Social networking is getting even bigger: Half of all American adults now say they use a social networking site, according to a new survey by the Pew Research Center. Six years ago, only 5 percent of adults reported using social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, or MySpace.
Women between 18 to 29 years old account for the “power users” of social networking sites, according to Pew. Nearly 90 percent of women in that age group use social networking sites, with 69 percent saying they use it every day.
Young adults still tend to dominate social networking and are twice as likely to use social networking sites every day than older adults. Overall, 83 percent of those in the 18-29 age bracket say they use social networking sites, compared to 51 percent aged 50-64.
While social networking has blossomed over recent years, the Internet is still most used everyday for e-mail and search, according to the survey. Sixty-one percent of survey respondents said they went online every day to check e-mail, nearly 60 percent for search, and 43 percent who reported checking social networking sites every day.
Source: “Half of America Is Using Social Networks,” The New York Times (Aug. 26, 2011)
Monday, August 29, 2011
How to Reach Out to Global Buyers in Your Market
Large, urban markets aren’t the only places where international opportunities in real estate exist. Your state and region may have plenty of opportunities that you may be missing. A recent article at RISMedia highlights a few tips on how to find this “treasure trove of global business” in your real estate market:
1. Identify the international composition of your market. Check out the National Association of REALTORS’ State-by-State International Business Reports to get population demographics, immigration trends, foreign investment trends in your state, and more.
2. Find the local foreign companies and facilities in your market. Contact the Human Resources departments of these companies to form relationships and start becoming the go-to real estate agent for foreign expats relocating to your area.
3. Create relationships with foreign investment officials. Build relationships with economic development agencies, which are on the leading edge of foreign direct investment. Seek out state, regional, and local development organizations as well as industry groups and the Chambers of Commerce to expand your reach.
Read more tips on how to reach out to the foreign buyer at RISMedia.
Source: “6 Steps to Finding the Global Buyer,” RISMedia (Aug. 25, 2011)
1. Identify the international composition of your market. Check out the National Association of REALTORS’ State-by-State International Business Reports to get population demographics, immigration trends, foreign investment trends in your state, and more.
2. Find the local foreign companies and facilities in your market. Contact the Human Resources departments of these companies to form relationships and start becoming the go-to real estate agent for foreign expats relocating to your area.
3. Create relationships with foreign investment officials. Build relationships with economic development agencies, which are on the leading edge of foreign direct investment. Seek out state, regional, and local development organizations as well as industry groups and the Chambers of Commerce to expand your reach.
Read more tips on how to reach out to the foreign buyer at RISMedia.
Source: “6 Steps to Finding the Global Buyer,” RISMedia (Aug. 25, 2011)
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Facebook privacy features easier to use
Tackling a complaint that has bedeviled it for years, Facebook on Tuesday announced simplified privacy settings.
The easier-to-use settings will be prominent whenever users post a comment, photo or share their location on the popular social-networking service. Previously, those settings were buried on a back page that many users never saw or used.
Though not life changing, the features are an important nod by Facebook to nagging concerns among some of its users. The changes go into effect starting Thursday. Facebook wants to “make it clearer and clearer” who its 750 million users share their photos, news feeds and location with, spokeswoman Meredith Chin says.
“Our intent is for our users to never have to ask the question, 'Who can see my post or photo?'“ Chin says. She said Facebook worked for months on the tweaks with several privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology.
The simplification of Facebook's oft-criticized privacy settings is its strongest admission yet that privacy remains – and will continue to be – an issue for Facebook and others as their social networks grow and their millions of users freely exchange data with one another. Of late, Facebook and Twitter have been targets of hackers.
One big criticism of Facebook after it revamped its sharing controls in December 2009 “is that their controls were confusing and constantly changing, and that Facebook was pushing people to share more than they wanted or understood,” says Justin Brookman, director of Center for Democracy & Technology's consumer privacy project.
Facebook has been conspicuously quiet since Google unfurled Google+, its own social network, in late June.
Google+ has flattened at more than 10 million users or so after a meteoric start. And some users are struggling to figure it out. Facebook has an opportunity to reinvigorate its own user base and cement its market lead, say analysts such as Greg Sterling, who closely follows Facebook and was briefed on Tuesday's news.
Facebook, too, has experienced some user fatigue. Its growth rate, while impressive, has slowed in the U.S., Canada and other geographical pockets. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has downplayed the dip, explaining that the company is in its next phase of growth, where user engagement is more crucial than user membership.
Facebook has scooped up 13 companies this year, targeting properties that dress up its site design and enhance mobile. It plans to make 20 acquisitions this year, Vaughan Smith, director of corporate development, told Bloomberg News.
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
The easier-to-use settings will be prominent whenever users post a comment, photo or share their location on the popular social-networking service. Previously, those settings were buried on a back page that many users never saw or used.
Though not life changing, the features are an important nod by Facebook to nagging concerns among some of its users. The changes go into effect starting Thursday. Facebook wants to “make it clearer and clearer” who its 750 million users share their photos, news feeds and location with, spokeswoman Meredith Chin says.
“Our intent is for our users to never have to ask the question, 'Who can see my post or photo?'“ Chin says. She said Facebook worked for months on the tweaks with several privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Center for Democracy & Technology.
The simplification of Facebook's oft-criticized privacy settings is its strongest admission yet that privacy remains – and will continue to be – an issue for Facebook and others as their social networks grow and their millions of users freely exchange data with one another. Of late, Facebook and Twitter have been targets of hackers.
One big criticism of Facebook after it revamped its sharing controls in December 2009 “is that their controls were confusing and constantly changing, and that Facebook was pushing people to share more than they wanted or understood,” says Justin Brookman, director of Center for Democracy & Technology's consumer privacy project.
Facebook has been conspicuously quiet since Google unfurled Google+, its own social network, in late June.
Google+ has flattened at more than 10 million users or so after a meteoric start. And some users are struggling to figure it out. Facebook has an opportunity to reinvigorate its own user base and cement its market lead, say analysts such as Greg Sterling, who closely follows Facebook and was briefed on Tuesday's news.
Facebook, too, has experienced some user fatigue. Its growth rate, while impressive, has slowed in the U.S., Canada and other geographical pockets. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has downplayed the dip, explaining that the company is in its next phase of growth, where user engagement is more crucial than user membership.
Facebook has scooped up 13 companies this year, targeting properties that dress up its site design and enhance mobile. It plans to make 20 acquisitions this year, Vaughan Smith, director of corporate development, told Bloomberg News.
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Friday, August 19, 2011
Don’t make sales calls … make service calls
Rather than make sales calls, real estate professionals should make service calls.
Chuck Chamberlain, commercial real estate professional and author of “A New Pair of Glasses,” says this approach to business made him successful. He found that he did not make a sale when he approached someone in desperation to get a deal done, but he did find success when he made calls in order to help someone and provide a service.
Chamberlain would ask people how their business was doing, and followed it up with questions about the challenges and problems they were facing. Chamberlain could determine from their answers if he could help them, or if he should refer them to someone who could.
By eliminating cold sales calls, real estate agents could find themselves less stressed, less anxious and more likely to generate business if they look at what they can give instead of what they can get out of a call.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
Chuck Chamberlain, commercial real estate professional and author of “A New Pair of Glasses,” says this approach to business made him successful. He found that he did not make a sale when he approached someone in desperation to get a deal done, but he did find success when he made calls in order to help someone and provide a service.
Chamberlain would ask people how their business was doing, and followed it up with questions about the challenges and problems they were facing. Chamberlain could determine from their answers if he could help them, or if he should refer them to someone who could.
By eliminating cold sales calls, real estate agents could find themselves less stressed, less anxious and more likely to generate business if they look at what they can give instead of what they can get out of a call.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
The dos and don’ts of word-of-mouth marketing
A recent panel discussion, “How to Turn Word of Mouth and Social Media Into Sales,” offered a number of tips for real estate professionals.
At the top of the list: Professionals need to listen to their customers. Request feedback and, most importantly, consider suggestions.
As relationships develop via social media or another venues, word-of-mouth marketers should identify the people who are advocates – the people who rate the marketer a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Consider these people leverage to reach even more people.
