Real Estate News

If you are like most real estate agents, you’ve set up a LinkedIn account, put in your basic info, connect with a few people and then haven’t looked back since.   If this is you – you are not alone! If you have been updating your LinkedIn account regularly you are ahead of the curve!

Why do I like LinkedIn? I really like that it is a truly professional network and allows me with one click to share unbiased testimonials.

Here are 5 things you can do right now to get the most out of LinkedIn:

1.   Update your profile. Log into your account and make sure you have the basics in there – updated photo, work history, dates, experience and education. Sounds simple – but if you haven’t been in there in a while, it’s good to dust off that resume!

• Add your specialties. This section is key (located under the ‘Summary’ section within ‘Edit Profile’) – this is the section google is going to pull from. Think of this section as the ‘keywords’ or ‘meta tags’ for your profile. Pick 7-10 key words to describe your specialties and/or areas of expertise.
• Add 3 additional links. Under websites – select the drop down ‘other’ – this allows you to add 3 different links and name them whatever you’d like. Instead of being limited, you can add specific links within your site or blog. A few ideas here: link to a market stat page on your blog/website, link to your property search (IDX feed) page for a specific area/county, link to your Facebook page, link to community info on your website or blog.

2.    Add your public profile link to your email signature. If you are using Outlook, edit your email signature in the Edit>Options menu. If you are using Gmail or another free email service a great free service to use is WiseStamp. WiseStamp will allow you to add all your social media channels into your email signature.

3.    Add connections. Add past colleagues and past classmates. It’s worth the time to get your client database into an excel spreadsheet (CSV file). If you are using Outlook or Gmail you can easily export your list. Once you’ve done that, copy and paste that email list into LinkedIn (Under ‘Contacts’ > ‘Add Connections.’) You want to get your clients onto LinkedIn ASAP – why? See reason #4.

4.    Write 10 testimonials. One of the biggest benefits of LinkedIn are the testimonials you can generate. How do you get people to say nice things about you? Say nice things about them! Write 10 testimonials – do 10 a day for 5 days and by the end of the week you should have at least 10 from people ‘returning the favor.’  A testimonial does not have to be an essay – simply 2 or 3 sentences of how you know this person and why you would recommend them. A great example of this is a Realtor I worked with at Empire Realty in the SF Bay Area – Sue Rubin. Sue aggressively added her contacts into LinkedIn and wrote testimonials – she now has 10 fantastic testimonials on her LinkedIn account. How is this different from the testimonials on your web site or listing materials? To the average consumer, LinkedIn testimonials are more authentic because you did not touch or alter them in any way – they are truly from a past colleague or client.

5.    Join a group. A great way to stay connected to LinkedIn is to join like-minded professionals – with over 6000 groups available – there is something for eveyone. Do a search for ‘real estate’ or any topic you are interested in. You will be notified via email or new conversations in the group. The 3rd largest estate groups on Linkedin is Inman’s Real Estate Connect group – here you will find news and discussions about the market as well as conference updates and highlights.

Bonus: If you are on Twitter make sure you add your Twitter handle and note that you can link your LinkedIn status updates to Twitter

I would love to hear how you are using LinkedIn. Please leave your feedback in the comments below. Thank you!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Originally posted here:
Tip Tuesday: 5 Ways to Make the Most Out of LinkedIn

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Wondering which iPhone Valentine’s apps to check out? Here are 5 fun ones to download for this weekend!

1. Candy Hearts lite – This free app is perfect for those who love the idea of candy hearts but don’t want to eat any empty calories.

2.  iXplode – Valentine’s Day – This $.99 app is the perfect ‘Anti-Valentine’s Day’ app. From the product’s description, “Want to send your “ex” a special holiday greeting? How about a heart shaped box of Chocolate being ripped apart in a massive explosion along a custom message straight from the heart? Maybe you just want to blow your “special someone away” with a Valentine’s Day greeting they’ll never forget.”

3. iFlirt – For $0.99 this app will provide you with dating tips, pick-up lines, and more.

4. iWrite – Love Poems – This $1.99 app will help you get your creative juices flowing, give you tips on writing your love poem and provide examples.

