from my other blog

Looking for Stones

I think that the story that follows is even more important today, especially since I am helping agents at Towne & Country, Realtors to find their way in New/Social media. Inevitably the question that all people wonder is, “So if we do all of this great stuff, when are we supposed to have time to sell real estate?”

I had originally published this in my other blog. I gave myself permission to reprint it here. Thanks, Diane! You’re a peach!

A teacher stood in front of his class, and pulled a huge jar from under the counter. He began to fill it with large stones. When he had piled every stone into the jar, it was filled to the top.

He asked the class, “Is this jar full?” Of course, they answered yes.

The teacher then proceeded to add small stones that he had kept hidden under the counter. The class watched as a surprising amount of these filled the spaces between the larger stones. “How about now? Is my jar full yet?” he asked them.

He then brought out a bucket of sand, and slowly poured it into the jar, filling the spaces around the stones. When the sand had filled all of the gaps and threatened to spill over the edge, he asked, “What about now?”

Well, obviously nothing else could fit in that jar.

Then the teacher brought up a watering can and proceeded to empty most of the contents into the jar.

This story was told by my trainer at my old real estate agency. At this point, all of us agents were all thinking that this implied that whenever you complain that you are busy- you can always find more time, and indeed I have heard the parable told like that. Our coach went one step further, though.

He said, “You are probably thinking that what I am going to tell you is there is always more time. But what I am trying to tell you is everything wouldn’t have fit into the jar if the big stones hadn’t gone in first.”

Too true. Your business will fill up your days, whether you are contributing to your blog, selling real estate, or sorting paper clips. It is SO important to determine what is important- regardless of the business you are in- and place that into your schedule first.

There really is no reason that I have this marquee here except for the fact that I think it is really neat.
mother real estate sales agent artist teacher blogger TwitterQueen blipper wiseguy

Who decides what is cool and what is not?

My daughter, aged 11, has recently become obsessed with the Vlog Brothers. One of these brothers is an author, gearing books at children about my daughter’s age, maybe a little older. In addition to the YouTube channel which these brothers run- which has incredible calls-to-action, they have a Ning social site- very popular.

We went to the book store the other day, and, in addition to looking for and begging for John Green (one of the brothers’) books, she insisted on printing and bringing along these papers to slide into books such as Harry Potter and those written by Maureen Johnson:

NerdFighters- another call to action

She then actually put the papers into the books!

What better advertising is there?

I saw an incredible post about guerrilla marketing circulating twitter today. Not all of it appears guerrilla in how I understand the term, but there is so much good advice on here that I am going to go through, write it down and work out a business plan from it.

The thing is: this is low-cost in money, and medium-cost in effort and thought. It can work with real estate with the correct targeting and consistency.

Buzz means nothing without honey

So we have a new social baby. Little Buzz was born this week, making his way into a crowded loud world of online social interaction.

I am one of the dinosaurs who can remember people being petrified to engage in any online interaction. The forums were considered geeky and exclusive at best; sordid and possibly dangerous at worst. Whole TV shows were based on the predatory nature of many people trying to engage others online. Social interaction online has changed to the point where people are, I would guess, about as honest with others online as they are face-to-face.

Here are a few links if you need some help learning how to use Google Buzz: this is about Google buzz on mobile and this is the bare-bones nuts and bolts of Buzz. If you need to find out about twitter, there are thousands of articles to help you.

I am not as interested in telling you how these work- that is covered elsewhere, and experience is the best teacher, anyway. I am also not assessing these apps from a social point of view- I can handle that addiction on my own. I want to tame them for business and make that time use productive. Things like SocialTalk and HootSuite can help organize your social media family.

But the question is: will I take the time to learn how to use Buzz? Will I push myself to start from scratch rebuilding a community on a different platform when I have more than 1000 friends on Facebook and more than 4 times that many on twitter?

Do we need to go wider? I noticed a couple of things that attracted some attention amongst my online friends this week. They both had to do with taking circles of friendship and deepening the ties. One was a Facebook group started by Rob Hahn, in which I am Queen of Boston and Abbess, Sisterhood of the Twitterati (a nod to my involvement with the TwitterQueens). The group, RE.NET, has made a place for people to socialize who are already friends- formed initially online and enriched at Real Estate events. Rob has been a perfect host, making people comfortable to share and- if the truth be told- miss each other. I check in a few times a day, and that is something that I don’t do with almost any other interface.

Something else that I think is going to really take off is similar but more business oriented. I have been seeing the hashtag #rett on twitter with no real explanation. Trying to figure out what was going on with context clues led me to guess that people were coming together to discuss the business of real estate- not as competitors, but as confederates. I also saw the new RETT page on Facebook. The “About” reads:

“What if a bunch of real estate types (agents, lenders, title) sat around in an open space, working, chatting and collaborating? #rett”

Buzz, you are cute, and I may end up attached to you, but right now I am staying up nights with your sibs twitter and blip. I know you all serve different purposes, and that’s valid. But isn’t the purpose- the real, underlying purpose of all of this- to connect and offer something of value, whether that something is friendship or service?

