RealTown's RealTalk

I love to blog,  I think it is great to exchange ideas about real estate or any subject.  I have never gotten a referral, but I know people who have. 

Many REALTORS' web sites are way behind the curve in terms of meeting consumer expectations for a Web 2.0 experience -- interactivity and a chance to communicate. Blogging offers REALTORS an easy way to embrace technology that consumers are looking for in growing numbers.

I have been blogging since January, 2005, and I will share some thoughts based upon personal experiences as well as countless discussions with bloggers online and offline EVERY DAY.

SEO is certainly an advantage to blogging. More important than SEO is the opportunity for REALTORS to attract their ideal clients. Bloggers who are "transparent" in their approach are attracting persons of similar mindsets and philosophy, creating special niches for themselves, and completing transactions that find them having a better quality of life. They are finding better matches for their professional talents. That's the big payoff.

One does not have to look beyond RealTown Blogs' own Mary Pope-Handy for a blogging success story. Mary was the winning Blog Apprentice in last year's Inman News/ActiveRain Project Blogger competition for her Live in Los Gatos real estate blog. I had the good fortune of being Mary's Blog Coach. Mary attaches some serious $$$ income to her blogging efforts. She publishes four blogs (that I know about). She has enjoyed considerable attention with local and not-so-local newspapers and she has appeared on television in her local market.

Here's another good reason to blog: REALTORS are constantly on a bandwagon about negative press. They can become members of the press and tell their own market stories with their blogs. Blanche Evans (former Realty Times editor) and Hilary Marsh (Realtor.org) recently joined me and Joeann Fossland for a discussion about this every topic. You can review those details here.

There is some exciting new talent coming out of our No Blogger Left Behind ranks right here at RealTown. The final question is: Do you want to watch and take notes as new bloggers become successful, or do you want to write your own success story about the fruits of good blogging?

Frances Flynn Thorsen wrote -

"Many REALTORS' web sites are way behind the curve in terms of meeting consumer expectations for a Web 2.0 experience -- interactivity and a chance to communicate. Blogging offers REALTORS an easy way to embrace technology that consumers are looking for in growing numbers."

Wikipedia shows, "Web 2.0 has numerous definitions. Basically, the term encapsulates the idea of the proliferation of interconnectivity and social interactions on the Web." It goes on, " Stephen Fry who writes a column about technology in the British Guardian newspaper, describes Web 2.0 as: "…an idea in people's heads rather than a reality. It’s actually an idea that the reciprocity between the user and the provider is what's emphasised. In other words, genuine interactivity, if you like, simply because people can upload as well as download."

So I'm not so sure that consumers are looking for or even expecting a Web 2.0 experience in growing numbers when it comes to purchasing something, especially when buying or selling a house! This seems to be another "myth". Rather than real estate being a "social" interaction, it is what we have always referred to as a "sales" situation.

Think about it. When buying new tires, are you really going to read a blog at GoodYear? No! You came to look at replacing your tires... and GoodYear hopes to make a sale today with the price information they display on their site instead of you going to Bridgestone instead. If you want a new Lexus, do you plan on interacting on a blog with the local dealer? No. And once the "sale" has been made, will the consumer really plan on coming back often to see their sites again... even if they have a blog? Probably not for many months or even years! If you just bought a Kenmore washer & dryer at Sears, do you keep coming back over and over to look at washers & dryers again? (If so, then you need a life!) It was only important to you while you needed to replace your current ones. So why do real estate agents think we're so different that people are just dying to not only read what we have to say, but want to interact back with us? We, as real estate agents, are only upper most in the consumers' minds for a short period of time - just prior to making a decision about buying or selling... during the listing or buying period... during the contract to closing process... and maybe for a few weeks or months after. Then they are off living their lives concentrating on new, important events that they face in their world. They are finished with our "real estate" world for some time to come.

Web 2.0 (social interaction and interconnectivity) works well between peers - whether they are professional peers - like trading tips and ideas here at Real Talk, teens or "20 Somethings" socializing on MySpace or Facebook about the joys and trials of growing up, or other emerging networking web sites between people of like minds. But real estate, like almost any business, is about making sales, not necessarily about "making friends".