5. Shakespeare. A free app containing the complete works of William Shakespeare and if it’s free love poems you want then skip down to the last two items on the menu; his sonnets and poems.

BONUS:
Not really Valentine related – but Open Table (for local restaurant reviews/reservations) and Foursquare (the addicting ‘check in’ app) are great apps and have become two of my favorites lately.

How is this related to real estate? Well, this weekend is the perfect opportunity to show your clients your LOVE! Ok, I know that was cheesy , but honestly why not take this weekend to send a quick note to your top 5 favorite clients to thank them? It couldn’t hurt, right?

Happy Valentine’s Day FOREM members!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Fun Friday: Top 5 Valentines iPhone Apps

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Super Bowl Sunday is an ‘All American’ pastime. Whether you gather to watch the game or gather to watch the ads – either way, advertisers know that a lot of people are watching. It’s estimated that last year over 93M people tuned in.

However, this year, a lot of big names like Pepsi are scaling way back and spending more of their money and time on social media.

Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its ‘Pepsi Refresh’ initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20M in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education.  “This is such a fundamental change from anything we’ve done in the past,” says Lauren Hobart, chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages. “… The plan is to have much more two-way dialogue with our customers.”

How does this apply to Realtors?

1.    You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a lot of buzz. In the past if you wanted to brand yourself you’d spend a lot of money on glossy magazines, park benches, and even worse – grocery carts. These days all you need is time and a plan. Within minutes you can create a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn account. With that you are armed to build your brand. You know those agents who put together detailed spreadsheets and calendars outlining their farming or SOI strategy? That’s the type of detail I’m talking about. To create a lot of buzz you have to get serious about your social media plan.

2.    Get creative. I love that some of the super bowl ads are getting super creative with social media – like Monster.com’s campaign. Having a 2-way dialog is key – asking for opinions, launching a contest, or creating a fundraiser. How can you RALLY your fans and start the dialog? If you are on Twitter create your own unique hashtag – for the 1st time the Super Bowl will have its own official hashtag #SB44. What could yours be?  How about #SoCalRE or #CARealEstate? Make sure you save that hashtag in your search. Respond to everyone who uses that hashtag twice a day – pretty soon the conversation will be rolling!

3.    Pick a few things and do them really, really well. With so many social media options, a lot of Realtors get overwhelmed.  If you’re going to do Facebook or Twitter – be a rock star at them. Post multiple times daily, post great content, be engaging – and treat it as seriously as if you were paying thousands of dollars for it! If you missed my post last week about Facebook, check it out here to see what you must be doing as a Realtor to be successful.

For those of you still wondering the effectiveness of social media, Alterian SM2 has been tracking the Super Bowl advertisers since early December. It has just released the latest version of its social media analysis and the findings are pretty interesting.

p.s. Looking to see some of those “banned” Super Bowl ads? Look no further!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Continued here:
Friday Fun: Top 3 Things Realtors Will Learn from Super Bowl Sunday Marketing

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Great news. The deadline for early bird registration for next year’s Real Estate Connect conference in New York has been extended for another week.

Plus if you register use the coupon code FOREM and you’ll save an extra $100.

Connect is by far the leading technology conference in Real Estate. There’s always a fantastic line-up of speakers… and next year is no different. Just take a look at the list of some of the folks who will be speaking there.

Dennis Crowley
Co-Founder, Foursquare

Jason Fried
President, 37 Signals

Saul Hansell
Tech Reporter, The New York Times

Max Ventilla
Zoo Director, Aardvark

Chris Pearson
Founder, Personified & DIYThemes

Vanessa Fox
Entrepreneur, Ignition Partners

If you’re serious about real estate technology and you’ve never been to a Connect conference – you don’t know what you’ve been missing. I’ve had the honor of being involved in many of these conferences and I’m hoping I can make it out to New York in January.

Full deets - Inman News Real Estate Connect runs January 13 – 15, 2010 at the Marriott Marquis Times Square in New York. You can check out the entire program here.

Full Disclosure: Real Estate Connect is produced by Inman News, which owns the Future of Real Estate Marketing blog.

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$100 off Registration for Real Estate Connect

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Terabitz has been very quiet lately.

