I’m a fan of silly things – they usually make me smile , but sometimes I end up just scratching my head and wondering why people do silly things when they don’t intend to. And more and more frequently I see people doing sill things in social spaces.

Your community ( or audience, or market) needs to be the prime consideration when you write or say things, so I am stunned  by many real estate people who  think their audience needs to be interested in the things they want them to be interested in. I reserve  ReReflections for the comments on the real estate industry that are so peculiarly mine that I ‘m not sharing them over at AgentGenius. My social media thoughts are either published there or at www.smminstitute.com or www.buzzbuilderz.com. My blog posts that might be of interest to consumers find their way to either MovePhilly or C21AgVoices. Not because I want my writings to be hard to find, but because I want to be saying things that are relevant to specific readers.

It not a new phenomenon but before the advent of social media, we needed to be present to hear real estate agents say silly things. For example, an agent might tell a client whose listing was expiring “You can’t list your property with someone else – I’ve really spent a lot of time working on it”.  Why does the seller care? Their property isn’t sold and their needs are not being met. and they still needed to sell the property.  A more relevant tactic would have been to give them a reason to stay listed that made sense. Perhaps a discussion of their pricing and marketing position combined with a comparison of the marketing efforts  of the current and prospective real estate companies.  It might not have convinced the client to extend the listing, but at least the conversation would have been relevant instead of simply self-centered.

Today, poorly informed  agents who use social networks to broadcast commercial messages make their lack of thought a public spectacle. The “Facebook listing” is an iconic example of abuse.  With listings reiterated in thousands of places through IDX feeds and listing syndication, putting listing information or open house information in a social environment demonstrates not only a lack of concern for the other members of your community, but a lack of respect for your “friends”.

By demonstrating lack of relevance in your content, and a disregard for the social context, you demonstrate disrespect for your ‘friends’  that results in a dismissal of your message and a reduction in your online relevance .

Recently, I saw an interchange on Facebook that went like this:

When I read this he sounds like a multi-level-marketer talking about “income potential” . No one cares what you make (unless you’re paying their bills) – they care about things that impact them or your relationship with them. Not to mention the fact that the whole response might have been better placed as a message rather than a wall post.

And while we’re talking about advertising disguised as social interaction – how about this;

Where is the engagement in this blind solicitation? Who could be silly enough to think that this person cares about their career ? This could easily have been lifted from a bus bench billboard – is that what we perceive our social network values?

I think that talking about work in social settings can be appropriate , just as it would be in face to face settings. For example, you might say in a social setting that you had a tough time working with sellers to obtain a listing, but you probably wouldn’t whip out a flyer for the property and give it to the guests.  If we could just take a moment to think about whether we would do something in person that we’re about to do on-line, it might really improve the quality of our communications, and the bonds we have wth our communties,

Its the middle of a really busy work day, so obviously I need to check out what my friends are doing on Facebook (I am after all an American). And there is the lovely Brandie Young on my live feed Asking

Like this? Want to do something about homelessness in Austin, San Antonio, New Orleans, Providence, and Nashville?

Because that’s really a hard question to say “No” to (and Brandie is the type of woman who just makes you want to say “Yes” to her requests) I clicked on her link and saw the slideshow below – a compelling story I think.

Then when I looked even further, I found out that Brandie (who still totally rocks) had built this awesome slide show at the request of Lani Rosales who had aksed a number of people to step up and participate in a unique event. But let me have her tell you about it in her own words from her New Media Labs Blog

PLEASE use one of these slideshows in your own blog:

For the first ever social charity presentation roundup, several people (even some not in Austin!) stepped up to bat to put together various slideshows based on facts provided by Alan Graham of local non profit organization, Mobile Loaves and Fishes, serving the needs of the homeless.

Now I told you Brandie Young ROCKS, and this new information did nothing more than remind me that Lani Rosales also TOTALLY ROCKS.  Makes you feel good to know that two women who are totally adorable and smart, and hot, are also so thoughtful , generous, and gracious… (Dontcha Wish you knew them too?)

Now go out and do something to make them feel good about this..

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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I spent several days last week teaching the SMMI CSM course to a group of top agents in Chicago. I left there Saturday to attend the wedding of my best friend’s daughter in Sarasota Florida, but I find myself in Tampa this morning waiting to fly back to Chicago for ReBarCamp Chicago,

You may be familiar with the concept of the ReBarCamp – an “unconference” where the participants set the agenda after they arrive. The concept was borrowed from the IT industry, and has taken hold in the Internet space referred to as the RE.net. Recently we held on in Philadelphia, last Friday saw one in Boston, and today is ReBarCamp Chicago.

