Realty World Northern California & Nevada

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All right Realtors, hold on to your hats – now you have an even bigger reason to get going with integrating video into your marketing repertoire. YouTube announced today that it will begin adding captioning to all English language videos (other languages to come soon) so that the audio can be understood/read in spite of hearing issues or speech/dialect differences. The service will be using Google’s automated speech recognition software and until today, only a few limited partners have had access to this captioning function.

Just think, as you talk about tiles or discuss art deco – your viewers can listen or read along with your home tours, city videos or agent/office bios.

Read the full article from ReadWriteWeb here.

I was recently reading an article on TremendousNews.com that highlighted the 5 Signs You’re Part of an Internet Fad and thought back on the talks and training sessions I’ve lead recently and realized many people in real estate worry which Internet sites are here to stay before investing time into them.

Some of the suggestions from the article are helpful in figuring what may be a fad and what has real relevance. Quite possibly the most powerful point is that in the long run, pretty much every thing is a fad. Many of the formerly “hot” sites of yesterday are obsolete today. However, the knowledge that something better will eventually come along doesn’t mean you should ignore all the cool stuff that happens along the way. Here are my thoughts on the ways to spot a fad and which sites I’m spending my time on today.

(The following signs are taken from the aforementioned Tremendous News article.)

Sign #1 – People Are Way Too Into It – This is referencing the group of super-early adopters that eat, sleep and breath the technology, make shirts to announce how much they love it, and tell everyone else how uncool they are for not using it. This gives the early adopters their 15 minutes of fame and a reason for people to come ask their opinion.
Realtors Beware! When someone tells you that you absolutely must have something and that they are the only one that can tell you how to use (for the low, low price of all your money) or that “everyone’s doing it” but no one you know is doing it — it might be a fad. Waiting to see if the larger population begins to adopt this particular piece of technology won’t mean you’re too far behind to every catch up. Adopting things early has it’s benefits, but also a price, which is usually a lot of time spent on trial and error.

Sign #2 – People Are Scared When Something Else Comes Out – “When Google Buzz came out and people called it the “Twitter Killer”, thousands of people on Twitter grew frightened. If Buzz actually killed Twitter, all of those days they spent getting super hot spambot followers would be wasted. Tons of people on Twitter secretly hope Google Buzz will fail. And the rest are buying Buzz T Shirts and taking pictures of themselves for their avatars.” – TremendousNews
Realtors Beware! If it is that easy to “kill” a new product then it’s probably going to fail anyway. Facebook crushed MySpace and a lot of the competition, Google has managed to make it to the top of the search engine world and beyond – have some faith in permanence of certain products and don’t be afraid to move to something new if what you’ve got isn’t working for you anymore.

Sign #3 – It Becomes Corporate – When most social media sites and “hot Internet companies” came into the world, they were started by regular people. Probably by some geeky guys at a Starbucks on the peninsula that most people would never look twice at. And that’s what made it cool, and accessible. When corporations fully take over (not just participate, but fully take over) it starts to feel hollow. Social media experts hired on by big brands need heed this advice as well, don’t hide behind a logo – you are your best asset.
Realtors Beware! Don’t be part of the problem – be genuine, individual and personable – not a logo, brand or otherwise faceless company that sends out canned messaging to your FRIENDS. Sending all your listings out on Facebook or Twitter is perceived no differently than Honda sending car ads or Pepsi begging you to drink their cola. Keep it real people!

Google Buzz was released 2 days ago. 2 days later nets over 9 million posts according to the Google Gmail blog.

Wow. That is a lot faster growth than I had anticipated. Additionally Google is stating it is seeing over 200 posts per minute from mobile devices. Very exciting news for sure.

Google officially announced Google Buzz, the Google push into the social media irruption. Google Buzz is kind of a combination of Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp and integrated directly with your Gmail and Google Talk. That certainly sounds like a mouthful. In other words, Google has updated your Gmail email to allow you to share with those that you email and chat with most, all of your online updates, photos, and videos. Your Gmail contacts and Google Talk friends are automatically added as people you are following and allows you to share your items publicly to the world or privately with users you email and chat with.