A refresher for those of you might not have heard of the company – they launched in 2007 to much fanfare (see Terabitz Gives You Loads of Data) — as a sort of “Netvibes for real estate” — but the company made hard tack to starboard in the years since and have reinvented themselves as a platform for real estate brokerages.

It’s a crowded marketplace in that space, but certainly one that is always ripe for innovation. This week they’ve pulled the up the curtain on what they’ve been up too, with a new release of their platform.

It includes a number of back-end features that build off their data aggregation chops to allow brokers to create content rich web sites. From their press release:

Neighborhood and Community pages featuring business reviews, photos and school reports (via implementation of the Yelp, Flickr, and Education.com APIs) as well as hyperlocal news content (via implementation of Yahoo Pipes).

Real estate market reports featuring data and trends derived from live MLS (Multiple Listing Service) data and displayed in a way the average user can understand at a glance. Market reports are provided at the neighborhood and community level, which makes them far more useful than typical city or county-level views.

Property search that better merchandizes listings through a “gallery” view that enables the user to view large photos in the search results display.

Explore the Neighborhood™, a map-based tool that enables users to view amenities in the area of their home search – businesses, places of worship, recreational facilities and more – in order to better understand what it is like to live in a place.

Terabitz One-to-One™, a prospecting tool that enables agents to create dedicated, automatically updating Websites for homeowners that display recent sales, new listings and a dynamic home value estimate.

The Terabitz platform is modeled on the relaunch of Chicago brokerage @properties‘ web site. @properties is a company that’s proved its willing to invest in potentially game-changing ideas (see Real Estate Search Stores – Coming Soon?) so it seems like a natural fit.

The redesign is clean, simple and well executed. But I’m not a fan of having to register in order to search for a home — so I didn’t get a chance to test out the search tool. And it was doubly annoying that every listing I clicked on I had to create an account… how about a couple freebies guys?

Nevertheless, I did like Terabitz platform’s neighborhood and community pages (like this one for Lincoln Park, for example) which were a nice collection of a series of different data sources. My only suggestion would be to add more media; more photos (the Flickr stream pulls in some pretty random stuff) – professionally produced neighborhood videos would be a fantastic addition to those pages too.

In any case, it seems this release is why we hadn’t heard much from Terabitz recently. It turns out they’ve had their heads down coding.

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Terabitz Launches New Web Platform for Brokers

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A guest post from Tim Fagan, CEO of HomeFinder.com

A while back I was in the audience at an industry conference when a woman on stage asked this question: “At the end of the day, do any of these online real estate companies really help anyone buy or sell a home?”

My initial reaction – as someone running one of “these” companies – was to dismiss the question as gratuitous, and dead wrong.

She’s just trying to provoke the audience. We provide all kinds of information on our site – of course we’re helping. And that’s what a REALTOR is there for anyway. So what’s the problem?

But the question kept creeping back into my head in the following weeks, prodding me to dig deeper into our value proposition and think about what it would take to answer “yes,” unequivocally.

How could we at HomeFinder.com – and, for that matter, my colleagues and competitors elsewhere in online real estate – provide a more essential service? And while our REALTOR partners would always be the ones who would get properties bought and sold, what could we do to help them get to that goal more efficiently?

Doing this, of course, would not be easy. The online real estate category is a crowded place. Consumers can view listings on myriad sites, all of which offer functionality that is strikingly similar. A set of standards and best practices has emerged as a result – which is good – but with that comes a pressure to stick to proven formulas, familiar features and accept assumptions as to what an online real estate site should and should not do. And that can be quite limiting.

So how do we move forward? I don’t have clear answers yet, but here are some things I believe to be true:

We need to take more risks

This sounds trite, but it’s true. When is the last time an online real estate company did something that made you think, “Wow, that’s gutsy?” Putting real estate listings online in 1994 was gutsy; Zillow took a big risk offering home values online ten years later. But who’s sticking their neck out now? It’s been awhile.

At the beginning of 2009, we expanded from being a technology provider to major newspapers across the country, previously known as Homescape, to rebranding as HomeFinder.com and growing our business to become a world-class home search and information site. While this is a goal we continue to strive toward, the HomeFinder.com name change was both a catalyst and reminder of not only what our site and our competitor sites offer, but also what consumers truly want — to find a home.