It’s important to have a place for engagement, such as Facebook or other social media. And it’s just as important for advocates to be able to participate in the discussions, which goes back to listening more than talking.
The word-of-mouth marketing method comes with a few warnings. First, get advocates who actually like your product or services to participate. Sincerity can’t be faked for long.
Finally, keep listening and occasionally talking. An ignored advocate can quickly become a detractor.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
At the top of the list: Professionals need to listen to their customers. Request feedback and, most importantly, consider suggestions.
As relationships develop via social media or another venues, word-of-mouth marketers should identify the people who are advocates – the people who rate the marketer a 9 or 10 on a scale of 1 to 10. Consider these people leverage to reach even more people.
It’s important to have a place for engagement, such as Facebook or other social media. And it’s just as important for advocates to be able to participate in the discussions, which goes back to listening more than talking.
The word-of-mouth marketing method comes with a few warnings. First, get advocates who actually like your product or services to participate. Sincerity can’t be faked for long.
Finally, keep listening and occasionally talking. An ignored advocate can quickly become a detractor.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
Websites make it easy to create your own app - no code required
Thousands of folks have found their way into the Apple and Google app stores with homemade apps that do everything from share contact information by bumping phones together to finding the best price for local gas.
But unlike making a website or a blog, creating an app – at least for most people – was something that only hardcore geeks could do if they knew the computer programming languages of Objective-C, Cocoa and Java. That is, until now.
Several websites have popped up offering tools to generate apps with drag-and-drop simplicity. One is free, while others charge for their services. To create, all you need is content to fill them up. In this social-media era, that is surprisingly easy to get. If you’ve got videos posted on YouTube, you’ve got material for an app. You may not be able to get ultra-fancy, such as adding geo-tagged location data. But you can add photos from your Flickr feed and text from blog posts and Twitter tweets for a nice, personal app.
“Making an app should be as simple as creating a blog,” says Isaac Mosquera, the co-founder of Socialize, which makes the AppMakr software. His goal in starting the company: to make it “very simple for someone who doesn’t have much technical background to get their content out to people on mobile phones.”
AppMakr, which launched in 2009, has been used to produce more than 8,000 apps, for average users and also big names in the publishing world, such as Newsweek, The Atlantic, The Salt Lake City Tribune, Harvard Business Review and PBS NewsHour.
And getting your finished app into the Apple and Android app stores is relatively straightforward. Register as a developer with Apple ($99) and Google ($25). Google automatically approves anyone who wants to post an app, as long as it doesn’t violate guidelines. Apple looks at every app, and it rejects many for style and technical issues, such as concerns that it will crash.
The Apple and Google sign-up fees are in addition to the fees charged by the online appmakers.
So how hard is it to use a Web-based tool to make an app? Here’s a look at several online appmakers:
AppMakr: This is the best and most widely used of the bunch, with the best price: free.
The program is designed for the average Joe and Jane to make an app in a few minutes. It’s so simple that many media companies have used it, with a healthy mix of text posts, photos and video.
After you sign up with Apple and Google, register at appmakr.com and start filling your app with content from your various online sources. Type in your YouTube or Vimeo channel URLs for video. Add an RSS feed from your blog or Twitter feed URL for text posts.
To make an app, you’ll need Adobe Photoshop or some other online tool, such as Webresizer or PicResize, for making your app icon and splash page to the exact dimensions required by Apple and Google. Savvy Photoshop users will want to use AppMakr’s directions for designing your app icon and splash page. AppMakr specifies the recommended dimensions – 640 x 960 pixels, for instance – for the iPhone splash page.
AppMakr shows you on the Web page exactly what your app will look like on the phone, so you can see mistakes and take care of them instantly.
The process of making the app took just minutes, and fine-tuning took less than a half-hour. The only snag: finding the Twitter feed info, which is hidden on Twitter. It would be nice if AppMakr could find a way to make that easier.
Once the iPhone app was finished, I clicked a button to copy it to Android. A few sizing tweaks for the icons produced a great-looking clone.
AppMakr generated a decent, basic app that was fantastic for limited, non-commercial purposes. But if you want to go to the next level with your app and get really serious – but aren’t ready to learn Objective-C and Java – AppMakr links to lists of professional appmakers who will do the work for you for a fee.
SwebApps: Works similarly to AppMakr. Register, add your content, design the app and get ready to submit. However, you’ll pay for the service. Costs start at $399 for the setup fee and $29 monthly.
Genwi: The same register and create features, and Genwi goes one step further by letting you build apps for the iPad as well. With Genwi’s iSites, it’s even easier to add content: It scours the Web for you and finds links to your content feeds. But the price is very, very steep.
Genwi is free for the first 30 days, then $99 monthly – or about $1,200 yearly. For the iPad app, it’s $500 monthly. (The price isn’t listed on Genwi’s website. You have to contact the company.) Genwi offers great functionality and beautiful results. But an app designer could be found on Craigslist for a quarter of the cost.
My App Builder: Costs about $350 a year ($29 monthly) and works differently from the others. You pay the fee first then upload your ideas to the company, which in turn creates the app for you and sends you a mockup to review. Once you’ve given the go-ahead, My App Builder submits to Apple for you (for an additional $20 fee). As part of the fee, you can create two apps a month.
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Jefferson Graham.
But unlike making a website or a blog, creating an app – at least for most people – was something that only hardcore geeks could do if they knew the computer programming languages of Objective-C, Cocoa and Java. That is, until now.
Several websites have popped up offering tools to generate apps with drag-and-drop simplicity. One is free, while others charge for their services. To create, all you need is content to fill them up. In this social-media era, that is surprisingly easy to get. If you’ve got videos posted on YouTube, you’ve got material for an app. You may not be able to get ultra-fancy, such as adding geo-tagged location data. But you can add photos from your Flickr feed and text from blog posts and Twitter tweets for a nice, personal app.
“Making an app should be as simple as creating a blog,” says Isaac Mosquera, the co-founder of Socialize, which makes the AppMakr software. His goal in starting the company: to make it “very simple for someone who doesn’t have much technical background to get their content out to people on mobile phones.”
AppMakr, which launched in 2009, has been used to produce more than 8,000 apps, for average users and also big names in the publishing world, such as Newsweek, The Atlantic, The Salt Lake City Tribune, Harvard Business Review and PBS NewsHour.
And getting your finished app into the Apple and Android app stores is relatively straightforward. Register as a developer with Apple ($99) and Google ($25). Google automatically approves anyone who wants to post an app, as long as it doesn’t violate guidelines. Apple looks at every app, and it rejects many for style and technical issues, such as concerns that it will crash.
The Apple and Google sign-up fees are in addition to the fees charged by the online appmakers.
So how hard is it to use a Web-based tool to make an app? Here’s a look at several online appmakers:
AppMakr: This is the best and most widely used of the bunch, with the best price: free.
The program is designed for the average Joe and Jane to make an app in a few minutes. It’s so simple that many media companies have used it, with a healthy mix of text posts, photos and video.
After you sign up with Apple and Google, register at appmakr.com and start filling your app with content from your various online sources. Type in your YouTube or Vimeo channel URLs for video. Add an RSS feed from your blog or Twitter feed URL for text posts.
To make an app, you’ll need Adobe Photoshop or some other online tool, such as Webresizer or PicResize, for making your app icon and splash page to the exact dimensions required by Apple and Google. Savvy Photoshop users will want to use AppMakr’s directions for designing your app icon and splash page. AppMakr specifies the recommended dimensions – 640 x 960 pixels, for instance – for the iPhone splash page.
AppMakr shows you on the Web page exactly what your app will look like on the phone, so you can see mistakes and take care of them instantly.
The process of making the app took just minutes, and fine-tuning took less than a half-hour. The only snag: finding the Twitter feed info, which is hidden on Twitter. It would be nice if AppMakr could find a way to make that easier.
Once the iPhone app was finished, I clicked a button to copy it to Android. A few sizing tweaks for the icons produced a great-looking clone.
AppMakr generated a decent, basic app that was fantastic for limited, non-commercial purposes. But if you want to go to the next level with your app and get really serious – but aren’t ready to learn Objective-C and Java – AppMakr links to lists of professional appmakers who will do the work for you for a fee.
