Ticor Title NW

What is that tiny icon on my browser tab? - Favicon 101

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:00 +0000

If you've got a blog or a website you've probably asked yourself - What is that little icon in the browser tab that looks like a company logo? And how do I get one on my site?

It's called a Favicon and I'm going to attempt to take the mystery out of it right now. And by the way, I'm writing this because I noticed that we forgot to add one to our http://ticorsocialmedia.com microsite.

A favicon is one of those little touches that subconsciously makes an impression on readers when they're perusing the web. A site with a favicon is a bit more official and polished, right? Of course it is!

Google has one...

Twitter has one....

I should have one, too!

Here's the favicon revealed:

The favicon is an image (like a .gif or a .png file) that is named "favicon.ico". You can actually create a .gif and just rename it to "favicon.ico" and it will work great.

It is located in the "root" directory of your website. This is the same location as your home or 'index' page.

A favicon.ico file is traditionally sized at 16 x 16 pixels.

Because it's so tiny, it should be light and crisp and easily identifiable (in my humble opinion).

For those wanting more information, a quick google search that includes the word "favicon.ico" will turn up a ton of resources ranging from favicon generators to how to make one in photoshop, to why you can't use one if you have a free wordpress blog.

When I first got into the web design game, I was just relieved to figure out what the darn thing was called!

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Internet Marketing

Ticor Title

Negotiating a Short Sale is Easier with an Experienced Guide - Using Wordpress to Bring Our Conversation Online

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:25:00 +0000

When it came time for us at Ticor to get the word out that we are well equipped to facilitate short sale transactions, we decided that creating a micro web site was going to be the 'destination point' for our short sale conversation online. We chose this route for a few reasons:

We facilitate short sale transactions, but people doing searches for short sale information are probably not thinking to themselves, "I should google ticor title". Although we would like this, It's quite a long shot. They're more likely to be looking for resources on the short sale process or lender requirements, or short sale benefits. And as you can see from the links, we've provided useful information about those things...

Secondly, from a 'Google Juice' perspective, having a micro site that is focused on one topic creates congruency between our domain name "ticorshortsale.com", our page names ('the short sale process', etc..), and our content. They all discuss various aspects of short sales. Our goal with this is of course to be recognized as a specific resource and local authority on the subject in the eyes of our clients, the public at large, and last but not least our favorite search engines.

Thirdly, when our sales reps are having conversations with clients about the ever changing market and the greater frequency of short sales, they now have an easy place to direct clients for more information. There's no hunting through our corporate hosted site for the info. If you find yourself on ticorshortsale.com there's no question as to what type of content you'll find.

On a technical note, we used wordpress as our platform and I'm very happy about it. More and more people are moving to the blog/site model these days and for good reason. It allowed us a rapid deployment and I think of it as the best of both worlds. The blog content is obiously intended to be fresh, specific and interactive and the 'static' site pages are perfect for content that we want to be persistent and easily found.

There you have it. Two years ago we would have printed out a thousand fliers and passed them out one by one and that would have been totally fine. Now we're printing less and facilitating a venue for education and conversation. I feel good about that!

cheers!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

Creating a Facebook Business Page - If you can find the link

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 21:18:00 +0000

This past month we finally got with the program and created a Facebook business page for Ticor Title in Tacoma, WA (thanks to Janet Matzke and encouragement from Scott Cowan - you rock). I had the opportunity to be a part of this process as we added our logo and info and started inviting our friends to be a fan of our page. Watching people respond and become a fan was fun. It's a nice warm and fuzzy affirmation that our friends recognize where we work and are willing to view our updates, etc. (Thanks to everyone who is a fan!!! We appreciate you.)

But for as easy as Facebook is to use, I had a heck of a time finding my own page at first. I know it sounds dumb, but I looked everywhere before I could find it. It's like they were hiding it from me or something. But in truth, this is what is known as the common PEBCAC error (Problem Exists Between Chair And Computer).

By trial and error I discovered that I could very quickly use the search box to simply search for our page. That was easy enough. But I also discovered that if I wanted to find a page that I created but haven't published yet, the search box didn't work. Then what? I was forced to find the 'real way' to find my page, if there is such a thing.

Low and behold it was staring me in the face the entire time. In the lower left hand corner of my Facebook home page was a little block of links that I had been ignoring all this time.

They made it so easy, it was hard for my techie eyes to find it. Actually, I think the real reason why I overlooked it was that it blends right in with the bottom of my browser.

So if you're wondering how to create or find your own page on Facebook, now you know...

