RealBird's Blog on ActiveRain

Introducing the new Pinterest-style RealBird listing inventory board

2013-05-10T09:35:29Z

After a few weeks of beta testing, finally, the new RealBird Featured Listings Board widget joins the list of the updated RealBird inventory modules (Featured Listings Map and Gallery) All of these now provide more advanced, modern presentations and smartphone and tablet compatibility. Use them on your websites, blogs or directly on your smartphones for your current inventory or showcase your recently sold listings.

Click the image for a live preview, or see it live embedded in Janie Coffey's blog, TheCoralGablesStory.com

You can create your embed code in the RealBird Member area, on the Listing Widgets page. Just like with the Map and Gallery widget you have the option to create a Board widget for your active, pending and sold listings (or any combination of these) and you can turn the social media sharing buttons and the listing view counters on and off.

Another unique option specific to this widget is the auto-resize feature. If your blog or website allows the embedding of Javascript (e.g. self-hosted Wordpress, Typepad etc.), this cool little feature will automatically set the height of your Board widget so that there won't be any vertical scrollbar showing along the board. Hence providing a much more smooth visual integration. For those platforms that do not support Javascript embedding, you can turn this default option off and set the widget height manually.

We'd love to see this new feature on your blogs and websites. Once deployed, please make sure you share your links with us.

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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Full-screen slideshow of your listing inventory on your smartphone

2013-04-23T15:22:04Z

Did you know? Both the new RealBird Inventory Map and the new RealBird Gallery widgets are now fully mobile friendly. You can use both as an embedded widget on your website or real estate blog, but you can also use them on your smartphone and tablet for listing presentations.

Here are the simple steps to bookmark your own RealBird Gallery widget on your smartphone

Log into your RealBird member area
Assuming you have published listings already, click "Listing Marketing" on the top navigation
Then click the "Widgets" subnavigation link
Then select "Listing Gallery" from the available inventory widget options
Select the option to create a link for active, pending or sold listings (or any combination of these)
You can also configure the width and height of the gallery widget on this page, which applies only to the embed code. For the purpose of this example, just leave it as is, because we are going to use this inventory slideshow in full screen and these options will be ignored anyways
You also have an option to add your RealBird Featured Listings Map widget as the last item in the gallery
Once the options are set, click the "Preview and Get Code" button and you will be provided with the permalink for your inventory slideshow.
Email this link to your phone, load it into your mobile browser and bookmark it onto your homescreen.

It's that simple. Now you have your listing inventory at your fingertips: just pull out your smartphone, load the gallery via the bookmark and you are ready to impress your prospective sellers at listing presentations. The gallery is automatically updated when you make changes to your listings in RealBird.

We hope you like it. More to come...

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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Updated Listing Inventory Map widget, Large Photo Syndication to Trulia, Zillow and more

2013-04-11T11:41:40Z

One of the original RealBird listing inventory widgets, the Featured Listings Map is now updated. The new version provides many improvements, including:

Much, much better performance
Shows up to 200 of your recent listings published on RealBird (active, pending, sold or the combination of these)
Mobile-friendly and responsive: works the same on smartphones, tablets and desktop screens
Ability to configure it to use standard Google icons instead of default color coded house icons. This is important when you manage listing inventory, for which the house icons could be confusing, such as for rural farms or apartments in Manhattan
You can now set to cluster icons at high zoom level, which makes the map widget more user friendly and usable if you manage a large inventory

This update is backward compatible, all the existing, embedded maps on your website and blogs are automatically updated, no change is required. If you want to take advantage of the new configuration options (icon settings, clustering), you can easily generate new code in the RealBird Member Area (Member area > Listing Management > Widgets > Listing Map).

Below are a few, live examples showing different configuration options.

Combination of active, pending, sold homes on the US Virgin Island listed by Lorine R Williams, with clustered and standard icon options

Sold listings in SoCal by Laura Baptista, no clustering and color coded house icons

For-rent and for-sale properties in Manhattan by Senad Pali, no clustering and standard icons

Other recent updates include:

Automatic syndication to Backpage.com (USA & Canada)
Updated Craigslist code generator (USA, Canada & UK)
Large photo syndication to Trulia and Zillow (USA only)
Email notification on stale listings (USA, Canada & UK)

We hope you like these RealBird updates and as always, should you need assistance, just email or call.

-- The RealBird Team

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Require registration from your visitors to access property details

2012-10-08T20:28:20Z

This has been a feature request from many users and we launched it over the weekend.

You can now configure your RealBird Property Search to request registration from your visitors after a certain number of property detail views (aka "Forced" registration)

The options are:

Disable the feature - unlimited number of property views without "forced" registration
No property detail views without registration - just set the number of allowed views to 0
A set number of property views allowed after which registration is required

This feature is available right now for RealBird PRO members in the "Member Area" under the "Configure" section of the Property Search section.

We announced this feature on our Facebook Page yesterday and so far the feedback is very positive. We also noticed a significant increase in registered home buyers via our system-wide logs in less than 2 days.

More updates are coming for this new powerful lead capture feature including ability to track conversions (so you'll know which settings produce the most registrations), ability to also hide the address on the search results page after the view threshold is reached and a teaser preview on the call-for-action page which will also lead to even better conversion.

The first version of this feature is now ready to be configured so if you are a RealBird PRO member, go ahead, log in to RealBird and set the option to your preference.

-- The RealBird Team

www.realbird.com

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Impressing the toughest critics

2012-09-28T09:47:21Z

Great post by Andrea Swiedler about how she uses the RealBird PRO text message marketing system and the update slideshow widget. Thank you very much for the detailed write up

Via Andrea Swiedler - Swiedler, Pomerantz & Adams, Litchfield County Real Estate (Prudential Connecticut Realty, Litchfield County Real Estate):

Who are our toughest critics? I would have to say other agents. We scrutinize prices, we rip mls photos apart, we check out other agents websites, marketing, on and on. We are a ruthless bunch on the whole.

A few weeks ago I impressed a local top producer with something very, very simple and something that is the least expensive product I use. As we all pulled up to the house on caravan, the red and white rider made quite the impression. "Text SPA to 860-799-4843 for more information". We don't see many of those around here, I resisted for quite a while myself even though my company rolled out a "text to" program last year.

The agent stood in front of the sign, texted SPA to our number and received, at lightening speed, his link to the online property flyer from Realbird. He was very, very impressed. I was very, very happy.