Granted, this isn’t Page Six material. But we’re relatively new to the game and that also puts us in a position to more easily escape our own history than others. That’s an opportunity I plan to capitalize on.

Online real estate needs more big moves.

It’s not just about a house, it’s about living a life

Having all the listings – including FSBO’s – is something we at HomeFinder pride ourselves on. But we need to understand that for most people, the house is just part of what goes into a decision to live somewhere.

To make that important decision more effectively, consumers need to get a sense for what lies beyond the four walls of the home they see on the screen. Sure, most sites offer school ratings, basic demographic information and some high-level housing market data.

But today we can go beyond that. The emergence of the “Real-time Web” allows us to capture what’s happening now in any given place, to hear the ambient noise of a neighborhood. The number of new APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) makes exciting mashups of place-based images, video and data possible in ways we could online imagine just a year or two ago.

It’s time to innovate in these areas.

A more effective model: better connect home finders with home sellers

Recently, a small storm erupted over a pornographic advertisement appearing on Realtor.com. While this was entirely inadvertent (apparently the result of an error in their ad serving system) it did underscore a point: The largely ad-based online real estate category often delivers a less-than-optimal user experience.

Ads, featured listings and the like can be quite effective for our agent and broker partners. But for consumers, they often just get in the way.

How can we deliver a better experience that gets consumers where they want to go more efficiently, while also placing our broker and agent customers in the right place, at the right time, on the right platform?

We’re working on some of the answers at HomeFinder.com as I write.

Call to action

In the end, the conference panelist’s question was not an annoyance – it was a call to action. To deliver even more value to consumers and practitioners. To rethink the online real estate formula. To challenge ourselves to question those things we take for granted.

I do not have many answers at this point, just directional notions like those I list above. But I’ll get there.

If you’d like to have your writing featured on FOREM blog, please email us at futureofrealestate@gmail.com

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Online real estate reality check

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Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) really needs no introduction. Web 2.0 guru, brilliant marketer and unabashed self-promoting social media superstar, he is on a mission to help you take advantage of the all the latest web technology to further your goals and monetize your passions.

I first met Gary at his keynote at Real Estate Connect in New York where I had the opportunity to corner him for an video interview (see Leverage the power of social media).

Gary’s book Crush It has been tearing up the best-seller lists and I’m stoked to announce that as of today, Crush it is available as a vook.

I could write a lengthy blog post about the app – but Gary sums it best…

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Crush It vook app contains 18 never-before-seen videos and the full content of the book. It is available for immediate purchase on iTunes (App store download) and on the Web.

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Crush It the Vook Now Available

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It’s pretty epic.

Seriously. I love the honesty. The attitude. And the tongue in cheek humor puts it over the top.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Besides, any guy who can take a crescent wrench to the face 5 times will win my business ever time.

Looking for a mobile home? Check out Cullman Liquidation.

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Best. Real Estate. Ad. Ever

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Best. Real Estate. Ad. Ever

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Pam Liebman, CEO of Corcoran Group answered my question – What should the real estate brand of the future mean to consumers?

Her answer was posted on YouTube. I’ve posted the video below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Thanks Pam!

I’d also like to throw this question out to the rest of the real estate industry – send me your video response via YouTube and I’ll post them all here on this blog.

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The Real Estate Brand of the Future (Video)

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The Real Estate Brand of the Future (Video)

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Want to learn how to Crush It?

Web 2.0 guru and now best-selling author Gary Vaynerchuk will be holding court at the Bell House in Brooklyn on October 27th, starting at 9pm, for an exclusive FREE event.

RSVP on the Eventbrite page – and make sure you get their early to secure your spot! The place is filling up quickly.

Gary will be joined by a guest that night for a very special announcement, and the evening will feature an exclusive montage of never-before-seen, behind-the-scenes video footage. An after party with Clabo, who brought you the Crush it! music video, will top off the evening.

It should be quite the night…

Photo by affiliatesummit

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Hang With Gary in NYC

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Hang With Gary in NYC

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Augmented Reality (AR) is definitely one of the hot new mobile technologies right now. Augmented reality, simply put, is the layering of data on top of the visual output from a smartphone’s camera. This has big implications for all kinds of local search tools, but particularly in real estate.