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

It all started with a tweet - the social media life cycle

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 23:07:00 +0000

As I spend time spreading the good news of Ticor Title and Escrow throughout Tacoma, Gig Harbor, Puyallup, and beyond, I still run into people who are looking for evidence that blogging can lead to relationships and business. This naturally has caused me to reflect on the many opportunities, relationships, and surprises that have popped up for me since I have been blogging and participating in various conversations online. Although I have had actual title orders come right out of the blue by way of my blog (I'll tell those stories later), one relationship (with Meri Walker - The virtual Meeting coach) in particular stands out as being a great model to illustrate what I consider to be the life cycle of social media. And it all started with a tweet...

The life cycle can be broken down into four basic parts as follows:

Content attracts conversation

Conversation cultivates trust

Trust strengthens relationship

Relationship translates to business

Let me illustrate with a brief story if you will...

Content attracts conversation

Earlier this year I wrote a blog post about Vyew.com. It's a virtual meeting platform that we have been using for meetings and collaboration across our region at Ticor Title. I simply wrote about how we use it and why I liked it. After blogging I did the usual tweet that said "Just blogged about vyew.com web conferencing site. I'm a big fan. http://tinyurl.com/88uspd". No big deal, right? Except there happened to be a virtual meeting coach that saw my tweet, read the blog, and decided to ask me if I'd be willing to chat. I had no idea who she was but I was willing to have a quick chat with her to find out if this was legitimate or not.

Conversation cultivates trust

So I had a quick chat with Meri via Google Chat. I don't remember exactly what was said, but through our brief exchange, we established enough trust to progress to a phone conversation which in turn cultivated a bit more trust. From there we decided to collaborate in an interview online and feature the results on each other's blogs. That was just the start. And honestly, I wasn't sure if anything would actually come of it. We had merely agreed to a good idea.

Trust strengthens relationship

Over several conversations, I had the opportunity to discover more about Meri's business, history, philosophy, etc. And I also had the opportunity to share with her my experiences collaborating with René Fabre on social media projects, marketing, and research. I should have known it would happen when she asked if René would like to be a part of our interview. Duh! At that moment our conversation got much bigger. Our single interview became a series of four interviews over the span of a couple months covering topics ranging from our Lego Theory of internet marketing, to online profiles, to the Dandelion theory of social media and other colorful analogies.

Relationship translates to business

Just over a week ago René had the opportunity to be the key speaker at several real estate social media-related events across Oregon(a.k.a "Brother Love's Traveling Internet Marketing Salvation Show"). Meri was at one of the events (she lives in OR and to this point we had never met in person). And of course, René took the opportunity to introduce her as our favorite virtual meeting coach - an example of how a friendship and working relationship had grown from a simple tweet.

So we have not merely benefited by collaborating with Meri. She is part of our story. Our connection is evidence that our words are like seeds and our conversations are like gardens.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

Your Presence Online is Like a Garden

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 22:37:00 +0000

Recently, I was at a round table discussion group with a dozen or so realtors. And as we talked about what it means to bring our 'conversation' to the web, the inevitable happened. Someone chimed in with the question, "How much time do I have to spend on all this stuff?" He continued, "I don't have all day to play around online..." This question comes up quite often when someone is introduced to the idea of establishing their presence on the web. It seems overwhelming... It's a job for geeks... It's going to take over my life...

And for some, a little bit of fear lurks behind this question. We are confronted with the unknown. We must recognize that we have our old habits. We are challenged to do something different in order to get different results. We begin to wonder what activities equate to productivity? And at the heart of the question for a businessperson is, "How is this going to tie to the deal?" That's a logical and reasonable question. I mean, if I'm going to put in some effort, I want to know what kind of results I can expect in return.

So what is my take on this question? First, I believe being present online and having an ongoing conversation has everything to do with community and thus 'the deal'. Secondly, I believe that like everything in life, we reap what we sow.

Rene Fabré aptly puts it this way, "Conversations are markets... Conversations create community. Communities consist of people participating in conversations."

We are in a relationship business. People prefer to do business with people that they know and trust, right? So the big question is how will people find you and trust you except through communities? And with the majority of the people searching for real estate online, doesn't it make sense to be present and participating in communities and conversations about real estate there?

Another way to think of it is like this. Let's say there's a very seasoned, skilled, knowledgeable, and personable realtor named Pat that has been doing business successfully in the northwest for 20-years. Pat may be a stellar agent but how does the rest of the world know that? The 200 million people on Facebook would only know that if he's present and engaged in conversation there. Google searchers would only know that if Pat is part of a conversation anywhere else online. After all, Google can't read minds (at least there's no proof of it). Google needs to see strong evidence of who Pat is before it will reward him with a high rank. The evidence will be found when Pat becomes present and engaged online by contributing content that explicitly reflects who he is.

So, in response to the big question above ('how much time do I have to spend on this stuff'), finding the answer requires another question. How big and of what quality do you want your presence to be?

