Completely renovated throughout in 2008. Added master suite. granite throughout, 10 ft ceilings in basement. 6 baths, 5 bedrooms, spacious deck and backyard. Beautiful lot and neighborhood. This house is almost 5000 square feet of pure joy.

Charming 1.5 Story country style home with wrap around covered front porch, sitting on 5.13 acres on paved cul-de-sac. The gourmet kitchen features granite countertops, snack bar, coffee bar, SS appliances, and unbelievable cabinets. Beautiful wood floors and arched/column entryways throughout most of the main level. Main level master suite features tile shower and walk-in-closet. Second floor features large rec-room, huge play room, and quiet office. Geo-Thermal heating & cooling, Central Vacuum, 3 car garage plus workshop, and 16x12 shed with loft playhouse.

The goal of the site was not just to get a bunch of "fans" for the cause.  As this seems to be relatively easy on Facebook right now.  There doesn't seem to be a shortage of people that will "fan" something, especially a cause they are familar with.  The goal of our site is to actually get engagement on the site.  We want people to really show their support by writing on the wall, uploading pictures and video, and generally egaging in the conversation.

So how did we start.  We built a custom webiste that included a nice profile picture, compelling bio and info section, and custom tabs around 2 key issues, 4 men on a truck and the budget.  We then purchased $100 in targeted advertising on facebook.  We set a public goal to get to 911 fans, and accomplished this in less than 2 days.  We then reset this goal to 9111 fans.  In less than 1 week we are at 2700 fans and climbing.

We also started 2 regular posts, Stop Drop and Roll and Fill the Boot.  These posts were designed to remind people to suggest the page to their friends and engage on our wall to show their support.  This regular update seems to continue to grow the 'fan' base and regular engagement.  We are hoping to get to 9111 'fans' and 911 engagements/day soon.

So wha't next?  We think we can use this site to communicate important things going on at the Omaha Fire Department as well as introduce fun ways to engage our fans.  We plan to interview fire fighters, fans, and people that have been 'saved' by an Omaha Fire Fighter.  Let us know what you think by posting your comments on http://www.facebook.com/wesupportomahafirefighters

Stay Safe

Well, first we launched www.coryfuller.com and began marketing his new website to friends, family, and clients.  Then we added the Fan Page with a custom Welcome Tab that linked back to the website.  Finally, we added a Custom MLS Search tab to really give it some uniqueness and depth.  End result, a very fast growing Fan Page.

Let us know what you think. 

Next we plan to add youtube videos and neighborhood specific search feeds.  Any other ideas?

In this video, we briefly walk Realtors through a marketing strategy solely focused around the use of Facebook.  It's a quick video, but if you want the full transcript, simply email us at howto@elify.com and we'll give you the full version with all the links easily available.  Also, if you don't want to do it all yourself, check out our 321BuzzOn program on the next tab over.

In this video below, the CEO of Zappos talks about how his company and their 400 employees uses Twitter to connect with their customers.  The interesting thing is he recommends that other companies DON'T use Twitter unless they actually want to "talk to their customers".  He explains if you "hide your 800# on your website" or have "scripts for your telemarketers" you probably aren't ready for Twitter.

So, what is a company to do in the meantime.  I recommend looking for an outsourcing partner to manage your Twitter account.  Not just someone hiding in the background listening, making static updates, and engaging once in a while.  But, a full time outsourcing partner that will take ownership of your brand/business on Twitter.  To find such a partner, you will have to look for someone that knows your business, believes in your brand, and is incented based on your success.

At ELIFY, we offer managed Twitter account services that rely on your ROI for payment.  Thus, if we aren't successful at making you more successful using Twitter, you don't owe us anything.  Another simple case for elifying your business.

What we set out to do when we created Tweet While You Eat was to combine loyalty marketing fundamentals with social media to create what we call Social Loyalty.

We chose Twitter as our initial Social Media platform because of its simplicity of use, its user demographic, and its exceptional search and tracking capability for measuring ROI.

We chose Restaurants because they are an easily identifiable target market, embrace loyalty marketing, and less than 10% of them were using any type of Social Media*.

