Organize and Optimize Your Email
Published February 2, 2012 | 
Let’s face it. You’re a busy person. You’ve got real estate clients to meet up with, homes to show, appointments to attend to and family matters to take care of. Who has time to filter through all the junk emails coming through their inbox every day? Technology is supposed to help make our lives easier. And, in many ways, it does. But it seems that, sometimes, technology can interfere with productivity. To stay focused, you need to organize and optimize your email, eliminating clutter and directing your attention to those things that matter.
Studies show that most people have an almost compulsive need to check and answer every single email that comes in at the moment it comes in. While you may think this shows that you’re on top of things, it actually can be counter-productive. It takes your attention away from the tasks in front of you. Once you return to finish the project you started, your mind can take several seconds to jump back on track. When you factor that in to every time you check your email, you could lose several hours of time over the course of a month. Instead of jumping on your email several times a day, schedule two or three times throughout the day to check and answer emails.
Use your email signature to relay important information, such as your name (obviously), your company’s name, your direct phone number, your website and links to your social media (such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook). WiseStamp is an email app generator that creates icons you can integrate right into your email signature. You can link the icons to your social media accounts so that anyone reading your email can access them directly with just one click.
The key to organizing your email is to reduce the amount you receive. I spoke about Unsubscribe.com, a free download that helps you reduce SPAM to your inbox, a few weeks ago. I use it and have already seen a huge reduction in my junk emails. Google Alerts are also a great way to keep track of who’s saying what about your business or name. You can set it to receive alerts once a day, once a week or as they happen. It’s up to you. Otherinbox allows you to set up incoming emails to be directed into specific folders, such as “shopping”, “business”, “clients”, “buyers”, “sellers”, “personal”, etc. That way you can tackle the most important emails now and save the rest for when you have more time.
Finally, use your email filters. Just about every email program offers some kind of filters. It may take a little time in the beginning. But, as you designate which emails are SPAM and which are actual emails you want to receive, the filters are programmed to recognize potential SPAM in future emails. This helps reduce the junk and keep the good stuff coming through.
I’m trying to reduce the clutter in my life so that I can stay focused on the important things: my family, my friends and my clients. Organizing and optimizing my email is one way to get rid of the junk. These free tools can help you as well. Please let me know if you need help organizing your real estate business so you can continue to be productive and prosperous in 2012.
Free Video Channel for Real Estate Listings
Published January 26, 2012 | 
We can all agree that videos make great advertisements. Whether it’s for a property, an event or even showcasing your real estate skills, videos have surpassed still pictures and even slideshows in helping market you and your listings online. YouTube has become the second most used search engine (behind Google and in front of Yahoo! and Bing) on the internet today. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a place to upload the video of your client’s real estate listing without having it compete with cats playing the piano, stunts gone wrong and startled baby faces? Well, there is. It’s called Property Tube.
Property Tube was created exclusively for private sellers and renters as well as professional real estate agents and offices as a marketing platform for their properties. They give exposure of your clients’ properties to a world-wide audience. All you have to do is take any video you’ve created or had created by a professional and upload it to your free Property Tube account like you would with a YouTube video. In just two easy steps, you can map the location of the property, upload the video, add a catchy headline and provide details of the property in question, including adding a link back to your website or blog right in the description.
Just like YouTube, you can even create your own real estate channel. Keep your data base updated on what’s happening with your office, what’s going on around your neighborhood, new listings that need to be seen to be believed and general real estate news that everyone can use with your own branded real estate channel. This is a great way to engage an audience and keep them asking for more. And all this is absolutely FREE!
If you don’t fancy yourself a cinematographer, don’t fret. Property Tube can help you find a videographer near you to shoot an amazing, professional quality video. However, anyone with a Flip camera and some imagination can put together something truly special on Property Tube.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is just about priceless. And, with Property Tube, your priceless video can be advertised to millions of potential buyers all across the world for FREE! Just think of Property Tube as the YouTube of real estate listings.