It's helpful to think of your internet presence as if it were your own garden. The content and conversations you have online are like seeds. Some of them will take root, grow and and bear fruit in the form of new relationships, trust, and business. Others will not take to the soil and will be forgotten. But either way, like a garden, your presence online won't necessarily bear fruit overnight. It is a direct reflection of what you have put into it. It takes careful planning, sowing, cultivating, early attempts at success (a.k.a. mistakes), and faith that something is going to grow from it. Because after all, we can prepare, plant, water, and cultivate, but how something happens to grow is a wonderful mystery. Is it not?

enjoy,

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

The Easiest Way to Share Your Blog With the World

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:40:00 +0000

What's the easiest way to share your blog with friends communities? I think I may have found it. It's called 'ShareThis'. (Imagine that.)

What is it? It's a widget that you can add to your blog or website that enables users to share the content of that page with the rest of the world (their world on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc). When a user clicks on the "share this" link on your blog, they are presented with the option of posting a link to their social site of choice to share it with friends. Wow. If you give people a super easy way to share your content, I believe they will be more likely to do so. Wouldn't you agree?

Another way of looking at it is from the authors perspective. As the writer, producer, and promoter of my blog, I take every opportunity to share my content with the people in my networks. The "share this" link makes it easier for me as well. Once I write my blog, I can simply click the "share this" widget to let my friends know about the post. How convenient!

I'm sure there are a myriad of other widgets out there that do the same thing. However, my experience with sharethis.com is that it was so easy to set up, I have already forgotten how I did it (which is the case for most stuff I have set up - but that's another story).

To get the button for your site, sign up for a free account first then go here: http://sharethis.com/publishers/. From there, you'll basically choose what type of button you want and they'll give you a snippet of code that you can add to your site.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Internet Marketing

Ticor Title

Back to the Future (I mean Juicer) - Google's Search Options Time Machine

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 16:06:00 +0000

Speaking of Google juice... Now that we're all on twitter and enjoying a glimmer of 'real time' web, Google is talking more about "recency".

What does this mean? Intuitively, most of us probably want the freshest results when we search for something. But what if we want to search for something that is not very recent? What if we want to search for content from five years ago or in December of '08 or within the last 24 hours? Google now offers the ability to slice and dice your search results based on a timeline. This is pretty useful if you want to search for something and compare what the results are based on a specific time frame.

For example, if you're working on asociating your business with specific keywords or a specific search term (i.e. virtual meeting coach, or Renton WA Real Estate), you will be able to see what results appear based on specific windows in time. Thus, you can have a sort of measuring stick for your presence online over time.

The interesting side note on this is that the ability to search based on the last 24 hours means that Google is moving towards "real-time web indexing" which is pretty amazing considering that they have over 1 Trillion pages indexed. (gasp... that's a lot!)

Google put out a brief and informative video on their new features. Check out the Google Search Options Video for more info on how to use it, etc...

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Internet Marketing - PacNW

Ticor Title

The internet is like Legos - Interview #1 wth the Virtual Meeting Coach

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 15:37:00 +0000

A few months ago I blogged about vyew.com and low and behold it sparked the interest of Meri Walker, the Virtual Meeting Coach. She introduced herself to me, we had a chat, and to make a long story short, we decided to record a series of interviews where we discuss the legos in our social media toy box.

The fact that we met and are doing these recordings is a great example of how bringing a conversation to the web (my blog about virtual meetings) can attract someone else who wants to have that conversation (the virtual meeting coach). Isn't the internet fun?

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Marketing

Ticor Title

Add content to your website via cell phone - Tumblr's new feature

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 15 May 2009 22:24:00 +0000

At Ticor Title in the Northwest, we've been talking with our community about "bringing the conversation to the web" every day for some time now. And every day more free stuff shows up as vehicles for the conversation. Well, Tumblr has taken this quite literally with it's new "call in audio" feature!

Basically, Tumblr's new call in audio thing allows you to automatically post a voice note to your Tumblr site. I tried it out today and it worked perfectly. This would be a great feature for a real estate agent to use for promoting a listing or getting a live audio testimonial from satisfied customers. I suppose you could get as creative as you like with it. (Tumblr is a super simple and free way to blog - here's an explanation of tumblr).

The cool thing with the call in audio feature is that once it's set up, it's as easy as dialing a phone number and leaving a voicemail. Tumblr takes care of recording the audio and posting it to your tumblr blog. That's easy! And easy is good.

Here's how to set it up.

Log into your tumblr account
Click on the Goodies link
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and find where it says "call in audio"
Then put in the phone number that you will call in from and hit save.
It was easy enough that I could maintain my philosophy of not reading directions to set it up.

To use it all you have to do is call 1-866-584-6757 and start recording.

I tried it today. Check it out here. Tumblr "call in audio" recording. The echo that you may notice is because my office has a big echo. It's not a reflection of tumblr's recording quality.

