The New Facebook Business Page is Here
Published March 8, 2012 | 
As I mentioned in my post last week, Facebook will be rolling out a new template for business pages at the end of this month (March 2012). The new design is meant to simulate a mission control board, with a large viewing screen at the top (for your cover photo), larger post photos and modules set up to keep your information and apps neat and tidy. Here are a few of the changes you can expect to see revealed in the next few weeks:
Cover Photo/Profile Pic – The cover photo will be the larger of the two photos available at the top of your new Facebook real estate business page. Facebook notes that this is not a space for advertising, promoting your business or showcasing coupons. Rather, it is meant to give your visitors an overall impression of what your business is about. So, please refrain from using text-heavy jargon here. You will have the rest of the page to do that, so don’t worry. The smaller photo is where you would want to add your logo or a personal photo of yourself so your visitors can put a face to the name.
Bigger Photos/Videos in Posts – To make them stand out from a regular text post, the pictures and videos now pinned to your status updates are larger previews than before. This makes them much more visible to the eye so visitors are drawn to find out more.
Company Timeline – Add important milestones in your company’s history to your Facebook timeline. Tell your story in short, simple, easily digested bites. The timeline is tucked away on the right hand side of your business page and easy to maneuver through.
Admin Section - All the insights to your Facebook business page are now accessible via your Admin button. The layout is larger and easier to navigate than the old insights section was. This will also be where you can share your page, invite email contacts, potential clients, past clients and friends to visit and like your business page and help build an audience. If you need to make a change to your page’s name, you can access that request here. The custom URL cannot be changed, but the name of the page itself can. This is good news for those agents who have changed companies or simply branched off on their own (which happens a lot).
Bruce Barton, American businessman and author of “The Man Nobody Knows”, once said “When you are through changing, you are through.” Well, if you want to survive in the real estate business, you have to embrace the changes being made. That includes the new Facebook business page being rolled out soon. Don’t be scared, though. If you need a hand to hold, we at Second Self Virtual Assistance are always ready and waiting.
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.
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