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Communicate a benefit

Blogs have been associated for a long time now with opinion and personal experience. This is often times the way they are portrayed in the main stream media. This may be due, in part, to the desire on some level to frame blogs as a less authoritative resource.

Make claims and promises

A claim or promise is certainly attractive, but because you are working in social media you must always maintain your trust asset. This, along with your content, is a major component to your traffic engine. This means that whatever your claims are, they should be backed up by content or services that meet those statements. Not doing so eats into your trust asset while doing so contributes to it. Halfway meeting it may maintain your status on this level but it also provides opportunities for competitors to surpass you with superior quality. You are better off being comprehensive and in so doing providing a disincentive for other to try and emulate you. What is more likely in this case is for someone to link to you and add their own commentary or insight on top of yours. What this does is embed you in the community as a person that consistently contributes. From there, you can develop the authority to a) sucessfully recommend affiliate products and services or b) market your own.

Personalize

- Rather than speaking in the general sense as in ‘drive more traffic to a blog’, it is better to phrase it: ‘Drive more traffic to your blog’ This is because many people in smaller niches may be of the opinion that a generalized approach is suitable only for sites with a given minimum traffic requirement. By making things more personal, a reader will start to visualize the proposition as applying to him or her.

Use Keywords

- This aids in being found because each keyword can help your tweet be found via different seach criteria. Many of these words work well together and may be searched as a pair, which will push you further up in the search result. Twitter search is used by many to find information but at the same time it does not have the same volume as Google. What this means is that you are competing with fewer people for top ranking. While this might mean a smaller base of users, it also means a more enthusiastic person because they are using a wider variety of tools to find what they want.

Ask a question

- A question can be one that searches for an answer but what tends to be more effective are questions that pose a controversy or are rhetorical. That latter is particularly effective because it states both the content being delivered as well as the fact that you have a possible solution for them.

How Active is the Market for Real Estate in Camas Washington for the month of June 2009?

A few days ago we logged into the MLS for Vancouver and Camas to obtain a quick snap-shot view of what happened real estate wise within the confines of , in Clark County Washington. Here is what we have to report:

From this snap-shop view we see an almost 32% lower number of Pending transactions compared to the number of SOLDS, as well as a modest number of total Active listings available at the end of the month. This month the 3rd Party + PreForclosures + Foreclosures combined are about 33.7% of the Active homes listed (about 30% last month County-wide), yet they represent about 26.5% of the homes going under contract (about 45.1% last month County-wide).

Key items we are looking for in a market turnaround are not just an increase in the number of transactions but, an increase in the non-PreForeclosure / Foreclosure category. In our opinion we are starting to see very positive improvement in that direction overall in Clark County, and expect the slight decrease in pending transactions for Camas to be temporary.

If you are looking to sell your home in Camas or another part of Clark County Washington in this challenging market time please call or e-mail us with the details of your situation and we'll customize a marketing plan to get your Clark County Home Sold!

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Definitions:
1) 3rd Party = the sales contract requires the approval of a third party; and includes Short-Sales, Trust Sales, Relocation Company sales, etc.
2) PreForeclosures = aka Short-Sales are homes where the lending bank(s) agrees to take less, allowing a sales transaction to take place.
3) Foreclosures = aka REO's and Bank Owned Homes, already Foreclosed by the Lender(s).
4) PENDING = listed homes that have been marked as under contract by the listing agent during the past 30 days.
5) SOLD = listed homes that have been marked as closed sales by the listing agent in the past 30 days. Note: some of these sold homes may have been "pending sales" for far more than 30 days!

For more information, including videos on real estate and living in Vancouver Washington and the rest of Clark County, please visit:

Real Estate in Vancouver Washington

Homes for Sale in Vancouver WA

Current MLS Market Report for Camas, Vancouver and Clark County

Some people are like hugging a sweet puppy. Yesterday I was showing multi family units to a client from California. He was only here for a couple of days. I had lined up several duplex units for him to see throughout our fair communities of Vancouver and Camas Washington.

We visited several really nice places. When we got to a Camas, Washington duplex, the listing agent met us there to show us around. When he knocked and the door opened, lo and behold there was a sweet elderly person I knew from my church, St. Thomas Aquinas in Camas, Wa. She gave me a big hug. I've known her for about twenty years. She has this calm air about her, very relaxing. To me, she is like a sweet huggable puppy. So accepting, well...I could go on but you all have your own memories of favorite elderly people and sweet dogs.

What happened was...my client looked all around the duplex unit. Went outside, did the whole walk around type thing, asked some questions, etc. Then the agent made a "mistake." I guess you could call it a mistake. Well, he saved the elderly woman from having the stress of a new landlord for a another time. The listing agent mentioned that the previous landlord had tried to raise the rates some years back and this sweet elderly person got really angry. So, he didn't raise the rent!

My client got in the car and I asked him..."well, what did you think of that one?" He said..."I'm not buying that one. She is way too sweet to raise the rent on her!!" I told him that unfortunately, someone is probably going to buy that duplex and raise the rent. He said, "Well, it won't be me. I can't do that to her."

It's pleasant to work with clients who actually think about and are concerned about the welfare of others.

The City of Camas Parks and Recreation work together with The Friends of the Camas Washougal
Community Center to provide recreational as well as educational and cultural programs.
Their goal is to enrich the lives of the citizens and give them the sense of community.
There are 12 parks listed on the parks and recreation web site. The newest is Heritage Park
which five and a half acres of developed park settings alongside of Lacamas Lake.
The park offers trails to walk along, a picnic and play area, and a boat launch to Lacamas
Lake.