Layar is a European company that has developed a platform that helps developers customize and build these data layers (see Layar MARS Browser Supplements Reality on Sellsius blog).

Click here to view the embedded video.

Called their Reality Browser, it has already been used by French company MeilleurAgents.com to create a layer that displays realtime property valuations in Paris (see Augmented Reality Real Estate Valuations).

The big news this week however, is that Layar is now available in the iTunes Store (Download Link) for the iPhone 3GS handset; which will potentially take this application to a huge new market.

As consumer awareness grows of AR, I’ll bet we’ll see many more innovative uses of this technology in the months to come.

In fact, an article in the latest issue of Fast Company reports that Trulia has already developed a layer for Layar’s Reality browser. The app will “overlay listings on top of a Google phone’s camera view. Scan a neighborhood’s available properties and even connect with the realtors.” (emphasis added)

Coming soon to an iPhone near you?

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Layar Technology Now Available for iPhone

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Layar Technology Now Available for iPhone

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PhotoSketch is a mind-blowing project from a group of computer science students in China, who have created software that will take your hand drawn sketch, search the web for corresponding images and then stitch them all together into a brand new composite image.

A video demonstration from their paper shows the software in action.

Click here to view the embedded video.

While only tangentially related to real estate marketing (though imagine the fun you putting together a listing presentation…) – what I think this technology points to is a rise of alternate input methods that will push us beyond the keyboard. The iPhone has already demonstrated the appeal of multi-touch and I suspect we’ll be seeing even more creative uses of this kind of gesture-based interaction over the next few years.

Text based search has been held back somewhat by a limited vocabulary and clumsy filters. So imagine searching for a home by simply drawing what you were looking for on Surface-like table or a Perceptive Pixel-type wall and have the software return the most relevant results to you.

It won’t be for everyone – but for the more adventurous, the future of real estate search may just be about letting your fingers do the talking.

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No Photoshop Skills Required

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No Photoshop Skills Required

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A guest post from Tim Fagan, CEO of HomeFinder.com

Things were simpler then, more familiar. You knew who to call, what to do and what to expect.

I’m talking about the good old days of real estate advertising.

Back then, you dealt with the sales rep for the local paper over a cup of coffee. Maybe you sponsored a little league team or bought a spot on the back of the church bulletin. And your audience? You could count on them to be in just a few places, at the same times, week in and week out.

Those days are long gone, a fact that has been amply documented. I won’t belabor that point.

The more important question is this: Now that the game has changed, how can we make it simpler for real estate advertisers?

Think about it: The average agent, broker or brokerage marketing director is faced with a panoply of media, formats and creative challenges these days.

On the table are:

• SEM/pay-per-click
• Brand display ads
• Direct response display ads
• Syndication
• Video
• Mobile
• Print

And this, mind you, is a growing list. Video wasn’t there three years ago; mobile wasn’t there just one year ago. Next year you may need to consider your strategy for Tweet ads, or feel pressure to get into the “augmented reality” game.

I know, it’s a little scary. And most brokers, and darn near all agents, don’t have the in-house talent to master all these platforms. Nor do they have the budget needed to hire a digital agency that does.

What to do?

Here are a few recommendations, from both the advertiser and publisher side of the business.

For advertisers (brokers and agents)

When Google launched Adwords back in 2002, thousands of brokers and agents jumped on the opportunity. After all, who wouldn’t explore performance-based advertising?

The problem was few practitioners had the time or skill necessary to optimize an SEM campaign. Results for many were disappointing.

My point: Pick media you are confident you can execute well in. If your marketing department has a good designer, you may want to focus on display ads. If you have a great headline/call to action writer on your team, SEM may be a good choice. If you or your broker performs well in front of the camera, start syndicating video.

Stick to that which you are capable executing well.

Secondly, for digital media, make sure you think beyond the click. By this I mean where the user is taken when they click on your ad. Whether this is a property detail page or a more conventional landing page, you have to make certain you present the user with something that is clear, consistent in message and look with the ad that got them to click, and loaded with a strong call to action.

If you can’t execute beyond the click, don’t bother.

