As I write this, I am in a hotel in Western Pennsylvania, where ReBarCamp Pittsburgh will take place tomorrow.

I’m writing this post because of a few conversations I had recently with friends of mine. It seems that there was a conversation about whether ReBarCamps served any purpose. Concerns were expressed that the ReBarCamps had become hackneyed, that every ReBarCamp featured speakers who were just vendors trying to sell things to people, and that the same group of people kept showing up to talk. There was concern expressed that  the ReBarCamps were nothing more than a social gathering for some people in the RE.net who knew each other and who kept to themselves during the events,  making them more of an elitist social gathering than an education or sharing event.

I just looked at the RSVPs for this ReBarCamp. it seems that none of the “usual suspects” will be arriving tomorrow. In fact, there are only six people here that I know, and I met two of them this evening, two are past state association Presidents, and two are organizers of the ReBarCamp and they would probably not yet be familiar names to you.

When I heard these statements I was astounded. This will be my 12th ReBarCamp.  I have been all over the country attending these events, and each one has had a different flavor. I have experienced them in San Francisco twice, Fredricksburg, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, Chicago, Virginia Beach, Miami,Columbus, helped organize one in Philadelphia and here I am in today in Pittsburgh. During that time, I only remember two sessions that I felt had commercial overtones, and I walked out of one of those sessions, and in the second one told the presenter that they were missing the point of the event. At those events I have presented or moderated sessions with  topics like social capital (whuffie), social contracts, selling foreclosures, listing foreclosures, the future of the real estate brokerage, short sales and working with banks on defaulted properties among others. Each time , I had little or no idea what I would talk about until the day of the event. I have also participated in dozens of sessions moderated or presented by others. Most of them were interesting or fun, and the others I walked out of and found another session.

I have really enjoyed seeing many of the more experienced social media presenters at a number of the events, but I am excited to see who the presenters will be today. I’ll probably present a session or two, but the agenda will be new and different because the people are new and different.  Even the sponsors for this event are different, though the Social Media Marketing Institute is a “repeat offender” – however as the CEO , I know they will not be pitching a product at the event.

I am friends with the three men who created the first ReBarCamp,Andy Kaufman, Brad Coy, and Todd Carpenter. I don’t think they intended to get rich or famous from the event – they just wanted to try something out and see if people responded. And their creation has become a national event that has educated hundreds upon hundreds of people about social media, real estate, and a variety of topics too eclectic to be listed here.

Anyway, my experience with ReBarCamps tells me that the people that attend today will start the day confused and unsure of what they have gotten themselves into. They will bring with them differing levels of knowledge and different expectations of the days event.  By the end of the day some will be confused, some will be disappointed, some will be enlightened, and some will be engaged. But they will all be impacted by a volunteer driven sharing experience. And at the end of the day I think that’s a good thing.  SO much so that I look forward to doing it again at ReBarCampDC next week and San Diego next month – where new groups of people will hopefully share and learn and become engaged in an event created by and for the community to benefit its members. People keep voting with their feet, by walking into sessions at ReBarCamps everywhere.

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Tomorrow morning I fly out to Atlanta for ReTechSouth.

The conference has grown into a pretty substantial it event describing itself as;

A place where agents, brokers, lenders, builders and many other real estate industry practitioners could join together to collaborate on how technology can improve business

Sounds pretty good doesn’t it? And I’m very impressed by the people that will be speaking at the conference, Jeff Turner, Ginger Wilcox, Teresa Boardman, Kelley Koehler, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Todd Carpenter, Joe Ferraro, Rob Hahn, a ton of other great speakers, and (less impressively) me.And, for people that really know their stuff, there is an opportunity to meet the real BoomerJack Boardman. Obviously, the level of information to be passed here is only surpassed by the multitude of awesome social networking rock stars (your author not included).

I’m very excited because I’m moderating the Cage Match of the Century – a ginormous stupendous spectacle of a debate between those two Web 2.0 giants, Joe Ferraro of Sellsius.com fame, and Rob Hahn A.K.A. The Notorious R.O.B. And you dear reader are going to hear about it first right here!

On Friday at ReTechsouth, Joe will be the Pasha of Positivity, arguing the Pro stand on every question while Rob (a usually bright pleasant and positive gentleman) will become the raging Ninja of Negativity! Based upon their thorough and exhaustive academic and practical backgrounds, they will enlarge the mind through their exploration of four important questions:

1. Should Agents Blog?
2. Is there a Place in Social Networking for Shameless Self-Promotion and Advertising?
3. Does Size Matter? AKA Your Importance in Social Media is determined by the size of your…. followers
4. Nobody needs a broker!