We create Social Loyalty. By encouraging people to Tweet While You Eat, we are in affect creating social loyalty with every tweet. Loyalty is created between the tweeter and the restaurant. However, the loyalty may also extend to the friends of the tweeter based on his social relationship with them, thus creating Social Loyalty.

Example of actual tweet: @whileyoueat @pizzashoppe Friday night with out of town in-laws. Pizza and Beer!

We manage Social Loyalty. We can monitor, track, and analyze all Twitter traffic for both our followers, our restaurants, and all their associated friends. We use simple search features to monitor relevant tweets and engage in the Social Media conversations. We use advanced API features to track and analyze the Twitter conversations and combined with our coupon codes, we manage Social Loyalty.

Example of DM coupon code: Thanks for tweeting while you eat @ecreamery Enjoy this coupon for $1 off a regular scoop ec1105-1s. Still working on the shake!

We prove Social Loyalty. We provide restaurants with a backend system for viewing, listening, and archiving relevant Social Media conversations. The system also allows for custom creation of couons, redemption of these coupons, and integration with other relevant marketing and sales data to prove the effectiveness of Social Loyalty.

For more information on Social Loyalty contact me at joe@elify.com.

And remember, to www.tweetwhileyoueat.com. If you think its rude, simply excuse yourself first.

I thought I'd post a step by step guide for Realtors to start using Social Media today to enhance their current marketing efforts.  This step by step approach is SIMPLE and can be put in place IMMEDIATELY for quick results.  Each step includes estimated time to complete and how difficult it may be to set up.

The premise:  Realtors can ENHANCE their existing email marketing strategy or BEGIN an email marketing strategy using ONLINE VIDEO, BLOGGING, and FACEBOOK.  It's not as scary or difficult as you might think.

STEP 1 - Choose your email marketing platform.  www.verticleresponse.com or www.mailchimp.com are 2 that seem to work well.  1-2 hours, call each company for a walk through, pick the one you like best.  It really doesn't matter.  Pricing should be pretty similary.

STEP 2 - Begin importing all your email contacts into their database.  1-2 hours.  This is not rocket science, just takes time to cut and paste.  If you have email in the right format you can simply export and import. 

STEP 3 - Choose a blogging platform.  Free sites like blogger and wordpress are available.  I recommend wordpress over blogger.  In addition, www.ubertor.com has a $10/month site that allows for blogging and additional real estate website functionality that you may be interested in.  It won the Inman News most innovative web platform award.  1-2 hours of research.

STEP 4 - Set up your blog.  Start with at least 5 entries.  You can back date the entries to give it the look and feel of being around for more than a day.  I would think about 5 things you can quickly and professionally talk about.  You can elect to write your blog and/or video for your blog.  Then, find 5 people that you've done business with in the last 6 months and ask if they'll give you a testimonial.  And these 5 testimonials to your blog, either as a separate blog entry or separate video testimonials.  This is where some customization and web knowledge will come in handy depending on your platform.  I'd plan on 5-10 hours and maybe more if you're not comfortable with the platform.  Alternatively, for 200-500 you may find someone to help you with the setup (ELIFY?).

If you don't want to write your own blog.  You can use a source like elance.  For $25/blog someone will write one for you.  For $50/blog we have local writers that will interview you and write it for you in your own "voice".  The blogosphere can tell the difference, trust me.  For $50/video you can have a professional come take your video for you and upload it on your behalf.

STEP 5 - Link you blog to your Facebook page.  This assumes you have Facebook.  If you don't have a Facebook account you can set that up at this time as well.  This will take approximately 1 hour to set up and link.  Relatively easy.  You may want to consider a Fan Page too if you want to differentiate your business and your personal accounts.  However with real estate, I think you are the brand.

STEP 6 - Send out an email blast.  Customize your email blast with a picture of yourself, a short description of your blog and a link to your website.  Use the email platform to blast the email so you can track where the emails are going and who is opening them, clicking on your link, etc.  You will learn lots from seeing who is opening your email and what they are looking at.  This setup should take 1 hour max.

STEP 7 - Repeat 1/week with a new blog entry and email blast.  It shouldn't take more than 1 hour of your time per week.