SwebApps: Works similarly to AppMakr. Register, add your content, design the app and get ready to submit. However, you’ll pay for the service. Costs start at $399 for the setup fee and $29 monthly.
Genwi: The same register and create features, and Genwi goes one step further by letting you build apps for the iPad as well. With Genwi’s iSites, it’s even easier to add content: It scours the Web for you and finds links to your content feeds. But the price is very, very steep.
Genwi is free for the first 30 days, then $99 monthly – or about $1,200 yearly. For the iPad app, it’s $500 monthly. (The price isn’t listed on Genwi’s website. You have to contact the company.) Genwi offers great functionality and beautiful results. But an app designer could be found on Craigslist for a quarter of the cost.
My App Builder: Costs about $350 a year ($29 monthly) and works differently from the others. You pay the fee first then upload your ideas to the company, which in turn creates the app for you and sends you a mockup to review. Once you’ve given the go-ahead, My App Builder submits to Apple for you (for an additional $20 fee). As part of the fee, you can create two apps a month.
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Jefferson Graham.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Real estate survivors: Agents think outside the box
Worth to Share Some real estate agents have become specialists in niche markets like foreclosures. Some have created teams that include contractors, specialists and brokers. Some have changed their personal lifestyle to be thriftier.
Almost all are working harder for less money, advertising differently and equipping themselves to serve a more informed, savvy clientele.
Few trades have been more affected by the economic downturn than real estate – especially in southwest Florida, where the home price bubble of the mid 2000s aggravated the impact of the economic recession that started in 2007.
But don’t expect to hear tales of doom and gloom from Realtors who weathered the bubble’s burst and are still making a living in the profession.
“To me, our business is more exciting because you have to be a good agent to sell a house today,” says Nikki Smith, with Coldwell Banker. “You have to be more educated and more savvy.”
Barry Grooms of Re/Max Alliance Group says today’s increased challenges have helped him become more appreciative of not only his job, but his community. “I’m working a lot more hours, but my personal life and personal finances have gotten better,” he says. “I’m more involved in my community, in government, and in private property rights. We just have to work smarter and harder now.”
Many of today’s most successful Realtors have built a specialty, or at least improved their understanding of some niche area. Grooms and May Aston, also of Re/Max, each have built a specialty in foreclosures.
Aston, a Realtor since 1987, estimates that 99 percent of her business today involves foreclosures, compared to just 5 percent in pre-2007 times. She works with about 20 area banks, marketing the properties they are attempting to unload.
The two say that while focusing on foreclosures has ensured they generate a steady stream of sales and income, it also means their income per sale is far less than it used to be.
“I have to do a lot more transactions to make the same amount of money,” Grooms says. Aston says some of her sales are as low as $10,000.
Ron Pepka, of Keller Williams Realty, also has built up his knowledge base in selling foreclosed property, attending conferences and taking advantage of education opportunities whenever possible. Overall, he’s seen his average sale drop to $154,000, compared to the $429,999 in 2005.
“We’re working twice as hard for half the money,” Pepka says.
Brushing up on how to handle short sales has been another requirement of Realtors who want to thrive in today’s changed market. Many Realtors, including Pepka, Smith and fellow Coldwell Banker Realtor Rita Smith, have taken courses in how to handle the documents and deadlines that short sales require.
“A short sale is probably four times the work as a regular sale,” Pepka says. “I would say it’s like juggling a half-dozen eggs: you have to collect all the seller’s documentation, have them write a hardship, submit, get an offer, and have a buyer that’s willing to wait three to five months for the final answer. And, you have to have the price high enough that a bank will accept it.”
Source: The Bradenton Herald, Fla., Christine Hawes. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Almost all are working harder for less money, advertising differently and equipping themselves to serve a more informed, savvy clientele.
Few trades have been more affected by the economic downturn than real estate – especially in southwest Florida, where the home price bubble of the mid 2000s aggravated the impact of the economic recession that started in 2007.
But don’t expect to hear tales of doom and gloom from Realtors who weathered the bubble’s burst and are still making a living in the profession.
“To me, our business is more exciting because you have to be a good agent to sell a house today,” says Nikki Smith, with Coldwell Banker. “You have to be more educated and more savvy.”
Barry Grooms of Re/Max Alliance Group says today’s increased challenges have helped him become more appreciative of not only his job, but his community. “I’m working a lot more hours, but my personal life and personal finances have gotten better,” he says. “I’m more involved in my community, in government, and in private property rights. We just have to work smarter and harder now.”
Many of today’s most successful Realtors have built a specialty, or at least improved their understanding of some niche area. Grooms and May Aston, also of Re/Max, each have built a specialty in foreclosures.
Aston, a Realtor since 1987, estimates that 99 percent of her business today involves foreclosures, compared to just 5 percent in pre-2007 times. She works with about 20 area banks, marketing the properties they are attempting to unload.
The two say that while focusing on foreclosures has ensured they generate a steady stream of sales and income, it also means their income per sale is far less than it used to be.
“I have to do a lot more transactions to make the same amount of money,” Grooms says. Aston says some of her sales are as low as $10,000.
Ron Pepka, of Keller Williams Realty, also has built up his knowledge base in selling foreclosed property, attending conferences and taking advantage of education opportunities whenever possible. Overall, he’s seen his average sale drop to $154,000, compared to the $429,999 in 2005.
“We’re working twice as hard for half the money,” Pepka says.
Brushing up on how to handle short sales has been another requirement of Realtors who want to thrive in today’s changed market. Many Realtors, including Pepka, Smith and fellow Coldwell Banker Realtor Rita Smith, have taken courses in how to handle the documents and deadlines that short sales require.
“A short sale is probably four times the work as a regular sale,” Pepka says. “I would say it’s like juggling a half-dozen eggs: you have to collect all the seller’s documentation, have them write a hardship, submit, get an offer, and have a buyer that’s willing to wait three to five months for the final answer. And, you have to have the price high enough that a bank will accept it.”
Source: The Bradenton Herald, Fla., Christine Hawes. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Friday, August 12, 2011
How About a Listing in 3D?
New technology being incorporated into smartphones and video cameras that are hitting the market could allow you a new way to show off properties to buyers: A virtual tour of homes for sale in 3D color.
For example, the HTC EVO 3D smartphone produced by HTC Corp. will be debuting at the end of the month and doesn’t require 3D glasses to take advantage of the feature. The phone allows you to show photos and videos in 3D on a high definition 4.3-inch screen. You can also use the phone to capture 3D pictures of your listings and then connect wirelessly to a high definition television to share the video and images with buyers.
The debut of 3-D technology in cameras was big news earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show, where several manufacturers showed off their latest 3-D wonders. For example, Sony debuted its 3D Bloggie MHS-FS3 camcorder, the first 3-D pocket camera that had two lenses for capturing 3-D high-definition video.
Source: “Realtors, Run Ahead of the Pack: Showcase Your Listings in 3D!” RealtyBizNews (Aug. 11, 2011) and REALTOR® Magazine Daily News
For example, the HTC EVO 3D smartphone produced by HTC Corp. will be debuting at the end of the month and doesn’t require 3D glasses to take advantage of the feature. The phone allows you to show photos and videos in 3D on a high definition 4.3-inch screen. You can also use the phone to capture 3D pictures of your listings and then connect wirelessly to a high definition television to share the video and images with buyers.
The debut of 3-D technology in cameras was big news earlier this year at the Consumer Electronics Show, where several manufacturers showed off their latest 3-D wonders. For example, Sony debuted its 3D Bloggie MHS-FS3 camcorder, the first 3-D pocket camera that had two lenses for capturing 3-D high-definition video.
Source: “Realtors, Run Ahead of the Pack: Showcase Your Listings in 3D!” RealtyBizNews (Aug. 11, 2011) and REALTOR® Magazine Daily News
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
5 tips to make social-media marketing sing
Facebook used to be just a place where mothers would write about their kids, brides would talk to girlfriends about their upcoming wedding and friends would share photos of their latest trip or party.
