TRANSPARENT REAL ESTATE

How a Real Estate Brokerage can connect with their community through Breaking News

Pat Kitano — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:16:00 GMT

We're developing a new broadcast product for real estate brokerages based on our Breaking News concept that will position them as the hub of their communities / city. The prototype is at Breaking SF Housing News.com. How it works: Cities are subdivided into neighborhoods or suburbs. Agents within a brokerage learn to use Twitter to broadcast updated housing information in their focus neighborhoods. The brokerage's agents' Twitter feeds are automatically loaded into the neighborhoods and added to the "Realtor Directory". Other local merchants can participate by neighborhood; for example, restaurants can tweet out their lunch and dinner menus (see today's Boston Globe article about Restaurants on Twitter), and make the Breaking News site a compelling community presence. We're already in development in several cities. Although it only takes a few hours to set up the Breaking News site, it requires educating agents on how to Twitter and use the site effectively. If you're an owner of brokerage interested in creating a community service that highlights your agents' Twitter broadcasts on the housing markets, contact us @pkitano or via the Retaggr contact button on the right sidebar. ...

Marketing is Content - a Case Study at NCI

Pat Kitano — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 07:18:00 GMT

Dan McCarthy at Viral Housing Fix examines how online marketing has evolved into a content strategy. Simply put, social media has changed the definition of what the mass media used to control - content. Now that content has become an aggregation of voices, it is everywhere and uncontrollable. Marketing strategy that used to be focused on controlling the brand image is now focused on "herding" the voices.Dan's thesis on how to develop a social media marketing strategy is revealing... traditionally, the costs associated with brand management - marketing collateral and their production are high, but content production was minimal. Social media forces management to realign marketing resources to content management. Planning once devoted to brochures is now moved into building Facebook pages for brands as content conduits.Companies that embrace this new way of marketing are still rare because it's hard for both management and staff to do three things: 1) give up control of the brand message by allowing other voices to create the message, 2) create content themselves about who they are and what they do (it's a big challenge to expose your intellect out there), and 3) get everybody on board with the social media program. I expect those companies like Zappos and NCI that break this mold will be equipped to set strategies and execute much faster than their counterparts. ...

Join us at Inman Connect 2009 in San Francisco

Pat Kitano — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:56:00 GMT

The Breaking News Network has secured a discounted group registration rate for Real Estate Connect San Francisco 2009! Deadline to register at this discounted price is June 19, 2009. See full conference program here » Save $490 when you register through this page* Use the code "BreakingNews” when you register to receive discounted price plus Inman premium members receive an additional $100 off the rates below. After June 19th Discounted Price Savings Register for Full Conference » (Conference + 1 Workshop) $939 $449 52% Register for Conference Only » $859 $399 54% Can't-miss events at Real Estate Connect: ...

Making Training Programs more Efficient

Pat Kitano — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:33:00 GMT

We have always believed online training and webinars are the most efficient way educate companies and organizations online and social media marketing. It's natural to demonstrate online marketing concepts on a webinar.After experiences with massive education of companies and organizations, we now understand that live webinars are best used to deliver "breaking news" concepts and ideas. We noticed our "basic training" courses- step by step tasks like how to use Twitter or Facebook - were more likely being viewed by participants on replay, not live. And this is natural; rote training is most efficiently delivered to participants in a "taped" format. Educational media Challenges Benefit / Efficiency gain up to 2007 ...

6 things I do to limit my time on Twitter to 20 minutes daily

Pat Kitano — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 06:21:00 GMT

Despite following 17,000+ Twitterers, I have systemized my time on Twitter to make it an efficient networking tool. (Disclaimer: I do spend much more than 20 minutes on Twitter during the days I use Twitter for our #domus webinar workshops). Broadcast great content and links - Whenever you see a great article or tweet, share the link to that article in a tweet. 8 articles retweeted per day = 5 minutes Ignore your general timeline of tweets - Use Seesmic or PeopleBrowsr to separate the people you want to follow. There's only ~100 on my watch list. Of course, don't totally ignore the timeline, sometimes interesting tweets will catch your eye. Paying no attention = 0 minutes Follow up on DMs and @replies - Twitterers that start conversations with you welcome a response, even a short acknowledgement. Many who find you have shared business interests that can be leveraged into intimate business conversation quickly. 15 replies per day = 7 minutes Thank or acknowledge Twitterers who retweet or #followfriday you - See #2 in the first list. Many Retweeters want to get to know you. Show them some love by either retweeting their tweets back, starting a Twitter conversation with them, or just a simple "thanks for retweeting!". I guarantee they will love the acknowledgement. 10 retweets per day = 5 minutes (I'm not consistent with this). Be reticent - This is really based on personality. I'm not prone to chat, so I don't get into those long threaded chats you see on Twitter or blogs. If I were naturally garrulous, I may be spending hours on Twitter. In any case, most Twitterers who get to know me realize this is my personality and accept the fact that I'm not going to get into bar talk ...