Now, all those steps are easy to say, but may be harder to do weekly.  Alternatively you could hire someone to do it all for you.  There are companies out there that charge $1500 setup fee and $400/month to do this work for you.  ELIFY could do all or a portion for a whole lot less if you're interested.

For Halloween i was ... Social Media Man!  Well, I hung a Tweet and Reply around my neck along with a Facebook Post around my back.  It was a little bit bulky and took a while for people to read it and figure it out, but it went over well.  However, it was interesting that there were still several people that didn't even know what a Tweet looked like or Facebook post.  And that reminded me of a couple tweets I'd seen over the weekend.

A month ago I saw a blog that referenced a recent poll showing less than 10% of all restaurants were using Social Media.  That prompted www.tweetwhileyoueat.com.  More recently I saw a stat that suggested less than 20% of businesses using Social Media have a strategy.  That is what I preach all the time at ELIFY.  Have a strategy before you start engaging. 

What's going to happen on Thanksgiving?  Will you look like a turkey without a Social Media strategy?

Does the whole Social Media buzz have you overwhelmed or confused.  Do you tweet, post, write a blog, film an award winning YouTube video, or all of the above?  The answer is yes.  You need to do something, should do everything (maybe not win an award), but probably don't have the time or knowledge to do it all right away.  So what's the answer?  Here's a simple thing you can start doing now that won't take too much time and will have an immediate ROI.

Set up a personal Twitter account and Facebook page if you haven't already.  Don't worry about a company Fan Page yet or anything else.  Just set up these two accounts.  Then use their service to try and find friends of yours already online that you can "follow" on Twitter and "friend" on Facebook.  You can do this all in one hour.  Then, choose which platform you prefer to use primarily so you can simply make updates in one that feed to the other.  I make my updates in Twitter and they automatically update my Facebook account.  But, you can set your accounts up the other way too.  Some people like to keep then separate, but I find it simple to update in Twitter knowing it will update in Facebook too.  Regardless, you can try to update both with one post for now and change it later if you don't like. 

Now, when do we get the ROI part?  Once you're on Facebook and have followed a bunch of your Friends there, Facebook will continue to suggest friends you know.  This is the ROI.  You will start connecting with people that you may not have been in connection with for years.  Don't flood these people with business requests.  Rather, simply start engaging in conversation with them and rebuild the relationship, trust, and start being top of mind when they think about your services.  They want to do business and refer their friends to people they know and trust.  It's just may have been a while since they last interacted with you.

What about Twitter ROI?  Twitter is where you will meet new people when you engage with them.  You must understand this won't be an immediate ROI, but if you take time to tweet every day 1-4 times/day about yourself personally, your job minimally, you will meet new people and build another prospecting database.  It's almost like Twitter itself can become a farm area.  But, you have to build these relationships socially first before you are accepted as a professional in this network.  So don't sell, sell, sell.  Just let people get to know the real you.

I hope this helps.  Once you've done these 2 things.  I have a great blogging strategy for you that takes almost zero of your time and will keep you in front of your referral partners regularly adding value.  Its a gem for ROI!

The bar would incorporate a constantly changing theme as part of its makeup.  Imagine one month a countrybar, and the next a disco, and the next something different.  There would be no specific time for the change, rather whenever it felt right.  Every time the bar changed decor, the entire menu would change, food, drinks, etc.  Possibly the bar could be cut in half and one side would always be under construction.

From an operational standpoint, the bar would be manned by people in the theatre industry.  The wait staff would be actors and actresses.  The local stage crews and/or universities would help with the changing look and feel.  A strong tie to the theatre community would be essential to pull this off.  In addition, rather than worry about creating new menu, recipes, etc each time there was a change, the bar would partner with local restaurants to essential run the food service during that timeframe.  Thus, local restaurants would be providing the food, staff, and menus to the bar.

So what does this have to do with Social Media?  Nothing really, unless...  What if your website was like a traditional bar?  And over time it just got a little boring for the visitors and they stopped coming.  Would you just shut it down, or would you rather be more like the Chameleon bar?  I think, maybe its a stretch, but regular blogging and fresh content will keep your visitors coming back, engaged, and happy to be at your site.  Finding other people in your sphere that can help you with the content (food servers, theatre performers, etc.) could help you keep your site fresh. 