Enjoy!
Matt Sweet
Ticor Title - IT Marketing / Technology Integration

How://will_they_find_you? (when they google your name)

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 05 May 2009 17:23:00 +0000

When I was in high school, I wanted to be the next Jimi Hendrix. I was in a band, I spent all my money on a really good guitar, and my big brother Greg was already on a record label. I had a unique name that would make for a good rock star image (so I thought). Then it happened. There was another Matthew Sweet out there and he had a big hit on the radio. I was annoyed. My name was now taken. I would have to go by another name if I were to become big....

Fast forward fifteen years to the web 2.0 world--- I'm not a big rock star (I still play guitar and sing, however) but I can have a big footprint on the web. And one of my specific goals recently was to be able to Google my name and have my website come up number one in the results. Well this week it happened! If you google "matt sweet" my website comes in at number one. I beat the other Matthew Sweet at the Google game (for today).

How did I do it?

Honestly, I don't know what is in Google's black box. But here's what I believe worked in my favor:

I registered a domain name with my name in it - matthewdsweet.com. For this site I used a free tumblr page that I could hook up to my blogs and twitter.

I put new content on the site regularly and when appropriate, I will put a link to it in my facebook status or twitter.

I link to my matthewdsweet.com site via my retaggr card, which is all over the place.

I put my site URL in every social media profile that it makes sense to put it in.

I use my name in the web address for my profile on sites like issuu.com. http://issuu.com/mattsweet or Lunch.com http://www.lunch.com/mattsweet

Potential clients may Google your name. How will they find you?

Thanks to Brad Andersohn's "Google me" business card post for inspiring me to write this.

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

p.s. My Grandma Sweet called me up one day when I was in high school and told me how proud she was of me. She had bought my album. It was the other Matthew Sweet... LOL

How to add your Retaggr signature to Outlook

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:36:00 +0000

More and more of us at Ticor Title & Escrow in the Seattle area are using Retaggr cards. And one of the most common questions I am asked is how to add a retaggr signature to Outlook. That's what we'll be talking about today. Here's a previous blog post regarding Retaggr

But first, why would you want to add your retaggr card to Outlook? Because, if you're like me and send out 20-50 emails every day, twenty days a month, you have a tremendous opportunity to politely remind your email recipients of your brand, your contact info, and your online presence. Maybe they don't already know you are a member of ActiveRain. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc... This is an opportunity for them to get the full story of your online presence and 'conversation' so to speak.

Here's what my retaggr email signature looks like (you can click on it to get to my stuff):

Here's how to add the Retaggr signature to Outlook:

Assumptions:

I'm assuming that you have a retaggr card already set up (if not, here's where to sign up)
I'm assuming that you have Outlook 2003
I'm assuming that you are comfortable with copying and pasting

Here's a link to a video of the steps listed below: Add Retaggr to Outlook 2003 (this will jump out to our corporate site because the video is large - But trust me it's helpful)

Step 1. Log in to your retaggr.com account

Step 2. Find on the top menu where it says "Profile Tools". Hover over that and choose the option for "Email Signature"

Step 3. Look to the right where you'll see a preview of your email signature.(see picture below)

Step 4. Drag your mouse over the signature to highlight the whole thing.

Step 5. Right click the highlighted area and choose "copy"

Step 6. Go to Outlook and choose "Tools > Options > Mail format" (see image below)

Step 7. Click the "signatures" button

Step 8. In the window that pops up, hit the "new" button to create a new signature

Step 9. Enter a name for your new signature and hit "next"

Step 10. Right-click in the window that pops up and choose "paste" to paste your retaggr signature in the window.

Step 11. Hit 'Finish' then OK.

Step 12. Choose your new signature for new emails, replies, and forwards (see picture) - Then hit "OK".

That's it! If you try it out, send me a test email at sweetmd@gmail.com.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title Northwest

What technologies are boosting your business? - Follow the free!

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:20:00 +0000

I'm not exactly sure where I heard it first, but somebody said, "If you want to know where the future is, follow the free". As I think about it, we've been following the free for a while now...

At Ticor, we provide title insurance and escrow services. That's what we do. But how we communicate with our clients and with each other continues to evolve more and more rapidly every day. A few years ago here in the Northwest we created the Dashboard, a killer system that facilitates a very structured and consistent means of communication with our clients. That was a fresh solution for our industry at the time. Now it's the norm. Now it's simply expected that we would provide the status of a transaction online. Where is the Ticor Dashboard, you ask? It's online. It's in the 'cloud'. And it's free.

A few years ago, at the dawn of the new millennium, we used the phone and email (and sometimes pen and paper) to correspond with each other. Five years ago we got blackberries to go along with our cell phones so we could use email on the road. That was cutting edge at the time. Now look at the recent explosion of ways in which we communicate. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Yammer, LinkedIn, and Active Rain. I use these venues as much or more than I do email. And for most of us, this all just popped up in the last year. And where are all these communication platforms? They're online. They're in the 'cloud'. And they're free.

