Facebook has over 350 Million plus users.  And if that is not amazing enough, how about the fact that 50% of all users log in on any given day.  The Facebook Statistics are pretty mind blowing, here are some that are directly related to why you should have a fan page for your business

• 350 Million Users
• More than 700,000 local businesses have active Pages on Facebook
• Pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans
• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
• Average user is a member of 12 groups
• If Facebook were a country, it would be the 3^rd largest in the World

Don’t forget that when someone “Fans” your page, or participates on your page, Facebook puts a notification on their wall.  Then their friends see it and can interact, and so on.  This creates the opportunity for viral marketing with very limited effort on your part.

Some things to keep in mind are that you are not allowed to use your personal Facebook account for commercial purposes.  In addition, your personal Facebook account is limited to 5000 friends.  Facebook fan pages are not limited.  Also important to know is that content on a Facebook Fan page is indexed by the search engines (this is good for you BTW).

One thing I like so much about the Facebook Fan page is it allows you to differentiate your business message from your personal message.  I’ve always said, “my updates for my mom, and my updates for my clients are vastly different.”  I never felt comfortable putting out my business message on my personal account.  The Facebook Fan page eliminated this concern.  Just a couple other differences, Facebook Fan pages allow larger photo at the side, and Fan pages are customizable via Facebook Markup Language.

 In the video you will learn:

• Basic step by step instructions on setting up your page
• How to add Content
• How to Promote to your existing followers
• How to Promote to everyone else
• How to Promote via Paid Advertising
• How to Get a Shortened vanity URL for your FB Fan Page!
• How to Get Facebook Fan Page Widgets for your External Sites to send people to your FB Fan page.
• See an example of a Customized FB Fan page made with Facebook markup language

I hope you will learn a good bit from the video.  If you do, please share this article by clicking on the various Social Media Sharing Icons at the bottom of this post.  Thanks so much!

Please Join My Facebook Fan Page by CLICKING HERE

 
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————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

I just followed you, and I don’t blindly follow people.  That means you went through some level of screening process.  It might have been just a quick look at your last 20 Tweets to see if you have anything interesting to say.  Or, it might have been a deeper look – including a look at your bio, perhaps even your website, and a glance at your Followers to Following ratio.

So if I end up following you, you just passed a test.  I invested time in you.  The LAST thing I want from you is an instant DM Spam message with a sales pitch.  This is your one way ticket to getting UNfollowed. 

You need to realize that Social Networking has the word “Social” in it.  Not “Auto Networking”,  ….. Social Networking.  Try spelling it out loud, S-O-C-I-A-L ….. You get the point.  Or do you?

The people in the screen capture to the right didn’t.  I blindly followed 100 people with a test account to illustrate a point.  Almost 50% greeted me with auto DM  spam.  #Justsayin

Times have changed.  The days of cramming your sales pitch down the throats of others is over.  Instead of Auto DM Spamming someone as your very first “connection” with them, why don’t you send them a message with a personal touch.   Refer to them by name, or something on their website.  This way they’ll know you actually invested time in them, and not just the typical, “Thanks for following me, I look forward to your Tweets.”  You are better off sending nothing at all, and engaging them later. 

So if your goal is a million followers (and it shouldn’t be, but that’s another post altogether) try Engaging people, try interacting with them.  Do something nice for someone else and stop thinking that everyone is interested in your message (read that, “sales pitch”)

So check me out.  Put ME through the test.  If you think I have something interesting to say, Follow ME, and hopefully, I will follow you back.

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

With something like 206,741,990 websites out there, there’s a good chance that some unscrupulous bum might decide to use your photographs and call them his own – and you’ll never know it.

Whether you are a professional photographer, or just a parent with vacation photos, your pictures are protected by Copyright Law. They SHOULD not be copied by anyone without permission, but that does not seem to stop people. The good thing is that you can watermark your photos with Photoshop and other image processing software out there.

Check out this short video that walks you step by step through the process of protecting your photographs from would be thieves.

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

Your Twitter background is part of your “Branding” (especially if you are using Twitter for business). You have the opportunity to continue the branding from your website and/or blog to your Twitter Page.  Remember, if you Tweet a lot, 1000’s of people will be checking out your Twitter page.  Make it count! If you are a business, make it mandatory!

If you’ve ever tried uploading a background for your Twitter page, then you know how hard it is to get it just right.  The real question is, how do you work your photo around the Twitter Interface to look good on both sides?

If you haven’t tried it, you will be surprised at how counter intuitive it is.  It’s not just uploading a photo.  You have to consider the following things:
 

• How large should your photo (background) be?
• What screen resolutions should you optimize for?
• How do you get your background to properly border the Twitter foreground and look nice?

The good news is that after several hours of trial and error, testing different screen resolutions, and finding the exact dimensions of the key areas, I wrote everything down. All the answers are in the video.  I hope you can get your background up in just minutes, whereas it took me several hours.  Please email me if you have any questions!

