Back by popular demand (I assume) and a successful showing at Agent Reboot San Francisco, I’ve been asked to speak again at both Agent Reboot Los Angeles on August 5^th and Agent Reboot San Diego on August 25^th.  I’ll again be speaking on Managing Your Content and Reputation on the Web.  I’ve got a new co-presenter –the wonderful and talented Linsey Planeta, Broker/Owner of M Realty Orange County, who will be sharing some of her success secrets on stage.  Our presentation features a series of case studies from practicing Realtors used to illustrate the concepts we advocate in order to protect and manage your business brand in this internet age.  In addition to our presentation, additional Agent Reboot topics include:

• Must-Have Tools for the Agent with Mobile Mojo
• From Clicks to Closings: Turning Your Online Marketing Strategy into a Lead Machine
• Mastering Social Media to Expand Your Reach Online

There is a great cast of qualified presenters and working real estate professionals on the docket sharing their knowledge about these topics and more. Any Realtor looking to gain an introduction to how to appropriately apply technology to their marketing and their business should attend.  Pre-registration is a deal at $79, or you can pay $149 at the door.  Either way, please send me a tweet (@staceyharmon) letting me know you are there, or be sure to come up and say hi in Los Angeles or San Diego.  Hope to see you there!

For further information on the two events, check out the event pages below:

• Agent Reboot LA
• Agent Reboot SD

I had a great time presenting with Heather Elias at the Agent Reboot conference on Monday, July 12th in San Francisco.  Inman News did a recap of the day and included several quotes from our presentation (you’ll need to be an Inman Premium Member to view the full article).  Our presentation slides along with a description of some of our main points are below:

We centered around three main concepts for Realtors to Manage Your Content and Reputation on the Web.  For each concept, we provided case studies which illustrated the concept, and followed that up with tools that are useful in executing the concept.  The three concepts we presented were:

• Concept 1:  Have a Hub and Spoke System
• Concept 2:  Monitor Your Online Presence
• Concept 3:  Be Consistent

Heather served as the case study for the hub and spoke system.  Her hub is her blog and our point with this concept is that you need to have a central place on the web where you are constantly referring people to to learn more about you.  For Heather, this is her blog, which is the preferred approach as you own the content on your blog and control the hosting environment.  However, a LinkedIn profile, or Facebook Business Page can also act as a hub to your system.  These options come with business risk however as you are playing in LinkedIn and Facebook’s sandbox and you don’t own the content. You are at the mercy of their Terms of Service.  It can be a risk, but those sites can still be used as the center of your strategy and where you link back to from all of your online activities.

We also advocated monitoring what you do.  Social media and digital marketing vehicles offer a world of analytic and statistic options.  Both Heather and I utilize Google Analytics, Google Alerts, and Facebook Insights to gauge the effectiveness of our online activities.  I also advocate email marketing and when you use providers such as Mail Chimp, you have access to reports which detail out the success of the messages you send.

Finally, whatever online activities you choose to participate in (and you don’t have to do all that Heather does – a few select vehicles when properly utilized can yield positive results), be consistent in what you do from both a branding perspective, and a username perspective.  Heather does a great job of this in carrying her online visual brand through to her offline materials as does Walter Burns with his Living on the Hudson brand.   Heather also has been creative in choosing a username that is unique to her area LoCoMusings (short for Loudon County Musings) and she uses that across multiple channels to represent the real estate brand that she has been building.

The next Agent Reboot will be in Los Angeles on August 5th.  It’s a great day full of outstanding information from qualified presenters.  More details and registration can be found here.  Hope to see you there!

A weekly dive into all things REtech related, including guest appearances from speakers of the REtechSouth conference, occasional drop-ins from REtechSource contributors, and of course regular discussions on the geekiest topics in real estate and technology. Be sure to join us every Thursday at 12 Noon ET as we expand RETSO conversations into your ears.

Listen to the full conversation below where I discuss with Ken and Brad my thoughts on where a Realtor should get started with social media, as well as my perspective on modern real estate marketing.  Plus, hear a tech report by Dean Ouellette who gives some great tools to help with your video editing.  It all concludes with a rapid fire 60 second Q&A where you can hear my answers to burning questions such as iPhone, Blackberry or Droid?  Happy listening and thanks to RE Tech Radio for the opportunity to be part of there show.  It was a lot of fun!

I’m on my way to San Francisco next week for the Inman Real Estate Connect Conference and am excited to be part of the inaugural Agent Reboot – a one day event produced by Inman News and premiering July 12th, the day before the Real Estate Connect show.  I will be presenting with tech-savvy Realtor Heather Elias (who was highlighted in a recent post on Agent Applause) on how real estate professionals can “Manage Reputation and Content on the Web”.  We’re on at 11:30 am.

