Baton Rouge Area Homes Technology Blog

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2008 Social Media Statistics by New Media Lab

Twitter Logo and Link

The Twitter phenomena is on us!  Thanks to Active Rain blogs from so many of you, I joined this month.  My first impressions are: 

1.  Whee.....    I never saw so much information explode in front of my screen and I only follow 72 people! Imagine the information explosion for guys like our governor Bobby Jindal who follows 3,071 folks.  Or Barak Obama who follows 168,024 folks.

2.  I gathered information and valuable links I never knew I needed like the statistics below from Brian Castillo, a fellow Active Rainer and local Tweeter.

3.  I attended a Tweetup and met some local folks who are really neat, and very different from me and have a collective knowledge I didn't know was available locally.

4.  I'm creatively reflecting on how to do this and tie it into my warm market marketing which is where my business is primarily generated.

Here are the latest statistice on Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Media from Austin's New Media Lab nmlab.com .  Look at the explosion for twitter and the user profile:

*Grew 752% in 2008, 4.4 million unique monthly visitors

*1,128,618,000 tweets so far

*60% of users are male, 40% are female

*45% have a college degree, 15% have a graduate degree

*50% have household incomes over $75,000

*20% are under 35, 40% are aged 35-44, 40% are 45 and older

Are some of you having success with this Social Media?  Share your experience and thoughts.

 

 

Fifteen Twitter follow dos and don'ts

 Fifteen Twitter follow dos and dont's

Via Paul Chaney (Social Media Handyman):

school of fish twitter follows
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.

Twellow Twitter

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.

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Twitter for Beginners

While I was out there Twittering this morning, one of the Tweets I was following posted a good article for those of you who are like me,...just trying to figure out how to do this and what it's value is.  Justin Seeley Seeley Media. in Baton Rouge shared this article from the New York Times. Twittering Tips for Beginners.  One of the examples that was used got me started thinking that it's all in the way we apply Twitter. New Ideas for Baton Rouge Real Estate Business Like Twitter In the example a legal group sent out a Twitter asking if anyone had done something before.  They got back 2 responses of examples where it had been done.  I think our challenge in real estate is to use Twitter as a powerful tool to tap in on the knowledge and resources in our community and even out world at large!

Twitter Button from twitbuttons.com

Technology Plan, Part 1 Developing a Mobile Office

As we are moving into an era that demands that top agents and companies are proficient at both real estate marketing and sales and in technology to support those efforts, I am including the development of a technology plan as part of my goal setting in 2009.  There are five parts to that plan 1)Developing a Mobile Office, 2) Evlauation of Using Virtual Assistants, 3) Development of Mobile Listing Presentations, 4) Developing Technical Tools for Warm Market and Social Networking, and 5) Websites.

My plan spans a 5 year period, not just one year, as cost of technology is expensive.  Also, after completing the ePRO course, I decided to put to full use what I already have as part of the time investment required to be effective.

I started developing a mobile office 2 years ago. My first goal was to become a Mobile Agent.  Then second goal was to connect with my company team.    The ultimate goal was to sit in a clients home and conduct Seller Consultation, close the deal, write up contracts and sign on the pc screen,  put signs in yard  immediately, put brochures in the home, and have a listings ready to show in the 2-4 hour period needed for the Seller Consultation.  Once this capability exists for a Seller, it contains all the components needed for Buyer Contracts.  Also, being in a car a lot, I wanted to be able to check & respond to emails and texts frequently during the day, which I'll cover in Part 4 Developing Technical Tools for Warm Market and Social Networking. 

Summarizing what I've Done so Far...To achieve first goal of being a Moblie Agent. Your mobile office plan involves both hardware and software choices. My first purchase was a PC with docking station for autobackup.  After evaluating the RedTablet, approach,  I opted for a Hewlett Packard Tablet PC to allow for future ideas I planned to develop, even though I initially used it just like any PC. Hewlett Packard Compaq tc4200The case studies given in this link will help you visualize where you want to go.  Tablets allow signing on the screen and printing handwritten documents.  It was self-contained and not internet dependent.  If your interested in Tablet PC, join the Active Rain Group Tablet PC's, the New Age or a Dinasour? I selected a Verizon Wireless card so I wouldn't be dependent on free wireless networks not always available.  For software I added Office Pro 2003, which contained Outlook for integrating my emails, Publisher and Word and Power point for presentations and e-broadcasts and newsletters. Active Rain has an Outlook group where you can pick up all kinds of ideas.   I also added Hewlett Packard's HP Real Estate Marketing Assistant to allow me to sit with a client and create brochures from photos I took while at their home. Hewlett Packard Deskjet 460 Then with a mobile printer HP Deskjet 460, I had brochures ready to leave at the end of the listing presentation. This printer operates on battery and blue tooth so I can print in my car or in a clients home.

Finally adding an eFax service I could send documents out of town and out all over the world.  These were items I accomplished in 2007 and 2008.  Plug into some of the Active Rain technology groups that have a wealth of information...e-PRO Internet Technology Making Real Estate Better with Technology,    Technology,

My next 3 year plan includes connecting with other agents and my team.  We are evaluating mobile sales meetings using systems such as CallWave that connects BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile and Nokia, with Apple Fuze Conferencing.  We all have different PDA's and it would be desirable for us NOT to have to be in any office for a meeting.  (Maybe we'd be on vacation in Hawaii)   :-)

Also in the next 2year plan is evaluating online notary services like the one used by USPS, that authenticates online signatures on contracts, as cut and paste causes legal issues in many states. 

Now the last step will be to find creative, interactive virtual tours that will allow us to "show" homes online without stepping a foot in the door.  So far nothing quite replaces that in person visit.

I'd be interested in knowing what others of you in the Active Rain are doing to create a Mobile Office.

Technology Plan While You're Setting goals

We are moving into a new era in real estate where marketing and sales is dominated and driven by the internet and technology.  As agents we need a good Technology Plan as part of our Goal Setting.  My Technology Plan includes these components:

1.  Developing a Mobile Office

2.  Evaluation of Virtual Assistants

3.  Development of Mobile Listing Presentations

4.  Develop Technical Tools to Support Social Networking and Warm Markets

5.  Websites

Are other of you Rainers developing a Technology Plan to support your Goals?

I'll share a little more about each of these categories in future posts.