The process was painless. Realbird already has the phone number from Twilio, you can set your own unique SMS code, the link to Twilio is right there as well as a tutorial on how to to it. I bought a more local number, that cost me a buck a month... and I pay 2 cents each time someone uses the product. (Yes, I billed the agent for the 2 cents, if you were wondering, and he hasn't paid yet.) You also get notification right away, with the cell phone number that requested the information, delivered right to your inbox.

A side note, what cost me the most was the sign riders... which are re-usable because each time I sell a listing, I just assign the text code to another. I purchased metal red and white riders for $9 apiece from JMsigns.com.

Is it working? Well, I am in a slow market, I wasn't expecting an onslaught of requests, I had thought that it was worth a try. But yes, it is working. People are requesting information. I am impressed with the product, and I am very happy that the flyer they receive looks fantastic. (As expected because I really love the way the Realbird flyer looks.)

Also note, in June, Realbird rolled out a new service, the slideshow. I am using that over and over again in many different ways on all my sites. And boy are they getting hits according to Google Analytics. The views are way up, the bounce rate is way down, and I am happy as happy can be! Those slide shows are at the top of the pages viewed!

Thank you Realbird, yet again you have helped me to stand out from the crowd and even helped me to impress my toughest critics! If you aren't using Realbird, or just want to find out more, click on the birdie!

And as a side note, I have been able to cut back on the amount of paper I am using because of this. Instead of leaving a huge stack of brochures at our listings, I leave a few posters around the house at key points asking buyers to help me save a tree, with this little guy on the poster.

Swiedler, Pomerantz, Adams, the Luxury SPA Real Estate Treatment!
Searching for a home? We have an app for that! Text GLR to 87778 for your free app to search homes for sale right from your cell!

Search Homes for Sale in Litchfield County CT.

Selling your home? Check out Ultimate Marketing 24-7

Prudential Connecticut Realty, New Milford & Litchfield, CT

© Swiedler, Pomerantz & Adams, 2009 - 2012

Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest. - Mark Twain

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Kindle Fire or Google Nexus tablet? What would be your choice?

2012-09-27T21:42:51Z

There are three more days to go before the current RealBird sweepstake ends (midnight of Sept 30, 2012). The original prize was the Google Nexus tablet, but since the start of the most recent RealBird sweepstake, Amazon has launched their brand new Kindle Fire tablet as well.

So we thought: let the lucky winner on October 1 decide which tablet to receive as the prize:

the Google Nexus 7 tablet (8GB)
or the Amazon Kindle Fire HD (7" 16GB)

As a reminder, the sweepstake rules are simple:

Be a real estate agent or broker in the USA or Canada
Be a RealBird member
Collect reward points by inviting your colleagues to join RealBird or by submitting your RealBird success story. You can easily do this via the "Rewards" page in the RealBird member area
Each reward point is a distinct entry in the sweepstake. The more members you refer to more chance of winning you have
No purchase is necessary to participate

Good luck!

-- The RealBird Team
RealBird.com

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More Craigslist ad options: include single or multiple photos

2012-09-01T12:08:11Z

You can configure the RealBird Craigslist ad generator and decide whether to include a single photo only or multiple photos on your Craigslist posts.

Perfect for A/B testing: post one ad on Craigslist with multiple photos and then one of the same with a single photo a week later and see which one generates more click-throughs to your RealBird single property website and which one eventually brings more inquiries.

Below are the screenshots showing how to set this option when generating your Craigslist ad with RealBird.

Multiple photos enabled (default option):

Single photo only in your Craigslist post:

You can access your Craigslist post code generator from your RealBird member area on the "Listing Marketing" page.

We hope you like this new feature !

Happy Labor Day !

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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Win a Google Nexus 7 tablet. New RealBird sweepstake !

2012-08-09T09:19:45Z

It's that time of the year again ! We've just started a new RealBird sweepstake and this time we are giving away a Google Nexus 7 tablet.

Rules are the same as before: refer as many of your real estate colleagues to RealBird as you can. When they sign up for a freeRealBird account, you will get one point for each and for those who upgrade to RealBird PRO, you will get 10 extra points. You can also get 10 extra points for leaving a RealBird testimonial. Every point you gather during the contest is a distinct entry in the sweepstake, so the more you collect, the more chance you have to win. And of course, all the points you have so far for referring colleagues in the past wil count as well.

Drawing date: Sept 30, 2012
Prize: Google Nexus 7 tablet (8 GB model)
No purchase necessary

Here are the different ways of getting RealBird reward points:

Login to your RealBird member area
On the Rewards page, use the social media sharing buttons and the email form to share your special RealBird invite link. When new members sign up with RealBird, your referral ID will be registered and the reward points will be awarded to you.
Submit a RealBird testimonial here regarding how RealBird helps your business and additional 10 points will be assigned to you

---

Meet some of the previous sweepstakes' winners:

iPad - May 31, 2012

Winner: Marie Episale of CENTURY 21 Crest Real Estate in Pompton Plains, NJ

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

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New RealBird Property Slideshow Widget

2012-07-20T08:22:01Z

We updated the RealBird single property slideshow widget: Instead of the legacy Flash player, the new version is now using HTML5, CSS3 and Javascript to automatically create a beautiful slideshow for your listings on RealBird. It is now compatible with Apple's iOS and with most modern smartphones and desktop browsers as well, including the old but still in-use IE7. See a few examples below:

Example 1:

Example 2:

Example 3:

How to get yours:

The existing "Slideshow" link on the Listing Management page will bring up the new slideshow code generator. Similar to RealBird's Craigslist embed code generator, it lets you set some options and preview and generate the code for as many versions as you wish. For this particular RealBird widget, the width and the height are the customizable options currently.

We suggest to use the maximum width of 800px and maximum height of 600px and do not create smaller slideshow than 300/300 pixels. But again, you can preview your settings before you post your slideshow code on your sites, so go ahead, log into RealBird and generate the code which fits your requirements. Here is an example screen of the RealBird slideshow editor:

Here are few things to remember :

Your slideshow widget is cached for 5 minutes for performance reasons. In other words, it may take up to 5 minutes for your changes in RealBird to appear on the slideshow.
You can upload unlimited photos for your listings on RealBird, but the slideshow widget rotates the top 30 photos only - again, for performance reasons.
Works in most major browsers including the still in-use, but really old version of IE 7 and 8. The slideshow should work identically in the rest of the browsers as well including Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, IE 9 and also on modern smartphones.