From the conference calls to set this up and choose our topics, to the emails we have exchanged, colored by my own opinion of these two smart guys, I anticipate a ton of fun and even more information. So if the idea of two attorneys fighting while moderated by a seasoned real estate broker (someone spilled pepper on me this morning) is at all intriguing to you , I hope you’ll be there when we kick it off Friday at 11 AM on the main stage.

Image by reeltor99 via Flickr

2008 was a tough year. And its not one I’m sorry to see leave.

The challenges we face in business are just  part of our business, which is now and has always been cyclical. But  2008 will always be the year that I lost my best friend, suddenly, without explanation (not that an explanation would have helped) and without reason that I could understand. It was a year that made a change in my life that I still find myself struggling with, and would seem to have little to redeem it.

Time is very subjective for me. It seems like I have been without my beautiful wife forever, and yet when I think about something that happened in  July when she was still the vibrant funny presence in my life, it seems like just yesterday. I find myself thinking about that and about this major change in my life often these days. It was during one of those long ruminations I realized that many of the people that I find my support from weren’t even in my life a year ago.

I “talk” to people every day that make me laugh, provide support, make me think, and help find things that interest me. I am invested in their lives and hurt when they hurt, cry and laugh when they cry and laugh, and seek their opinions and approval. I smile when I make them laugh, and I am proud when they are noted for their achievements. People like Ines, Ginger Wilcox, Benn & Lani Rosales, Jeff Turner, Teresa and Jack Boardman, Chris Griffith, Kim Wood, Sarah Cooper, Jonathan Dalton, Kris Berg and so many others who reach out to me regularly and make my life a little brighter.

A year ago I was aware of the RE.Net but not fully engaged. And when I became engaged, I found a world full of people to connect with, who had much to offer. I just wanted but I did find a need to share how grateful I am for my social media friends and acquaintances (yes they are “real” friends even if the roots of our relationship began in the virtual world).

So what does this have to do with 2009 being a better year? I just returned from Inman Connect in New York, where some of the predictions for the coming year’s economy were grim but the bloggers and social media types that were present were telling me that they were finishing a pretty good year. There were stories of international buyers, and community members making referrals, and people contacting them because they had written reviews of places they ate, or shopped, or worked.

The opportunities in the market may have gotten smaller, but the population fo real estate agents has also. And there are more and more people who are learning that by being good members of their communities, and participating in social media in a meaningful manner, they will be the consumer’s choice when the consumer needs them.And of course, there is the other important social media marketing feature – it costs so little, and returns so much. Unlike traditional interuptive marketing, the more you do , the less it costs.

So embrace your community, and as you give love, you will get love, and on the way, probably increase your business opportunities. But you will increase the people that you interact with. I only hope, for your sake, that they are as special as the people I found to interact with in my world.

Book cover via Amazon

I’m tough to buy gifts for. It drove my wife and son nuts. But they have always racked their brains and come up with some outstanding things for birthdays or Father’s day. This year my son and daughter-in-law got off easy.

Knowing how involved I had become in Blogging and social media, they bought me three terrific books for Father’s day. The New Influencers by Paul Gillin, What No One Ever Tells You About Blogging and Podcasting by Ted Demopoulos, and Blogging Heroes by Michael A. Banks. I started on Blogging Heroes first.

Blogging Heroes is described as a set of interviews with “30 of the worlds’ top bloggers”. The book was fascinating to me because of the diversity of the people interviewed and the blogs they ran. I’ll spend more time talking about that another time.

One of the first interviews is with Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine and author of the Long Tail. In it Chris says “There is no one blogosphere. There is an infinite number of blogospheres. My 220 feeds are not your 220 feeds”.

In our business blogs seem to fall into a number of categories. There are the peer to peer blogs, the vendor to Real estate professional blogs, the real estate professional to consumer blogs, and some consumer to consumer blogs. Each one of them has a different message for their reader, because each of the writers has a different ax to grind, and each set of blogs creates a different blogosphere that may not give any credence to , or even acknowledge the existence of the others.

In the peer to peer arena, there are examples like the blog you are reading, Teresa Boardman’s Real Estate Weenie, and of course the large players at AgentGenius (winner’s of Inman’s 2008 Innovators Award) and BloodhoundBlog. All of them are written by active real estate professionals, though AgentGenius and BloodhoundBlog are both written by multiple authors. Each of these blogs have unique personalities. Reading each of them would provide the reader with a different perception of the real estate industry, its key players, and the roles and motivations of real estate’s professional organizations.

