeeps & Tweet-Ups

 

Once I mastered the Twitter basics, I set up TweetBeep (kinda like Google alerts) to email me when someone wrote a tweet on something that interested me. For example, any time someone wrote a tweet including the word "Plymouth", I'd get an email. Do you know how many cities are named Plymouth in the world? Lots.

Next, I noticed people talking about "tweet-ups". I had no idea what they meant, but had a hunch it might have something to do with getting together.

As luck would have it, one of the local agents I was following organized one last week and five people showed up. We met at a pub, enjoyed food & drinks, and shared real estate war stories and tech tips.

It was great to be in the company of others who "get" and embrace the same technology instead of looking at you with a blank stare when trying to explain..

Next, a little Twitter synchronicity.

The Social Networking Buzz: Getting Started, Twitterland, Twitter Synchronicity

I signed up for Twitter this Summer after reading about it on ActiveRain. With only 140 characters and chatty conversations between people that seemed to know each other, I totally didn't get it.

As part of the social media webinar assignment, our homework was to log in Twitter and get our feet wet. I was ready to dive in.

First, here's a quick explanation from CommonCraft:

I started slowly by searching for and following real estate agents (including Missy Caulk from Ann Arbor and Teresa Boardman from St. Paul), real estate techies and local folks.

Gradually I started participating by "tweeting" (posting) some of my daily activities and people started following me (BTW, my Twitter ID is @MichiganMoves).

The more time I spent on Twitter, the more sucked in and addicted I became. I even found an application for my Blackberry (Twitterberry) as well as as another website where I could post status updates to multiple networking websites (Ping.fm).

Soon I built up a network of local "tweeps" and was ready to take Twitter and social networking to the next level...a "tweet up" (meeting face to face).

The Social Networking Buzz: Getting Started, TweetBeeps & Tweet-Ups, Twitter Synchronicity