Just another idea from Omahajoe.

They have a clearly identifiable target market, independent service professionals with a marketing budget of at least $500/month.

They have a solid value proposition, we take the time to blog for you so you don't have too.

They have good clients signed up for their program, Jim Esch, Creighton Business School, and Jeff Rensch to name a few.

If only they'd use www.Ubertor.com for their website solutions and I think I would be in love!

Which leads me to my primary question.  When does design matter?  No offense, but Blogger looks cheap.  It doesn't fit the general profile of these clients, but it hasn't stopped Vyral Marketing from making sales and keeping their clients happy.  So, do the clients not care about the design features of their blogs, or do they just enjoy the fact that someone truly is doing something on their behalf no matter what the look and feel?  I think its the latter, and that's the beauty of Vyral Marketing for Realtors and other service professionals.

It's top of mind awareness that matters most.  That's been true for years.  How many kitchen magnets have you received from Realtors that go right into the trash?  Yet, that same Realtor is the first one you call when its time to buy or sell a house.  Top of Mind awareness works, no matter what the design.  Now, that being said, the blogger sites are designed well from a marketing standpoint.  Clear call to actions above the fold.  Quick look at the face of the person being profiled.  Links to good content on the right hand side, etc.  So, its a pretty good design other than the blue blogger stripe across the top.

However, if all things could be equal, good design would beat bad design every time.  But, in the end, all things aren't equal when marketing to past clients.  That's why Vyral Marketing focuses on the act of marketing something to their clients regularly, rather than on what to market to them.  It's about the frequency and consistency, not the best design, when marketing to past ciients.

I think I'm going to recommend Vyral Marketing to many of my clients that don't want to spend their own time marketing to their past clients, have the budget to pay Vyral Marketing, and plan to use www.UBERTOR.com too!

I found this video while doing research for a client on inbound marketing and lead conversion. It's wicked funny and makes some very good points. Thanks hubspot.com for the laugh and lesson and example of WOW4U content!  Read below to find out a cool and simple Social Media update trick I discovered.

As I updated this on my ELIFY Facebook Fan Page I selected the option to update my Twitter account.  So I linked my @omahajoe twitter account to received my ELIFY Facebook Page updates.  Well, I had forgottent that my @omahajoe Twitter updates are automatically linked to my Joe Frost Facebook page via Twitter App in facebook so now I have an interesting way to update 3 Social Networks Sites with valuable content from just one post.  Summary - Facebook Page update to Personal Twitter account to Personal Facebook Account.  Makes for good ROI.

With our WOW4U service we help you develop wicked content like this to place you as the expert in your field, create traffic to your www.ubertor.com website using your GetFused social media strategy, and can guarantee your ROI.

It's that simple with ELIFY.

50 calls/day first thing in the morning.  Must be live calls to a prospective client.  Must engage the prospect and move the sale forward.  Desired length of call is 1 minute on average.  Have a clear action in mind when you start the call and drive to that action item.  Do not do anything else that day until your 50 calls are complete.

5 face to face engagements/day with qualified prospects, referral partner, or strategic vendor or employee.  Focus on building relationships, finding out their needs, and generating business together.  If face to face doesn't work in your business, than it needs to be qualty phone or webinar time.  The goal is to get an order from a prospect, an appointment with a lead from a referral partner, or tangibly enhance your business profitabilty with key employee or vendor.

0.5 conversion.  Convert 50% of your calls to your action goal and 50% of your engagments into sales.  How do you get 2.5 sales?  You don't you get 3!

So, today i made a point to call 50 Realtors to tell them about Ubertor and ask for permission to email information to them and send them a link to our weekly webinar.  I had 42 commitments for an email to be sent.  I met with 1 referral partner for coffee in the AM that sent me a lead I was able to meet with later in the day.  I met with that lead and made a sale.  I met with another referral partner later in the day but made no appointments or received any leads.  I sold a prospect in the afternoon that I met with and I didn't get my 4th face to face, but worked online with my website vendor on ways to enhance our offerings to clients.  Between the calls and the engagements, I was way over 50%!

Let's see if I can do it again tomorrow!  50/5/0.5