A year ago when we planned a project, we would schedule a meeting around a table in a conference room in some central location, get our notepads out, and brainstorm ways of taking the next hill. We still do that. But now we have the option of free web conferencing via Vyew.com, working on shared documents online via Google Docs, and hashing out ideas on a mind map at mindmeister.com. It's so much more efficient. We could potentially be at other ends of the globe and still get our work done together. And where are all these collaborative tools? They're online. They're in the 'cloud'. And yes. they're free.

How about you? Do you find that you're integrating more and more free technology into your work life these days? If so, please chime in. I'd like to hear what it is.

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

For more background on the concept of "follow the free" check out this excerpt from Kevin Kelly's book, "New Rules For The New Economy"

Think Globally, Tweet Locally - Finding a local audience on twitter

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:19:00 +0000

Tweetness in Tacoma
Let's pretend for a moment that I'm a well established Real Estate agent in Tacoma, WA. I have three listings under $350k and I have a twitter account. How would I leverage twitter to attract web traffic to my listings?

Here's how I would do it.

Appearance
First I would make sure that my twitter account reflects my brand in word and deed. I would add my ubiquitous profile photo (the same one that I use for my retaggr card, fast company profile, etc...), and a crisp background image. And most importantly, I would be sure to add a link to my main website and add a good bio to my profile. Piece of cake. For photos that need cropping or touching up, I'd use picnick.com. For really cool stock photos, I would check out istockphoto.com.

Think global, Tweet Local
If I wanted to engage with an audience of local tweeple in Tacoma, I would use the twitter search feature to find people who have tweeted about Tacoma. Here's an example of a search for tweets that include the word "Tacoma". How cool is that? Now that I know who is talking about my town of choice, I can check them out and decide if I want to follow them. Chances are, they will follow me back if I am tweeting about meaningful, interesting, and engaging things. And once we're following each other, there's an even greater opportunity to engage in a conversation about our common interest.

If you're looking for more ways to find locals, try using the twitter search for unique points of interest - i.e. parks, local churches, unique local restaurants, you get the idea...

The Tasty Tweet
Now that I have a local audience that I'm engaging with, I can take the opportunity to salt my tweets tastefully with information that relates to my listings. Maybe I have a blog with information about the amenities or restaurants in the North end of Tacoma (near one of my listings). I could tweet a link to that. Maybe there's a price reduction on one of my listings. Maybe there's an open house coming up. Or, maybe I've taken some interesting video footage of the neighborhood near my listing... If it's interesting, engaging, or useful for my audience, I'll put a link to it in my tweets.

Just like sowing and reaping, if you put good stuff out to the right audience on twitter, you'll see opportunity grow!

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor IT Marketing

Tumblr Review - It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a "Liger"!

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:39:00 +0000

I have a new favorite tool online and it's called Tumblr. Why is it my favorite? Because it's free, flexible, easy, I can put whatever content I want on it, and it connects to my twitter account.

If you're wondering what tumblr is, here's a quick primer: Tumblr from my perspective nicely bridges the gap between a full-on blog and twitter because it is well suited for quick, multi-media posts. Actually, it's a lot like a blog but with Twitter-like qualities. Or it's like twitter but in 3D. It's a "Liger" of sorts.

Here's my tumblr site so you can see what I mean - Matt Sweet.

Here's what makes Tumblr fun to use. First off, It took me about two minutes to sign up and get running. An easy signup is a must for me. Secondly, I can choose my own "skin" or style sheet for my tumblr page. There are stock styles that are very easy to pick through. However, unlike twitter, Tumblr allows the more adroit user to choose a "custom HTML theme". This is a killer feature but one that should be wielded with care as it can be very powerful (or damaging).

Here's what I did. I did a search for tumblr themes and found one that I liked. In a few minutes, I was able to copy the html code for the theme and paste it right into my tumblr site. Very cool. From there, I can edit the style and appearance of the page to suit my fancy (via CSS edits in the code that I copied and pasted). So I added a custom background and a description tag for the header part of my page. No problem. But wait, it gets better...

Tumblr allows you to use Google Analytics to track the traffic on your site. And they make that easy too. Just paste your analytics code in the "Description" field where you update your tumblr settings. Here's a link to a previous post regarding how we used Analytics to improve our corporate site. My final tweak included adding a Disqus feedback form to the site. This was a little tricky, but the instructions that Disqus provides are understandable and easy to follow (Yes, I read the instructions but there were only 3 or four steps). What does the feedback form do? It enables users to make comments about the posts that I put on the site, making tumblr a bit more interactive and blog-like.