For publishers

We as publishers – those site owners or media channels that sell advertising to brokers and agents – can also do our share to simplify the advertising ecosystem.

For one, we can offer cross-platform buys. At HomeFinder, we offer national exposure through HomeFinder.com combined with local placement on individual newspaper sites. Brokers and agents like this because it allows them to kill two birds with one stone.

Adwords now has a mobile offering. Several companies are marrying listings syndication with distribution to YouTube.

We are getting there. But we need to move more quickly to offer integrated packages that streamline the process for our advertisers.

Second, publishers should do more to share best practices with their advertisers. Many sales people take a consultative approach with broker and agent clients as far as structuring an ad buy, but I’m talking about something more.

For example, a strong case can be made that any large publisher would do well to hire an in-house marketing specialist available to help clients evaluate creative, craft messaging and optimize landing pages. If that sounds over the top, consider that newspapers sometimes create ads for smaller clients.

Moving forward

We will never again see a world where advertising is straightforward and audiences are concentrated. Our time is one of multiple, often blended, media channels and atomized audiences.

Our aim should be to make that reality more manageable.

If you’d like to have your writing featured on FOREM blog, please email us at futureofrealestate@gmail.com

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It’s time to simplify real estate advertising

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WellcomeMat, the online real estate video site, has launched a new iPhone available available today in the iTunes App Store.

Using the app you can now shoot off-the-cuff video walkthrus of your listings on your iPhone 3GS and post them immediately to WellcomeMat, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

From their post on their blog:

Do it yourself video just got a helluva lot easier and we are glad to be the company making it happen. The Flip camera got us one step closer to video being easy to do, acting as a hard drive for videos that are shot in web-ready formats. Now people can post their videos straight from their iPhone: no chords, no format changes, no compression and no barriers.

I think this is a phenomenal step forward for real estate video — though I’d love to see it have even greater integration with some of the more real-estate specific search sites; Realtor.com, Trulia, Zillow etc.

More importantly than Realtor produced videos however, what really excites me is an app like this opens up the realm to anyone, armed with an iPhone, to create on-the-spot, near real-time video assessments of properties.

Privacy concerns aside, properly curated and geo-tagged video reviews of properties could be a boon to online house hunters. It would take Google’s Street View to a whole new level.

Let the cameras roll!

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WellcomeMat App Lets You Post Video on the Go

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WellcomeMat App Lets You Post Video on the Go

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Recently, my friend Rob Hahn posted a great article entitled “Design vs. Content: Design Wins!‘. And I wholeheartedly agree with him! How many times have you left a blog due to eye strain from small print or out of pure confusion from all the flashing ads and shiny objects strewn about! There’s no denying that design plays a major role in Website attraction!

I love pretty things and sometimes crap content can be made to look so nice you actually stick around. But watch out, because shiny objects can mislead you and even hypnotize you into monthly payments in some cases! It’s happened to me! I love me some bling!

So while I think it’s crucial to consider blog layout, design, and user interface…we can’t forget our friends at Google or the readers placing trust in your guidance. The bling will always entice, but it’s the thought provoking, helpful, resourceful, and relevant content that keeps your readers coming back for more, or even subscribe! With all the rockin’ blog themes available, a nice blog design is the easy part. It’s coming up with content and being consistent that is the real task at hand.

I’ve found the best way to maintain regular blog posts and fight “blogger’s block” is by creating a content posting plan. This is really nothing more than making an on-going list of content or story ideas from which you can pick and choose to create posts from. If you want to take it a step further, you could schedule time to write, as well as “read & research”. But don’t plan too far ahead, because some posts may be timely depending on whether they are events or breaking news.

Here are some ideas to kickstart your own content posting plan, or just melt your “blogger’s block”!