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

Savvy and Company and Amazing Video Tours are proud to bring you Tippah Park in Plaza Midwood, Charlotte, NC – Homes for Sale

Check out this video tour of these wonderful new homes in Tippah Park in Charlotte’s historic Plaza Midwood Neighborhood. Tippah Park offers:

• Arts and Crafts style bungalows
• 14 lot community
• Variety of home offerings
• 3-4 bedroom homes
• 1600-2200 square feet homes
• Variety of price points
• Several homes available
• Standard features include hardwood floors, granite countertops, stainless steel appliances, tile backsplashes, and rocking chair front porches

Tippah Park offers the charm of Plaza Midwood, its friendliness, its quaintness, its tree canopy, with the convenience of new construction.

Plaza Midwood offers many amenities, public open spaces, restaurants, its business district, its close proximity to Uptown Charlotte, its design, diverse ache texture, it’s truly fabulous.

Contact Deborah Cox at 704-516-4279 or Genevieve Williams at 704-323-9127 to see this wonderful neighborhood in Park in Charlotte’s historic Plaza Midwood Neighborhood

—– ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

What could possibly come on the heels of Social Networking apps like Facebook and Twitter?  Well, they are already here.  You just might not know about them yet.

Got a smart phone?  Go get one – because the next NOW wave is Location Based GPS games.  What???? …   Games that use your GPS location as a primary factor.  There are dozens of them out there as you can see here. But the ones I want to talk about are the ones that are all the rage right now.  I’m sure there are others, but I want to highlight 2 of them. 

Brightkite (which is NOT new) is the first one I heard of.  You download the app to your smart phone and “check in” when you visit a certain site like a bar, restaurant, Home Depot, or anywhere.  It’s social because you can follow people and they can follow you.  You can build a network, post updates, pictures, and the like.  You can, “Get to know people around you”.

Now, Foursquare really takes it up a notch.  Foursquare turns location based GPS into a competitive game.  You get awarded points for visiting each location.  The counter re-sets every week, so no one player can just dominate over time and make it boring for everyone else.  But there’s more…

Foursquare stiffens the competition by awarding the prestigious honor of being the “Mayor” of any location to the person who visits there the most.  But Foursquare takes it up another notch by awarding “Badges” for your first, 10^th, 25^th, 50^th, etc. check in.  You can also get badges for going out 4 nights in a row, or visiting 4 stops in one night.  There are many more badges, I just have not seen them yet. 

Can you imagine how a bar, restaurant, or other business might use this to their advantage?  If I owned a bar, I would Tweet that whoever checked in the most during a certain month would get X number of free drinks (for them and their friends) the following month.

Consider the fact that Foursqure can automatically post your “Check-ins” to other social media sites like Twitter ……. Just imagine having 50 Gen Y’rs all competing to visit your venue as many times as possible during a month, tweeting about it, and competing for the honor of most visits – and the coveted prize of free drinks!  What a marketing opportunity. Think of all that FREE publicity!  It is for this reason that I see Foursquare getting bigger and bigger and not going anywhere for a while. 

So get on, start playing, and have fun.  And if you are a Shop owner of any kind, you could be using Location Based GPS games such as Foursquare as part of your marketing plan.

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

Why did I do this?  Only because VREBC represents a collection of some of the best speakers in the country on topics like Social Media, Social Networking, and General Real Estate Technology. 

If you don’t know what a Bar Camp is, you should.  Visit http://www.barcamp.org/

If you don’t know what a Real Estate Bar Camp is, you should.  Visit http://rebarcamp.com/

And, if you don’t know what a Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp is, you should.  Visit http://www.virtualbarcamp.com/

For those of you that do know, here are the sessions I attended and my personal selection of  quotable quotes from each of the speakers.  For each of the speakers, I included at least their Twitter ID so that you can learn more information about them. 

 9:15AM PST: Brad Inman – What Is Inman News Predicting?  @bradinman

Brad Inman – “Social Media represents a new way for agents to network and build community”

Brad Inman – “heavy emphasis on dissemination of Real Time Data”

Brad Inman – “Dive deep into social media, do it aggressively – Blog, Twitter, Facebook”

10:15AM PST: Tara Jones – Media Marketing  http://www.reelproductionstv.com/

Tara Jones: “If you don’t have video on your site, you are missing out”

Tara Jones: “Sites with video retained consumers 70% longer than those without”

Tara Jones  ”Video is not still pictures being moved across the screen”

Tara Jones: “Always plan ahead for your video of a home tour”

Tara Jones: “Have a professional image in everything you do”

11:15AM PST: Darin Persinger – The 7 A’s To Building Your Business Online & Offline   @darinpersinger 

Darin Persinger, Re Social Media – “Give more then you get. Give 80% to get 20%. Be approachable”

Darin Persinger: “Appreciate the people who read your site; blog; tweets, be sure to thank them”

Darin Persinger: “Be authentic, be the real you” 

12:15PM PST: Jeff Turner – The Lost Art Of Listening    @respres 

Jeff is a true Social Media Rock Star.  I had the pleasure of meeting Jeff at REBarCampCLT last Summer.  Jeff taught me how to use Twitter.  He taught me how to LISTEN.  It was during a conversation with Jeff that the little light bulb went off in my head and I GOT social media.  Anytime you get a chance to hear him speak, drop everything, and Listen!   