Google Buzz integrates with your inbox and sends updates to your email and allows the conversation to continue with responses directly from within the email making comments updating in real time. @replies are also supported so you can send responses directly to someone’s email sending a buzz to their inbox.

One of the most compelling aspects to Google Buzz is that it can utilize your phones GPS location (or nearby location) to share with others where your Buzz was started. You can also go to the “Nearby” tab to see what others nearby are Buzzing about.

Most of you might be thinking, is this the new social media to take over Facebook and Twitter? It’s hard to say, especially with Facebook surpassing the 400 million user mark. Facebook is undoubtably the dominant player and additionally announced that Facebook will be eventually be launching its own webmail service. It will be interesting to see how many people will be ok with Buzzing while providing their whereabouts.

You can make your voice be heard by voting in the poll below and joining in the debate.

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Facebook turned six today and in Internet social media years that’s like turning 50. In honor of this momentous occasion I was trying to decide, do I want to “poke” Facebook, throw a snowball at them, vampire bite them, feed their Farmville crops or send unicorn heart hug?

I decided the best thing I could do was to give them this meager shout-out, post the link to Mashable’s much better story and share with as much of the world as I influence these simple ways not to not annoy people on Facebook, based on the Oatmeal’s hilarious comic about it (on my personal Facebook page) that I can’t add to a corporate blog or I risk annihilation:

• Constantly gaming on things like Farmville, vampire slayings, mafia wars, etc. and never really interacting with anyone outside of “watering their crops” or “biting” them. Annoying.
• Taking every quiz known to man and publishing the results. If you’re trying to find yourself and knowing your “Zombie love name” will help – that’s great, take the quiz, just don’t clog up my status updates with the result because I will never call you “Lord Gwazlag.”
• Stop being passive-aggressive. Leaving comments and status updates that say things like, “Some people need to stop talking like they know everything and learn to use the copier in the office properly and not drink the last Diet Coke and shower more frequently” is really just showing that you are either bitter and resentful, or lack the courage to confront those that bother you. Either deal with the issue face-to-face or let it go. (But seriously, don’t drink the last Diet Coke if it’s not yours.)
• Stop being a rash. If you surf Facebook all day, every day and comment on every post someone sends, it tells the rest of us (your coworkers included) that you aren’t paying attention to your real life (aka your JOB, kids, spouse, etc.) and that you might be a tad bit stalker-ish.
• Don’t just do business on here. These people are called “friends” – not your purchased marketing spam list where you can ask that they become a fan of you, your business, your businesses products, etc. ‘Nuff said.
• Go ahead, keep posting creepy pictures, creepy person. Don’t post pictures of your kids as your profile picture if you’re going to talk about how wasted you got last night, the person you hooked up with in Vegas or if your other pictures are of your spring break in Cancun… that’s weird. Also, stop throwing people under the bus by posting pictures of your friends, colleagues, or fellow party-goers in embarrassing or unprofessional shots. Everyone is entitled to a life outside of work, we just don’t need it splashed up on the Internet.

There you go Facebook – your birthday gift from me, to you. Happy 6th!

Social media is a great way for people to stay connected and share information. Whether that information is about your personal life or an article about the latest home prices in your area, it says something about you. And because it’s personal, it’s trusted. According to Nielsen, consumers trust recommendations from friends more than any other form of marketing, such as TV ads, emails or even editorial articles. It’s this trust that makes sharing the core of the social web.

Sharing tools, such as ShareThis have made it easier than ever for people to share content to their friends all over the web.  These tools don’t limit people to sharing via copy-and-paste, but allow them to spread information with just a few clicks. With sharing being so easy now, more people are doing it than ever before. According to a July ‘08 Forrester research study 95 percent of online US adults have received a share about a product or service in the previous month.

Making sharing easy is of great value to all types of sites, especially those owned by realtors. Not only does sharing get time-sensitive content in front of more eyes, but also the recipients of shares are more engaged than other users because they have a connection with both the information and the person who shared it with them.  Higher engaged users consume more pages on your site and are more likely to turn into qualified leads.