These slideshow widgets are automatically generated for your properties in RealBird. Just simply publish your listing as usual and the ever growing visualization goodies are instantly generated for you.

Enjoy !

-- The RealBird Team
http://www.realbird.com

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Real Estate Marketing and Software: The Price is Right 2012

2012-06-27T04:33:34Z

We are one of the pround sponsors of this survey and infographics by Activerain. Lots of information about real estate marketing and technology costs. You probably saw it featured on the AR homepage, but just in case you missed it, we reblogged it as well.

Via ActiveRain Corp.:

Real Estate Marketing and Software: The Price is Right 2012

Introduction:
There are SO many real estate products and services that every day a real estate agent is confronted with numerous choices about where to spend money in their business.

Given the challenging real estate market of the past five years, the team here at ActiveRain wanted to understand where real estate agents should be spending their money AND how much per month.

In January 2012, ActiveRain & Market Leader surveyed more than 2,000 real estate agents and brokers to understand what software and marketing support real estate agents are using in their business and how much they are spending on these necessary tools of the trade. We have combined our survey data with the National Association of REALTOR's® (2012 Member survey to get a rich view on real estate agent income and expenses.

Please Embed This Infographic in Your Own Blog

<p><a href="http://activerain.com/real-estate-marketing"></a></p> <p>Data provided by ActiveRain.com. Join 220,000+ <a href="http://activerain.com/rich-real-estate-agent">Real Estate Agents</a> on the world's largest Real Estate Social Network.</p>

Tweetable Highlights

#ActiveRain survey says REALTORS spend more on their cars than on their marketing! More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

ActiveRain reports that most REALTORS® Only generated 4 leads from their website in 2011. More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

#ActiveRain: REALTORS® earning over $100K/year spend 5-10x more on marketing than their peers. More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

Only 21% of REALTORS® use paperless transactions or e-signature software per #ActiveRain. #Green More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

#ActiveRain says direct mail is the largest offline real estate marketing expense. Go @USPS! More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

"Averages" in Real Estate:

We highly encourage every real estate agent, broker or company to get your hands on the NAR 2012 Member Profile and look closely at page 51. The average REALTOR® earns $35k per year and works 40 hours per week. BUT 57% of REALTORS® generate some income from outside real estate and a large percentage of REALTORS® are part-time or hobbyists. REALTORS® working more than 40 hours per week earn more than $55k per year and REALTORS® working less than 40 hours a week earn less than $20k per year!

The “average” REALTOR® spends $4,520 in expenses per year or 13% of personal income on expenses. Of those expenses, the average REALTOR® spends $1,770 on their vehicle, $1,070 on marketing/promotion, and $630 on technology. REALTORS® earning more than $100k per year work more than 50 hours per week and spend more than $15k per year on expenses (roughly 12-15% of income).

Takeaway: Treat real estate like a business, not a job or a hobby and you will be successful.

Vehicle Expenses:

Shockingly, vehicle expenses continue to be the largest single expense for REALTORS®. Gas prices are up 286% over the last 12 years, according to InflationData.com. REALTORS® do spend an inordinate amount of time in their cars and have often been criticized for driving vehicles "above their pay grade." It does surprise me that vehicle expenses account for 39% of the average agent's TOTAL expense budget and is 65% more than they spend on marketing each year.

Real Estate Software & Technology Expenses:

Similar to our previous survey Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent, agents were very consistent in real estate software use. Agent use five primary kinds of software for their business: IDX websites with home listings, CMA (comparative market analysis) tools, contact or lead management, email marketing and listing syndication software.

IDX web sites, CRM or contact management, virtual tours, and team management software are categories where agents feel there is significant additional value to paying a premium for the best software. This is consistent with the Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent study where successful agents invest in systems – lead generation web sites and strong prospect management. The most successful agents who earn more than $100k per year want the best, highly customizable web sites, contact management, and virtual tours to highlight their listings.

Alternatively, some categories of real estate agent spend do not increase with greater income. The pricing of paperless transaction / esignature software, CMA tools, and email marketing software is consistent, independent of agent income. CraigsList and listing syndication tools are widely used, but largely bundled into other software services now. Postlets was acquired by Zillow, ListHub was acquired by REALTOR.com®, and Market Leader also has a CraigsList Listing Sydication tool built into their software platform.

Software Average Usage Average Price Agents Earning <$35k Agents Earning >$100k

IDX Website with home listings from MLS 63% $75 $54 $97

Contact management / CRM 51% $73 $64 $78

Virtual Tour software 37% $49 $42 $59

Single Property Website software 29% $41 $38 $40

Marketing design software 31% $53 $50 $59

Email marketing software 47% $40 $38 $38

CMA (comparative market analysis) tools 62% $46 $50 $41

Listing Syndication tool 41% $48 $45 $57

Team Management tool 11% $60 $36 $69

Paperless transaction software / esignatures 21% $37 $32 $38

Monthly Real Estate Marketing & Advertising Expenses

Real estate agents spend time and money on many different real estate marketing strategies. SEO / Social Media / Blogging took the top prize as the most used advertising or marketing source. SEO, social media and blogging are relatively low cost advertising outlets and social media is becoming pervasive with the growth of FaceBook, Google Plus, LinkedIn and Twitter. The consistent surprise with every survey of marketing tactics continues to be direct mail with 40% of real estate agents using direct mail to support their business. After social media and direct mail are paid advertising and marketing on the Internet. Home buyer and seller lead generation ranked as the third most popular form of advertising with 35% of respondents using Internet lead generation.

This is higher than previous surveys we have conducted which could be a positive sign for the real estate market. Advertising on national real estate web sites like Zillow, Trulia and REALTOR.com and using Pay per Click marketing on search engines were fourth and fifth most used forms of advertising. This is not suprisingl since agents buy advertising on national real estate web sites like Zillow, Trulia and REALTOR.com to drive home buyer and seller leads.

Top producing real estate agents earning more than $100k per year have the ability to spend more and do spend more on marketing across the board. Top producing, rich real estate agents are spending in areas both online and offline. Top agents spend more on online lead generation, search engine marketing, national real estate web sites, and direct mail. 20% of agents earning more than $100k actually support the community through local sponsorships like Little League, high school sports, and their local church.

