Real Estate SEO :: Link Building ::
Consultation : Blogging
Spider Juice Technologies
310 533 9145
RSS
Build your portfolio of positive reasons to purchase a home in this real estate market. Discover the most positive news in real estate.Submit your own positive stories. Or build your arsenal of positive reasons to buy now.
As a product of the late 70's and early 80's I was fortunate enough to be immersed by L.A. Music. It was everywhere. All over the country music fans have pilgrimaged to the Sunset Strip. The Whiskey and the Strip was and still still is to many the holy land.
Jim Morrison, The Chili Peppers, GNR and the Hair Bands of the late 80's. And somewhere in there you can stick the New Wave vibes of Berlin and Oingo Boingo and their evil twin brother of New Wave- Punk.
La La land has given birth to some of our cultures most cutting edge alternative movements...some good....some bad. So when I was looking for a title to my post today I thought:
Social Distortion Which made me think of the band:(warning some foul language)
Interesting name for a band, interesting words and theme for a song.
They I guess are now playing small gigs in the OC. They are sure looking old, not so punkish. Kinda peakish. Sometimes movements end up that way.
Funny thing about punk rock. They protested the establishment to create their own vibe. They strove for individuality and all they became was just another average punker.
The Koolaid Krusaders
The Social Storm going on about the web and especially in real estate is occurring almost as I hunt and peck. As the sheople begin to gather in San Francisco for the bi-yearly trip to Mecca to hear from the Lord Inman and his disciples of all that is technology. God Bless Brad. He is the Johnny Rotten of real estate.
If you are a reader of this blog, you know I am a skeptic of most online movements. Technology is an easy sell. A sales pitch on on unverifiable benefits is always fun to watch. SEO info sellers are famous for this as they hawk stuff that talks about all this minutia that is intellectually stimulating, and in most cases a waste of time. It is unverifiable because Google won't tell you how to beat them will they?
And please do not quote Matt. He seems very affable. But so does Karl Rove. I would relish having a beer with either. But Matt works for a multi gajillion dollar entity that wants you spending money on Ads. And he and his company are beholden to its shareholders to do so. And yes Matt has his sheople too.
Its profitable having your own sheople. Thought Leadership is where you should aspire if you are an online real estate marketer. Here is a hint. Make sure it is relevant to your marketplace.
Online Real Estate Has Become an MLM Meeting
Actually I would guess Inman will be the best ever this year as there is more content to pull from as the real estate community grows every year.
However, conferences are great for networking but also for "group think". Ever been to a MLM conference? How scripted is that deal?Everyone is smiling, everyone is convinced, and no one is making any money.
The first thing I ask anymore when agents/marketers/advisors throw advice around is how much have you made doing that? Usually there is silence and then an uncomfort as I just took us into a real weird space. But it is a great way to cut to the chase when someone is trying to convince you of something.
Nothing worse than a fat guy trying to tell you how to lose weight right?
I think Twitter definitely holds promise for Realtors. But please do not tell me it is the be all to end all. Just ask wheres the money? In fact hwere is the money on any internet activity. As most have not figured out the first step, let alone blogging, let alone microblogging. 
But Twitter is the next big thing. Yet no one makes money at it. And Koolaid drinkers drink. While still waiting on a paycheck from blogging.
But the Koolaid continues to pour and the wisdom of the crowd follows in tow. Jim Jones is smiling in his grave.
STOP!
Okay some people are making money at real estate blogging. Soon someone will make money at Tweeting real estate. I know people are making money at these in several other industries but I am talking about real estate here.
I did just recently counsel a Private Investigator on using Twitter. He does lots of cheating spouse type investigations (sadly enough). And we found a few divorce groups that looked promising. He was instructed by me to follow the conversations then enter into them slowly as he gained trust. Then he could offer advice and even links as resources. Of course some of them could be his.
While I am at it. Do you want to know the secret to Twitter? Besides the above strategy. On whole offer value. Same goes with anything else you do online. Blogging, comments, etc. Paul Chaney said in a recent interview that some of his comments on others sites are bigger than his own blog posts.
The Power of Leadership and Community
When you become a thought leader you get people to follow you.
It is interesting how we humans are absolutely wired for belonging. We all need to belong. It is that darn DNA thing. And if you are repulsed by this, then you are more inclined to join the first person to mirror your repulsion and ask you to join his "repulsed human community club" ;-).
