We are always searching for new ways to get involved in our communities and the people and businesses within.  People do business with people they know and trust.  How would you like to be the local expert and have fun at the same time?  Why not visit your local businesses and profile them on your blog.  You will give the local business some free advertising and you might become recognized as providing some value within the community.  You will get to know your area better and meet more people, which should translate into more business.  You will also be the first hand area expert. 

You will be found with local key words in the area of town in which you work.  At the same time, after you've reviewed or discussed the local business, you can feature your listings or market information about the local real estate market.  Have you seen what the Minneapolis board of Realtors has available? Go to http://www.mplsrealtor.com/the100.aspx  Type in any city you want.  This is the kind of relavent information you need to share about your marketplace. These are the statistics people need to know when deciding to buy and sell homes.  Share this information along side some of the area attributes and businesses.

Here is an example of what I mean.  I live in Edina Minnesota-which is suburb of Minneapolis, MN.   Being that it is a beautiful 4th of July, we went to one of our city lakes today for a walk.  We have a local city lake called Lake Harriet which has a local community called Linden Hills.  The lakes area is very popular and by default-so is Linden Hills.  If you are interested, click  to learn more about the Minneapolis Lakes.

Today, my wife and I visited a local coffee shop in Linden Hills called Coffee & Tea LTD.  Their website can be found at http://www.coffeeandtealtd.com  We tried their coffee a few weeks ago and absolutely fell in love with it.  In fact, I encourage all of you to visit his website and see how he has incorporated video into his site.  Video profiling your business might be something you want to do on your personal website.  Besides traditional beans, Coffee & Tea Ltd has some very rare and exotic blends.  In fact, he has a very rare and unusual bean.  I don't want to spoil your surprise.  Go visit his site and learn about it.  He does sell coffee online and by mail order

This was our first video as we walked up to the store:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMhD1gISXFU

This was our second video after we went into the store:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8ouq-Ma2fc

These videos are unedited and our first attempt at local video.  Yet, we had a blast doing it.  We are going to be doing more of this in the future.  It's easy and fun.  We used the Flip Video camera-which is small handheld camera and costs about $100.  The camera couldn't be easier to use-point and click.  It even has a built in USB connector. 

During our visit with the owner, we discovered that he brings his dog with him to his shop.  The dog was a beautiful Rhodesian Ridgeback.  We discovered that he works on the rescue effort of placing these dogs in new homes.  So, if any of you are interested, he mentioned he needs to place 18 of them in the coming months-so if you know of a good home-give him a call-612-920-6344.  I went to Wikipedia and learned more about the breed.  These dogs are actually used as lion dogs in Africa. 

Here's my advice.  Focus on local-provide value-be different.  Many local realtors feature local listings-anyone of us can do that via an IDX feed.   Very few Realtors feature short video of the areas, the people, and the amenities.