Real Estate Marketing Average Usage Average Price Agents Earning <$35k Agents Earning >$100k

Pay-per-Click (PPC), search engine marketing 16% $140 $88 $197

Home buyer or seller lead generation 32% $155 $113 $191

Paid advertising on national real estate web sites 26% $128 $91 $161

Sponsorship / ads on local website 10% $77 $56 $107

Sponsorship / ads on newspaper website 9% $86 $61 $122

Direct mail 40% $108 $68 $158

Rack Publications 11% $145 $79 $206

City newspaper 10% $98 $48 $149

Local newspaper 14% $99 $57 $145

Town bulletin, church, etc. 8% $56 $46 $73

Local sponsorships (little league, plays, high school, etc.) 13% $78 $66 $102

Marketing personnel costs 17% $183 $107 $222

Television 3% $139 $93 $173

Radio 5% $191 $123 $216

SEO, blogging and social media 45% $78 $47 $106

Paid training or coaching 16% $175 $97 $228

Real Estate Marketing Personnel & Real Estate Training

Though not software or advertising, it is worth noting that 17% of real estate professionals continue to use a marketing assistant to support their advertising and marketing efforts AND 16% of agents are using some sort of premium training or coaching to supplement their education and skills. These are relatively expensive services for the average agent with an average price per month of $183 and $175 per month for real estate marketing support and real estate coaching & training respectively.

Conclusion

As is often the case, averages hide the truth. But in real estate, real estate agents and brokers that treat real estate as a business tend to be successful. This requires working more hours than a "job", investing in systems like strong web sites and contact management, spending money on marketing, outsourcing less mission critical aspects of the job like marketing support, and investing in yourself through continuous coaching & training.

More Tweetable Highlights

IDX websites, CMA software, CRM & email are the top real estate tools in this #ActiveRain survey http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

#ActiveRain says social media, blogs, and SEO are most used for online real estate marketing. More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

REALTORS® earning over $100K work more than 50 hours/week. See #ActiveRain #Infographic at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

#ActiveRain #Infographic at http://goo.gl/1FUo9 shows real estate agents are willing to spend top $ on lead generation. [Tweet this]

#ActiveRain: Top real estate agents spend top $ on offline marketing despite the high prices. More at http://goo.gl/1FUo9. [Tweet this]

If you liked this infographic and blog post from ActiveRain, please share it with your friends, check out our GREAT SPONSORS and leave us a comment below!

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[GREAT JOB] Kiamichi Realty's mobile real estate site on a huge banner

2012-06-11T10:24:30Z

This is very cool. Rob from Kiamichi Realty just sent us a few pictures of their brand new 8 foot by 2 foot banner that they created for promoting their RealBird mobile real estate website:

We blurred out the SMS phone number so that we don't create additional charges for them through this post but you can still get the idea: Nicely design banner with large call-for-action message asking prospective clients to text the special RealBird keyword "M" to access Kiamichi Realty's mobile real estate information. They also added the a large QR code provided by RealBird. If you have a QR reader on your phone, go ahead and scan it in order to see their mobile site in action.

Both mobile access methods redirect prospects to Kiamichi Realty's RealBird mobile real estate website showing their featured listings, their property search and the contact information with links to their social networks as well. The SMS text messaging platform also captures the prospect's phone number.

The picture below shows how large the banner is. Also note the cute dog - called Pedro - relaxing after a job well done !

You can visit Kiamichi Realty's website to learn more about their services and read their RealBird success story on our testiminials page.

If you are new to RealBird, you can read about the RealBird mobile real estate marketing platform here.

Great job Rob and team ! Thank you very much for sharing the pics with us !

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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And the iPad winner is ...

2012-06-04T18:16:14Z

The recent RealBird iPad sweepstake ended on May 31 and the winner is Marie Episale of CENTURY 21 Crest Real Estate in Pompton Plains, NJ.

We are currently processing the gift and we'll post the picture of Marie holding the iPad once she receives it, as we did before with previous winners.

Congratulation Marie !

As a reminder, your RealBird reward points do not expire ! So even if you did not win this time, the more real estate colleagues you refer, the more reward points you'll get. Every point is one entry in the upcoming RealBird sweepstakes. Here are the different ways of getting more RealBird points:

Login to your RealBird member area
On the Rewards page, use the social sharing buttons and the email form to share your special RealBird invite link. When new members sign up with RealBird, your referral ID will be registered and the reward point awarded to you.
Each new member is 1 new reward point (free or PRO members as well)
Each new member who later upgrades to RealBird PRO gets you 10 extra points
Submit a RealBird testimonial (about how RealBird helps your business) and when approved andposted on our site, additional 10 points will be awarded to you

Thanks again everybody for participating in the sweepstakes

Stay tuned for the new RealBird sweepstake to be announced soon.

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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FSBO marketing with RealBird and Facebook. Free webinar with guest speaker Janie Coffey tomorrow

2012-05-03T08:41:00Z

We are hosting a special "Best Practices" RealBird webinar this Friday on May 4, 2012 at 9 AM Pacific.

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

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Spice up your WordPress blog with the updated RealBird plugin

2012-04-24T12:23:10Z

We just launched an updated version of the RealBird Nearby Homes Wordpress Plugin.

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:

The map-search plugin is available for RealBird PRO members
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
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

Download the zipped plugin from the RealBird member area at Member Area > Property Search > Get Code > Wordpress plugin
Go to your Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins page and upload the RealBird plugin's zip file.
After the succesfull installation, you will have to click the "Activate Plugin" link to finalize the plugin setup.
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:

On the Wordpress Dashboard > Plugins page, deactivate and also delete the existing RealBird plugin (version 0.9.0)
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
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

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The anatomy of a perfect single property website

2012-04-21T10:53:19Z

Every now and then, we showcase a RealBird single property website that caught our attention for one reason or the other. This week's case study focuses on visual communication techniques that you can use when designing a property marketing site:

See 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:

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.
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.
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

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Win an iPad. New RealBird sweepstakes to celebrate the 150,000th listing on RealBird

2012-04-11T12:49:20Z

We just reached a great milestone with the 150,000th listing published on RealBird a few days ago. Since then, close to 1,000 more properties have been added ! To celebrate this milestone and also because we love giving away popular gadgets (and the referrals we get in exchange :) we just announced our brand new RealBird sweepstakes.