Become a Real Estate Examiner for Examiner.com

Pat Kitano — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 15:43:00 GMT

On Media Transparent today, I discuss Examiner.com, a hyperlocal blog network that is recruiting blog writers for a variety of topics within a city. If you're a real estate professional writing a blog, I would recommend applying for a spot as the Real Estate Examiner or Mortgage Examiner in your city. In San Francisco, Alex Clark of The Front Steps has grabbed the Real Estate Examiner spot, and republishes his blog articles on the Examiner. This is one example of the "write once, distribute/syndicate everywhere" concept.Examiner.com is another sign that the mass media (the Examiner was once San Francisco's prominent second newspaper, but now is just a freebie print in this market) is engaging the social media to act as their journalist sources. BTW, I've joined as their Social Media Examiner.If you'd like, please apply at http://www.examiner.com/refer, and use me as your referral source, just find me by name or ID # 13126 (there is a Referral Program for Examiners that runs through June). Thanks! Find the Real Estate Examiner spot under the category "Neighborhoods & Culture"). If the Real Estate Examiner spot is taken in your city, you may want to become one of the neighborhood examiners. ...

Cyberhomes Market Forecast - More for agent marketing than consumer curiousity

Pat Kitano — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:26:00 GMT

Cyberhomes Market Forecast is positioned as a consumer service to evaluate the state of the market in their neighborhood.But it's really a marketing tool for real estate agents going on listings appointments. Altos Research provides customized market reports by zipcode that agents could pdf and bring to appointments. Now, Cyberhomes has leveraged its Fidelity title plant to "personalize" the report down to the address.I ordered a report on a property in a Central Valley town. The results were so explicit, I realized I couldn't display the report on the blog. The depth and breadth of the data is impressive and a focus of conversation on a listings appointment. Here are some excerpts: Forecasts on foreclosure rates by zip code are valuable:The reports seem appropriately priced at $10 each. ...

REBarCamps vs. 140 Twitter Conference

Pat Kitano — Wed, 27 May 2009 05:29:00 GMT

After attending numerous REBarCamps (REBarCamp Philly starts tomorrow) and now a part of the new 140 Twitter conference, I can make these observations: REBarCamps140 Twitter Focus Business practicalDeveloper and marketing focus roughly equal Weakness Wide variation of social media expertise from newbies to leading-edgers All things Twitter is a narrow topic. Already knew of most interesting applications Sociability Everybody knows each other, one big familySocial media more fragmented into cliques Networking Easy because everybody knows each other Easy because Twitter introductions are welcome Utility Everybody on same wavelength - common business interests facilitate opportunities Twitter and conference participant "tags" make it easy to find people with common business interests Average age 50 30 Participants No Twitter developers at REBarCamps and no real estate agents at 140 Twitter What is surprising is how well attended and vibrant REBarCamps are, and how the level of social media savvy of many real estate agents exceeds the social media experts who haven't applied theory to practice. I know many real estate social media folks get pretty bored at traditional Web 2.0 conferences. ...

Facebook Virus Alert

Pat Kitano — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:24:00 GMT

I notice there is a virus attack in Facebook that started at 8:14am PDT. It will send a status email like this:Patrick sent you a message. Subject: Hello "Check areps.at" To reply to this message, follow the link below:http://www.facebook.com/etcetcetc Don't click on the link, and change your password. My account was not hijacked, and I could change the password.Update on FB phishing scam via Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/05/21/arepsat/ ...

Doomers Rationalizing Armageddon Averted

Pat Kitano — Fri, 15 May 2009 15:14:00 GMT

All the doom and gloom forecasters are updating their Armageddon predictions this week:Richard Fisher of the Dallas Fed, "who has termed his outlook for the economy the most gloomy among his Fed colleagues", says on CNBC the Fed prevented economic depression.Dr. Doom Marc Faber has revised his forecast to the long term and is predicting the collapse of both the US financial markets and, subsequently, capitalism.Both (and by extension, all the doomers) attribute Armageddon averted to the unified global response, from governments to Central Banks, to the crisis.I'm on record since December 2007 onward espousing that unified global action was essential to stem the crisis - Central Banks cooperate with Interest Rate Cuts - when the conventional thinking through 2008-9 was that the US economy heading into hyperinflationary territory, and a crashing dollar. Of course, that is still the huge elephant in the room going forward into a future of massive global debt. ...