Reuben Fine

One of the biggest grippes I’ve been hearing at the local NAR meets is what a waste Facebook, Twitter, and all the other Social Media efforts are in capturing leads and additional business.

Coincidentally, I somewhat agree!

Facebook, Twitter, and ActiveRain (let’s just lump them as Social Media or SM) are virtual extensions of YOU.

Think of your personal/business website and how much effort you put into it to represent you, your style of business, and you level of professionalism and service you provide to your clients. When people visit your site, they get a sense of who you are, your personality, and feeling that they can trust you with their next home purchase or sale.

Social Media is similar in a lot of ways, but it has one major difference: YOU CAN’T CUSTOMIZE IT!

You can’t pick the colors, the layout, the fonts, the images... frankly, Social Media is very uniformed. SO how do you portray your personality, professionalism, or evoke trust? In other words, how do you fit a round peg in a square hole?

The answer: CONTENT!

Social Media isn’t static, meaning, you can’t simply set-it-and-forget-it. SM is about engagement. It’s about communicating with your fans (clients) and colleagues; building trust and a virtual relationship.

Because SM sites like Facebook are so uniformed, it forces you to compete on service and “knowledge.” This is where CONTENT is becomes KING!

I elaborated on a few key points in a previous article I posted on AR called “Your Social Media is USELESS without this…” but here’s a few take-aways to remember:

1. Content Marketing is the strategy of providing "VALUE" to your prospects throughyour knowledge, wisdom, and experiences.

2. The problem with most agent marketing is it is too much selling "YOU" than selling "YOUREXPERTISE, KNOWLEDGE, WISDOM... When we create high valued content, we display our expertise and experience in the industry; consequentially, branding us different from the rest.

3. Create killer content... because killer content is the King of lead and referral generation!

When you read the article, pay close attention to the 11 bullet points about how to Content Market online.

Is social media a waste of time? It sure is… if you’re not focused on Content. Simply plastering the latest Housing Statistics is not engaging and will practically get you NO WHERE!

Implementing a Content Strategy is basically turn your Social Media efforts into a referral and lead generation engine!

I hope you find this helpful.

Here’s a link to the AR Article in case you missed it: http://activerain.com/blogsview/1668301/your-social-marketing-is-useless-without-this

I’d love to get your feedback, opinion, or comment so please feel free to post a reply anytime!

Happy Marketing

To Your Success!

Reuben

P.S. If you haven't already picked up your package ofTurnkey Flyers... What are you waiting for! You don’t have to be a graphic designer. Simply fill-in the blanks are you’re Open House flyer is done in seconds.

Plus, they come with a 60-day Gaurantee so you can try them to make sure you like them. Check out the 53 magazine-quality flyer samples here:TurnKeyFlyers.com/gallery.html

Need a bit more SEO juice to kick you to the top of Google? There's a quick, simple, and easy way to add some keyword backlink SEO juice via your LinkedIn account that a majority (close to 98%) of agents don't know about. It's simple, easy, and almost so obvious you'll probably say "duh why didn't I think of that?" Here's the tick:

Simply use your target Keyword in your website links on your profile page!

Here is a step by step on how to do it:

Phase 1: Go into your "Website" links and choose the edit. 9/10 your website label is probably called "Company" or "Personal," change this to "Other."

Phase 2: Next you'll see a text field appear. Simply type in your Keyword there followed by your URL link.

Phase 3: Save and enjoy the new SEO pump!

Most people don't realize that the Keyword is hyperlinked to the URL. This creates a link to your site from the high PageRanked LinkedIn; thus, adding a bit of jet-fuel to your SEO!

For example, my target keyword is Real Estate Flyers and Real Estate Flyer Templates. I simply labeled each keyword to my website http://www.TurnKeyFlyers.com and the other to my Facebook Fan Page http://www.facebook.com/turnkeyflyers . Literally within 24 hours I went from floating around the 4--5 in Google to a solid #1!

I hope this helps! If you have any other simple SEO tricks please share them in the comments below!

PS: If you'd like to learn more marketing and SEO insights or simply would like to read a few of my articles and posts, I've compiled a collection of my greatest articles into a free marketing ebook. You can download it totally free here: Real Estate Marketing eBook by Reuben Fine @ TurnKeyFlyers.com

I totally understand protecting IP and copyright; but to propose a bill to censor the internet??? How much more greedier can you get.