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

How to get RealBird Reward Points?

We also improved the Reward Program so that you can increase your chance to win:

You get 1 point for each new RealBird member
You get 10 points for each referred RealBird member who upgrades to PRO (e.g. 5 PRO referrals equals to 50 extra points)
You get 10 points if you submit a RealBird testimonial

You can start inviting your colleagues from the RealBird Member area by following this link (login required)

Should you want to post a RealBird Success Story, you can do it quickly in the member area, on the "Profile" >> "Your testimonial" page (login required). Your testimonial will appear on the RealBird's public site with links back to your real estate website and your RealBird single property websites. You can see some of the current testimonials here

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

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This new RealBird feature is very unique: Voice call handling with geo-enabled SMS message

2012-04-09T14:55:28Z

This is one of the coolest and most unique features that we launched so far for the RealBird Text Message Marketing platform.

The RealBird Text Message Marketing service is built on top of the Twilio infrastructure. As we wrote when we first launched in December, the primary goal was to provide a text (SMS) keyword marketing tool for you: your prospective buyers see your call-for-action message asking them to text a keyword to your Twilio phone number and when they do so, RealBird returns to them your property information via an SMS reply, while also capturing their phone numbers for you.

Soon after the launch, we noticed that consumers had a tendency to call the SMS phone number, rather than texting the SMS keywords, so we began to work on RealBird features that can handle incoming calls on your SMS phone number as well.

First, we made sure that prospects who call your marketing phone number are captured in your RealBird contacts database so that you can call them back with more details. Now there is another feature automatically available to RealBird PRO members:

This feature is very unique and powerful: When a prospect calls your phone number, we not only store their contact information for you, but we automatically and instantly return to him or her an SMS message on your behalf with a geo location enabled link in it. This is how the workflow goes:

Prospect calls your SMS phone number
RealBird captures his/her phone number in your RealBird database and sends you an email with the prospect's details
RealBird hangs up the phone call (we'll have more options for this soon)
Then instantly, RealBird sends an SMS message back to the prospect: The SMS contains and thank you note, your RealBird phone number to call (your regular number in your profile)
AND and link to a special RealBird mobile page
If this special link is followed by the user via their smartphones, RealBird asks the prospect for permission to access his/her location (via the GPS geolocation feature available in modern smartphones)

A) If prospects declines this (or his/her phone does not support geolocation), RealBird redirects the user to your RealBird mobile website's homepage

B ) If prospect allows the GPS lookup, than RealBird searches your RealBird listings for the nearby property (within 0.2 miles of your prospect's current location)

>> If the RealBird listing is found (prospect is in front of your property within 200 feet), then RealBird redirects him/her to your mobile property website showing the property details

>> If the listing was not found (e.g. the prospect called your number via a magazine, print ad etc. - i.e. away from your property), RealBird redirects the prospect to your RealBird mobile site's homepage

This is a very powerful and novel feature that bridges phone calls with geolocation enabled smartphones and provides an additional way for you to turn these prospects into clients.

And just like with the SMS feature, you can use this new voice feature to WOW your prospective sellers at listing interviews: You can set up a draft listing on RealBird prior to your meeting and at your seller's house - as a demonstration - you can call your Twilio phone number, receive the geo enabled SMS message and automatically pull up their property information on your smartphone.

If this does not WOW your prospective sellers about your technical/marketing capabilities, I am not sure what will :)

We hope you will like this new RealBird feature and put it to good use.

Should you need help with setting up Twilio with RealBird, please contact us directly as Twilio does not have access to the RealBird backend and they can't support our integration. We are here to help if you need assistance.

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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Unifying the RealBird mobile real estate websites

2012-02-23T15:50:59Z

By looking at our web analytics of the last few months, we noticed a solid month-to-month growth in smartphone access on the RealBird property marketing platform. 15.4% of visitors on the RealBird members' sites were using smartphones in November 2011 and the number has been growing ever since. As of February 2012, it is up to 18.6%, up more than one percent from January's 17.5% and there is no sign of slowing down.

We have been planning to unify the RealBird mobile user interfaces for a while, but this trend convinced us that the time had arrived for implementation and we just launched the first set of updates today.

See below the summary of the new features, all of them are automatically applied to RealBird PRO property websites:

We are now "deep linking" into your RealBird Mobile Real Estate Site to show the property details.
"Deep linking" now applies no matter where your visitors come from: via your SMS text keyword marketing, your QR codes, or following a link on social media or blog posts, from any sources as long as the consumer is using his or her smartphone to access your listing information
When the mobile listing information is "deep linked" to (vs navigation from your RealBird mobile website's homepage), the header of the details page is slightly different: your mobile property page shows the "Home" icon on the top left, "Info" as the header and a "Nearby" button on the top right. The "Home" icon links to your RealBird Mobile Website's homepage, where visitors can see your other listings, start a property search or read your blog posts. The "Nearby" button links directly to your RealBird Mobile Search form so that they can find other properties and send inquiries about those to you.
We also added a second call-for-action link - called "Schedule Showing" - below the primary photo. It opens the same inquiry form as the previously and still available "Request More Info" button at the bottom of the mobile listing page. We've noticed a great deal of improvement in visitors-to-lead conversion, ever since we added the "Schedule Showing" button to the regular single property websites, so we decided to add it to the mobile version as well.
Finally, "Draft" listings (unpublished RealBird listings, saved as Drafts) are shown on the mobile devices. This is only applicable for deep linked property pages, so they won't show up in your featured listings list if the mobile user starts the navigation from your RealBird mobile website's homepage.

This last option - i.e. showing draft listings - is a very powerful marketing tool for Expired and FSBO listing interviews. You can now set up a "Draft" listing on RealBird for your prospective sellers prior to the interview. And because the property site has "Draft" status, it won't be syndicated, search engine indexed or shown on your public RealBird widgets. However you can create its own SMS text keyword, QR code and demonstrate your mobile marketing capabilities for your prospective sellers. Just ask them to scan their own QR code on their smartphone or text the SMS keyword to the phone number and they can see the instant result. Wow them with your mobile marketing services. When you win the listing, you can log back into RealBird and you can "Publish" the draft property website easily. Just a quick note: in case of expired listings, make sure you don't use copyrighted materials: e.g. the previous agent's photos, notes etc.

