If you like technology,  the arts, green initiatives,  and helping charity, you need to go to a BarCamp. 

If you hate stuffy, formal conferences that cost hundreds, or thousands of dollars, you need to go to a BarCamp.

 

 

This is a video of Bar Camp Charlotte III (BarCampCLT).  The generally informal nature of a BarCamp is what makes it so special.  At the start of the day, there is no schedule, there are no speakers, and entire day is driven by the participants.  The events are (usually) free, and breakfast and lunch are provided.  All paid for by sponsors who totally “get” the concept.   

 

People in the audience are encouraged to pitch ideas to discuss.  After 10-20 pitches are introduced, the audience goes and votes on the pitches they would like to attend.  The pitch topics with the highest number of votes are selected, the schedule is drawn up, and then multiple sessions commence for one hour long periods. 

 

You’ll usually have a choice of anywhere between 5-10 sessions to attend per hour depending on the size of the venue. 

 

It’s informal, its democratic, its fun, its progressive, its great networking, and it’s a great way to learn cutting edge stuff. 

 

So check out the video and leave a comment.  Tell me what you think.  If you liked the video, please let me know by sharing it on your favorite social networking sites (lots of share icons below). 

 

For more info on BarCamps go to http://www.barcamp.org/ For more info on Charlotte BarCamp go to http://www.barcampcharlotte.org/

“Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it”  – Ferris Bueller

 

In this rapidly changing online marketing world, things are happening faster now then ever before.  Not since the advent of the website has online marketing been so revolutionary.  With fast pace comes all the bad stuff that goes with it including a crop of self proclaimed experts trying to charge you for services.  Right now, the Google search phrase, “social media expert” yields over 1.4 million results.  

 

How in the world do you select a good social media consultant with results like that?  Can someone please explain to me how you can be an “expert” in an emerging field?  I’m not aware of any sanctioning body, educational curriculum, or designation as of yet.  Is there one?  I’d like to know as I certainly don’t know it all.  

 

The catalyst for this article is the web designer of one of my video clients.  It took them 2 weeks to figure out how to embed a YouTube video on my client’s website.  When I went to go check them out, I was surprised to see that they were, “Social Media Experts”.   Their marketing tool was a PDF that you could print out to call them.  They had no Blog, no Twitter account, no Facebook Fan Page, no LinkedIn account.  They had absolutely zero commitment in social media for their own business, but they felt qualified to charge YOU to help your company with social media. 

 

Later that same day my phone rang.  The guy told me that my measly number of Twitter followers was never going to get me any business, and he could get me 20,000 followers in 2 months for $500.00.  I checked him out.  He had 24,500 Twitter followers.  He had tweeted 50 times over 5 months.  Every tweet was spam – “I’ll get you more followers, check out www……….com”.  I told him to take me off his list. 

 

So here’s the lesson.  If someone calls you and tells you, for example,  that they know how to get you 20,000 followers on Twitter, RUN, don’t walk, run away fast.  Additionally, the number of followers *they* have on any social network is not a designation of ability.  There are 3^rd party Twitter programs that will automatically build you up to 20K followers in a short period of time. 

 

But SO WHAT!  Having a bunch of hollow followers will not increase your sales.  Know one thing, Social Media is a marathon, not a sprint.  It takes time (read that, a lot of time) to build a lot of followers that actually care about what you are saying, and will help your message go viral by re-tweeting, re-posting, or sending more traffic to your site. 

 

So how do you select a Social Media Consultant?  Check THEM out.  Look past their advertised number of followers and see what they actually have to say.  Are they engaging, or just spamming the networks with their sales pitch.  A good Social Networking strategy for business has a 90:10 ratio.  You give 90% to get 10%.  Some would go as far as saying it’s 95:5.  Are they giving, or just taking?

 

Social Networking is about transparency.  Consumers want to know who they are dealing with.  The number one rule for marketing this decade is trust.  How do you build trust?  By generating content on an ongoing basis that is interesting, engaging, and original.  When you make it clear to your audience that you know your stuff, they will keep coming back to see what you have to say.  Over time, this builds trust, and trust generates real followers, and real followers will become clients. 

 

So, is the social media expert that just offered to charge you $XXXX doing this for their own firm?  What are they blogging about?  What are they saying on Twitter?  On Facebook?  Would you want to follow them?  Are they even there?  It’s a litmus test, if they can’t prove they understand social media for their own business, how are they going to help you?

