Sheri Moritz

What is that saying when things come together and just seem to be a perfect match?

Oh yeah, A Marriage Made in Heaven.

That is how I feel about Boot Camp 4 Real Estate and Boot Camp 4 Social Media

It is time for small business owners to realize the world is married to Social Media and you need to be there with them to keep your business in front of them and ahead of your competition

Boot Camp 4 Social Media is designed to help business professionals understand the Big 4 (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Youtube). Campers will set up and learn how these 4 powerhouse Social Media sites work together to give you and your business credibility. In addition you will learn ways to market your businesses and add valuable content to your niche market through these 4 powerhouse Social Media sites.

Much thought went into Boot Camp 4 Social Media. I didn't just decide to jump on the Social Media training to real estate professionals bandwagon. In my past life I was said to be a a superstar real estate broker, manager and trainer (see articles below). What happened to all that....?

To make a long story short; the Lochness Monster Hunters have consumed most of my time for the last 2.5 years. I spent a lot of time close to home just being mom. During that time, not only did I get to enjoy my daughter rapidly changing, I was watching a rapidly changing landscape for the real estate industry. I had an opportunity to explore all the new social media sites that had started to pop up while I was busy selling homes and training agents.

Just like when I first saw my daughter; as soon as I started to play around with all the social media tools I instantly fell in love. I spent hours, days, weeks, months and now years getting to know how all the social media sites work and how they can be integrated into use for buisiness. I found that the benefits and tools available to market any type of business are endless and an excitement to share it with others.

Boot Camp 4 Social Media - A one day business building and networking course where you experience hands-on how to effectively implement Social Media marketing plan and how to choose which ones would be most effective for your business - with limited time involved to manage

Boot Camp 4 Social Media will offer the opportunity to explore the sites in class and ask questions. While at Camp we will walk through setting up your FREE accounts and discuss the advantages. To get the most out of Camp; attendees should bring their laptop for a hands on experience and to leave Boot Camp with your Social Media campaign activated.

Boot Camp 4 Real Estate - This is a course designed for real estate brokers, mortgage lenders, insurance agents, closing attornies, home inspectors, appraisers, repair services, pest inspectors, home stagers and more. If you are on the list of businesses on ActiveRain this is for you. The couse is designed to help you get all types of businesses involved in Social Media.

Keep in mind that Social Media is fluid and the landscape is every changing. Boot Camp 4 Social Media is not only designed to get you started in Social Media but it is also designed to keep you up to date. We have teamed up with some of the top Social Media trainers to offer ongoing training through video, blogging, Facebook updates, Twitter feeds and more. There will be extensive ongoing training offered by affiliates to help you take your Social Media marketing to the next level.

We have all been inundated over the past couple of years with both Social Media and Social Media "Experts" In this changing real estate market. I have seen many agents attempting to suppliment their income by training other professionals in the real estate industry how to use Social Media. Many of them are great agents that are extremely knowledgeable in Social Media. However there are also a large portion of excellent and knowledable traditional trainers that just "Don't get Social Media"...

I recently attended two Social Media training sessions at my local Realtor Association. The first instructor said that he has not found a use for Twitter. He did recommended that the agents sign up for Tagged (In case you didn't know it's really a dating website with glittery profiles like MySpace). Just this week another speaker presenting at the board said "There is no need for Twitter, don't believe anything you read there" and "everybody on Twitter just wants to sell you something. In a meeting about social media recently a person paid to handle Social Media for our association asked what YouTube and BlogTalkRadio had to do with real estate while stating they had never heard of ActiveRain. With this social media training lately what I wonder is... Where is following your leadership taking you?

So what makes ME qualified to offer Social Media training to professionals in the real estate industry? I actually love that question. It is like when an experienced agent gets the question at a listing appointment; this is where the great divide occurs. The truley experienced agent is totally relaxed answering the question because they know they are more than qualified to sell the house. That is how I feel about offering Social Media training to professionals in the real estate industry.

Rolling Credits for those intrested in shameless self promotion...

After 17 years and over 1500 homes sold I have seen it all and still love anything real estate. I have always been a leader in the real estate industry and offering the latest real estate and technology information. I have managed and trained 100's of agents in the Raleigh NC area.

In addition to the recent stories I have contributed to for NC Realtors Association magazine on video creation and Builder Magazine on builders relationships with Realtors online, I have also consulting on two consumer books on real estate that will be published in early 2010.

Here are links to a few of the past magazine articles:

Entrepreneur Magazine as well as on CNN for managing Gen-X and Gen-Y agents

Top 30 under 30 in 2000

Youthful Approach Yields Old Time Success Story

25 Most Influential in Real Estate 2000

Making your Office Digital

I have always enjoyed real estate, technology and training so this marriage should work out just great!

For more information or to register check out our website at www.BootCamp4RealEstate.com or www.BootCamp4SocialMedia.com If you are interested in hosting Boot Camp 4 Social Media in your area I would love to chat about the possiblility. Just connect with me online or feel free to call 919-412-2080

Follow me on Twitter

Become a Fan on Facebook and check out the great videos posted there for more Social Media for business tips and tools.

Happy Twitter Tuesday! Tweetlister is the Twitter Treat of the week!

My 2 year old loves Tuesdays. It is amazing that at such a young age we can get used to routine and expect the same things to occur at the same time. Every morning when we drive to daycare she tells me what they are going to have for morning snack. She asks what day is it and I tell her Tuesday. She says "Yah!" and claps her hands. The rest of the way to daycare she is is saying "toast" which means she wants french toast. Apparently they have french toast on Tuesdays as I found out by asking the teacher. All the kids were sitting perfectly still waiting for the treat.