ReBarCamp Chicago is an important event for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious is that I will be there (otherwise I might not be writing about it). But seriously, the venue itself is pretty impressive. The event is being held at the Chicago offices of the National Association of REALTORS (though they are not the creators of the event, and the volunteer event is not a function of the association). For an organization of the stature of NAR to host such an event says volumes about the organization’s willingness to embrace change and technology while supporting the efforts of its members to spread knowledge in this peer based type of event.

Perhaps I am so impressed by NAR’s willingness to provide the venue for this event because they have so often been the target of criticism in the Re.net, often without justification on the part of their critics. Even with that history, the association has shown themselves to be more than willing to reach out, communicate, and try to involve their members in all levels of their operation. I am sometimes accused of being overly supportive of NAR, but I really can;t help it. They give me so many reasons to support them.

Anyway, if you are near the association offices on Michigan Avenue today, i hope that you’ll try to stop in and participate in the ReBarCamp. It looks like there will be quite a group of Web 2.0 and social media participants here for this centrally located event. At last check, Teresa Boardman from St Paul Minnesota, Ginger Wilcox, Mike Simonsen, and Andy Kaufman from the San Francisco area, Sarah Cooper from West Virginia (of Real Estate Shows fame) and my friend Kim Wood, from Chester County Pennsylvania. In addition, you have some home grown Chicago celebs like Todd Carpenter (NAR’s Social Media Marketing Director), as well as Rich Rogala and Matt Dollinger, performance coaches at @Properties in Chicago. And of course there will be lots of new friends there that I haven’t even met yet.

I hope you’ll be one of them.

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Image via Wikipedia

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.

Twitter PR Strategy, originally uploaded by ogilvyprworldwide.

With the limited budgets of many real estate brokers and agents, Social Media is bcoming a place where you need to be if you want to increase your sphere of influence and obtain new business opportunities.

This chart, has a social media life of its own. Created to explain a strategy for use on Twitter, then posted to Flickr, it was given additional exposure on Facebook by Teresa Boardman of St. Paul. It then came to my attention (I am interested in almost everything that Teresa does or posts) and I am sharing it here with you on my blog.

So aside from clearly defining the great opportunity that Twitter presents to businesses and individuals, its own life and the path of its travel to your attention is pretty neat as well. Imagine if this were a piece of information with your name on it…

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.

I love the book “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing“.

I like it because it doesn’t try to be more than it is, it makes sense, its a quick read, and each time I read one of the 22 laws, I have a Duh moment.
One of the 22 laws is Marketing Rule # 3 The Law of the Mind which says;
“It’s better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace”

The books uses examples like Dumont (first commercial television set) Duryea (first automobile) and Hurley (first washing machine) to indicate that being first to the marketplace with something is not as important as being the first association in the consumer’s mind.

To me real estate related examples come to mind like Red Carpet (first real estate franchise) who lost the battle to become first in the consumer’s mind to an upstart company named Century 21 that took the idea and became almost synonymous with real estate in the consumer’s mind.  Or another great real estate related example is Realty Executives, the first 100% concept franchise, which was quickly overshadowed by the second to the market first in the mind positioning of ReMax. Does that mean that the second company to seek a position has some advantage? I don;t think that’s the case. It merely seems that since marketing (IMHO) is basically about perception, the battle for the mind of the consumer will take precedence over the battle to be first in the marketplace.

Traditionally the battle for the consumers mind was fought with the ultimate business weapon – money. Cash spent to build resources to capture the attention, interest and desire of the intended market. Today, with the advent of Social Media, I think that this weapon might be challenged by content. Though content doesn’t come without cost (in time or some other resource) it can be much more affordable than ad campaigns or print marketing materials, allowing smaller brokerages ( a relative term – most brokerages are larger than some and smaller than others)  to compete with companies that are much larger and may have more resources. The size of the company behind the Blog or website is not immediately evident to the consumer, and clever positioning may prove more effective than a large budget. So go forth and lay your claim to the mind of your customer or client. Become their first choice  for relocation, or foreclosures, or short sales, or for a specific price range or age group or geography, because you provide the best source of trusted information to them in the manner they want to receive it, and reap the benefits of your victory for the battle of their mind.

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

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

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?

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