With the exception of the views and opinions in this blog, all of these blogs have some bias generated by the position of the authors and their experience in the real estate industry. All of them (current author excepted) have opinions that are based on their experience in the industry, and unless you have held every position in every company and professional organization, that leads to a bias built around the limits of your experience. For example, a real estate professional may not truly understand the consumer’s point of view, and their stresses and issues if they have never bought a home. An agent who has never owned a company may not understand the challenges facing the owner of a brokerage. Some one who has not participated in a professional organization may not have any idea of the actual workings or motivation of that organization. But still they write – and pontificate in some instances about what they think is wrong, or unfair, or needs to be corrected.

There’s part of me that thinks that’s OK. Everyone has the right to an opinion, and to voice it. And they don’t even need to be right (though I prefer to be personally). However the problem comes in when the posts get read. The reader may not have the knowledge to dismiss an inaccurate statement, or to differentiate between a well supported opinion and an unfounded one. All too often something is taken as gospel because its on the Internet and therefore it must be right. And that’s where knowing who’s in your blogosphere becomes crucial.

You can choose to live in a blogosphere that is full of rhetoric and bombast, where the light shines all to infrequently. Or you can choose to live in a blogosphere where positions are supported by facts and discourse can lead you to change your mind, or you can change the minds of others if you make your point well. Me, I know where I choose to live.

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• Resources for Bloggers

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Technorati recently published their report on the “State of the Blogosphere / 2008″ , the newest version of an annual study which has been digging into trends in blogging since 2004.

I’ll actually be doing more of an analysis of their findings over at BuzzBuilderz, the social media marketing site maintained by my son Hal and me, but I did want to post some of the information that was interesting for people in real estate who are utilizing social media as part of their profession.

There is a great deal of discussion about what the “blogosphere” really consists of and how large or influential it is. Technorati defines it as ” the collective community of all blogs.” The size of the blogosphere seems to be harder to define however.

There have been several studies, and they have all yielded different results. Technorati mentions three of them in their report;

* comScore MediaMetrix (August 2008)
o Blogs: 77.7 million unique visitors in the US
o Facebook: 41.0 million | MySpace 75.1 million
o Total internet audience 188.9 million
* eMarketer (May 2008)
o 94.1 million US blog readers in 2007 (50% of Internet users)
o 22.6 million US bloggers in 2007 (12%)
* Universal McCann (March 2008)
o 184 million WW have started a blog | 26.4 US
o 346 million WW read blogs | 60.3 US
o 77% of active Internet users read blogs

Obviously blogs are a global phenomenon that has hit the mainstream, and the number of readers of blogs is constantly growing. As an aside, the impact of micro-blogging is not taken into account, and if Technorati’s definition of a blog were used “a Web site, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material ” the postings to twitter and Rejaw and Plurk, might actually need to be considered. – and then what would the size of the conversation appear to be?

Technorati Profile

business or pleasure

Originally uploaded by Will Lion

I had a conversation recently with my son Hal, President of BuzzBuilderz, our Social Marketing Company.

He had just met with a Commercial real estate broker about using Social Networking as part of their marketing plan. Hal had explained to him the benefits of building an on-line identity, acquiring a good reputation, and developing trust in the online communities to develop a base of potential investors for them to do business with. The Broker’s first question was “What’s the ROI?”

Hal explained to him that marketing is not an income producing activity, and that there is no direct, calculable return on investment for building a brand or exposing your self to a larger group of potential customers and clients. He also pointed out that the company’s present direct marketing strategy – targeted direct mail – could only reach people that the company already knew, while building an online presence exposed to the company to the much larger universe of people that the company had not yet met.

The Broker still didn’t seem to “get it”, and though he was sending out direct mail to only 600 people per month, created, stuffed, and mailed by his associates (who surely could have been doing something more productive) at a hard cost of at least $900 per mailing, the idea of using free internet exposure, was not, by itself attractive enough for him to consider.

Since you’re reading my Blog, it seems almost like cheating to ask you for your opinion – obviously the social aspect of the Internet has not been lost on you. But I thought all salespeople understood that buyers and sellers want to do business with people that they trust. And that they also trusted people they meet in non-sales situations more than they trust people they meet in the middle of a sales pitch. Press Releases trump advertising, and Social Networks trump press releases in the hierarchy of the consumers trust.