The words in the list above are favorites for the Koolaid Krusaders of Social 2.0.
2.0 stuff is only makeup on a pig. The rules that apply today is not much more unique than a generation ago. If humans truly behave based on emotion, then I do not think that I or anyone I know, has spawned any new emotions over the past twenty years. Although my youngest has given me doubts at times ;-)
Yet we keep hearing that the public has changed. If anything we humans are more human and frail than ever. Marriages are being held together by threads as spouses work then run home to jet Mary to Soccer and Johnny to Baseball. Dad works two jobs to keep the kids in a safe and good school district. While the predators and a terror cell might be just around the corner.
The emotions are the same, just elevated. Remember doing Nuclear bomb drills in school. Holy Sheet are you kidding me? At 8 years old I remember thinking that this is way to off the radar for comprehension. Today you got planes going into buildings. Watch out that dark guy might just be a terrorist.
Nothing has changed. People are people. And we trade one not acceptable fear for the acceptable prejudice of the day.
And the net was supposed to make decisions easier. Here is some advice to home buyers go see the damned property! The picture online is nothing like the real thing. Seriosly. In many ways one can argue that the Internet has made the decision making process even harder.
I remember when we bought our house. I got hold of one of those email tools that would send me listings based on my criteria. Man I had the whole city sent to my email box. Yah that was useful. Not. All this technology crap are just tools.And they will remain as crappy tools so long as they are not used with any sort of strategy. Once I developed a more useful strategy like getting pre-approved first then narrowing my criteria. Then we were in our house in a couple months.
So what communities do you belong? Online and off. Are you a follower? Or are you a budding leader? The leader makes the dough.
Thought Leadership and Commenting
You see that is what comments are for. That is how you participate. Do you just say yep when you comment on a blog or forum? Or even worse do you place what is nothing more than a classified ad? Or do you add to the value of the talk? And by giving you stake your claim to fame and you get your own Tribe of followers. You are either the Chief or you are the Indian. The Chiefs get all the squaws by the way.(to all the ladies my apologies as I am a male chauvinist and need to come up with some female metaphors. Please forgive.)
Social Distortion
The Social web has its evangelists. They are the leaders. They have their own agendas that may or may not benefit you. At the end of the day you want the mantra to include you and benefit your profit margin right?
But so many of the evangelists preach ideals that often times are sugar gooey and just don't always fly in my opinion. These ideals have spawned a new vocabulary.
The Idealism of the Koolaid Krusaders
Interruption Marketing-The godfather of the Internet deemed the interruption dead. I say it is alive and well so long as long as the offer has any value. If Ed McMahon showed up at your door I think you might get excited about the interruption.
Community-I have met some real cool people online but when I really want to connect I pick up the phone. The phone easily wins over any technology. And when you want to beat the phone. go stand in front of another human and connect. If you do not believe me then write a blog about how much you love your mom and then go visit her in person. Spend a day showering her with intimacies that you have not shared in years. Tell me what did the better connecting.
By the way if Inmans online community was so hot he wouldn't have the need for his conferences every 6 months.
Web 2.0-More prettier choices thats all. Makeup on the same pig. Sales and marketing sucks. And don't tell me 2.0 is not marketing. If you are not out there looking for a new client then you are running a hobby.
If Web 2.0 is the savior of real estate then why isn't the real estate bust already well over?
New Media- Huh? This phrase is often used as an excuse to fan the arrogance of the geek class. I witnessed a group of esteemed marketers Tweeting to one another at a recent conference. I found the exercise extremely rude although the Tweeters felt very justified with their heads buried into their laptops. It seemed to me to be a modern day version of passing notes across the classroom.
We are not journalists. Far from it. Be very careful there because if you start claiming that you are a new form of journalist then I can only imagine the law suits coming your way. We are in fact editorialist's in some form maybe. And we are not entitled by our tools to anything special. Just because one has voice does not mean it always needs to be said. By the way, the archive of the Tweets were not a very good representation of the talks at all.
Transparency-How is this a new concept? Its always been sales 101 as far as I know.
All these tools in the so called social media are just tools. They will only succeed when employed with strategy. The best way to develop your strategy is to go back in time and study Direct Response Marketers prior to the net.