Communication is Key with Clients
Published November 3, 2011 | 
Every successful real estate agent knows that communication is key with clients. This is true whether your client is a buyer or seller. With sellers, in particular, there are a few specific ways you can keep your clients “in the loop” on what’s happening with their listing. An informed client is a happy client. Happy clients refer you to other potential clients and everybody wins.
Follow-up After a Showing – This may seem obvious, but it shouldn’t be overlooked. Whether via email or a personal phone call (whichever your client prefers), informing them of how the showing went in a timely manner helps alleviate some of the stress they are feeling during this important time in their life. Take lots of notes during the showing and ask important questions, such as what the buyer/agent liked most/least about the home, what they think needs to be improved on, how many other homes have they looked at and how does this home rank in comparison to the other homes they’ve seen. When you take this feedback to your client, they can get a more realistic picture of how their home looks to potential buyers. This can help both you and your client tweak your marketing plan to accommodate.
Sign Up for Google Alerts – Most of today’s homebuyers begin their home search online. So, it makes sense to follow what is being said about your clients’ property and where it is being seen. Setting up a Google alert for the property’s address takes only a couple of minutes. You can receive the alert as often as you want, but you may only want to share this information every other week or so with your client. You don’t want to overwhelm them with too many alerts. This will show them that you are always keeping an eye on their listing because they are very important to you.
Analyze Online Listing Performance - Smart real estate agents understand the importance of posting your clients’ listings online. But, it’s not enough to just post and syndicate these listings. You need to know how these listings rank in search engines, who is viewing them and which portals they are viewing them most (ie, Trulia, Zillow, Craigslist, etc). Most listing sites provide an in-house report that will allow you to track how your listing is doing on that particular site. Do a weekly update to see where your clients’ listing is getting the most viewings so you can, again, tweak your marketing plan to take advantage of the traffic. When you present your findings to your client, they will see for themselves that their listing is never far from your mind.
When you deal in a customer service-oriented business like real estate, you quickly find that communication is key with clients. Word-of-mouth is still a very powerful and effective advertising tool. Keep your clients informed and they will be more than happy to pass along your name to their friends, families and coworkers. Then, they’ll tell two friends and they’ll tell two friends and so on and so on…
Harness Social Media in an Online Newsletter
Published October 27, 2011 | I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. Social media can be a great tool in a real estate professional’s arsenal. When used correctly, Facebook is more than a way to catch up with old friends or stay in touch with distant relatives (which is nice) and Twitter has become so mainstream that it has been the “go-to” source for late-breaking news at legitimate news outlets. How would you like to harness social media in an online newsletter quickly and easily? Paper.li is just the site for you!
The key to search engine optimization is creating fresh content on a regular basis. The more relavent content you create, the more food the search engine spiders have to crawl. This helps give your real estate business a boost in the rankings as well as makes you seen as an expert in your field by your peers, potential clients and search engines. With a free account on Paper.li, you can literally create your own online real estate newsletter in a few simple clicks using Twitter, Facebook and your blog feed. How crazy is that?!
All you have to do to get started is visit the Paper.li website, create a free account, create an attention-grabbing title (be as creative as you can but not too wordy), add a few links and content is automatically streamed from your sources into an interesting newsletter format that can be shared to your friends, family, colleagues and potential clients every single day. You can stream content from your Twitter account, Twitter accounts of people you find interesting or a specific Twitter list you have, specify hash tags you want info pulled from, search out keywords on Twitter and Facebook and, finally, add RSS feeds from your website or blog. You are allowed a combination of up to 10 of these sources to create your own newsletter. You can also set your newsletter up to automatically tweet a link every time new updates are added (up to once a day).
You have full editorial control. When you find new and interesting people, websites, information, etc. that you want to share in your newsletter, simply go into your paper’s content settings and change/update wherever needed. Use your own photos for a custom appearance. Manage your subscriptions. It’s all pretty simple and simply amazing.
Harness social media in an online newsletter without having to do all the legwork yourself. Work smarter, not harder, to achieve the real estate success you deserve. If you have any questions, you can always contact me. Social media really is a great way to create new real estate business if you use it wisely.