Then businesses got wind of the 750 million people on Facebook and decided to chime in, with business pages that tout specials, deals and other business-related promotions.
But there’s an art to communicating in an atmosphere that’s supposed to be about sharing, not selling.
Matthew Funk, a social-media expert with TK Carsites, offers tips that apply to car dealerships – but, really, any business wanting a Facebook presence.
Here are highlights:
1. Use Facebook to make friends, not customers.
“People develop positive feelings with a person, not a page,” he says.
Write about your local community and events, and try to post items of interest that go beyond your business. A good viral video “doesn’t make you think, ‘I want to buy a car from the dealership,’ but it does keep you in the news feed and reinforces the name.”
2. Post three times a day, no more.
“Don’t overwhelm people,” he says. “That’s a turnoff.”
Funk says the best times to post are 7 a.m., 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., “the peak high-traffic times for Facebook.”
3. Don’t post silliness just to add another item.
Surveys of favorite ice cream flavors are a waste of time that will just annoy people, he says. “It has very little real worth. Share stuff that has a reason for sharing.”
4. Provide incentives; don’t be pushy.
“People come to your social media to find perks, but they don’t want sales forced on them,” Funk says. Offer the deals just once a week, not every day, he recommends.
5. Be exciting.
“Whenever possible, post the kind of content you’d want to share with your friends,” he says.
“Facebook marketing isn’t about selling as much as it is about sharing.”
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Then businesses got wind of the 750 million people on Facebook and decided to chime in, with business pages that tout specials, deals and other business-related promotions.
But there’s an art to communicating in an atmosphere that’s supposed to be about sharing, not selling.
Matthew Funk, a social-media expert with TK Carsites, offers tips that apply to car dealerships – but, really, any business wanting a Facebook presence.
Here are highlights:
1. Use Facebook to make friends, not customers.
“People develop positive feelings with a person, not a page,” he says.
Write about your local community and events, and try to post items of interest that go beyond your business. A good viral video “doesn’t make you think, ‘I want to buy a car from the dealership,’ but it does keep you in the news feed and reinforces the name.”
2. Post three times a day, no more.
“Don’t overwhelm people,” he says. “That’s a turnoff.”
Funk says the best times to post are 7 a.m., 5 p.m. and 10 p.m., “the peak high-traffic times for Facebook.”
3. Don’t post silliness just to add another item.
Surveys of favorite ice cream flavors are a waste of time that will just annoy people, he says. “It has very little real worth. Share stuff that has a reason for sharing.”
4. Provide incentives; don’t be pushy.
“People come to your social media to find perks, but they don’t want sales forced on them,” Funk says. Offer the deals just once a week, not every day, he recommends.
5. Be exciting.
“Whenever possible, post the kind of content you’d want to share with your friends,” he says.
“Facebook marketing isn’t about selling as much as it is about sharing.”
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Jefferson Graham, USA TODAY
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
How to Create an Engaging Web Site
To attract and engage Web site visitors, real estate agents should apply seven basic principles to their Web sites.
1. Avoid using dozens of links and widgets so that visitors are not overwhelmed.
2. Feature peer, client, or expert reviews and give users the opportunity to get feedback from friends.
3. Apply the principles of scarcity -- which includes noting why listings are expected to get snapped up soon.
4. Add elements of food, sex, and danger -- which are more difficult to apply to real estate sites but could involve the use of appealing imagry.
5. Real estate sites should maximize the power of faces, with photographs of clients looking directly at the camera to make them more relatable.
6. Sites also should tell a story, with the agent walking the entire journey with clients and using human language instead of clichés.
7. Finally, real estate professionals should seek commitment from site visitors, asking them to enter their e-mail addresses to be contacted when a new property meets their criteria.
Source: "Applying the 7 Principles for More Engaging Websites to Real Estate Sites," AgentGenius
1. Avoid using dozens of links and widgets so that visitors are not overwhelmed.
2. Feature peer, client, or expert reviews and give users the opportunity to get feedback from friends.
3. Apply the principles of scarcity -- which includes noting why listings are expected to get snapped up soon.
4. Add elements of food, sex, and danger -- which are more difficult to apply to real estate sites but could involve the use of appealing imagry.
5. Real estate sites should maximize the power of faces, with photographs of clients looking directly at the camera to make them more relatable.
6. Sites also should tell a story, with the agent walking the entire journey with clients and using human language instead of clichés.
7. Finally, real estate professionals should seek commitment from site visitors, asking them to enter their e-mail addresses to be contacted when a new property meets their criteria.
Source: "Applying the 7 Principles for More Engaging Websites to Real Estate Sites," AgentGenius
Strategy session: Latest gadgets don’t help without a plan
Real estate professionals need to have a plan and strategy in order to make money through the use of technology.
When considering new technology, agents should determine which tools and services improve customer service, rather than focus on the bells and whistles. When selecting technology, they should look for a tool that will save them time and money while increasing both efficiency and customer service.
If a tech product fits those goals, start by looking at consumer reviews and determining your must-have features before making a purchase.
If considering office equipment, for example, practitioners would be wise to purchase an all-in one device, such as a machine that prints, scans and faxes. If they handle short sales, foreclosures and other transactions involving a lot of paper, they should look for easy-to-use scanning systems that also help them stay organized.
Agents should also consider multiple marketing options, such as Facebook, virtual tours and QR codes. And they should look for an automated prospecting system to generate new leads.
Agents with iPads can use the devices to create a paperless presentation that allows consumers to participate and interact with them, which makes the iPad a useful tool for enhancing the client experience as well as saving time and money.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
When considering new technology, agents should determine which tools and services improve customer service, rather than focus on the bells and whistles. When selecting technology, they should look for a tool that will save them time and money while increasing both efficiency and customer service.
If a tech product fits those goals, start by looking at consumer reviews and determining your must-have features before making a purchase.
If considering office equipment, for example, practitioners would be wise to purchase an all-in one device, such as a machine that prints, scans and faxes. If they handle short sales, foreclosures and other transactions involving a lot of paper, they should look for easy-to-use scanning systems that also help them stay organized.
Agents should also consider multiple marketing options, such as Facebook, virtual tours and QR codes. And they should look for an automated prospecting system to generate new leads.
Agents with iPads can use the devices to create a paperless presentation that allows consumers to participate and interact with them, which makes the iPad a useful tool for enhancing the client experience as well as saving time and money.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Should you add rentals to your services?
A sluggish housing market may be biting into your revenue stream: That’s why more real estate professionals find that rentals can be one way to generate extra income for their business.
It’s a way to help some homeowners avoid foreclosure by helping them turn it into a rental. It can also lead to new business: Some owners find could find that earning rental fees allows them to purchase another property. Or current renters could decide it’s time to become a homeowner.
By 2015, an estimated 4.3 million more rental units will be added to the market, and there will be 1.8 million fewer owned-homes, according to David Vivero, CEO of RentJuice, which provides online rental relationship management software to real estate professionals. In other words, 463,000 home sales may be lost by 2015, or up to $2.4 billion in lost commissions. On the other hand, 150 million leases will be signed worth $6.8 billion in commissions.
“If you offer only sales, [a total of] $11 billion in commissions [will be] out of your reach," Vivero says.
While leasing rentals generally generates smaller commissions than selling, it can provide “a steady income stream” that can “help keep frustrated agents afloat,” Vivero said.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
It’s a way to help some homeowners avoid foreclosure by helping them turn it into a rental. It can also lead to new business: Some owners find could find that earning rental fees allows them to purchase another property. Or current renters could decide it’s time to become a homeowner.
By 2015, an estimated 4.3 million more rental units will be added to the market, and there will be 1.8 million fewer owned-homes, according to David Vivero, CEO of RentJuice, which provides online rental relationship management software to real estate professionals. In other words, 463,000 home sales may be lost by 2015, or up to $2.4 billion in lost commissions. On the other hand, 150 million leases will be signed worth $6.8 billion in commissions.
“If you offer only sales, [a total of] $11 billion in commissions [will be] out of your reach," Vivero says.
While leasing rentals generally generates smaller commissions than selling, it can provide “a steady income stream” that can “help keep frustrated agents afloat,” Vivero said.