So What is Agent Reboot? As the event website states:

Agent Reboot is a power-packed, low cost, local event for real estate professionals. This one-day, fast-paced program, will equip agents with the latest in business development, technology and marketing skills to help them be more successful. Agent Reboot is being offered in 12 cities across the United States.

Are you a real estate professional who will be in the Bay Area on Monday July 12th? If so, join me for this day of learning led by a great lineup of progressive industry professionals who really get all this technology stuff.   Check out the full schedule here and you can register in advance for a discounted rate of $99 (vs. $149 at the door) – it’s a deal!

See you in San Francisco and be sure to come say hello.

RE BarCamp is returning for its second appearance in the OC! Save the date for Thursday, August 19th, 2010. I am once again on board to help bring this event to you as part of the primary planning team and I can think of no better way for it to be a great success than to have you there!

If you aren’t familiar with RE BarCamp, check out this post I did last year discussing why I was bringing RE BarCamp to Orange County.  You can also learn more about the event at REBarCampOC.com and see what RE BarCamps are going on all over the nation at the central RE BarCamp website.

This year we’ll be at the campus of UC Irvine at the Student Center, which is a fantastic venue for this kind of event.  There is plenty of space, plenty of parking, and right on site there is food and drink (both coffee, and a bar – we’d have it no other way) available.  We expect about 400 real estate professionals to be in attendance – register here to be one of them.  As is part of the RE BarCamp tradition, it is free to attend.   Free attendance is thanks to the support of generous sponsors – and we are still looking for more of them.  If you or your company would be interested in supporting our event, check out the sponsorship details on the site, and contact me if you have any questions or would like to contribute.

We could also use your help in getting the word out to local real estate professionals.  We’ve created a promotional flyer that can be emailed to anyone you think might benefit from this event.  Please save the PDF from here and distribute freely.  If you have the ability to print it out and distribute to curious real estate professionals, even better.

Thanks for your support and I look forward to seeing you on August 19th!

Back by request, and in conjunction with Tomato University, I’ll be presenting another Facebook Fan Page Strategies for Realtors webinar on July 8th, 2010.

There were some great feedback from the last session:

“Excellent overview of Facebook Official Pages and how Realtors can implement them in a marketing strategy. Stacey had great samples of not only outstanding pages, but also samples of some not so outstanding pages.”

“Stacey Harmon really knows her stuff, and communicates benefits and practical strategies for using Facebook for business. Kudos on bringing in a stellar presenter.”

“Stacey provided by far the most knowledgeable and developed presentation on Facebook for Realtors that I have ever participated in. She knows her topic and packed the session with insightful and helpful advice. Excellent course!”

“Stacey, Great Job! Thank you so much for explaining in great detail how to use Facebook to build a successful fan page. I highly recommend your webinar and look forward to the next one.”

So, if you are interested in using Facebook for real estate business development, and want to learn the do’s and don’t of how to use Facebook’s Official (Fan) Pages to build your business, register to attend.

IMPORTANT EXPECTATION SETTING INFORMATION:   To get the most out of this webinar, you need to be familiar with the Facebook interface and how to navigate around it, or this webinar training will move too quickly for you.  In addition, I do not cover the Facebook Profile in this course – the focus is on the Facebook Official (Fan) Page.  If you are a Facebook newbie, you may prefer to attend one of my Getting Started with Facebook for Real Estate webinars or live training sessions.  I also offer training on strategies for using your personal profile for business development.  You can register for our training interest list to be notified of future webinars and training offered by Harmon Enterprises.

This course is for you if you are a Realtor and can identify with any of the following:

• You’d like to use Facebook to build your professional network and promote your real estate expertise
• You are uncomfortable with expanding your network of friends to include prospects and clients because of concerns about, privacy, photos and other personal details they may see.
• You want to promote your listings without violating Facebook’s Terms of Service
• You want to use Facebook to help you land on the first page of Google

What we will cover in this 90 minute webinar:

• Why Facebook is a business development opportunity not to be overlooked by Real Estate agents
• Explain why having a Facebook fan page is a great tool for a modern Realtor
• Orient you to the fan page terms of service and discuss how to not get demoted to a “community page”
• Cover the nuts and bolts of how to set up a fan page
• Introduce you to multiple strategies for using fan pages for real estate business development
• Provide multiple examples of Realtor fan pages for you to model your fan page after

Key Webinar Details:

• Where:  Online webinar hosted by Tomato University – Login from anywhere you have an internet connection!
• When:  Thursday, July 8th, 2010, starting at 11:00am PDT/2:00 pm EST.
• How Long:  90 minutes
• Cost:  $30
• Register from the course page at Tomato University

If you are a Realtor and can identify with any of the following:

• You’d like to use Facebook to build your professional network and promote your real estate expertise
• You are uncomfortable with expanding your network of friends to include prospects and clients because of concerns about, privacy, photos and other personal details they may see.
• You want to promote your listings without violating Facebook’s Terms of Service
• You want to use Facebook to help you land on the first page of Google

…then a Facebook Official Fan Page is for you.  This Friday (May 7, 2010), I (Stacey Harmon) will be teaching a webinar on Facebook Fan Page Strategies for Realtors designed to give real estate professionals a successful foundation for using Facebook to promote and grow their real estate business.