This isn't a West Coast "thing" vs. East Coast as Monica McNamara mentioned. The main reason many, many agents don't "blog" is because very few can actually "write"! I'm not being sarcastic when I say this, but all you have to do is visit lots of real estate agent sites and read their content to confirm this. Very few of us would be considered "authors" by others. As real estate agents, we make our living by making oral presentations - not by submitting written proposals or papers. We have become skilled at talking... using our words to persuade, reading the client's body language to see how our words are perceived, and utlizing our communications skills to try to listen. As we all know, many of our peers can't even figure out how to write a good, clean sales contract... and that is just filling in blanks in a pre-printed form! Ha! Many of our peers just don't possess good writing skills.

Blogging certainly has a place - it can be effective for SEO and it can be a place to help to establish an agent's expertise. But unless you possess very good writing skills, it should not be seen as a replacement for having a good, informational web site or other forms of "tried and true" real estate prospecting techniques. For some of you, that means turn off the computer and get out and meet some people in person. Formally called "prospecting". :-)

Win

************************
Win Singleton, CRB, e-PRO
Summit Web Design
(703) 536-7631
wins@summitweb.com
http://Summitweb.InternetCrusade.com
an Internet Crusade Approved Vendor
"Custom web site design that gets results!"
************************

Editor's Note
Note that Win is a longtime RealTalk member and a RealTown Approved Vendor. Check out his Web design firm -- Summit Web -- and let us know what  you think.

On Aug 21, 2008, at 6:17 PM, Monica McNamara wrote:
> I couldn't agree more. It's amazing to me that many agents that I
> have encountered still do not have a web presence. I have definitely
> noticed a trend. Real estate agents on the west coast seem to have
> embraced the internet with more fervor then their counterparts in
> other locales of our nation.
>
> In other areas it appears that blogging is not happening with the
> frequency as it is in California. It would be interesting to see if
> a poll was taken of real estate agents in New York versus
> California, which area would have a larger demographic of agents
> with a) a web site, and b) a blog.
>
> As with many other trends, the west coast always seems to be ahead
> of the east coast.
>
 

Back in 1998-1999, I was designing templates for a couple of real
estate site developers; both were located in California (LA and San
Jose) and both had integrated IDX data. At that time, there were very
few real estate web sites anywhere in the U.S., and they were almost
exclusively amateurish do-it-yourself sites. If I remember correctly,
there were only maybe 3 real estate site developers back then and at
least 2, possibly all 3 were in California. The developers'
salespeople had to go out to sell real estate sites and train users
how to use them, so naturally they began selling locally to California
real estate agents.
 

Also, any time a company needed to move into a new MLS territory,
someone had to go negotiate with the MLS board in the new territory to
get the right to download the MLS board's data. The whole concept was
so new that negotiating these deals could be time-consuming and
challenging. Once again, negotiating with local California boards was
easier than going elsewhere to get access to data.
 

Another factor was the availability of Web database programmers. Back
then they were in very short supply, incredibly expensive, and mostly
based around Silicon Valley.
 

So, it makes sense to me that real estate agents on the West Coast
adapted Web site marketing early: they were among the first to be
offered "canned" web sites.
 

Outside the realm of real estate site design, several of those few of
us that were doing Web site design in the earliest years ('94-'95)
also happened to be on the West Coast. I was in Oregon, while two
other pioneering Web designers, Lynda Weinman (Lynda.com) and David
Siegel, a Palo Alto graphic designer and font designer, were also in
California. A few others were scattered around: a guy in Seattle, a
woman in NC, another designer in the UK and another in Germany.
(Undoubtedly there were others, but these are some of those with whom
I networked when I first began doing Web site design.)
 

Another peculiarity of those very early years: a large majority of Web
sites were developed on Macs using BBEdit and Photoshop. That's
probably because many of us were print designers experimenting with
Web site design.
 

Suzanne
 

Suzanne Hathcock Stephens
Point2Agent Design Partner
http://www.SuzStephens.com
360-666-0881

Many REALTORS' web sites are way behind the curve in terms of meeting consumer expectations for a Web 2.0 experience -- interactivity and a chance to communicate. Blogging offers REALTORS an easy way to embrace technology that consumers are looking for in growing numbers.

I have been blogging since January, 2005, and I will share some thoughts based upon personal experiences as well as countless discussions with bloggers online and offline EVERY DAY.

Fran

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Great stuff, Fran. For those who want to get started, RealTown Blogs are feature rich and FREE. Go to RealTown and create your own blog today.

Rich Hudson
Director of PR/Marketing
InternetCrusade
(619) 283-7302 Ext. 602
Rich@InternetCrusade.com

I've been processing Win's comments all weekend and decided to reply, but I'm doing that on a blog, of course! ;-)

REPLY TO WIN SINGLETON