Me, I don’t have any calculate ROI on my Social networking, but I have met some great people, reviewed some interesting opportunities, been hired as a consultant a few times, and even had a couple of buyers and sellers contact me directly. And all of that while I was enjoying myself meeting new people, being exposed to new ideas and tools, and not having to lick a single stamp!

A year ago I had a vague understanding that there was something out there called Blogging that was creating a stir in the real estate world.

I’m a pretty techie type of guy so I found Blogger and created a small Blog that I named MovePhilly, but frankly, after a couple of posts I felt like a guy in a room talking to himself and I stopped writing. I guess without positive feedback, and no road map to eventual success, I just wasn’t interested enough to support the time and effort it took to think of things to say in print on a regular basis.

At NAR’s Professional Standards Committee, we had been discussing the applications of the Code of Ethics to internet marketing, and Blogging kept being brought up. There was a substantial amount of writing going on out there , and it seemed that there was little understanding of what , if anything, we should do to keep the Code relevant to this new method of communication. At a meeting in Chicago earlier this year, the Interpretations and Procedures sub-committee of the group listened to a presentation by Liz Luby and Jim Duncan who made a presentation about the real estate blogging community. They showed us their sites, and national opinion sites like agentgenius and NarWisdom.

We left the meeting and I began to read some of the blogs. Soon I was commenting on what I considered inaccuracies on some statements. Soon I was involved in a lengthy argument with another commentator, and the next thin I knew I was writing. Through this journey I was being exposed to a whole new world of interactive websites populated by large numbers of real estate professionals and consumers who didn’t move in the larger physical circles of meetings and association groups that I had become accustomed to over the years.

As I traveled back and forth to visit with my son and daughter-in-law in California over the next few months, I began to evangelize about this new marketing medium and its immense impact on my business. After 37 years in the business I had less then 500 mentions of my name on Google. After less then six months, I had over 15,000 mentions of my name on Google. In addition, I had been hired for several consulting opportunities (that came directly from social media marketing), had re-connected with a friend from 35 years ago, had consumers contact me to list and buy property,  and had been interviewed by local and national media about real estate and social media.  In addition, I had the oportunity to participate in several potential business arrangements. This was an astounding amount of results for a very short period of time.

I had found a new type of world wide web – the web effect created by linking interactive sites where an online presence could be built quickly and  inexpensively. The world of WEB 2.0 (or in our industry the RE.NET).  This was a place where every professional needed to be in some manner.

So why weren’t there more people in this arena?  The effort to do the  research on where you wanted to be, how you wanted to be presented to the public, and how you wanted your online presences to interact and support each other was immensely time consuming.People just didn;t know how to bridge the gap between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0, or what to do when they go there.  The time to find all the sites, let alone register on all of them can be immense. Busy agents have the time to teach themselves even if they had the inclination.

It was when my son Hal broached the idea of creating a free lance marketing company to serve the real estate community that BuzzBuilderz was born. We created a short cut to insert agents and companies directly into Web 2.0? We designed an interlacing relationship of Web 2.0 sites to give a turn key solution to the agent?  BuzzBuilderz was a simple concept. For a nominal flat fee for we provide an agent with a ready to utilize Web 2.0 platform. An easy to drive marketing program that they could operate at whatever speed they desired. I knew it worked from my own experience.And I knew that it didn’t take much time. All I needed to do was to learn some simple short cuts that had huge impact – things anyone could do while they searched the MLS, or read their daily industry news.

Instead of spending lots of time and money on the same marketing that real estate people had been doing for the last century, I now had a free marketing machine that created signs pointing at my business, that never go away. every time I did something, I wasn’t sending out something that was being used once by one customer, I was creating a perpetual marketing machine that kep tgetting larger and larger and larger.

Not only had I received referrals, earned, consulting fees, connected with old friends ,clients, and consumers in only 6 months,  I was enjoying myself meeting new people and learning about new applications of technology! And I had access to all of this for little or no cost.The experience was terrific -

So now we’re prepared to share that experience. Please visit us at BuzzBuilderz as we try to mesh the world of real estate I grew up in with the newer technology being adopted by agents and brokers all over the country. Maybe we can enhance your online presence a little.

]]> http://rereflections.com/2008/09/17/making-the-most-of-your-marketing/feed/ 1 http://rereflections.com/2008/09/11/building-your-buzz/ http://rereflections.com/2008/09/11/building-your-buzz/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 14:57:34 +0000 Bill http://rereflections.com/?p=38

Social Media is not organized. Its organic and exciting, and confusing to most new participants. Real Estate agents and companies know that they should be Blogging, just like they knew they needed a database in the 19990s and their own web site at the start of this century. And like the databases and the web sites, they go  out to get them without a clear idea of what they’re supposed to do with them once they’ve set them up.