So. I thought I would make Twitter Tuesday filled with Real Estate Toast and offer yet another treat for Twitter users.

This week's Treat is Tweetlister.

With TweetLister you can:
Post and re-use as many listings as you want for residential, commercial, vacation and any other type of property. Schedule each listing to post as often as you'd like for a set period of time - until it sells, rents or leases! Build enhanced listing detail pages. Create broker/owner profiles. Post to multiple Twitter accounts.

And best of all - it's FREE

Because I mainly train and manage agents I don't often list homes. However, I have an investor that I work with that was ready to list her flip home. I don't personally care for the auto-tweeting programs because one of the things I like best is being involved in the conversations. I don't really like to just blurt stuff out there without being by the computer to answer questions about what I tweeted should someone have one. But I figured I would give Tweetlister a shot and I have really like it. I set it up to auto tweet each day in the middle of the day when most people are sitting at their desks. I actually sent the first Tweet and forgot about it until the next day when all of a sudden 3 local people retweeted it. I thought it was odd that they were all a day behind in their tweets until I went into my account to be reminded that I had set it up to tweet daily. I didn't have to go in physically and set up a Tweet each day in Hootsuite or manually do it on Twitter or Tweetdeck. It sends it out automatically for FREE. Not to mention the retweet that got it out to a few thousand more.

Not only does it send a Tweet it makes a flyer and a link to that flyer is in the Tweet. The flyer has all your agent information and a link back to your website, a virtual tour and additional pictures.

Check out their enhanced listings features that are currently FREE

I hope you enjoy this tid bit of Twitter "Toast" and bookmark this blog so that you don't miss out on future Twitter Tuesday Treats.

Follow me on Twitter @RealLifeSheri http://twitter.com/Tweal_Estate

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Interested in taking advantage of the $8000 Tax credit and have questions on how it works?  This is a video produced and distributed from the IRS...

 

 

For more information and to take advantage of the $8000 Tax Credit in the Triangle NC market give us a call today at 919-387-4100 or email us for more information. The deadline for closing on your new home is November 30th 2009. You will need to have a home under contract in the next couple weeks at the latest if you are going to qualify for credit so act now.

My big girl always leaves me speechless... She is so awesome!

Made Honor Rool this week and is excited to be 1/4 done with 7th Grade. I think that most of the excitement on her face is for her 2 week Fall break and her visit to Washington DC with her grandparents. I love the modified public school schedule that has them already on break.

TweetDeck - A Must Have Application for Tweeters

As some of you know I am starting a series of "Getting to know Twitter" blogs. One of the things that stood out most to me was that there are a lot of new Tweeter in the real estate business. As if getting rid of the mls books wasn't hard enough for some...(yes folks at one time we had a phone book sized monstrosity that actually come to our office every two weeks). Social media has changed the way we market our business and build relationships and is going to continue to change it at a fast pace.

There have been so many things for us to learn over the past few years and it takes time to figure out how to effectively integrate them and not get lost in the mix. I mean really, how are agents suppose to keep up with the millions of Tweets a day that stream through? If you are only using Twitter on the web you have got to be asking yourself "What is all the hype about... this Twitter thing is dumb..."

TweetDeck has been one of the most valuable tools I have come across to manage my Twitter account, not become overwhelmed and to effectively use it as a method of generating business.

From the login screen on Twitter; go to the very bottom of the page and click on the link that says "Goodies" A screen will come up that says "Widgets" on the left and "Applications" on the right. Click on "Applications" and you will find "TweetDeck". Begin your download and follow the instruction for set up. It's really easy.

Below I am going to describe the sections of TweetDeck. You can arrange your boxes in any order that you would like so I am just giving examples. I have labeled them hoping that will help. I will follow this up with a post on how to send a Tweet from TweetDeck, updating your Facebook status (MySpace if you are there) how to Tweet from multiple accounts, shortening url, and adding pictures and video. So be sure to stop back or become a fan on Facebook for more tips.

TweetDeck Layout...

1. Twitter Feed - This is where you see all the Tweets of you friends. This will hold up to 100 Tweets at a time and continually feeds the latest Tweets. Once you get a lot of people that you follow you will want to group them so you can see Tweets/Tweeters that are important to you.

2. Mentions - aka @Tweal_Estate or @RealLifeSheri - When someone mentions you or publicly addresses you in Twitter that Tweet will show up in the mentions section of TweetDeck. This makes it easy to follow what is being said about you, what has been retweeted (aka RT) that you have said and track communication with other Tweeters.

3. Direct messages- This section displays your direct messages aka DM's. A DM is when someone privately messages you in Twitter. Instead of having to go to email to see if someone responded to you in Twitter you can see all direct messages.

4. Searches- # (Hashtags) -This section(s) allows you to track Tweets that would be relevant to you. For example above on the far right column I have a search set up for real estate Raleigh. Anytime there is a Tweet that contains the words "real estate Raleigh" in any order by anyone regardless of it I am following them or they are following me I will see it in this column. If I want to address them I can directly from there.

5. Notification Window - There is a notification window that pops up on your screen if anything occurs in the boxes you have set up. For example if I am working on this blog and someone says something to or about me and I don't have TweetDeck on my main screen the notification box will pop up.

Check back in soon for part 2 of TweetDeck for more information on how to use TweetDeck to manage your Twitter Account. Tomorrows blog will be on how to pick a Twitter user name. There is more to that than just picking something. This is how people will get to know you and recognize you. Be sure to leave a comment below with your Twitter address so everyone can follow you. If you have any suggestions for future Twitter blogs please let me know.

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Follow me on Twitter at http://www.Twitter.com/Tweal_Estate or @Tweal_Estate