Apartable.com is a recently launched rental search engine and one of our new syndication partners. 

Members of RealBird are now posting an increasing number of rental listings and the new automatic distribution to Apartable will extend the reach of these rental properties beyond the existing portals like Vast, Oodle, Trulia, Zillow and Craigslist. 

Apartable's initial launch covers two metro areas: Boston and Chicago. However, we already syndicate all rental listings on RealBird to them, so when Apartable.com extends its coverage, your listings will be automatically picked up from our automated feed.

RealBird members can publish their rental properties via the RealBird Listing Publisher as usual and we'll take care of the rest.

You can say hello to Apartable.com on the Apartable Facebook Page and via Twitter @apartable 

Thanks and have a great weekend !

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

You don't want to miss this one: Janie Coffey will be our guest speaker. Many of you know her already through her very active social media presence on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and beyond and via her excellent real estate blog at TheCoralGablesStory.com  She is also the Director of Sales and Brand Experience with One Sotheby’s International Realty in Florida and a top producing agent as well.

She recently closed a big FSBO deal using RealBird and Facebook targeted ads - among other things - and she was kind to join our webinar as a guest speaker this Friday and we are honored that she will be sharing the methods she used with us and will be presenting it as a case study for other RealBird members. 

Do not miss this webinar, register today on this page.This webinar will fill up quickly. If you’ve registered and for some reason cannot attend you will receive the recording. 

Thanks and hope to see you on Friday

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

This update greatly simplifies the installation process because the RealBird plugin is no longer dependent on any 3rd party ones. Just install the single RealBird plugin, activate it, set a few configuration options and you are ready to geotag your posts and automatically add your RealBird Map-based Search to your blog posts. 

How does it work?

Every time you write a new blog post (or update existing ones), you have an option provided by the RealBird plugin to add a location to it. It can be a city, a zip code or an exact address, depending on the context of your post. When you save the post (or page), the RealBird plugin will automatically geocode the location you entered and it will automatically include your private labeled RealBird Map-based Search in the post footer, centered to the place you selected. 

In short: Just enter a location with your Wordpress post and page and the RealBird plugin takes care of the rest. See the screenshot below:

Requirements:

1. The map-search plugin is available for RealBird PRO members
2. Works with self-hosted Wordpress 3.0 or later: This should not be an issue as best practices suggest to always update to the latest version of Wordpress
3. PHP 5 is required: Most modern hosting platforms provide PHP 5 so this should not be an issue either for most of you

Installation for the first time:

If you haven't installed the previous version of RealBird plugin before, than all you need to do is

1. Download the zipped plugin from the RealBird member area at Member Area > Property Search > Get Code > Wordpress plugin
2. Go to your Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins page and upload the RealBird plugin's zip file. 
3. After the succesfull installation, you will have to click the "Activate Plugin" link to finalize the plugin setup. 
4. Finally, you have to configure the plugin on the WP Admin > Settings > RealBird page. Just enter your RealBird Public ID and your default city, state and you are done with the one-time set up.

If you installed the previous RealBird plugin, you have to do the following:

1. On the Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins page, deactivate and also delete the existing RealBird plugin (version 0.9.0)
2. On the Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins page, deactivate the GeoPress plugin, you may not need to delete it, if you want to retain geotags for your previous posts. Otherwise you can delete the GeoPress plugin too and add locations to previous posts
3. Follow the install instructions above to set up the new plugin (current version 0.9.5). 

We hope you like the ease of use of the updated RealBird Wordpress plugin.

Should you have questions and feedback, just call or email.

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

However:

You could speed up the sales cycle, and even sell the property at a higher price by employing professional staging, higher quality photography, and using innovative ways for marketing the listing to reach more well qualified prospects..

As a RealBird case study, please meet this beautiful home on Audubon Lakes Dr in Baton Rouge ( courtesy of Mike Denham & Carmen Widmeier ) 

Click the image above to see the actual property website

Following are some of the highlights that make this property website stand out:

1. Visual communication #1: The background picture instantly suggests that the property is a golf property. No reading of the fine lines is required, it takes just a second for the visitor to realize it - it is visual and intuitive.
2. Visual communication #2: The property pictures are outstanding and hence suggest "luxury" and "quality". They also suggest that the seller of this property and the real estate agents marketing it take pride in what they are selling. This results in another powerful motivation: "trust". Again, without the need of explanation. It's communicated visually.
3. Visual communication #3: The primary photo taken during twilight is perfect for communicating "peacefulness" and "relaxation". At least that was my very first thought when first looking at the website. These are two very important considerations for buyers for calling a place a home.

As you see, attention to details like this is very powerful: within seconds of visiting the site, prospective buyers already know that the property is associated with "golf", "leisure", "luxury", "peacefulness" and "trust". Without reading a single sales pitch or digging through detailed descriptions. Powerful marketing right there.

Once these concepts are set as a baseline - as we noticed - Mike and Carmen have put a lot of effort into sharing the website with their network. They also started to announce the availability of the property on their Facebook page, days before it actually hit the market, hence building up excitement. If you click through to the property website, you'll see the growing number of social media shares (Facebook Likes, Tweets etc.) which again, add to the visual communication: New visitors instantly see the many Facebook Likes (35 at the time of writing this) and again, without thinking twice, those social counters provide positive feedback for them that the property is special and desireable, and in the case of an actual prospective buyer, this may create a sense of urgency. We also believe that the higher the counters on those social widgets are, the more likely that a new user will re-share it with their own network of friends.

So go ahead, "walk that extra mile", take good pictures, get inspired by other RealBird members' creations and make sure that you always share your own listings on your social networks. Those counters are part of the visual communication. And it takes only a few seconds.

Carmen and Mike - Congrats. Very well done ! And thanks for letting us use your RealBird property website as a case study. 

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com 

Here are the sweepstakes rules:

• Prize: the brand new Apple iPad (16GB model, a $499 value !)
• Drawing date: May 31, 2012
• No purchase necessary
• You have to be a real estate professional in the USA, Canada or the UK
• You have to be a member of RealBird (free or PRO)
• Each RealBird Reward Point counts as a distinct entry, the more points you collect, the more chances you have to win
• All existing Reward Points that you may have collected in the past count as well

Meet some of the previous sweepstakes' winners:

Amazon Kindle Fire - Nov 15, 2011

Winner: Roberta Murphy of SanDiegoPreviews.com

Here is Roberta's post about it

Previous iPad version   - Nov 15, 2010

Winner: Charita Cadenhead of Birmingham, AL

She even made a video for us after receiving the iPad !

Previous iPad version  - April, 2010

Winner: Michael Layton from Palm Springs, CA

---

To get started and to enter the current sweepstakes, just log into RealBird and use the Rewards page to invite your real estate colleagues. 

Thanks for participating and for using RealBird. 

Good Luck !

-- The RealBird Team
www.RealBird.com