The cherry on top with tumblr is that it ties in to my twitter account. What does this mean? It means that when I post something new to my tumblr page, it will send out a tweet to my twitter friends by default. This tweet will indicate what type of post it is (photo, audio, video, text, or quote), and include a link back to my tumblr site. Very cool! What a great and easy way to drive traffic to my site.

I almost forgot. there's one more cherry on top. Tumblr let's you use your own domain name if you like. Now that's useful stuff! Imagine using tumblr as a site for a high end Real Estate listing. Imagine using it for a micro-local neighborhood blog. Imagine sharing your art with the world.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

IT Marketing

Traffic drives tweets for the WSDOT!

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 21:34:00 +0000

I discovered a new nugget of value on Twitter today and wanted to share. The WSDOT (Washington State Department of Transportation) is using twitter to tweet out traffic and transportation info for our state. This is awesome! I feel proud of my state for leveraging twitter because it's so efficient and immediate for quick bits of information such as traffic news and alerts.

What if the state tried to build a system from scratch that sent out traffic info to 2500+ people's cell phones or PDAs? It's likely that it would be cumbersome, take years to develop, and cost gobs of money to promote. Instead, they simply tweet the latest info for all those who have ears to hear it via twitter. Way to go Evergreen State for leveraging this existing and free technology!

Check out the WSDOT Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/wsdot

If you're wondering what the heck twitter is, here's a fun (and brief) little video by Commoncraft that should clear things up for you.

The Google Made Me Do It! - Why we updated our home page

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:08:00 +0000

When the time came for us to rethink and revamp the home page for the Ticor Title & Escrow Northwest website, we brushed up on our minimalist aesthetic sensibilities and went straight to Google analyitics. Why? We've been tracking the pageviews on our site for many moons now via Google analytics and there are more little nuggets of info in there about our users' preferences than you can shake a stick at. This made it really easy to determine what to keep on the home page and what to toss out.

What did we specifically look at? Well Google has a nice overlay feature that shows you your site with and overlay of where people click (and how many times they click). In our case, we noticed that people clicked on our link to the Ticor Dashboard quite a bit. On the contrary, the overlay also showed us that there were several icons taking up space on the left that weren't getting the clicks that we had originally thoght they might. So, they're gone now. No need to waste space with them. And no need to bother our users with them if they don't click them anyways.

Another simple yet telling metric we looked at when revising our page was the top content section (the pages that specifically get viewed the most). We took those top pages and put direct links to them in the upper left hand corner of the page. When you think about it, there's no sense in making it hard for our clients to get to where they're going or distracting them in the process. They're on our site for a purpose and we just made it easier for them. Let's face it. We're a title and escrow company. Our clients are not on our site to kill time. They need to place orders, request customer service, find research tools and marketing solutions, and move on. Hopefully we just made it a bit easier. Time (and google analytics) will tell!

How do you get google analytics? find out here

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

IT Marketing

Ticor Title

Free Web Conferencing with Vyew.com

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:16:00 +0000

I used to think that web conferencing was expensive, slow, and cumbersome to set up. Not anymore. A couple months ago, I discovered vyew.com and it blew me away. Not only is it super easy to use, it's fast, intuitive for guests, and it's FREE!!! I literally haven't had to read one jot of the help guide to use it. It's that easy.

Here are some key features that make vyew.com a winner for me:

* Registration is free.

* There's a white board screen that you can add multiple pages to (kind of like powerpoint). It's a great place for making notes, collaborating on ideas, and uploading images and even videos. Meeting participants can add to the content or be restricted to just viewing it.

* You can switch to "Desktop Share" mode to share what's on your screen. This is useful for so many reasons. I've used it to collaborate on web development ideas, training, and to present drafts of marketing materials. It saves so much time, it's incredible. For a quick review of a project, it's a perfect way to meet up, talk and take a gander at the items at hand - no driving, no traffic, everyone saves a bit of time and energy. Heck, I'd go as far as calling it a greener way to meet up.

Who will benefit from Vyew? Anyone that has something to present or collaborate on, can benefit from using vyew.com. If you're a Real Estate Agent helping a buyer find properties, you could share your desktop and guide them through a search while they're in the comfort of their home of office. If you're a designer presenting drafts, you can set up a meeting on the fly and invite anyone to participate via email. If you're on a team that's geographically spread out, you can use vyew to connect up and collaborate and nobody will have to travel.

It's a no brainer as far as web conferencing is concerned. I'm a big fan.

Here's a link to their list of potential uses for vyew

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title

Ticor Title and Escrow goes mobile in Gig Harbor, WA Market

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 23:36:00 +0000

Well, here's a new concept for our friends buying and selling homes in Gig Harbor, WA. We're going mobile!