Start looking at your own social networking behavior. You’ll start to see sharing all around you. Facebook and LinkedIn even went as far as to change their status update button to read “Share”, implying that you aren’t simply posting what you are doing to a web page, but you are sharing it with your friends. That is a much more personal act.

The personal connection between people is what social media is built on. It’s just another way for humans to communicate with one another, and a way that’s now expected by your customers.  To understand how you can use ShareThis or other social media tools on your site, visit Sharethis.com.

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I had the pleasure of reading a great post by Chris Brogan recently on his blog regarding the number of points of contact he has in his technological worlds. His post addresses the need to sort out where we are actually using points of contact, not just from a business standpoint but what actually makes sense on a regular basis. I recommend reading the post and considering doing some sorting as well.

You can find the post here.

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I’m new at this real estate thing. I have lived my life in technology, an industry that has a community that knows many of its influential members and keeps an eye on them. The real estate community is large as well and made up of lots of people who know about specific areas, which means it can be daunting to try to track and talk to key players.

That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try though. I suggest getting to know and getting active in local committees, groups and associations. Forget about the politics of the organization, as that often distracts members or perspective members, and focus on the larger mission. Why wouldn’t you want to get to know the people that are making decisions that affect your job, stay on top of the latest and greatest, and voice your opinion when you don’t like something?

There are a lot of changes happening, getting involved is good for you, good for business and good for the entire industry. Looking for a list of places to get started – try checking with your broker or franchise – if they don’t know, start asking why not.

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Today is my birthday, a day when I typically spend some mental energy reflecting on where I’ve come and where I think society has headed. Today I was frustrated. Has anyone else heard that schools are considering cutting spelling and learning multiplication and division from the curriculum? I thought about what I’d do with a society of people that couldn’t jot a coherent note without spell check software or a group of people that couldn’t understand how to leave a tip or see if they’re getting ripped off without a calculator in their pocket and I was disgusted.

I was reminded of times back when I was younger and my parents would ask me to do something that I didn’t know how to do and I’d struggle with it for 15 seconds (which of course I explained was “forever”) and then I’d ask for help. By help I meant, “Can’t you just do it for me since you already know how?” Thankfully, my parents believed that even if it took me twice as long and was frustrating as heck, I was going to learn how to do the basics on my own.

This is how I feel about Facebook, blogging, social media and real estate in general. It’s my job to teach, to keep people informed, to propose new ideas and to provide tools to make your job possible, competitive or easier… maybe all three. It is not my job to be a Realtor. Sometimes, part of my job is helping agents and brokers figure out how to use tools themselves so that they can continue to use the tools more effectively in the future and hopefully teach those around them how to do it as well. This will raise the quality of all in the real estate profession, fostering a community of well-informed, helpful individuals – not a few people who have the answers and dole them out for a fee or at their leisure.

I ask that people keep this in mind before and when calling with a question or issue – if my response is, “Did you try to solve the problem yourself first?” or to help you help yourself – it’s because I care about creating a long-term lesson instead of a short-term solution.

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When we’re freshmen, we know we’re new. We’re cautious, optimistic and aware of our lowly status on the totem pole. Then something magical happens as we transition into sophomores – we develop arrogance. Greek for “wise fool” – the term sophomore describes the feeling that we can take on the world, know everything there is to learn and deserve the riches and spoils we toiled for the year prior. It also describes the foolishness of this notion, and by the time we are seniors, we realize it too.

This accurately describes much of the social media world and those learning to use it. We started using social media recently, we learned a few things, made some headway and now we think we’re king of the castle.

Beware that king of the castle feeling though – we’re just sophomores! We don’t know what we don’t know. We idolize the popular kids who may lead us astray, we think our teachers don’t know anything or aren’t teaching us what we really want to be taught, and we poke fun at the freshmen to make ourselves feel better.

This will pass, we’ll mature into people who recognize the ill-advised assumptions we’d previously made and laugh at our mistakes or cringe at our foolishness. We’ll emerge stronger and with a greater respect for the teachers that stayed the course while we scoffed at their suggestions.

Just something to keep in mind as we journey into this new territory of social media. Be nice to the freshmen, remember your teachers are here to help you and don’t worry about being popular – be a good person.