1. Write a Series of Posts: Take a big idea and break it up into several smaller posts. Be sure to link back to all the posts within your series.
2. Client Q&A: Create a submission form for your blog. Pick a day that you regularly answer clients questions via your blog.
3. Get Busy: Get involved with local businesses, interview business owners, share helpful businesses that are giving back to the community or can assist new homeowners with their services. Be sure to archive these posts in the form of a relocation landing page.
4. Community Events: Post a monthly event calendar or list of events with all the local information and links. Check out 4 Ways to Add an Event Calendar to Your Wordpress Blog.
5. Seasonal Homeowner How-to: Post informative guides on how to clean out the gutters, winter prep your pool, holiday décor, spring cleaning, etc.
6. Breaking News: Whether it’s local or national, twitter and other news sources can keep you up to speed with all the latest happenings.
7. Know your niche & drip the tips: Whatever it may be (women homeownership, short sales, green building), drip your expertise out by expanding upon single tidbits of advice.
8. Local Bargains & Coupons: Share discounts offered by local restaurants/businesses, online coupons for products & services, etc.
9. Local Market Update: Give us your forecast, graph the changes, share local statistics, and provide some tips for adapting to this changing market. Check out Cyberhomes’ Market Forecast report – great resource!
10. Interviews: Post short interviews with industry professionals, local business leaders, local heroes, etc. Include testimonials from past clients.
11. School scores & more: Post recent test scores, school achievements (ex: Distinguished School), school events, etc. for high schools and colleges in your area.
12. Neighborhood Spotlight: Showcase a specific neighborhood…the homes, parks, schools, stores…oh, and your listings too. Give us your top 10 reasons for living in each neighborhood. Interview local neighbors and connect with your farm at the same time.
13. New laws affecting real estate: Each year share the new laws for your state/county, and/or provide updates as they occur in real time.
14. Buyer/Seller Tips: Talk about the home buying process, share your best tips in post form.
15. Fundraisers/Non-Profits: Support or share info regarding local fundraisers.
16. Rate & loan updates: Get the latest info from your lenders and provide tips for buyers on finding the best rates, as well as the process for securing a loan.
17. Favorites: Whether it’s a recipe share, book review, or new movie release…it’s okay to have an opinion!
18. Photo posts: Show off the beauty and uniqueness of your area with photos. A single photo and a simple comment will suffice. Or get creative with a collage of photos taken in your market area or make a slideshow using Animoto.
19. Video posts: Follow your home stager as she/he prepares a home, interview your local lender, tour local neighborhoods, or just share your real estate expertise.
20. Investment insights: Post informational articles on how to select an investment property, interview of an analyst, local suggestions from your tax professional, etc.
21. Friday fun: Put a smile on your reader’s face or just wish them a fantastic Friday with funny articles or YouTube videos, interesting signs, wacky but tasteful jokes, etc.
22. Holiday hype: Share what’s happening in your area during holidays, give ideas for parties, recipes, fun traditions, tell a holiday story about your family, etc.
23. Community callout: Whether you have Facebook Connect on your blog, a Facebook Business Page, or use Twitter. Create a post announcing your new page or group, and let people know where/how they can connect further with you.
24. Consumer alerts: Clue your clients in to the latest information regarding FHA financing, loan modification rules, tax credits, etc.
25. Polls: Pose a question, collect the responses and share the results!
26. Storytelling: Explain a scenario whether real or hypothetical and how you would assist the situation with your expertise.
27. Re-post: Think of it like a “retweet”, but for a blog post! If you find a post written by someone else that you love, cite them and build upon it by offering your own perspective.
28. Invite a guest: Is there a lender you work with, home stager, local business owner that has something to say. Give them the opportunity on your blog!
29. The Spin-off: Take your best blog posts a little further, by building upon them, updating them or taking one concept mentioned to the next level. You can even make a list of all your best posts on a particular subject.
30. Liveblog: Going to an event? Share your experience as it happens (people you meet, products/services you encounter, interesting tips, etc.).

MyTechOpinion

Let’s face it. For most of us it’s not really possible to write and post every single day. But it does become easier, the more you write. Try setting a goal to post every other day or at least twice a week. From my standpoint, I’d focus more on quality than quantity.

Other posts you may enjoy:

• Tweet It Forward: The Secret to Building an Invaluable Twitter Community
• Interview: Brian Wilson of the Zolve Real Estate Network
• Got Real Estate Questions? TruliaVoices Answers.
• Cyberhomes PDF Report Aids Real Estate Agents with Local Market Statistics
• Zipform Desktop Is Now Vista Compatible

See original here:
30 Blog Post Ideas To Keep Your Content On A Roll

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