Source: INFORMATION, INC.
Online tracking takes a scary turn
The coolest free stuff on the Internet actually comes at a notable price: your privacy.
For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking note of where you go and what you search for on the Web – without your permission. And today, many of the personal details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.
The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us and bagging that advertising money.
Trouble is, the tracking data culled from your Internet searches and surfing can get commingled with the information you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs. And it’s now possible to toss into this mix many of the personal disclosures you make on popular social networks, along with the preferences you may express via all those nifty Web applications that trigger cool services on your mobile devices.
As digital shadowing escalates, so too have concerns about the erosion of traditional notions of privacy. Privacy advocates have long fretted that health companies, insurers, lenders, employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to use unfairly against people. Indeed, new research shows that as tracking technologies advance, and as more participants join the burgeoning tracking industry, the opportunities for privacy invasion are rising.
“It is a mistake to consider (online) tracking benign,” cautions Sagi Leizerov, executive director of Ernst & Young’s privacy services. “It’s both an opportunity for amazing connections of data, as well as a time bomb of revealing personal information you assume will be kept private.”
These developments are acting like kerosene on the already contentious national debates in Congress over how privacy ought to be recast to fit the Internet age. Much is at stake. The corporations involved are vying for the juiciest claims on a golden vein. Research firm eMarketer projects global spending for online ads to climb to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80.2 billion this year.
The technology, retail and media giants shaping this brave new world of online advertising insist that they respect and can be trusted to preserve individuals’ privacy, even as they compete to dissect each person’s likes and dislikes.
Tracking mobile apps
However, startling findings, released at the Black Hat security conference, indicate otherwise. Website security company Dasient recently found examples of PC-based tracking techniques getting extended in a troublesome way to Internet-connected mobile devices.
Dasient analyzed 10,000 free mobile apps that enable gaming, financial services, entertainment and other services on Google Android smartphones. Researchers found more than 8 percent, or 842, of the Android apps took the unusual step of asking users’ permission to access the handset’s International Mobile Equipment Identity number, the unique code assigned to each cellphone. The IMEI was then employed as the user ID for the given app. In a number of instances, the app subsequently forwarded the user’s IMEI on to an online advertising network, says Neil Daswani, Dasient’s chief technology officer.
“The fact that an ad network is getting your IMEI means they can know how long you’ve used your phone and which mobile apps you use most often,” Daswani says. “The full implications of this aren’t clear, but with privacy you’ve got to be careful.”
Should IMEIs emerge as the preferred way for mobile app companies to track consumers’ access to free services, the advertising industry would suddenly have a powerful new way to snoop on how you use your smartphone or tablet PC, Daswani says.
The pervasive embedding of cool location-tracking technology in mobile devices only heightens such concerns. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., earlier this summer introduced a bill that would restrict location tracking, partly to protect children.
Anup Ghosh, chief executive of Web browser security firm Invincea, says Dasient’s findings underscore how application developers tend to grab for as much tracking data as they can without thinking through the privacy consequences.
Invincea has begun working on technology that will enable consumers to automatically disable mobile apps that try to tap into IMEI or take other invasive actions. “The reality is, users can’t be bothered to tweak privacy settings,” Ghosh says.
Privacy leaks
Meanwhile, in other research, Balachander Krishnamurthy at AT&T Labs Research and Craig E. Wills of Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently discovered hard evidence of what many privacy advocates feared: Tracking data about what pages you click to are increasingly getting commingled with personal information you disclose on popular websites and on the premier social networks in alarming ways.
In one case, the researchers documented how the supplier of a Facebook music-sharing application automatically forwarded Facebook members’ profile information onto a tracking data aggregator.
Facebook spokesman Brandon McCormick says the company strives to prevent such privacy leakages. Facebook requires users to grant explicit permission for any Web app company to access any Facebook profiles. And he says the company strictly forbids app companies from dispersing any Facebook profile information.
“If we find app developers commingling that data or sharing it with other parties, we will kick them off of our platform,” McCormick says.
However, policing the teeming world of Web app development is a gargantuan task, says Michael Fertik, CEO of privacy services firm Reputation.com.
Tens of thousands of new Web apps get integrated into the top social networks as well as the most visited media, entertainment and shopping websites every day.
Many of the new Web app features, such as ‘like’ buttons and instant polls, are designed expressly to extend tracking systems and feed ever more data about users’ online behaviors to the ad networks and tracking data aggregators. Data routinely get “daisy-chained” together to create individual behavioral profiles, Fertik says.
“These profiles are bought and sold to data brokers, marketers and others and are used to make decisions and judgments about you, without your knowledge, without your consent and without a way to fix inevitable errors.” Fertik says. “That’s what’s scary.”
Responding to such concerns, the Federal Trade Commission late last year called for a “Do Not Track” mechanism that would enable consumers to opt out of being tailed around the Web. The technology is simple and can be quickly added to any Web browser. Users would then be able to check a box configuring their browser to automatically notify every webpage they visit not to track them. The catch: The online advertising industry would have to universally honor Do Not Track requests.
In May, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced Do Not Track legislation that has gained the backing of privacy groups. Rockefeller’s proposal would help consumers “decide for themselves whether or not they want to share personal information, including their various Internet and mobile Web activities,” says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
The online advertising industry prefers self-regulation. Attorney Christopher Wolf, a privacy expert at law firm Hogan Lovells, counters that a Do Not Track law “may lead to the Internet economy one of the few economic bright spots being shackled.”
‘Trust us’
As this debate intensifies, fresh findings of privacy leaks continue to turn up. Krishnamurthy and Wills recently discovered that when they used the search function on popular health websites to look up information on pancreatic cancer, nine of 10 health sites forwarded their query onto a data aggregator.
Similarly, when they filled out job applications on big-name employment sites, eight of 10 jobs sites zipped that information over to a data aggregator, including the user’s name and e-mail address. In some instances, sensitive health-related search queries and personal information gleaned from job applications were forwarded to the same aggregator.
Wills says it would have been trivial for the data aggregator to correlate the cancer query and the job application data as having certainly come from the same browser, very likely from the same person.
“It is undeniable that data aggregators are getting this sensitive personal information about me,” Wills says. “We have hard evidence in our research that shows they are receiving this information. What they are doing with it, that we don’t know.”
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe, AOL, Coremetrics and Quantserve are among the largest data aggregators. They each operate sprawling networks of tracking systems that encompass dozens of smaller, independent ad networks, data analytics firms and tracking services.
Google, reportedly the largest data aggregator, has long taken the public position that its tracking systems use an alphanumeric code to identify and keep track of individual Web browsers, and that it simply does not correlate any personal information to these anonymous browser identifiers.
After reviewing copies of Krishnamurthy and Wills’ research, Google spokesman Rob Shilkin issued a statement: “We’ve never attempted or wanted to use any personal or sensitive information in any URLs provided by a third party, and in fact this very issue is addressed by the comprehensive self-regulatory schemes that we comply with.”
Google has been widely known to scan the contents of Gmail messages to deliver targeted text ads. While some don’t mind, others believe scanning e-mail to deliver more relevant ads is an invasion of privacy. John Simpson, spokesman for the non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, isn’t convinced the search giant will necessarily stop there.
“Part of the problem is that Google collects and stores tremendous amounts of data about its users,” Simpson says. “The only assurance we have about what Google’s intentions are boils down to ‘Trust us.’”
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
For more than a decade, tracking systems have been taking note of where you go and what you search for on the Web – without your permission. And today, many of the personal details you voluntarily divulge on popular websites and social networks are being similarly tracked and analyzed.
The purpose for all of this online snooping is singular: Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Facebook and others are intent on delivering more relevant online ads to each and every one of us and bagging that advertising money.
Trouble is, the tracking data culled from your Internet searches and surfing can get commingled with the information you disclose at websites for shopping, travel, health or jobs. And it’s now possible to toss into this mix many of the personal disclosures you make on popular social networks, along with the preferences you may express via all those nifty Web applications that trigger cool services on your mobile devices.