 

Am I a Social Media Expert?  No!  But I do practice what I preach, I don’t think I know it all, and I attend many conferences every year with some of the country’s best speakers to continuously learn more.  I don’t call myself an expert, and I’m not a trailblazer who spends every waking moment online trying to figure out what the next big app is going to be.  I’m in business to make money, so I stay where the people are, and I don’t stress out about what I might be missing – it’s not sexy, but it works. 

 

There are many good resources out there that can help your business succeed at Social Media.  The purpose of this post is to warn you that, like many other things, for every good 1, there’s 10 out there selling snake oil.  Caveat Emptor – Let the buyer beware.  In the case of selecting a social media consultant, it’s NOT all in the numbers.

And The Winner of the Custom Facebook Fan Page Is….. you gotta watch the video to see

 

 

————- ©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’m personally declaring February, “Custom Facebook Fan Page Month”

 

On March 1st, I will be giving away a Custom Designed Facebook Fan Page (see mine here) to the lucky winner who’s name is randomly chosen from all the people who enter the contest.

 

Here’s How To Enter:

 

• Come join my Facebook Fan Page by Clicking HERE and become a Fan.

• Once you are a fan, post “Enter me in the Contest” on my wall. That’s it, you are entered!

• Once you become a fan (and have entered yourself), you can refer friends to join my fan page, and have them enter their names on my wall too. If you refer someone, you will be entered into the contest 1 more time for each person you refer. IMPORTANT: Just have them write on my wall, “Enter me into the contest – I was referred by, Your Name”

• You can refer as many people as you would like, as long as they mention your name as part as their entry. For example, If you refer 2 people then your name will be in the hat 3 times.

 

That’s it! I will take all the names and randomly (by names in a hat) select one winner to receive a Custom Designed Facebook Fan Page.

 

If you don’t already have a Facebook Fan page, Read this to see why you should have one for your business.

 

NOTES: Remember a Facebook Fan Page is different from a personal page. Personal pages can’t be customized.

If you win and you don’t really need a fan page for yourself, you can transfer the win to a friend who does. Won’t you be the hero!

If you want to get entered into the contest a bunch of times, send your friends to http://bit.ly/cJeIr4  You can cut and paste that URL and send it to them in an email, or however else you decide.

 

 Entries must be received by Midnight (PST), Feb 28, 2010

 

Good Luck, have Fun!

 

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

 
Share  

 

————- ©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.

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.

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.

I recently spoke to a group of Real Estate Agents at a firm in Charlotte.  There was a pretty good crowd as their BIC strongly suggested they come, and there was no cost to them.  I got heckled pretty good, and the overarching sentiment in the crowd was that Social Media was a fad, and they could ignore it because it will go away.

 

Now, I have already preached at length about the fact that Generation Y (all 60 million of them) will buy more homes in the next decade then all other demographics combined in this blog post, and the fact that they practically live on social networks – so I won’t go there. 

 

The focus of this post is the fact that Social Networking is NOT a FAD.  It has been around for almost 20 years.  Don’t believe me, here’s a break down:

 

1989:   IRC – Internet Relay Chat – Allowed College students to chat via internet chat.

80’s – Early 1990’s:    BBS , Prodogy, and Compuserve – Share files, access news

1993-94:   AOL Chat Rooms

1995:   Classmates.com

1996:   ICQ, and AOL  Instant Messenger

1997:   SixDegrees.com 1^st to allow users to create profiles, list their Friends

1999:   Napster – Peer to Peer File Sharing

2001:   Ryze.com was launched to help people leverage their business networks.

2002:   Friendster (Social compliment to Ryze)

2003:   LinkedIn and MySpace

2004:   Flickr – Photo Sharing

2004:   Facebook (Harvard Only)

2005:   YouTube

2005:   Ning

2005:   Facebook expanded to High School Networks

2006:   Facebook expanded to Everyone

2006:   Twitter

2006:   Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit, Delicious

 

I remember avoiding studying at college in 1989 because I was on IRC (Internet Relay Chat) socially interacting with interesting people on other campuses clear across the country.  This was long before I ever saw my first web page on the “World Wide Web”.

 

So, as you can see, social networking is not new, it’s NOT a fad, and it is not going away.  If you choose to ignore networks such as Facebook and Twitter, you are ignoring the largest population of home buyers out there. 