Jeff suggested using (and gave an overview of) Tweetgrid.com (http://www.tweetgrid.com/) to help you “Listen” to the conversation on Twitter.  Additionally, using http://www.tweetgrid.com/irc to follow the conversation.  Awesome tools.  Obviously, he had more to say, but you need to hear him for yourself. 

1:15PM PST: Jay Thompson – Write Right, Right Now. Get Your Blog On!   @phxreguy 

Jay Thompson about Blogging – “Write with passion, your readers will know if you’re writing for Google” 

Jay Thompson: “Blog consistently – be real – be authentic – be transparent – be YOU”

Jay Thompson:  “No one Realtor can please everyone.  Get over yourself” 

Jay Thompson: “Blogging takes time! Stick with it! Don’t give up after a year or 2″.

1:15M PST: Mark Madsen – 7 Strategies For Connecting w/ Agents Online w/o Looking Like A Stalker @Mark_Madsen 

Mark Madsen – “Use Google Reader, its a game changer” 

Mark Madsen – “Don’t comment on other people’s blogs just to spam your link”

2:15PM PST: Jonathan Rivera – How To Leverage The Power Of Social Media In Real Estate @Real_TechGuy 

Jonathan Rivera: “Check out Seth Godin, Meatball Sundae” 

Jonathan Rivera:  “Make your blog the centerpiece of all your social media, and make sure all your Social Media accts link to your blog”

2:15PM PST: Rob Hahn – Social Media Heresie   http://www.7dsassociates.com/

Rob Hahn – “The same rules apply. If you won’t do/say/act it in real life, don’t do it on Social Media”

3:15PM PST: Pat Kitano – Innovative Community Engagement Strategies @pkitano 

 Pat Kitano – “Provide a service to the community, recognize them, make them happy, respect them”

Pat Kitano – “Twitter is an open network, community engagement is faster in open networks”

Pat Kitano – “Community engagement is more powerful than marketing cause it positions you at the hub of your society & attracts people to you”

Conclusion:

What a great, informative day! A huge thank you to @RETomato and everyone else who made #VREBC happen. 

Follow me on Twitter

 Previous Blog Article – 10 Technology Tips For Realtors in 2010

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.

Want to be successful in 2010?  80% of your business will most likely be referral based, so work that database.  Follow up with old clients to just say hello and remind them you are still in the business.  Do “Pop By’s” with an item of value (ala Brian Buffini).  Host informative events and become known as the “Area Expert”.  But what about that other 20%, or what if you have not been in the business long and your referral base is somewhat lacking? 

In that case you better go where the consumers are.  According to NAR, over 86% of all buyers start their search on the Internet.  Compile that with the fact that with more and more inventory on the market, sellers want to see exactly how an agent will market their home online. 

If you really want to excel as an agent online, then check out the following blog posts as your boot camp for online success.  Get in front of the curve NOW by adopting things such as full motion video, and Social Media as part of your marketing repertoire. 

It’s a new decade, and new media world where Generation X and Y will dominate your transactions.  Particularly Gen Y (as they will eventually out number baby boomers).  They grew up on the internet and would rather Text and Tweet then email and talk on the phone.  How do you embrace these Generations?  Read the following blog posts and you will be ready for the future NOW!

How To Do Your First Video of A Listing  – Get ready for video.  It’s already here, and your clients will be asking for it.  Don’t get caught off guard, or left behind.  A step by step turorial.

Twitter Made Easy for Business – A Video Series – The only video tutorial you’ll ever need to master using Twitter the RIGHT WAY!

The Secret to Managing Social Media – Quit whining and start Tweeting!

Twitter is Stupid, I don’t have time for Twitter  - It’s a pervasive attitude in the Real Estate Community – Here’s why it shouldn’t be.

The Importance of Good Real Estate Photography  - This is more of a demo then a “how to”, but the how to is just an email away.  Let me know how I can help you take better RE photos.

Goldilocks and The 3 Realtors – A Real Estate Photo (not so) Fairy Tale.  Same thought as the one above, please email me if I be of assistance to helping you take better RE photos.

1 Secret to Getting Photos Like A Pro Photographer – For your non Real Estate Photos

What’s So Social About Linkedin? Going Beyond just linking with people

Protect Those Expensive Lenses – A little investment goes a long way

What NOT to do with Embedded YouTube Videos on Your Blog

Advertising your Listings in Today’s Economy – The cheese has moved, have you?

Hope you find something of value in the list above.  Here’s another little nugget of Real Estate Tech that will MOST DEFINITELY help you get off to a great new year.  Get familiar with the term “Real Estate Bar Camp”.  Go to one, they are happening more and more in every major city in the country.  They are free, run by the participants, and better then most paid events.  More info at http://rebarcamp.com/

Happy New Year and all the best for your Real Estate Tech Success in 2010.

————- ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Home Video Provider for Realtors, and other individuals with property to sell, lease, or rent. A departure from the old fashion 360 Virtual Tour, Amazing Video Tours takes online property marketing to the next level.