As digital shadowing escalates, so too have concerns about the erosion of traditional notions of privacy. Privacy advocates have long fretted that health companies, insurers, lenders, employers, lawyers, regulators and law enforcement could begin to acquire detailed profiles derived from tracking data to use unfairly against people. Indeed, new research shows that as tracking technologies advance, and as more participants join the burgeoning tracking industry, the opportunities for privacy invasion are rising.
“It is a mistake to consider (online) tracking benign,” cautions Sagi Leizerov, executive director of Ernst & Young’s privacy services. “It’s both an opportunity for amazing connections of data, as well as a time bomb of revealing personal information you assume will be kept private.”
These developments are acting like kerosene on the already contentious national debates in Congress over how privacy ought to be recast to fit the Internet age. Much is at stake. The corporations involved are vying for the juiciest claims on a golden vein. Research firm eMarketer projects global spending for online ads to climb to $132 billion by 2015, up from $80.2 billion this year.
The technology, retail and media giants shaping this brave new world of online advertising insist that they respect and can be trusted to preserve individuals’ privacy, even as they compete to dissect each person’s likes and dislikes.
Tracking mobile apps
However, startling findings, released at the Black Hat security conference, indicate otherwise. Website security company Dasient recently found examples of PC-based tracking techniques getting extended in a troublesome way to Internet-connected mobile devices.
Dasient analyzed 10,000 free mobile apps that enable gaming, financial services, entertainment and other services on Google Android smartphones. Researchers found more than 8 percent, or 842, of the Android apps took the unusual step of asking users’ permission to access the handset’s International Mobile Equipment Identity number, the unique code assigned to each cellphone. The IMEI was then employed as the user ID for the given app. In a number of instances, the app subsequently forwarded the user’s IMEI on to an online advertising network, says Neil Daswani, Dasient’s chief technology officer.
“The fact that an ad network is getting your IMEI means they can know how long you’ve used your phone and which mobile apps you use most often,” Daswani says. “The full implications of this aren’t clear, but with privacy you’ve got to be careful.”
Should IMEIs emerge as the preferred way for mobile app companies to track consumers’ access to free services, the advertising industry would suddenly have a powerful new way to snoop on how you use your smartphone or tablet PC, Daswani says.
The pervasive embedding of cool location-tracking technology in mobile devices only heightens such concerns. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., earlier this summer introduced a bill that would restrict location tracking, partly to protect children.
Anup Ghosh, chief executive of Web browser security firm Invincea, says Dasient’s findings underscore how application developers tend to grab for as much tracking data as they can without thinking through the privacy consequences.
Invincea has begun working on technology that will enable consumers to automatically disable mobile apps that try to tap into IMEI or take other invasive actions. “The reality is, users can’t be bothered to tweak privacy settings,” Ghosh says.
Privacy leaks
Meanwhile, in other research, Balachander Krishnamurthy at AT&T Labs Research and Craig E. Wills of Worcester Polytechnic Institute recently discovered hard evidence of what many privacy advocates feared: Tracking data about what pages you click to are increasingly getting commingled with personal information you disclose on popular websites and on the premier social networks in alarming ways.
In one case, the researchers documented how the supplier of a Facebook music-sharing application automatically forwarded Facebook members’ profile information onto a tracking data aggregator.
Facebook spokesman Brandon McCormick says the company strives to prevent such privacy leakages. Facebook requires users to grant explicit permission for any Web app company to access any Facebook profiles. And he says the company strictly forbids app companies from dispersing any Facebook profile information.
“If we find app developers commingling that data or sharing it with other parties, we will kick them off of our platform,” McCormick says.
However, policing the teeming world of Web app development is a gargantuan task, says Michael Fertik, CEO of privacy services firm Reputation.com.
Tens of thousands of new Web apps get integrated into the top social networks as well as the most visited media, entertainment and shopping websites every day.
Many of the new Web app features, such as ‘like’ buttons and instant polls, are designed expressly to extend tracking systems and feed ever more data about users’ online behaviors to the ad networks and tracking data aggregators. Data routinely get “daisy-chained” together to create individual behavioral profiles, Fertik says.
“These profiles are bought and sold to data brokers, marketers and others and are used to make decisions and judgments about you, without your knowledge, without your consent and without a way to fix inevitable errors.” Fertik says. “That’s what’s scary.”
Responding to such concerns, the Federal Trade Commission late last year called for a “Do Not Track” mechanism that would enable consumers to opt out of being tailed around the Web. The technology is simple and can be quickly added to any Web browser. Users would then be able to check a box configuring their browser to automatically notify every webpage they visit not to track them. The catch: The online advertising industry would have to universally honor Do Not Track requests.
In May, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., introduced Do Not Track legislation that has gained the backing of privacy groups. Rockefeller’s proposal would help consumers “decide for themselves whether or not they want to share personal information, including their various Internet and mobile Web activities,” says Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy.
The online advertising industry prefers self-regulation. Attorney Christopher Wolf, a privacy expert at law firm Hogan Lovells, counters that a Do Not Track law “may lead to the Internet economy one of the few economic bright spots being shackled.”
‘Trust us’
As this debate intensifies, fresh findings of privacy leaks continue to turn up. Krishnamurthy and Wills recently discovered that when they used the search function on popular health websites to look up information on pancreatic cancer, nine of 10 health sites forwarded their query onto a data aggregator.
Similarly, when they filled out job applications on big-name employment sites, eight of 10 jobs sites zipped that information over to a data aggregator, including the user’s name and e-mail address. In some instances, sensitive health-related search queries and personal information gleaned from job applications were forwarded to the same aggregator.
Wills says it would have been trivial for the data aggregator to correlate the cancer query and the job application data as having certainly come from the same browser, very likely from the same person.
“It is undeniable that data aggregators are getting this sensitive personal information about me,” Wills says. “We have hard evidence in our research that shows they are receiving this information. What they are doing with it, that we don’t know.”
Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe, AOL, Coremetrics and Quantserve are among the largest data aggregators. They each operate sprawling networks of tracking systems that encompass dozens of smaller, independent ad networks, data analytics firms and tracking services.
Google, reportedly the largest data aggregator, has long taken the public position that its tracking systems use an alphanumeric code to identify and keep track of individual Web browsers, and that it simply does not correlate any personal information to these anonymous browser identifiers.
After reviewing copies of Krishnamurthy and Wills’ research, Google spokesman Rob Shilkin issued a statement: “We’ve never attempted or wanted to use any personal or sensitive information in any URLs provided by a third party, and in fact this very issue is addressed by the comprehensive self-regulatory schemes that we comply with.”
Google has been widely known to scan the contents of Gmail messages to deliver targeted text ads. While some don’t mind, others believe scanning e-mail to deliver more relevant ads is an invasion of privacy. John Simpson, spokesman for the non-profit advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, isn’t convinced the search giant will necessarily stop there.
“Part of the problem is that Google collects and stores tremendous amounts of data about its users,” Simpson says. “The only assurance we have about what Google’s intentions are boils down to ‘Trust us.’”
Source: USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc., Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Misuse of QR Codes: Are You Using Them Right?
Real estate professionals have embraced QR codes (or quick response codes) in a big way for marketing purposes. These bar codes can be placed on a real estate sign or in your advertisements, and home shoppers can scan them with their smartphone and instantly access a URL connected to the bar codes. So while real estate pros love this tech-savvy way to provide instant info to buyers, why is Forbes columnist Jim Nichols calling QR codes “the most abused technology of 2011?”
Nichols, vice president of digital at Stern + Associates, a public relations firm, was an early adopter of QR codes and sees the benefits but “I knew that this technology, like all great technologies (think e-mail) could be easily abused by people who either didn’t ‘get it’ or who were simply trying to be cutting edge,” he writes at Forbes.com. “I think we are at the forefront of this technology being abused” and the perk to users may be diminished if more marketers don’t start using them correctly, he adds.
Some QR code offenses he notes in the article: scanning a QR code but then being taken to a non-mobile friendly web site or putting QR codes in odd places, such as a billboard on a highway that makes it impossible to scan while driving. Also, QR codes that take you to a Web site that then make you log in or start a special account to access the information.