This 90 minute webinar will:

• Cover why Facebook is a business development opportunity not to be overlooked by Real Estate agents
• Explain why having a Facebook fan page is a great tool for a modern Realtor
• Orient you to the fan page terms of service and discuss how to not get demoted to a “community page”
• Cover the nuts and bolts of how to set up a fan page
• Introduce you to multiple strategies for using fan pages for real estate business development
• Provide multiple examples of Realtor fan pages for you to model your fan page after

IMPORTANT EXPECTATION SETTING INFORMATION:  To get the most out of this webinar, you need to be familiar with the Facebook interface and how to navigate around it, or this webinar training will move too quickly for you.  If you are a Facebook newbie, you may prefer to attend one of my future “Facebook 101 for Real Estate” webinars.  Stay in the loop by registering here to receive details about upcoming webinars and training.

Facebook Fan Page Strategy For Realtors Webinar Details:

• Where:  Online webinar hosted by Tomato University – Login from anywhere you have an internet connection!
• When:  Friday, May 19^th, 2010, starting at 11:00am PST/2:00 pm EST.
• How Long:  90 minutes
• Cost:  $20
• Register from the course page at Tomato University

About the Presenter:

Stacey Harmon trains on social media marketing, a lot.  And, recently she trains on Facebook for Real Estate Business Development, a lot.  Take a look at where she has been speaking over the past year (all over California and the a few other states as well).  Also, people really tend to like her Facebook training.  In fact, they are willing to let us post their raving feedback on this site.  Check it out for yourself.  If you still want to learn more about Stacey, check out her bio on Harmon Enterprises, or her Professor bio at Tomato University.

I’m looking to keep this presentation current.  If you know of any great examples of real estate websites that are built on WordPress, please let me know about them either in the comments, or by contact form.

And, if you are interested in consultation on a WordPress strategy for your real estate business, please contact Harmon Enterprises to discuss further.

The idea for the presentation came about when I realized that I had been attending Inman Real Estate Connect Conferences since 2000, but it wasn’t until I discovered social media in 2008 that I actually met anybody.  Going to a conference used to mean making connections with one or two people that I happened to sit by in a session.  Then, along came social media and suddenly I’m meeting literally hundreds of people.  Social media enabled me to learn about events like REBarCamp, and pre-meet people like Andy before I ever left my home.  And once at the conference, I have utilized tools like twitter to find people to have dinner with, see what sessions people were most interested, and find the party where the influencers are at.  Social media completely transformed my conference experience and made a huge impact on the value I attributed to the conferences I attended.

An understanding of the social media tools that can help you to connect and engage with more people at conferences can yield anyone greater ROI on their conference dollars.  And, it seems that a few people are interested in this topic.  As of the time of this post, there have been 1195 views of our presentation on Slideshare.net, and the presentation was selected to be featured on the homepage of the Slideshare website.

If you are a conference organizer and want to make sure your attendees are getting the most value possible out of their registration fee (and get them raving about your conference on social media), contact Harmon Enterprises to discuss how our consulting practice can help get your conference socially savvy!

Seeing a need to give real estate agents tangible examples of how others, just like them, are implementing marketing into their real estate business plan, Harmon Enterprises has launched Agent Applause, Real Life Real Estate Marketing Examples In Action.

The site showcases real examples of real estate marketing in today’s market.  It highlights the interesting, the innovative, the creative, and the good.  While there will certainly be multiple examples of social media marketing (showing how agents are using blogging, facebook, twitter, and other social networks to market themselves), the site is not limited to digital marketing techniques.  It  highlights modern marketing – both online and off – and is designed to be a portal for an ever evolving array of practical marketing ideas in the real estate industry.  There are multiple ways to keep up with Agent Applause.  You can:

• Visit the site and browse what is new
• Subscribe in your RSS reader
• Subscribe via email and get new applause automatically emailed to you
• Follow Agent Applause on twitter
• Fan Agent Applause on facebook.

So check out AgentApplause.com and even better, submit an agent who should be applauded.   There are some great marketing examples out there.  Let us know about it and help further the conversation and recognition of those agents who are doing it right.