As of December 1, 2008 Ticor Title & Escrow will be 100% Mobile in the Harbor area.

What does this mean? It means that we're offering free mobile escrow signings in the Gig Harbor market during normal business hours. It means that we'll meet our clients in a location that is convenient for them. It means that we are running light and flexible and green. It's a more efficient & lower cost way of maintaining our presence in a valuable part of Pierce County.

We appreciate our Gig Harbor clients very much and look forward to providing Title Insurance and Escrow service to them with the same great staff, same trustworthy service, but with a fresh new take on the location.

See you in Gig Harbor!

Drive more traffic to your listings with Google Reader 'Clip"

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 00:48:00 +0000

I have written here before on how to get your craigslist items to show up in Google Reader. And I've written on how to share them on your Google Reader 'Shared Items' Page. These all equal more opportunities for web traffic to your items, of course.

But let's not stop there!! Why not create more opportunity for traffic by adding a Google Reader Clip to a blog or website. For a Realtor who has listings on Craigslist, this could be a batch of links to each of those listings. Cool! A listing agent could add this to a preferred Lender's blog, etc...

Here's an example of a page with a google reader clip on it: IT Marketing Blog.

These are the steps to getting a Google Reader ‘clip’ for your website (this assumes that you have a google reader account and you have added at least one subscription.)

1. Log in to your gmail or google account and go to ‘Reader’

2. Choose ‘Settings” then click the 'Folders and Tags' tab.

3. Choose ‘add clip to your site’

4. Either click the button to add to your blogger page, or copy the code in the box at the bottom of the page. Then paste it in to your website.

Verizon Wireless Internet - South Puget Sound Coverage

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 22:48:00 +0000

I've had a Verizon Wireless internet card for a month or so now and I will admit that I am rather pleased with the performance. It's a pretty simple device. I just plug it into my laptop and I have access to the internet wherever I roam (hopefully...).

I'd say there are two big factors that determine my happiness level with this service:

1. Ease of use

2. Coverage / Connection speed.

VZW Internet Ease of use - the verizon card wins big in this category. Setting it up was pretty easy. I loaded the CD that came with it in my machine and followed the prompts for installation. This took five minutes or so and I was up and running. The only thing that posed a challenge was that I had to go into the settings and tell it not to automatically run at startup and tell it not to search for wi-fi. I already have that built into my machine and I didn't want to change the way I did it.

VZW Internet Coverage - I live and work in the well populated Puget Sound area so you would expect that coverage would be great. It pretty much is so far. To document my experiences using it in different locations, I've started a Google map showing where I've used it. Check out my Verizon Wireless Internet Coverage map here. You'll be able to click on the points on the map so read a quick blurb about the coverage there.

I will admit that I was reluctant to sign up for this service but now that I have, I'd say it offers a great deal of flexibility and convenience.

Here's the map:

View Larger Map

Videos via Blackberry is easy

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 23:19:00 +0000

I just got a new blackberry curve with video capablity. Cool. So today I recorded my first video from my blackberry and posted it to youTube.

What's the verdict?

Here's how easy it was:

I drove to office depot and bought a 4 GB micro sd card for my blackberry (this is necessary for video storage on the Blackberry).

I put the card in the phone and started driving to my office.

While driving in the Ticor - Mobile , I noticed that my phone had rebooted so I found the video icon and clicked it and then hit the record button (and recorded a minute of nonsense on the road - see video below) *and please don't try this while driving, for safety reasons.

I then got to my desk and signed up for a YouTube account that is conveniently connected to my Gmail account. I uploaded my video. This step took about three minutes.

Then I came to my blog here and posted the video by copying and pasting the code that YouTube gave me right after uploading the video.

Now that was easy! Just imagine what I could do with this if I were selling houses or land. I could create my own virtual tours!

Enjoy!
Matt Sweet

Leverage Google Reader to Boost your Craigslist Hits

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 05:41:00 +0000

I enjoy buying and selling guitars and amps and related equipment on craigslist in the Seattle area. It's fun to keep the gear fresh and try out new and different sounding equipment. So naturally, I'm open to new ways of getting more web traffic to my items for sale.

And, I posted here before explaining how I can use Google Reader to keep an eye out for stuff I might want to buy on craigslist. Now I'm going to talk about the other side of the coin, so to speak.

The selling side...

Right now I have a Fender tube amp for sale on Craigslist. So what did I use Google Reader for this time? Well, Google Reader has a nice feature called "Shared Items". "Shared Items" is the public side of Google Reader, so to speak. Any RSS feed that I subscribe to in Google Reader can be tagged as a shared item. Shared items show up on my "Shared Items" page for the world to see (imagine that!).

So, I put my Craigslist ad on my Shared Items page.