“There are many smart possibilities for QR codes as long as marketers remember their purpose: delivering additional, valuable information at a specific point of time,” Nichols notes. “Using a QR code to deliver a how-to video, coupon, ticket, vCard, phone number or directions are wonderful uses of the technology. Using codes to repeat the same information already in front of you is a waste of great technology.”
Source: “QR Codes: The Most Abused Technology of 2011,” Forbes
Nichols, vice president of digital at Stern + Associates, a public relations firm, was an early adopter of QR codes and sees the benefits but “I knew that this technology, like all great technologies (think e-mail) could be easily abused by people who either didn’t ‘get it’ or who were simply trying to be cutting edge,” he writes at Forbes.com. “I think we are at the forefront of this technology being abused” and the perk to users may be diminished if more marketers don’t start using them correctly, he adds.
Some QR code offenses he notes in the article: scanning a QR code but then being taken to a non-mobile friendly web site or putting QR codes in odd places, such as a billboard on a highway that makes it impossible to scan while driving. Also, QR codes that take you to a Web site that then make you log in or start a special account to access the information.
“There are many smart possibilities for QR codes as long as marketers remember their purpose: delivering additional, valuable information at a specific point of time,” Nichols notes. “Using a QR code to deliver a how-to video, coupon, ticket, vCard, phone number or directions are wonderful uses of the technology. Using codes to repeat the same information already in front of you is a waste of great technology.”
Source: “QR Codes: The Most Abused Technology of 2011,” Forbes
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Can Foursquare bring in client leads?
As all the world knows, the Honorable Michael Nutter is the mayor of Philadelphia.
Not in the world of Foursquare, though. In that social-media world, the mayor of Philadelphia is some guy named “Frank S.,” from New York.
In Foursquare, there’s a mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge, too – EricaLynn Gruenberg of Oaklyn, N.J.
The mayor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is John Ingram of Lansdale. And the mayor of the NJ Transit train between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is Trisha Winter of Vincentown.
In Foursquare, people with smartphones register their whereabouts and share them with friends. You “check in” wherever you are. Almost any place that’s a place, you can check in. And if you check in the most, you can become … the “mayor” of that place.
As in a video game, mayorship brings instant rewards. “Anyone else who checks in to that place,” explained Mitch Rozetar, 21, an Art Institute of Philadelphia student from Sinking Spring, Pa., “is told you’re the mayor.”
Like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, Foursquare helps friends stay in touch and groups come together based on shared interests. But it’s also addictive, a mad game of points, badges, mayorships, and “specials” – discounts, free food and drink, free stuff – that encourage and reward the alert and curious. Said Rozetar: “Foursquare rewards you for going out of your comfort zone and trying new things.”
“There’s a sense of fame to it,” said Rozetar, mayor of Reading Terminal Market.
Brandon Thomas, 28, a restaurant manager for Jose Garces and mayor of Philadelphia’s Piazza at Schmidts, said, “I’ll be walking through my restaurant, and a group will scream my name, ‘Hey, Brandon!’ … In shock, expecting the worst, I see Foursquare on their phones, and they say, ‘It’s great to meet the mayor.’ “
“I use it pretty much daily,” Ingram, 26, said. Besides the Art Museum, he has the mayor’s keys to 15 places, including a coffeehouse in Phoenixville, Pa., and a beach in Ocean City, N.J. “I got my first mayorship and just took off.”
Thomas’ job naturally led him to the Piazza. “It took me two months to become the mayor,” he said. “I’ve been living here for nine months, and it’s a constant struggle to keep my mayorship. If I forget one day, I lose it.”
“If you don’t check in, others can ‘oust’ you as mayor,” said Alia K. Dickerson, 24, a Temple University graduate student who was, last week, a mayor of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park (some places can be listed more than once, with slight variations). “I ‘check in’ when I walk through the park, riding in the car with my mom, or on the 38 SEPTA bus.”
Andrew Miguelez, 24, of Richboro, Pa., became mayor of Philadelphia’s Penn’s Landing area by checking in when he parked there for his job as a front-end Web developer for WebLinc. (He’s mayor of 21 other places, including a Pep Boys.) “I was in a heated battle with another daily visitor. … The title of mayor bounded back and forth between us every couple of days as one of us would check in earlier than the other, or would check in on a weekend.”
Foursquare, around since 2009, has 10 million registered users, according to its website. It’s not making much money now, but in June it raised $50 million on a valuation of $600 million – so there are people who think it could. Advertisers might like it because people use it a lot: The 750 millionth check-in happened in June. It’s used by urbanites, by men and women about equally. According to IgniteSocialMedia.com, its most active users are between 24 and 44.
For these users, it’s more than just pointless competition. It’s a way to stay in touch as you and your circle move from desire to desire.
“I usually use Foursquare to let friends know where I am,” Rozetar said. Miguelez uses it to find nearby friends when he wants something to do: “I’ve found many more opportunities to meet up with friends than I would if I’d been unaware.”
Other users track friends abroad, as Dickerson did with a friend in China.
Ingram says that through Foursquare he has found places that are “off the beaten track, but well worth it.” Drew Chrisner, 22, of Hamilton, N.J., stumbled upon the Mutter Museum. “It was awesome,” he said. “I went a second time, to a masquerade ball there, and got the mayorship.”
When you check in somewhere, Foursquare offers “tips” about what’s available nearby. At the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, tips praise the Chinese Rotunda and the Sphinx, and announce: “They throw great parties here.” McFadden’s at Citizens Bank Park is commended for its “beer tub girls.” Webster uses Facebook for noshing tips, as does Gruenberg: “Foursquare has made quite a few dinner decisions for me.”
“A main motivation to become the mayor of a venue is the fact that you can gain special discounts,” Rozetar said. Check in at McCormick & Schmick’s, and you could get a free bar-food menu item with any beverage purchased during happy hour. And if you’re the mayor, well, you get a free dinner entree with purchase of any entree of equal value or less.
Gruenberg, 33, said she has found Foursquare useful for business networking: “Businesses that have specials are usually more than happy to meet those of us who are using the app and cashing in on the specials.” Ingram said that while he was mayor of Independence Hall, “people who visited there added me as a friend and asked for places to go.”
One community squarely behind Foursquare is the fooderati. Food workers often collect mayorships of bars and food venues. “We’ll check in in the middle of rush hour,” Thomas said. “We’ll write something like, ‘We’re getting hammered tonight, 400 covers.’ That’s the craziness of the food world.”
Ingram, an avowed “history and culture buff,” celebrates his culture jones by checking in at Philly historic sites.
But maybe the best example is Gruenberg.
Gephyrophilia means “love of bridges,” and it’s safe to say Gruenberg is a gephyrophiliac. She is mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge – but she has also checked in at 18 other bridges. She was hooked, she said, the day she became the mayor of the Longfellow Bridge in Boston.
“When I moved back to the Philadelphia area, it was a no-brainer for me that I would strive to become the mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge,” she said. “I knew it would be a difficult task, but I was up for the challenge.” She checks in as she rides across into Philly on the PATCO High-Speed Line.
She admits the whole Foursquare thing can seem strange to neophytes. But Rozetar stressed his generation’s “sense of connectivity”: “We’re used to sharing all kinds of information through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.” Miguelez called Foursquare simply “mandatory.”
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Not in the world of Foursquare, though. In that social-media world, the mayor of Philadelphia is some guy named “Frank S.,” from New York.
In Foursquare, there’s a mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge, too – EricaLynn Gruenberg of Oaklyn, N.J.
The mayor of the Philadelphia Museum of Art is John Ingram of Lansdale. And the mayor of the NJ Transit train between Atlantic City and Philadelphia is Trisha Winter of Vincentown.
In Foursquare, people with smartphones register their whereabouts and share them with friends. You “check in” wherever you are. Almost any place that’s a place, you can check in. And if you check in the most, you can become … the “mayor” of that place.
As in a video game, mayorship brings instant rewards. “Anyone else who checks in to that place,” explained Mitch Rozetar, 21, an Art Institute of Philadelphia student from Sinking Spring, Pa., “is told you’re the mayor.”