What I Won’t Be Posting on Facebook
Published October 20, 2011 | 
Social media has become commonplace in today’s tech-savvy culture. I just read recently that even regular featured phones are predicted to go the way of the do-do bird in the next 10 years thanks to the portability, availability and user-friendliness of the smartphone. Places like Facebook and Twitter can be used to stay in touch with long-distance family and friends, promote your real estate business, find long lost high school buddies or to keep up with your favorite TV shows, personalities and brands you love.
The down side of all this “sharing” is that some people tend to “overshare”. While the words you write on social media sites may not be set in literal stone, they are out there for all the world to see and read. This includes your mother, your boss, your co-workers and would-be thieves. So, dear readers, here is a list of what I won’t be posting on Facebook and I encourage you not to as well:
Location – Call me paranoid, but I keep thinking “Big Brother” when Facebook asks me if I want to verify my location when posting a status update. If I want you to know where I am so you can join me, fine. But, no one other than my husband really needs to know where I am at all times. Besides, shouting that you have finally realized your dream of a 10-day European vacation is advertising to Facebook-trolling thieves that the contents of your household are open for the taking and no one will notice for a week and a half. Yikes!
My New Toy – Yes, I am so happy that your new 52″ LCD TV has a picture so clear it makes looking out the window seem grainy in comparison and that brand new $1200 Sony VAIO has really changed your life (apparently). I repeat, however, that you’re just giving thieves something to check off their “must-have” lists. Don’t invite thieves to do their early Christmas shopping in your home.
Party Pics – Now, I like to have a good time like anyone else. But my idea of a good time doesn’t include getting blitzed out of my mind on Yaeger bombs. That doesn’t always hold true for others. So, before you post that photo of feeling “free” on the nude beaches of Europe or how sloppy drunk you were at the company Christmas party, consider that these photos can be viewed by anyone in your circle and whomever they choose to share them with in their circle (who then tell their friends, who then tell their friends and so on and so on). This means they can eventually get back to your boss, your preacher or your mother (…children). Is that the impression you want to make? I know it’s not the one I want people to remember me by.
Those are just a few of the things I will not be posting to Facebook anytime soon. I strongly encourage you to consider not posting them as well. A good rule of thumb to follow when posting anything on Facebook is what my daughter told my grandson when he started his Facebook account: “Don’t post anything that you would be too embarrassed for Mom to see…cause she WILL.”
Five Essential Twitter Tools
Published October 13, 2011 | Unless you have been living under a rock…in the middle of Siberia…by yourself, you are well aware of Twitter. Many commercials show a “follow me @” somewhere in their 15-30 second spots. Entertainment shows feature segments on celebrity tweets. Even legitimate news outlets feature news stories broke via Twitter. As a business person, it’s crazy not to consider using Twitter to enhance your real estate business. But, as your followers and list of people you follow grows, it can be difficult to manage all the information. So, I’ve done the research for you and found five essential Twitter tools that you absolutely must have to manage your tweets.
Mention Mapp – This is an interesting tool that is also pretty cool to look at. Mention Mapp creates a visual chart that maps out who you’re following, what hashtags they use most, where they’ve mentioned you or the subject you’re interested in and how often. This is a great resource to use your current Twitter followers to find new, pertinent people to follow.
Brand Chirp – Perfect for managing your brand on Twitter, Brand Chirp allows you to find out what followers are saying about your business in real time. Using specific keywords and a map-based feature, you can even find out which Twitter users are tweeting using those terms. This can help you create a larger real estate database of potential clients.
Proxlet – Sometimes Twitter chatter can be a bit overwhelming. If you find that your Tweet stream is filled with tweets from oversharing friends or an endless line of comments about a real estate conference you don’t happen to be attending, you can “mute” them for a period of time. Proxlet also allows you to block apps and filter tags to keep the relevant information you want and get rid of the “junk tweets”.
SocialOomph – Just like the name implies, this is just the “oomph” you need to get a handle on your Twitter followers. You can set your account to automatically follow anyone who follows you (totally optional, of course),
send a “thank you” message to anyone who follows you (which you can use to direct them to your blog, website, company site or social media), view mentions and retweets, create an extended Twitter profile and even track keywords.