Let us know what you think?

Thanks and Enjoy !

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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How to create a PDF flyer from your RealBird property website

2012-02-03T17:47:30Z

Did you know? The new RealBird property website's printable page can be easily converted to PDF.

All of the browsers on Apple OSX supports "printing" to PDF instead of a physical printer and on Windows, the Google Chrome browser has built-in support for the same. For Windows users, we suggest to download Google Chrome, it takes only a minute or so to set it up and you can still use IE for your MLS etc. should you need that.

So let's see how this can be accomplished:

Screenshots on Mac OS X

Using Firefox on Mac

By default Firefox on Mac includes "Page Headers" and "Page Footers". Make sure you select "blank" for those field. Then click the "PDF" button at the bottom to save the print flyer in a PDF file.

Using Safari on Mac

On Safari, the page headers and footers are turned off by default, so just click on the PDF button and save the print view as a PDF. Google Chrome behaves the same way on Mac and Windows so we'll show the Windows screenshots below.

Screenshots on Windows

You can print the flyers seamlessly with any modern browsers on Windows (latest Firefox, Safari, IE 9 etc.) but the Google Chrome on Windows (and on the Mac) also provides you with an option to create PDF flyers. See the screenshot below:

Select "PDF" in the "Destination" list and uncheck the "Headers and footers" (as marked with the arrows above) and click "Print" on the top. Finally, save you PDF flyers to your computer

How to access your printable flyer from RealBird

Currently, you can access the printable flyer via your single property website. Click-through to your listing site from the RealBird member area, then click the "Print Flyer" button on the right side. Once the printable page is loaded, just proceed with the browser's Print functionality as usual and refer to the screenshot above to hide the page header and footer.

While the current printable RealBird flyers were not created to replace your high-end, custom designed real estate print ads, in many cases - due to its simple, elegant and adaptive design - you can use them for many different purposes:

For your homes for sale - should you find the RealBird format to serve this purpose
For your rental ads - we've noticed an increasing number of rentals listed on RealBird. Commission structure is different when "selling" rental leases vs. homes and especially with lower-end rentals, this commission level may not justify the cost of custom designed print flyers, plus the sales cycle might be faster so you won't have time to wait for your custom designs to be produced. The RealBird printable flyer can be a perfect and free add-on tool for this purpose
When you ran out of your custom designed flyers - you can quickly print new ones with RealBird while waiting for your high-quality flyers to be shipped again. Don't let your flyer boxes sit empty in front of the house or the rental.
The PDF version of the RealBird printable flyer can also be uploaded to scribd.com and with careful naming and tagging, you can get additional SEO benefits and distribution points.

An example RealBird flyer saved as PDF and shared on Scribd.com

Finally here is an example of a RealBird property website saved as PDF, then uploaded to scribd.com and embedded in a blog post (courtesy of Janie Coffey. This is a printable PDF flyer generated via RealBird of Janie's RealBird property website of 2280 SW 154th Ave, Davie, FL 33326 )

Thanks for reading & enjoy !

-- The RealBird Team

RealBird.com

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RealBird Webinar Yesterday "Learning to cook creatively with social media using the many RealBird ingredients"

2012-01-21T23:06:12Z

Thank you Eric for being a guest speaker and for the additional real estate photography links in your post. Great resources !

Here is the recorded webinar for those of you who have missed it live.

Via Wayzata Lakes Realty: Eric Kodner Sells Twin Cities Homes:

RealBird Webinar Yesterday "Learning to cook creatively with social media using the many RealBird ingredients"

We had a fabulous session yesterday morning with RealBird technology host Erich Ziebarth and RealBird President Gabriel Gross. The subject was incorporating RealBird tools into social media to achieve marketing success, and we spent a good amount of time on my favorite subjects, real estate photography.

[Facebook comments from Gabe Gross & Erich Ziebarth about Eric Kodner's participation in a RealBird webinar yesterday]

We also fielded lots of great questions from webinar attendees, ranging from questions about what kind of wide-angle lenses to choose, where to learn more about real estate photography and how to create slide shows and virtual tours.

I brought up photography resources like KenRockwell.com (with his great reviews on camera bodies, lenses and software) and Trey Ratcliff's stunning photos & HDR tutorial. Erich mentioned Seattle Realtor Larry Lohrman and his Photography for Real Estate blog. We also discussed Stan Barron's fantastic eBook, How to Photograph Houses.

We also discussed the many ways an agent can use RealBird single-property websites and virtual tours to promote their listings and to gather buyer leads.

One attendee told me she came away from our webinar with "a huge amount of valuable information in a short time". That's the purpose of these RealBird webinars, to give agents the tools they need to succeed and thrive. If you've missed out on RealBird webinars so far, it's not too late to take advantage of the tremendous value that the RealBird folks bring to real estate professionals.

-

Contact Broker Eric Kodner with Wayzata Lakes Realty about Minneapolis and Saint Paul area properties, including Lake Minnetonka. We also sell Lake Superior, including Bayfield and Madeline Island properties. We know Minnesota and Madeline Island real estate!

Wayzata Lakes Realty LLC (Minnesota) and Madeline Island Realty LLC (Wisconsin)

Real Estate Brokerage licensed in Minnesota & Wisconsin

Phone or Text Message 612.670.2539

MadelineIsland@Gmail.com

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Save money on sign riders and print ads with the new custom, transferable SMS codes

2012-01-19T14:16:20Z

As promised, new and improved RealBird mobile real estate marketing features were launched yesterday:

Custom, transferable SMS keywords for your listings

This one was one of the most requested features after our initial launch of the SMS keyword marketing add-on for your RealBird listings. By default, your RealBird listing ID is the automatically assigned text code for your property. The issue with this - as we learned from you - that many of you create a sign rider for your SMS marketing and pay for each sign rider individually. Since the RealBird listing ID is not reusable for a property that you'll have in the future, it meant that you have to buy a new sign rider for each of your listings and discard old signs of your sold listings. You were right, this sounds like a big waste of money. Not any more: With the new release, you can now assign a custom SMS keyword for any of your listings, create an SMS marketing sign rider, market the property, sell it and then reassign the same keyword for your new listing. No more throwing away your old signs: you can freely reuse the same sign rider and the same code on different listing print ads, because the keyword remains active and transferred to your new RealBird listing.