Here's a quick explanation of how I did it:

1. I placed my ad on CL. But the trick is that I put a very unique keyword in the ad. This (the unique keyword) allowed me to do a CL search that pulls up only my items for sale.

2. I did a CL search using my unique keyword as the search term. (this pulled up my item only)

3. I subscribed to that specific RSS feed with my Google Reader account.

4. I tagged that new feed subscription as a shared item in google reader. This put it on my shared items page.

* By the way, if this is not making any sense, see my previous post that talks about Google Reader and Craigslist in depth.

Why is this good? Here are a couple reasons.

1. It adds another footprint on the web for my items for sale. Someone may happen to do a google search for the item that I'm selling. I just increased my odds for getting a hit!

2. I use Retaggr and my Retaggr card has a widget on it that links to my Google Reader page! Ha! Now everywhere my retaggr card exists on the web ( in blog posts, etc...) there will be a link to my reader page and thus my item for sale as well. Wow! My odds for a hit just went up again...

Now imagine what I could do with this if I were selling real estate...

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title ITM

My musical thumb drive replacement

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 23:46:00 +0000

I had a nice little thumb drive that was so handy for all the usual reasons. It was compact and portable. It had a cool little light that turned on when I plugged it in. It came with a couple extra caps. I could plug it into anyone's PC and share files. It kicked tail over a CD. It did it's job.

Then one day I couldn't find it when I needed it at an appointment. The tiny little thing had eluded me once and for all. What was I to do?

Then it occured to me that I had been carrying a portable hard drive around with me the whole time. My iPod! I don't know why it took me so long to realize it but I'm glad I did. When ever I need to share files of all sizes, I just plug in my iPod and windows recognizes it as a portable hard drive. I can copy and paste files to and from it just like I would with files and folders on my PC or network. It's truly a useful feature.

I never did go out and buy a new thumb drive.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title ITM

Is Microsoft Cool Yet?

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 22:39:00 +0000

Everyone's chattering about the new Microsoft ad with Seinfeld and Bill Gates. There are blogs and news articles galore bashing it.

Check it out:

Tip for MS: Fire the Advertising Agency

MSFT Ad is to PC/Mac Campaign as Zune is to iPod

Bill Gates, Jerry Seinfeld ad airs - Apple has nothing to worry about

Internet disses new Microsoft commercial

New Microsoft Seinfeld-Gates ad campaign starts with a dud

What's the deal with this commercial? No, seriously.

Microsoft Commercial Is Anything But Funny

Microsoft Seinfeld Ad Not Exactly a Hit

Bill Gates + Jerry Seinfeld = What?!!???

Seinfeld-Gates TV commercial -- vague, baffling and unfunny

Seinfeld Vista ad is out, and it's bizarre

First Microsoft/Seinfeld Ad Bombs

Seinfeld & Gates: Was this ad supposed to be funny?

First Gates-Seinfeld ad leaves us scratching our heads

I loved it! But then again I'm a big fan of "Seinfeld" and the commercial feels to me like it's a part of a Seinfeld episode. I't kind of a commercial about nothing.

Another reason why I loved it is because I'm excited to see what the Crispin Porter + Bogusky team is up to. These are the guys that came up with the strange "Burger King guy" campaign. There's a great article about Microsoft's switch to this ad agency in the June 2008 edition of Fast Company.

I don't care what the critics say. I think Microsoft is a little cooler now (and mainly because the critics don't like the commercial).

Enjoy!
Matt Sweet
Ticor Title ITM

Google Analytics - measure, refine & grow your web traffic

sweetmd@gmail.com (Matt Sweet) — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:12:00 +0000

Here are a few questions anyone with a business website should ask themselves or their webmaster:

How many hits is my site is getting?

What time of day or week people are visiting my site the most?

What links are getting clicked on my home page?

What size screen is my site most viewed with?

What are my top traffic sources?

How long do visitors tend to stay on my site?

Are my email campaigns driving traffic to my site?

Why are these questions important? They're important because knowledge is power. They're important becase if you know this kind of information about your site visitors, you can tailor your site to them and their preferences and thus give them a better experience.

For example, if 80% of my visitors are viewing my website with a screen resolution of 1024 x 768 (standard 17" monitor), I had better be sure that my site doesn't extend beyond that width. have you ever viewed a site that was too wide for your montitor? It's annoying to have to scroll to the left and right to view the page. You get the idea. It's like having dinner guests. Wouldn't it be helpful to know what they do and don't like to eat before you start cooking? What if they're allergic to peanuts and you're serving your famous pad thai (loaded with peanut sauce)? Not good.

So, how do you track all this information about your site? I would suggest Google Analytics. It's free, user friendly, intuitive, and provides more detail than you would believe. All you need is a gmail account and you can sign up for it. We use it on the Ticor Title Northwest site with great results.

Enjoy!

Matt Sweet

Ticor Title