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Real estate agents are fairly distant in this matter, but what are you thoughts? Should we allow the Government to regulate the Internet?

I used to sit in awe watching the IT people blaze through my computer, rifle through the files, and manipulate the web like an Indian Snake Charmer. Speed and efficiency is the name of the game. The secret to their success is their ability to use "Shortcuts." If you play close enough attention, you'll see they don't touch the mouse often. In fact, Deep, an IT master guru at my office, flips the mouse up-side-down and relies solely on the keyboard shortcuts. It takes years of practice to perfect shortcuts but understanding a few basic shortcut commands can help you master the keyboard!

Here are a few of the most popular shortcuts:

THE BASICS:

Undo

PC: CTRL + Z

MAC: CMD + Z

Redo

PC: CTRL + Y

MAC: Shift + CMD + Z

Cut

PC: CTRL + X

MAC: CMD + X

Copy

PC: CTRL + C

MAC: CMD + C

Paste

PC: CTRL + V

MAC: CMD + V

Select All

PC: CTRL + A

MAC: CMD + A

SURFING THE WEB SHORTCUTS:

Open New Tab

PC: CTRL + T

MAC: CMD + T

Open New Window

PC: CTRL + N

MAC: CMD + N

Open a Link in a new Tab

PC: CTRL + Left Click

Mac: CMD + Left Click

Quickly Close A Tab

PC: CTRL + F4

MAC: CMD + W

Quickly Close Your Browser

PC: ALT + F4

MAC: CMD + Q

SCREENSHOT SHORTCUTS:

Often we need to “save” what we see on the screen and send it to your web guy or save a portion of a website for future reference. Sorry PC users, but this is where MACs shine!

Copy Screenshot of the entire screen

PC: Print Screen or CTRL+Print Screen

MAC: Ctrl+ Shift+ Cmd+3

Save a Screenshot as a .jpg

PC: (none at this time, sorry)

MAC: Shift + CMD + 3

Save a “Section” of the screen

PC: (none)

MAC: Shift + CMD + 4

EDITING DOCUMENTS SHORTCUTS:

Save

PC: CNTL + S

MAC: CMD + S

Save As

PC: CTRL + Shift + S

MAC: CTRL + Shift + S

Delete right of cursor

PC: DEL

MAC: Fn+backspace

Delete word right of cursor

PC: CTRL+ DEL

MAC: Opt + Fn + Backspace

Go to start of the line

PC: Home

MAC: CTRL + A

Go to end of line

PC: END

MAC: CTRL + E

Go To Find

PC: CRTL + F

MAC: CMD + F

Why do you keep chasing business?

Image and perceptions is probably the single most important factor in your real estate success. If your prospects and clients don’t see you as the expert, you can kiss any business or referrals goodbye! Let’s face it; the real estate market is one of the most competitive markets to be in. You face competition from all angles. So how does one compete with so many similar agents selling the same houses? There are two battlefields you can compete in: Service and Expertise.

Of the two, the most valuable and competitive asset you can have is EXPERTISE! It has high-perceived value with a moderate/high competitive barrier. So it only makes sense to exploit your knowledge, wisdom, and local experience as you can. This brings credibility to your personal brand and your business. Here are a few tips to boost your expertise power:

1. Give specific examples of personal experience, cases, and solutions you’ve provided to clients. Don't just tell people you’ve been in business for 15 years; cite your ability to solve their problems, negotiate offers, and answer their questions.

2. Gain the trust of your prospects. Most prospects will trust you if other people have trusted you; so this is where you whip-out your testimonials and past client cases. Testimonials add highly valuable social validation. Build a book of testimonials or cases. Place them in a binder or post them on your website as a digital PDF download.

3. Help your prospects get to know you, understand more about how you can help them. Educate them on your service, expertise, and insider/local knowledge. Give them something to remember you by. The worst thing you can do is expect your prospect to take the initiative to seek you out.

4. 360 Connection! Connect with your clients in every way possible. In my marketing firm we call this “360 degree touch points.” This means phone, mail, in-person, email, Twitter, Facebook, video, and all other forms of exposure. You never know what media your prospect will respond to most.

Knowledge and expertise is POWER! USE IT! It’s the most under utilized most valuable asset you have in your business. Becoming the expert will take your brand and personal perception skyward. Exploit your expertise in your pitches, presentation, brochures, real estate flyers, and online. Soon you’ll be chasing less and selling more!