You can access this new feature from your RealBird Listing Management page. Below the SMS keyword and example call-for-action block, there is now a "Set custom SMS keyword" link. You can enter and save your custom text code on that page. If the text code is already assigned to another of your listings, the system will ask for your confirmation to transfer it to this property.

Some notes about choosing the right custom SMS code:

Make it short. End users will have to enter this code on their cell phone, so the shorter it is, the easier for them to do so. We suggest to make it less than 5 characters long.
Use letters and/or numbers only
The SMS keyword is case insensitive, so don't worry about uppercase or lowercase letters. Enter it in a way which will be easy to read on your sign and print ads
The keyword M is reserved for your RealBird Mobile Real Estate Website (see below)

Call capture

We also added a call capture to your SMS phone number. If a prospect calls your SMS phone number, rather than texting the SMS code to it, we will still capture their phone numbers for you. Currently the system hangs up the call automatically and notifies you about the caller instantly. More voice features are coming soon so you'll be able to configure how to respond to phone calls.

QR Code analytics

You asked for it and now you have it: The QR code for your mobile RealBird single property websites are now tracked and you can see the analytics of how many times those QR codes were scanned. There is now a link below the QR code on the Listing Management page, called "QR Scan Stats". It takes you to the analytics page, powered by the bit.ly URL shorting service. The special link behind your QR code now also contains Google Analytics Campaign tracking parameters, so you'll be able to get custom, detailed analytics via Google Analytics (assuming you added Google Analytics to your RealBird account already)

Text code for your RealBird Mobile Real Estate Website

As an additional SMS marketing feature, your RealBird Mobile Real Estate Website can now be accessed by end users by simply texting the keyword M to your SMS phone number. RealBird will return an SMS message with a link to your mobile website and save the client's phone number for you.

-- The RealBird Team
www.realbird.com

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The Real Estate Beat: Real-time Visitors Map of RealBird Services of Our Members

2012-01-09T19:29:25Z

In the name of transparency - and also because we are serious geeks :) - we put together a live map application that shows the visitors as they arrive to different RealBird services of our members. It is embedded below and it works in modern browsers (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, IE9 etc.) and old ones like IE7, IE8 etc. too. Android and iOS tablets and smartphones are supported as well

We think this map analytics app is pretty cool ! What do you think?

You can see the RealBird Real-Time Traffic Map in full screen via this link

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The Top New RealBird Features of 2011

2011-12-30T18:16:40Z

Today is the last business day of 2011 and we thought it is the good time to summarize the main new RealBird features that we launched in 2011.

Switched the RealBird Property Search from Google Base to Oodle data

As you may recall Google suddenly announced in January '11 the discontinuation of Google Base. Because the RealBird Property Search was based on data from Google Base, we had to find another solution. We successfully ported the application to use real estate data from Oodle, soft launched in March and made it available for all RealBird members in June. The new search application has been working great ever since and has delivered thousands and thousands of buyer leads to RealBird members.

New listing inventory widget replaced the old version, with color themes and custom transition effects

We retired one of our legacy sidebar listing inventory widgets and replaced it with a brand new one, which can be configured with custom color theme and custom transition effects.

The first version of the RealBird Mobile Real Estate Website was launched

In March, we launched the first version of the RealBird Mobile Real Estate Website service with vanity domain name and QR code support. Within weeks, thousands of mobile sites were set up by RealBird PRO members. It also received coverage from Inman News.

The second version of the Mobile Real Estate Website added Property Search support

Soon after the initial launch, we also completed the mobile user interface for the RealBird Property Search and added to the RealBird Mobile Property Website service. Update to the platform (and the new desktop IE support) also made it possible from then on to embed the mobile real estate website on regular blogs and pages with the handy RealBird widget, including the inclusion of the QR code and a call-for-action message.

Default Property Website Theme editor added

One of the powerful features of the RealBird single property websites has always been the versatile theme editor. We realized however that even with the easy-to-use interface, it has been an unnecessary hassle to set up the custom design for each listing one by one, so we introduced the same powerful theme editor tool as a global configuration option. In other words, RealBird members can now set up a default custom design once and all new property sites will inherit this theme.

Introduced 3 Facebook Real Estate Page applications

Just in time for Facebook's application platform overhaul during the summer, we released three Facebook applications for different RealBird services. You can now easily add your listing inventory widget, map-based property search and your mobile real estate website to your Facebook business page.

Diligent SEO work brought major results: video thumbnails of your property websites are now shown on Google

We've been always focusing on SEO best practices, but 2011 brought some break throughs: Finally, over 1 million pages on RealBird has been indexed by Google and to our great surprise, RealBird became one of the few real estate information providers whose pages have been enhanced with video thumbnails on the Google search result pages. This is a very positive and stunning SEO news and together with the high ranking of the RealBird property websites, it represents a major improvement in visibility for our members.

Tighter integration of your RealBird featured listings and map-based property search

We also introduced a small, but powerful feature for RealBird PRO members. The RealBird map-based property search can now be configured to show your own featured listings as "sticky", highlighted icons on the map. We call them "sticky" icons, because they are shown on the map independently from the actual search criteria, as long as their location falls within the current map boundaries. This a great, non-intrusive advertisement of your own properties to home buyers using your map search.

United Kingdom coverage added to RealBird

We also extended support for most of the RealBird services for estate agents in the United Kingdom. With this launch, RealBird now provides online marketing services to US, Canada and UK agents and brokers.

Brand new, major redesign of the flagship RealBird single property website platform launched

It's been a long time coming and finally, in October, we launched a major redesign of our flagship RealBird Listing Publisher property website platform. The system has many, many improvements and new features, while remaining fully backward compatible: new layout design, improved SEO, improved load speed, deeper social media integration, better lead capture, more automatic integration with 3rd party services such as Walkscore, ability to add more custom pages and content and many more features. We were very happy to receive an overwhelmingly positive response from all of our members regarding this major update.

New Craigslist property ad generator released

A revamped Craigslist property ad generator was launched in November, making it much easier for RealBird members to create a Craigslist ad with unlimited color theme options. Craigslist is one of the most popular classifieds ad platforms and this new tool makes it way easier to create much better looking ads for your RealBird listings.

SMS keyword property marketing added to your mobile marketing toolkit

Just in time for the holiday season, we added a new listing marketing service to the RealBird mobile toolkit. We integrated RealBird with the leading SMS technology provider, Twilio and introduced SMS keyword marketing for your properties with an amazing, automatic lead capture feature.

