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Check it out!

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We’re so excited that the Superior School of Real Estate is going to host the Second annual Real Estate Bar Camp Charlotte on June 11th.  This year, We’ll be in Ballantyne village.  With awesome amenities including exceptional dining, fantastic spa, great entertainment, movies, gifts, clothing, and so much more – there’ll plenty for the participants to do. 

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Not that you’ll have time …

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You’ll be too busy learning in the traditional Bar Camp UN conference format, where pitches are made and the participants decide the schedule.  You’ll have plenty of options of real estate and technical sessions to choose from. 

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Come learn from some of the best minds in real estate!  You’ll come away with fresh new ideas, a rejuvenated excitement for the job, and a bunch of great new friends. 

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Click Here for more info and to Register (It’s a free event)

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Don’t miss Real Estate Bar Camp 2010 on June 11th at Superior School of real estate.

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—– ©2010 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours is Charlotte’s Premier Real Estate 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.

Real Estate Bar Camp Charlotte REBarCampCLT REBCCLT was written by Amazing Video Tours

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/

Video of BarCampCLT III What is Bar Camp Charlotte, BarCampCharlotte was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

How To Hire a Social Media Consultant was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

How To Tick off an Experienced Twitter User was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

Video – How To Make (or Customize) A Twitter Background was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

What’s Next (Now) in Social Media to Follow Facebook and Twitter? was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

10 Technology Tips For Realtors in 2010 was written by Amazing Video Tours

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

Objection # 704: Social Media Is a Fad, and Will Go Away was written by Amazing Video Tours

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.

The SECRET To Managing Social Media – Stop Making Excuses! was written by Amazing Video Tours

When I asked him how much time he spent on Twitter before making that generalization he told me that he signed up, typed in what he was doing, and no one ever responded and he NEVER got any leads from Twitter. So I guess it must be true!

The reality is that Social Networking (including Twitter) is the best tool to come along for Realtors since the Website. Do you remember the agents who said, “I don’t need a website, this Internet thing won’t last”! When those agents snubbed their noses at websites and the Internet, the early adopters got all the good URLs, established themselves with the Search Engines, and reaped the benefits of good search engine rankings while the nay-sayers played catch up.

For those that don’t know, Twitter is like a bull horn on steroids. A tool you can use to get your message out to the entire world, and all this for free. Caveat that by saying that I DO NOT recommend you use it as a bull horn, but I’ve already beat that horse dead in my blog post, How do you use Twitter for business?

For this post, I want to go in a different direction and address what everyone WANTS to know. How has Twitter translated directly into dollars and opportunities? Well, here it is, as a DIRECT RESULT of using Twitter, I have benefited in the following ways:

• I have been featured not once, but twice in local newspapers. This resulted in free publicity that I would otherwise never have received, and I have 2 new clients because of it. These clients will continue to use my services well into the future.

• I am completely in touch with business & networking events in my area that I would otherwise have never known about. I have made excellent business alliances and some darn good new friends at these events.

• I am completely in the loop with most technology seminars that are occurring around the country. Some of the greatest minds in using New and Social Media are speaking in your backyard and you don’t know it because they don’t have to advertise. They get large audiences by getting the word out in Social Networking circles.

• I have been approached by several business owners to partner in new endeavors that I would have never had the opportunity to meet, if it had not been for Twitter.

• Some people I know have been invited to speak about Twitter on NPR, they have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, television shows, and the like. All this publicity, and all of it free.

• Can you put a value on friendship? Think the concept of a “Tweet-up” (a place where Twitter users meet in real life) is ridiculous? I have met some wonderful people at these Tweet-ups. All very intelligent, and most of them business owners – all congregating for the purpose of networking and finding new ways to help each other be even more successful. Yeah – that’s stupid! NOT!

So, to those of you who say, I don’t have the time for Twitter, and Twitter is stupid – You are entitled to your opinion, but I have to tell you – there’s a (social) revolution going on, and a fundamental shift in how we market to the masses, and you just might be missing it. If you want to learn how to use Twitter for Business, check out my Twitter Made Easy for Business Video series by clicking here  BTW – it won’t cost you anything either.

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©2009 – AmazingVideoTours.com – All Rights Reserved. Amazing Video Tours offers photography and full motion video marketing solutions to 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.

Twitter is Stupid, I don’t have the time for Twitter! was written by Amazing Video Tours