Twaitter – Much like Tweet Later, Twaitter allows you to create recurring tweets and set tweets up to post at specific times. But, it can also translate tweets and allows for multi-users on the account (great for businesses). Keep track of which Tweets are occurring, when they will be posted and where they are posting to using your own Tweet calendar. That way you don’t overload your followers with too many tweets at a time, possibly making them block you completely.
Next to Facebook, Twitter has become one of the top services that smart real estate professionals use to grow their business. These five essential Twitter tools will help you manage your Twitter account and use it more effectively to interact with current clients and find new business. Let me know if you need any assistance.
You Can’t Get a Gourmet Meal at a Happy Meal Price
Published October 6, 2011 | 
Everybody is trying to save money wherever they can nowadays. Eat out less, rent a movie, clip coupons…it all makes good dollars and sense, right? There is, however, a dollar vs quality aspect that some people lose sight of. I mean, you wouldn’t go to a five star restaurant and expect to pay a Happy Meal price, would you?
Like you, I am all about saving money wherever I can. Some things, however, are well worth the price. For example, Tide may be more expensive than Dreft, but I use less of it to get my clothes cleaner. It averages out to just about the same price for a much better result. Also, my husband and I used hand cranked can openers for years but they always seemed to break or go dull, rendering them useless pretty quickly. Finally, when we were looking at replacing it for the umpteenth time, I turned to my husband and said, “For the amount of money we spent on all those awful can openers, we could have purchased an automatic one that still works and actually saved ourselves money.” So, we bought the automatic can opener. Of course, we keep the low-tech version for our emergency kit.
In the real estate business, some sellers are trying to save money by representing themselves (ie, via a FSBO). You and I both know that, while it appears that they are saving themselves a few bucks, in reality, it can cost them much more than if they hired a real estate professional to do this work for them. Your knowledge, expertise, contacts and experience are the reason you get paid your commission on a sale – you earn it. You can put all your skills to work for your clients to get the job done in a quicker fashion and, most likely, for a better profit.
The same can be said for a Real Estate Virtual Assistant. We understand that it’s a tough world for everyone. Saving money is on your mind as well. So, when someone offers you their VA services for what amounts to less than even minimum wage, it can sound very enticing. However, you usually get what you pay for. As a Real Estate Virtual Assistant operating within the United States, we at Second Self keep ourselves abreast of the most current trends to keep your online presence constantly evolving. Through education and experience, we are able to present you with a marketing strategy that is unique to you. We can be a collaborator, an innovator and a huge money-saving resource all rolled into one. We are committed to making your business the best it can be because that is OUR business. And, we speak your (professional) language. We know what you need and know how to make it happen.
Yes, you’re going to have to pay more than $7/hour to get good, quality work. But, remember, you can’t get a gourmet meal for a happy meal price!
Slideshare Goes Social
Published September 22, 2011 | There has been a lot of talk about the new updates that Facebook has rolled out recently (hello blue tab “Top Story” and new layout). I haven’t decided yet whether I like or loathe it. I’ll have to let it marinate for a while first. Whatever your feelings are about it, there’s a reason Facebook seems to be kicking Google+’s little booty. Social networking continues to be a great tool for real estate professionals to integrate their business savvy in a social arena. Now, one of the best information sharing programs available online has joined in on the social networking bandwagon. Slideshare has gone social.
When you log in to your free Slideshare account, you will find that you now have a newsfeed (like Facebook) that shares what your friends have recently uploaded, comments on your presentations, Slideshare’s feature presentations, who has been looking at your profile recently and when someone in your friend network follows someone new so you can check them out for yourself. Your friends will be able to “favorite” your slideshows that they like, which then gives you exposure on their network of friends, extending your slideshow’s reach even further. By having the ability to view and read commentary on what your friends are looking into, you can determine whether you feel their friends are worth following as well, thus building your social network through Slideshare.
As we are all well aware of, social networking has become a mainstay in our personal and professional lives. If utilized properly, it can be an exceptional tool in your real estate business. Now that Slideshare has gone social, you can use your Slideshare presentations to an even bigger advantage in building your real estate business. Contact me now to find out how you can harness the power of social networking to create a strong presence for yourself and your business online.
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