You will find that writing was second nature to these guys. They "posted" their words abundantly. They understood the need for narrative and publishing.
Its nothing new. As usual, hopefully it is capturing you prospects and leads? If not, could it be? If not, perhaps you should scrap it.
There are strategies being employed by yours truly and others that are making money in the new environment of 2.0. I have found John Reese to always be out in front of the trends. He blogged before anyone even heard of blogging. He is now doing the 2.0 thing in ways that none of the Krusaders even are mentioning.
You can get it here.
Housing is getting some good news as the markets keep fighting on despite the front running economists saying its all but dead.
First off any good news needs a narrative and it starts with Donald Trumps record sale of his Florida Mansion.
Meanwhile U.S. Housing starts U.S. housing starts unexpectedly surged 9.1%, the most in more than two years in June. Barron's Magazine is asking if the market is ready for the "giddy days again".Stating a recovery may well be on its way. While affordability of many real estate markets are being sung across he Country.
Study good and bad news on the web. Be curious how it spreads. Do you want to talk viral marketing? This is how it is done folks. Not some widget or some poorly conceived link bait.
This is good news folks. If I was an agent I would publicize it.Everywhere. My next move after this post is to talk about Trumps sale at Twitter. I would get the world to know that there is positivity out there. Say it enough times and eventually it will catch on. Perception is reality.
When someone talks about the "new media" what does that mean? Paul Chaney is a pioneer in the social media and as such is a force to reckon with. He talks about blogs and the new media. Learn from a master. He is also an author of the book on blogging called Realty Blogging.
You do not have to be a Realtor to appreciate this book as it is in my opinion the book on blogging for any small business.
Lead Generation 1.0: Challenges with Lead Generation Today
The lead generation industry has been significantly impacted by legislation, a downturn in the economy and tightening of consumer credit. In 2007 and 2008, several large lead generation companies went out of business or stopped generating leads (RealEstate.com, House.com, Loanweb, Loanpage).
Is Google a well oiled spin machine? Much like a White House Press Secretary they put out the message as they want it said. Yes they have their own Karl Roves and James Carville types.
A recent article at the official Google Blog illustrates the disconnect of a beheamoth trying to spread the word.
The author here says that Google is about their algo :
"Does Google manually edit its results?" (The Answer):Let me just answer that with our third philosophy: no manual intervention. In our view, the web is built by people. You are the ones creating pages and linking to pages. We are using all this human contribution through our algorithms. The final ordering of the results is decided by our algorithms using the contributions of the greater Internet community, not manually by us. We believe that the subjective judgment of any individual is, well ... subjective, and information distilled by our algorithms from the vast amount of human knowledge encoded in the web pages and their links is better than individual subjectivity. The second reason we have a principle against manually adjusting our results is that often a broken query is just a symptom of a potential improvement to be made to our ranking algorithm. Improving the underlying algorithm not only improves that one query, it improves an entire class of queries, and often for all languages. I should add, however, that there are clear written policies for websites recommended by Google, and we do take action on sites that are in violation of our policies or for a small number of other reasons (e.g. legal requirements, child porn, viruses/malware, etc).
Um what? I thought there was a team of overseas Politburo that went thru all our websites looking for quality (whatever that means). Or is that propogandist hype meant to keep the weobple in line? Also ,is this the geek version of the "wisdom of crowds"? Some would argue that crowds are in fact not very smart. Others can argue the "voice of the people are the voice of god".
Think about it. Google hires genuises to do their work. Having to resort to manual checkups is an insult to their intellectual superiority complex.
Always question the logic of the spin vs. the reality. You will find that in the end it all makes pretty simple sense.
The complexity is made by those looking to sell the newest SEO manual. And by Google looking to find an even bigger profit.
The efficacy of the "subliminal seduction" as was put forth in the book of the same name and "Clambake Orgy" has been questioned over the years.
Dave Lakhani and yours truly at his Renegades of
Persuasion event last month. If you have not heard my
interview with him, you are missing out. He is the Author of
new book, "Subliminal Persuasion".
However, the use of these subliminal embeddings in advertising has not. As the two books above show very clearly in many cases, and sort of stretch the imagination in others, the film below shows mostly very clear attempts by advertisers to embed words and images. These are mostly surrounded by sex. Don't watch if you are easily offended.