Even if they start to read blogs, and get an idea of what they might choose to write about there is still the issue of choosing a platform to start writing. Do they go to ActiveRain or Blogger or WordPress? Do they take the simplest platform or the one that is most flexible? Do they buy an area through a vendor seeling local or city blogsites or do they strike off on their own and take the time to build their brand?  The very variety of choices create additional confusion in the minds of the neophyte, and even the pros like PoppyD  of Agent Genius make mistakes in their strategies (as evidenced in this post on AgentGenius).

Additionally daunting are the issues of analyzing the Blog traffic, understanding the interconnection of various media sharing sites, Social networks, Social Bookmarks, and feed aggregators. And finally, there is the considerable amount of time it takes to create and then upload  consistent profiles , photos, logins and passwords on all of these sites.

So a busy agent do who doesn’t have the time to invest in the set up of the basic social media package seems to be at a substantial disadvantage – at least they are if they haven’t found the services available at BuzzBuilderz , a new company set up by my son Hal and myself.

My son Hal is an actor and  copywriter in Los Angeles who has written a wide variety of web based copy as well as shows and scripts for the entertainment industry, including treatments for Lou Gosset Jr.  A Cum Laude Graduate of Syracuse University, Hal has the insights of youth and the formal training to assist any professional in their entry to the world of Social Media.  Using my experience in social Media, and capitalizing on the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned in moving from Web 1.0 into the world of Web 2.0, we have designed a low cost, high impact method for agents to make ther own transition.

One flat fee entitles a BuzzBuilderz client to a marketing interview which is then used to create appropriate profiles for different sites like LinkedIn and Facebook, along with the shorter profiles needed for other social media sites. The BuzzBuilderz team then registers the client on 40 different interrelated social media sites, posting their photo or avatar, completing their profiles, linking their websites or blog, and setting up the analytics for the client to use.  If the client provides their email list, BuzzBuilderz will also create the core of their Social network on each of these sites.

A quick start manual with ideas on how to maximize the exposure provided by these sites with a minimum of effort, including isdeas on various blog topics completes the program, and the Web 1.0 agent is now the proud owner of a complete Web 2.0 platform, all ready to take out for ride in the new world of social media.

transformational technology Originally uploaded by Will Lion

When we get involved in social media to build our businesses, often there is that last Century thinking behind the 21st Century technology. We try to determine who we are in a vacuum rather then seeing the world through the eyes of our consumer.

Some of it is inevitable. The prejudgements we make because we know that we come from a good place in trying to help the consumer, without acknowledging the lack of trust the might have because we assume the trust rather then earning it.

The first job of any salesperson is to find out what they can do to satisfy the needs perceived by the customer or client rather than the needs as perceived by the salesperson. And we need to use our Social skills in a technological setting to help the consumer know us by satisfying their need for information and direction even before we meet – Not how to build our database (that’s so 1990s)

There is a lot of conversation in the real estate industry about print advertising being overtaken by on-line alternatives.

There are surveys that show that most buyers start their search for homes on th Internet, and obviously it is better for the consumer to see more photos,in color, with amps and statistics,then it is to read a classified print ad.

When I was young, the real estate section of the Sunday paper was thick, bulging with ads and articles about neighborhoods, new construction,mortgages and more. And of course there were just tons of ads- and it was because of that concentration of ads that the real estate section existed.

Over the years, the ads became more expensive,covering smaller areas, and real estate professionals worked to find alternatives to print ads. And as that happened , the real estate section got thinner and thinner.

Even so, the real estate section is such a tradition that one would have thought that its demise lay far in the future. At least I would have thought that before I read this in the LA Times real estate blog.

In case you missed the announcement today in Real Estate, because of reductions in staff and space, the Sunday Real Estate section has printed its final edition.”

With some much information available to the consumer online from photos to maps, to street views, and demographics, people just don;t need to sit with the newspaper to get their information. And as the sources of news expand electronically as well, the competition for the attention of the consumer just became too great.

Obviously, the amount of real estate print advertising was no longer concentrated enough to warrant generating articles for the consumer. The Times will continue their real estate blog which will have the same quality writing that the paper is known for, but this may be the most obvious signpost to date that consumers want to find their real estate information on-line, and the providers of that information will need to be where the readers are if they wish to remain relevant.