Realty World Northern California & Nevada

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.

Erin, Hilda, Aaron... the Erin/Aaron sandwich!

Yesterday I attended my second real estate barcamp event – this one at ReBarCamp Silicon Valley (#rebcsv for you Twitter fans) before this week’s CAR Conference in San Jose. Admittedly, the first was during my second week of work in real estate at the annual Inman Conference and I spent most of my time in that initial experience with my mouth agape and senses reeling.

I’m a barcamp veteran in the technology industry, but there are some vast differences from the barcamps I’d attended featuring deep dives into widgets, application builds and cloud computing and the world of real estate.

Here are a few similarities and differences I noticed:

Difference: Formal v. casual wear. You guys came dressed up in suits, shiny shoes and wielding business cards. In tech barcamps the attire is jeans or shorts, t-shirts, sweatshirts and you can’t get someone to look up from their smartphone long enough to give you a business card.

Who wins? Tech. Realtors have to come in comfortable clothes (it’s only other agents, no worries!) because often times the sessions are outdoors, on benches, folding chairs, etc. You won’t pay attention as well if you’re sweating bullets in that suit!

Similarity: Everyone is on a cell phone/laptop. At tech and real estate barcamps alike, I look at people through the lens of their camera phone as they snap pictures for blogs or Twitter, or I stare at the back of their laptop, netbook, etc. as they feverishly look up the new technologies mentioned, add me as a friend on Facebook or follow me on Twitter (and catch up on a few emails of course).

Difference: Humility. In tech, we can’t admit we don’t know about tech very easily, so you’ll see a lot of us thoughtfully nod and then jot down notes furiously on acronyms or websites to look up when we steal a few moments away from the myriad of prying eyes (we’re a paranoid bunch) but you won’t see us ask a lot of “basic” questions. At real estate barcamps it is refreshing to see people question the basics and slow the pace down to make sure they aren’t left behind!

Who wins? Real estate. Knowing that asking questions without being afraid of what your colleagues will think serves Realtors well, as it ensures the entire group gets a good education.

Similarity: We all like the “bar” part of barcamp. It is a universal truth that most of us look forward to the part of the day where we open up some wine, have a beer, or in our case yesterday – a handle of Johnnie Walker, and kick back and talk about what’s up in our industry. At the end of the day, barcamps are not just a place for education, but also a great place to connect with those in the industry who are passionate about integrating new media and methodologies into our lives.

I highly recommend checking out barcamps if you have the opportunity – come to learn, share information, ask questions and meet people… because the best way to make the most of social media is to actually be social.

Erin Robbins
Social Media & Marketing Director
erin.robbins@rwnc.net

I recently posted a blog about rebranding yourself titled Rebranding Your Cow So Your Buyer Can Find It so your customer could find you in this rapidly forming mountain of consumer generated information, social networks and other sites growing in the Internet. And, while your marketing, prospecting and relationship building skills must be adjusted to these new forms of media; your personal skills will ultimately be called on by the all demanding consumer. So, if you think that you can survive in real estate with only some technical savvy and a high powered PC, you’re sorely mistaken.

In fact, I believe your personal relationship skills will be called on even more in the days ahead, especially with advertising being shifted to conversations rather than the old push methods that generally had a “selling” message. If you’re in your forties you may even recall a time when you used the services of a travel agent to purchase plane tickets. Now that experience seems like a distant memory as you use online programs to obtain information and “buy” the service for yourself.

Unlike the simple purchase of a plane ticket, real estate, among other things, is a different animal and consumers are going to have questions and shop. The shopping part is going to be relegated to your use of technology and the question part is going to be all you, “unplugged” as they say today!

The crossroad is where your relationship and trial closing skills have been called upon through your implementation of good tech habits and systems that help attract consumers. As I write this today, Facebook is the fourth most visited site in the world trailing only Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo sites, according to comScore. Social networks are ultimately about friendships, where members add value to each other’s lives through interaction.

This interaction is all about your knowledge and personal relationship skill sets. It is about meeting and greeting the consumer; establishing rapport; seeking needs and confirming those needs to be true; isolating customer indifference from objection; providing supporting statements and finally asking for the close.

Nothing could be less technical. The road ends leads directly to your raw talent and abilities as a professional salesperson, product specialist and steward of exceptional customer service.

Scott LeForce
President
scott.leforce@rwnc.net