Like Facebook, Twitter, and other social media, Foursquare helps friends stay in touch and groups come together based on shared interests. But it’s also addictive, a mad game of points, badges, mayorships, and “specials” – discounts, free food and drink, free stuff – that encourage and reward the alert and curious. Said Rozetar: “Foursquare rewards you for going out of your comfort zone and trying new things.”
“There’s a sense of fame to it,” said Rozetar, mayor of Reading Terminal Market.
Brandon Thomas, 28, a restaurant manager for Jose Garces and mayor of Philadelphia’s Piazza at Schmidts, said, “I’ll be walking through my restaurant, and a group will scream my name, ‘Hey, Brandon!’ … In shock, expecting the worst, I see Foursquare on their phones, and they say, ‘It’s great to meet the mayor.’ “
“I use it pretty much daily,” Ingram, 26, said. Besides the Art Museum, he has the mayor’s keys to 15 places, including a coffeehouse in Phoenixville, Pa., and a beach in Ocean City, N.J. “I got my first mayorship and just took off.”
Thomas’ job naturally led him to the Piazza. “It took me two months to become the mayor,” he said. “I’ve been living here for nine months, and it’s a constant struggle to keep my mayorship. If I forget one day, I lose it.”
“If you don’t check in, others can ‘oust’ you as mayor,” said Alia K. Dickerson, 24, a Temple University graduate student who was, last week, a mayor of Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park (some places can be listed more than once, with slight variations). “I ‘check in’ when I walk through the park, riding in the car with my mom, or on the 38 SEPTA bus.”
Andrew Miguelez, 24, of Richboro, Pa., became mayor of Philadelphia’s Penn’s Landing area by checking in when he parked there for his job as a front-end Web developer for WebLinc. (He’s mayor of 21 other places, including a Pep Boys.) “I was in a heated battle with another daily visitor. … The title of mayor bounded back and forth between us every couple of days as one of us would check in earlier than the other, or would check in on a weekend.”
Foursquare, around since 2009, has 10 million registered users, according to its website. It’s not making much money now, but in June it raised $50 million on a valuation of $600 million – so there are people who think it could. Advertisers might like it because people use it a lot: The 750 millionth check-in happened in June. It’s used by urbanites, by men and women about equally. According to IgniteSocialMedia.com, its most active users are between 24 and 44.
For these users, it’s more than just pointless competition. It’s a way to stay in touch as you and your circle move from desire to desire.
“I usually use Foursquare to let friends know where I am,” Rozetar said. Miguelez uses it to find nearby friends when he wants something to do: “I’ve found many more opportunities to meet up with friends than I would if I’d been unaware.”
Other users track friends abroad, as Dickerson did with a friend in China.
Ingram says that through Foursquare he has found places that are “off the beaten track, but well worth it.” Drew Chrisner, 22, of Hamilton, N.J., stumbled upon the Mutter Museum. “It was awesome,” he said. “I went a second time, to a masquerade ball there, and got the mayorship.”
When you check in somewhere, Foursquare offers “tips” about what’s available nearby. At the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, tips praise the Chinese Rotunda and the Sphinx, and announce: “They throw great parties here.” McFadden’s at Citizens Bank Park is commended for its “beer tub girls.” Webster uses Facebook for noshing tips, as does Gruenberg: “Foursquare has made quite a few dinner decisions for me.”
“A main motivation to become the mayor of a venue is the fact that you can gain special discounts,” Rozetar said. Check in at McCormick & Schmick’s, and you could get a free bar-food menu item with any beverage purchased during happy hour. And if you’re the mayor, well, you get a free dinner entree with purchase of any entree of equal value or less.
Gruenberg, 33, said she has found Foursquare useful for business networking: “Businesses that have specials are usually more than happy to meet those of us who are using the app and cashing in on the specials.” Ingram said that while he was mayor of Independence Hall, “people who visited there added me as a friend and asked for places to go.”
One community squarely behind Foursquare is the fooderati. Food workers often collect mayorships of bars and food venues. “We’ll check in in the middle of rush hour,” Thomas said. “We’ll write something like, ‘We’re getting hammered tonight, 400 covers.’ That’s the craziness of the food world.”
Ingram, an avowed “history and culture buff,” celebrates his culture jones by checking in at Philly historic sites.
But maybe the best example is Gruenberg.
Gephyrophilia means “love of bridges,” and it’s safe to say Gruenberg is a gephyrophiliac. She is mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge – but she has also checked in at 18 other bridges. She was hooked, she said, the day she became the mayor of the Longfellow Bridge in Boston.
“When I moved back to the Philadelphia area, it was a no-brainer for me that I would strive to become the mayor of the Ben Franklin Bridge,” she said. “I knew it would be a difficult task, but I was up for the challenge.” She checks in as she rides across into Philly on the PATCO High-Speed Line.
She admits the whole Foursquare thing can seem strange to neophytes. But Rozetar stressed his generation’s “sense of connectivity”: “We’re used to sharing all kinds of information through Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.” Miguelez called Foursquare simply “mandatory.”
Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
Monday, August 1, 2011
New Tools Help You Get Recommended Via Facebook
About 90 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, according to a Nielsen study. Consumers also are much more likely to buy a product or use a service when recommended by a friend.
In harnessing the advantage of that friend-to-friend recommendation, several companies this week launched apps that allow real estate professionals to receive and show off recommendations on Facebook.
For example, real estate professionals who have a Trulia profile can now ask their contacts to recommend them on Facebook or through e-mail. Then, via its newly launched Social Search tool, all of those Facebook recommendations get integrated into Trulia’s Find a Pro directory. As others search the directory by name, keyword, or geographic area, they’ll be able to see real estate professionals who their Facebook friends may have recommended. The Facebook recommendations are also published on the real estate professional’s Trulia profile, the endorser’s Facebook profile, and the Facebook news feeds of the endorser’s friends, the company notes.
"Real estate professionals have long since cited word-of-mouth and referrals as one of their primary sources of business,” George Gerstenfeld, Trulia’s senior vice president of business services, said in a statement. “Trulia Social Search provides a more efficient way for agents to receive digital referrals from their clients, maximizing their reach with each recommendation they receive.”
Meanwhile, Oodle also announced this week a tool to help real estate professionals solicit testimonials or recommendations via Facebook with its Oodle Recommendations App. The recommendations are shared with friends in the Facebook news feed, posted on the real estate professional’s own Facebook wall, and featured in a Recommendations Tab on your Facebook page. The recommendations are also included whenever your listings are displayed in Facebook’s Marketplace.
Source: “Trulia Launches Agent Recommendation System,” Inman News (July 28, 2011) [Log-in required] and “Oodle Launches Facebook Recommendations Application for Real Estate Agents,” Centre Daily Times (Pa.)
In harnessing the advantage of that friend-to-friend recommendation, several companies this week launched apps that allow real estate professionals to receive and show off recommendations on Facebook.
For example, real estate professionals who have a Trulia profile can now ask their contacts to recommend them on Facebook or through e-mail. Then, via its newly launched Social Search tool, all of those Facebook recommendations get integrated into Trulia’s Find a Pro directory. As others search the directory by name, keyword, or geographic area, they’ll be able to see real estate professionals who their Facebook friends may have recommended. The Facebook recommendations are also published on the real estate professional’s Trulia profile, the endorser’s Facebook profile, and the Facebook news feeds of the endorser’s friends, the company notes.
"Real estate professionals have long since cited word-of-mouth and referrals as one of their primary sources of business,” George Gerstenfeld, Trulia’s senior vice president of business services, said in a statement. “Trulia Social Search provides a more efficient way for agents to receive digital referrals from their clients, maximizing their reach with each recommendation they receive.”
Meanwhile, Oodle also announced this week a tool to help real estate professionals solicit testimonials or recommendations via Facebook with its Oodle Recommendations App. The recommendations are shared with friends in the Facebook news feed, posted on the real estate professional’s own Facebook wall, and featured in a Recommendations Tab on your Facebook page. The recommendations are also included whenever your listings are displayed in Facebook’s Marketplace.
Source: “Trulia Launches Agent Recommendation System,” Inman News (July 28, 2011) [Log-in required] and “Oodle Launches Facebook Recommendations Application for Real Estate Agents,” Centre Daily Times (Pa.)
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