Last but not least, 7,616 real estate professionals joined RealBird in 2011. This is our highest yearly registration number ever and we thank you all very much (long time and new members as well) for trusting your real estate marketing on the RealBird platform.

We Wish You All A Very Happy & Successful New Year !

-- The RealBird Team
RealBird.com

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Even more SMS marketing features are coming soon

2011-12-22T16:07:24Z

Since we launched the first version of the SMS keyword marketing tool for your RealBird listings a few days ago, we have received many positiv replies fromRealBird members and also some feature requests. We thought it's easier to summarize the upcoming SMS features in a blog post and then share this article. Below are the upcoming SMS features that we are planning to add very soon:

SMS notifications for important events
Often, timely response to an online prospect is what turns them into actual clients. Currently we notify you only via email on important events such as request for more information on your listing or from your RealBird search, client registration on your website etc. It may takes hours before you see these emails. We are going to add an option so that you can receive an instant SMS notification as well on your own phone with the contact's phone number if provided so that you can contact them immedietaly, even from the road.
SMS keyword for your RealBird mobile site as well
Adam Waxler from uKeepCommision asked for the same SMS keyword marketing option to be available for your RealBird Mobile Website. It's a great idea and we'll implement it ASAP.
Adding your call-to-action SMS marketing message to your print flyers and online ads:
While the biggest value of the SMS keyword marketing is at offline locations, where users can't click on your links at all (print flyers, sign riders etc.) there can be some home buyers who would send the text code to your number for more information and with the contact's phone capturing ability of SMS marketing, it only makes sense that we add your SMS call-to-action message to your online ads as well. There will be a configuration option for this, in other words, you'll be able to turn this on and off, but we should provide you with this option should you decide to add SMS capability to your Craigslist ad for example. Jim Nealis from Re/Max asked for this feature.
More customization options of the text message returned to your home buyer prospect
Currently, when a prospective home buyer sends your SMS keyword to your Twilio phone number, we return your RealBird listing's basic information (type, beds, baths, price, status), a short link to your RealBird mobile property website and your phone number, which is your default number in your RealBird profile. With the new configuration options, you will have a different phone number option (other than your default RealBird phone) and you'll be able to add a nickname to include in the message. E.g.: Please call [agentname] at [custom phone number] for more info. Thanks for Daniel & Jasmina Zivkovic for this request.

Did you know? A cool feature of the current RealBird SMS keyword marketing tool is that if home buyers mistype your code or the listing is no longer available on RealBird, we still capture the lead for you and return a special message to the home buyer with your phone number included.

-- The RealBird Team
RealBird.com

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SMS keyword marketing is now available for your RealBird listings

2011-12-17T19:00:41Z

We've been supporting QR code mobile marketing for your listings on RealBird for a while. There have been back and forth debates in the real estate blogosphere about the actual value of QR codes and while we believe that QR codes are a very important and must-have piece in your mobile marketing toolkit we also agree that there are a large number of home buyers out there who can not or will not scan QR codes. They either don't have the appropriate smartphones or they just can't be bothered with it.

Hence our new addition to the RealBird PRO power tools: SMS keyword marketing for all of your listings

We integrated RealBird with the amazing Twilio API in order to provide the most cost effective and powerful platform for mobile real estate marketing.

This add-on service requires a RealBird PRO membership $99/year (for unlimited listings) and a Twilio local phone number which is only $1/month. There is an additional $0.02/SMS fee payable to Twilio, but considering that this is only due when the RealBird application actually captures a lead for you, it is extremely affordable in our opinion and should have an amazing ROI. In other words, for only $111/year (RealBird PRO plus Twilio fees) and 2 cents per lead, you can market unlimited listings via text codes (SMS) 24x7 all year long.

So this is how it works:

You configure your RealBird account with Twilio - takes about 10 minutes top. Here is the tutorial
You'll receive an SMS code for each of your RealBird listings. You can then publish a call-for-action message on your sign riders or print flyers, saying something like: "Text [your RealBird code] to [your Twilio Phone #] to receive more info"
Prospects text the code to the phone number and RealBird sends them back - on your behalf - the brief listing info, your direct phone number and the link to your RealBird mobile property site (in case they are using a smartphone and can browse to it)
Best of all, RealBird also notifies you of these events and captures the prospect's phone number in your RealBird leads database

We have a detailed step-by-step instruction on how to set this up on the RealBird tutorial website. See how quick and easy it is to get started.

So what do you think? Will you add this new feature to your RealBird toolkit? Can't wait to hear your feedback on this !

Thanks and Happy Holidays !

-- The RealBird Team

http://www.realbird.com

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Software	Average Usage	Average Price	Agents Earning <$35k	Agents Earning >$100k
IDX Website with home listings from MLS	63%	$75	$54	$97
Contact management / CRM	51%	$73	$64	$78
Virtual Tour software	37%	$49	$42	$59
Single Property Website software	29%	$41	$38	$40
Marketing design software	31%	$53	$50	$59
Email marketing software	47%	$40	$38	$38
CMA (comparative market analysis) tools	62%	$46	$50	$41
Listing Syndication tool	41%	$48	$45	$57
Team Management tool	11%	$60	$36	$69
Paperless transaction software / esignatures	21%	$37	$32	$38

Real Estate Marketing	Average Usage	Average Price	Agents Earning <$35k	Agents Earning >$100k
Pay-per-Click (PPC), search engine marketing	16%	$140	$88	$197
Home buyer or seller lead generation	32%	$155	$113	$191
Paid advertising on national real estate web sites	26%	$128	$91	$161
Sponsorship / ads on local website	10%	$77	$56	$107
Sponsorship / ads on newspaper website	9%	$86	$61	$122
Direct mail	40%	$108	$68	$158
Rack Publications	11%	$145	$79	$206
City newspaper	10%	$98	$48	$149
Local newspaper	14%	$99	$57	$145
Town bulletin, church, etc.	8%	$56	$46	$73
Local sponsorships (little league, plays, high school, etc.)	13%	$78	$66	$102
Marketing personnel costs	17%	$183	$107	$222
Television	3%	$139	$93	$173
Radio	5%	$191	$123	$216
SEO, blogging and social media	45%	$78	$47	$106
Paid training or coaching	16%	$175	$97	$228