 

Keep in mind that it does not matter whether or not Twitter (or Facebook) will be here in two years.  Twitter and Facebook are just the vehicles for Social Networking.  The vehicle is not important, it is the NETWORK of people you meet on these sites that is important. 

 

If you start now, and Twitter becomes a fad, don’t sweat it.  There will be something right behind Twitter, and you and YOUR NETWORK can all jump off the old Twitter bus and on to the next greatest thing.  It all boils down to people.  People are the most important thing, and people are the ones that will work with you, and refer you more business.

 

Where’s it going from here?  Let’s just say that in 2 years, you will either have a smartphone, or you will be on your way out of business.  If Gen Y can’t text you, or tweet you, they will find someone else who they can. 

 

Newsflash: Email is already passé. 

 

Gen Y is playing with their phones like we played Pong, and Pac Man. However, the games are much more advanced.  You might hear them talking about BrightKite, or Foursquare.  These are location based apps that use GPS to track your exact position.  On Foursquare, whoever “checks in” to a location the most often becomes “Mayor” of that location.  You strive to obtain “badges” as status in the game.  It becomes a competition, and there in lies the “fun”.

 

Call it silly, call it what you want, but things are moving at light speed now, and they show no signs of slowing down.  Are you on the bus, or not?

  Historical Timeline Sources: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html,  http://socialmediarockstar.com/history-of-social-media

I see it again, and again, and AGAIN! Agents confused by social media and confused by how to manage the time necessary for social media. They have every excuse in the book NOT to do social media and they want a magic silver bullet to do it for them.

First, WHY Social Media?

 

If you have any doubts about WHY you should be on Social Networks as a Realtor, consider this. NAR says that baby boomers have (on average) one home buying cycle left. Generation X has (on average) 6 buying cycles left. Generation Y has (on average) 7 buying cycles left.Now consider the fact that Gen Y’rs spend more than 3 hours per day online on social networks. Hello? Did you see that? The demographic that will buy the most homes in the future live on these networks! If you plan on being in Real Estate for the foreseeable future, you need to be reaching out to this generation using their media – and by doing it on their terms!

Q: What does that mean, “on their terms”?

A: They DO NOT want to be SOLD to, they want to be ENGAGED! 

 

Second – How to get started?

You want the SECRET? Here it is. Pick 1 or 2 social media platforms. I recommend Twitter and Facebook (in that order). Don’t auto post. Don’t AUTO POST. Did you see that, don’t auto post. That’s a short cut – it’s a cop out. It’s called SOCIAL Networking, not AUTO Networking! It is annoying and your Gen X and Gen Y-rs will see right through it. You can’t engage if you are not there! If you want a short cut, here it is ………. don’t do it at all.

What are you going to do if someone actually responds to your auto post? You’ll never see their inquiry and they’ll know it’s a bot – and poof, UNfollow you! You will end up alienating the exact audience that you are trying to connect with in the first place. Remember the SOCIAL in social media. It is not something you can do half way. If you auto post your blog posts to Twitter, make sure you make these a small fraction of your total tweets.

 

 

 Third – What to Say?

Social networking is a cocktail party. You wouldn’t walk into a cocktail party and spout off your listings or your production for the year, don’t do it on Social networking sites. Get in there, be friendly, Listen first, then ENGAGE others! Sooner or later the conversation (yes, conversation) will turn to what you do for a living. Gently remind them you are a Realtor. Make less then 10% of your updates be about your business. Generally in social networks, no one cares about what you have to say until they know you care about them! When it comes time to call a Realtor, they WILL remember you (the person) not the bot.

Lastly – THE SECRET for managing the time?

Ok, here it is. Get a laptop (or even better, Blackberry or iPhone) and do a lot of your social networking while your watching mindless reality shows. The average American spends over 4 hours per day in front of the TV, but yet everyone’s excuse is “not enough time”. There is a disconnect there somewhere. Just do it. No excuses! Good Luck!

Oh by the way, when you put in the time and start to build a network, it’s just like chatting with old friends. It will not feel like work.

Still think social media is stupid? Read Twitter is Stupid – I don’t have time for Twitter

Want help getting started the easy way? Watch the video series, Twitter Made Easy for Business

————- ©2009 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate Videography 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.