Chris Garrett: Blog Memes have become synonymous with internet quizzes, surveys, and novelties that people link to and pass around on their blogs, forums and via email, things like the “which superhero are you most like” test.
Wikipedia says:
At its most basic, an Internet meme is simply the propagation of a digital file or hyperlink from one person to others using methods available through the Internet (for example, email, blogs, social networking sites, instant messaging, etc.). The content often consists of a saying or joke, a rumor, an altered or original image, a complete website, a video clip or animation, or an offbeat news story, among many other possibilities.
You of course have heard the idea of "going viral"?
There has been some great books of late on the science of how our brains work so that we are compelled to buy.
Journal of Consumer Research titled “Bikinis Instigate Generalized Impatience in Intertemporal Choice,” suggests that guys studying bikini-clad girls make worse decisions. (Go figure) .For example, while a man who looked at landscapes might have demanded an extra payment of 10 euros a month later (totaling 25), the bikini-gazer might have been willing to settle for five extra (totaling 20).
A 2006 paper, “Heat of the Moment: The Effect of Sexual Arousal on Sexual Decision Making.” George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon University and Dan Ariely of MIT, found that sexually aroused men would do all sorts of things they might not otherwise do. Bikinis, Babes, and Buying
Cialdinis new book is how to use the secrets of influence tacticly.His work is a must on every sales professionals shelf.
More interesting research:
Angry men deserved more status and a higher salary and were expected to be better at the job than angry women. I am sure you ladies are not shocked by this.
On Options
If consumers are exposed to multiple options that differ only in global aesthetic aspects, they tend to evaluate each option spontaneously at the time they first encounter it. On the other hand, if consumers are exposed to multiple options that differ in important descriptive features, they may withhold their evaluation until they have seen all the options available and evaluate the last presented (most recent) option first. I am sure you have been thru this one while showing homes. Altogether, these findings suggest that the influence of mood on comparison depends on which alternative in a choice set is the one being evaluated first.
I am preparing what is becoming a report on what some call the new media as it applies to micro blogging. Twitter is the big buzz and this video covers the absolutely ridiculous side of tweeting. BTW Follow me at http://twitter.com/timokeefe
This is the non profitable side of Tweeting. My forthcoming reports explore the downside and the profit potential for Realtors and Mortgage Pros. I believe there is definitely possibility for the more general markets.
Not so sure for Realtors and Mortgage Pros. Watcha think?
Although I suppose if you engage the fictional character in this video into a conversation you might be able to sell her a house.
I am deeply conflicted on this as my biggest concern is if your targeted market is actually on Twitter, and if they are, are they interested in real estate? I have not seen anything to prove to me that it works. I have some interesting relevations forthcoming.
Most people are usually too busy making money, to make money.
I just got back from an intense few days in Las Vegas. I attended Dave Lakhani's Renegades of Persuasion seminar.
I should have known it was going to be outstanding just from the flight over from Long Beach to Las Vegas. Not the flight itself which was a typical bumpy ride as you approach the last 20 minutes dropping into the greater Vegas basin.I swear the older I get the less I enjoy those bumps. But my friend and fellow persuasion enthusiast Jeff reminded me that "we can work on that". Jeff makes people lose their fears and negative emotions by tapping on them. Hey, we are from Southern California.
I will talk more about the event later. Let me report about the conversation that went on behind me. Turns out I was sitting in front of two players that are profiting form the real estate market. ( I had to eavesdrop).
One fellow was buying paper at a discount and then renegotiating or reselling for very sweet margins. Mind you I did not see their face so their voice is what took me in and my mind was left to create whatever pictures I wanted. I was taken by this chaps youthful voice and based on his home location,I imagined him a sun tanned sail boating type.
The other fellow had a distinguished voice that signified a lifetime of experience at making money. He made the youthful fellows achievements seem academic. And the younger chap realized he was next to genius and pulled out of him the wisdom of his years. The older, more experienced man described the many businesses that he has run over the years. It seems he has always been involved in either real estate or leveraging money.
Two things he said that stuck.
Most people are usually too busy making money, to make money. And talking about the real estate market, he said that ...
....there has never been a greater time than NOW to buy Las Vegas Real Estate.
And I guess that's how the rich get richer.While the sheep follow the herd. Perhaps most Realtors should create a new herd?
Recent Comments