I am at the point where I want to go deeper, not wider.

Oh, Happy Bday, Facebook!

I get email notification when some of the blogs I read are updated. I know the smartest practice would be to set them up in a reader, but I am in the habit of constantly checking my email. Habit works as a friend, in this case anyway.

Today a nice post by ViperChill popped into my email box. Head on over and read it- you won’t hurt my feelings. The reason I have posted it here is because with social media you can only keep up with certain trends personally, if you are doing anything else at the same time, such as hoping to keep the house clean, or earning a living. I think it is less that there is a Social Media Revolution and more a Social Media Evolution because just when you think you have it-  something else happens, paradigms shift, the fabric of the Universe tears and voila! you are doing it incorrectly.

I am not even sure if Paradigms shift any more, but it’s fun to say.

So read Glen’s post, head over to your blog (or ask your virtual assistant to) and update your All_In_One and HeadSpace settings. That’s where I will be.

I've got a secret

“Within the first six months, these [doctors] wrote six million prescriptions for more than fifty million of these happy blue pills, ” noted Alex Wipperfurth in Brand Hijack. Of  course, the happy blue pill that he was referring to was Viagra, which came out in 1998.

Shouldn’t this country be happier?

I had lunch with an agent from another office the other day. We had a nice time talking, and the sandwiches at the Longhorn were good. She said something that I thought was interesting, something I had thought about often myself. She asked if we all shouldn’t help each other out (she was referring to real estate agents) regardless of office affiliation.

Suppose your office has a recipe for success- a “secret sauce,” I guess. Should you share that with others? Will that make the entire industry stronger, or make your own (and your office’s) position weaker?

Suppose your office had a recipe for the Viagra that would counteract a flat market.

This is what I think. I think that we all need to help one another- those of us that are left.  I think when @RealtyMan presented about Facebook at REBarCamp Boston that he wasn’t giving anyone the skill sets to take him down.

So, like everyone else in RE.net, I will share my general knowledge. Specific application of that knowledge set has been promised to Towne & Country, Realtors- that is the promise that I have made to the company in regards to the Central MA area. But do I think you need a blog? YES! Where can you get one? You can set up a free one on WordPress.com or blogger, or you can get one of your very own using the WordPress platform (godaddy has an easy set-up).

Should you buy into every social media or new media thing that comes along? Gerry and I are kind of spread out everywhere but that is because we have to for Towne & Country, Realtors. In fact, Gerry does a lot of beta testing for real estate platforms, helping to evaluate them for the developers. As an agent, though, I think you want get involved in a few things that you can really dig deeply into and extend your personality. And I am cheap as all get out- if it is going to cost me something, I don’t do it. The cost to me is time: sweat-equity, if you prefer.

Bottom line: I want you all to succeed. I want the exceptional agents to stay in the business- you may end up sitting across the table from me as a cobroke, or in the same position with one of  the Towne & Country, Realtors team, or actually being a member of our team someday. Who knows?

And the agent I spoke with the other day is dead on- we all have to have each others’ backs. That makes the industry better for the consumer, and customer service is what it is all about.

Want to have lunch and bat ideas around? I promise not to mention Viagra. diane@realtyman.com

So sue me

As usual, I am coming in on the tail end of a controversy. This post has to do with thoughts that started off, anyway, in an Agent Genius post.

No, I take that back. It did not start there- it started maybe 2 months or more earlier in the planning stages of REBarCamp Indiana, had an apparent climax in the post by Greg Cooper, which was answered by another post by Bill Lublin, scads of comments and the controversy is still going strong. I don’t think we have seen the fallout yet, is the thing.

On the surface it would seem that the fallout is whether Greg unloaded his angst in the proper forum- was it blame or flame? Could there have been a better way to do this?  What would Cisco do?

But that’s the surface. What is under all of this is something more important.

This is Todd’s twitter profile: “Social Media Manager for the National Association of REALTORS®, and these are my personal opinions. Oh, and I’m a crummy speller. Deal with it.” He says in a comment/response to Greg Cooper’s video, “My bio is written the way it is for transparency sake. I believe in telling people where I sit before I tell them where I stand. I think it’s important for people to know who I work for. I also think it’s important to tell them that while I do work for them, this is where I intend to share my personal opinions.”

That is actually elegant- “telling people where I sit before telling them where I stand.” I love that.

As an aside- or maybe by way of meandering to the next point I had a broker once who suggested that I not be involved on Facebook because things could be taken the wrong way. At the time if he had more than suggested that, I would have told him to put a sock in it and taken my license elsewhere. How are you going to be able to reach the younger demographic without an online presence?

But even in the time that I have been involved on twitter, it has gone from being a dark smoke-and-conversation-filled room to being an outdoor cafe next to a busy street. Conversations that I wouldn’t have thought twice about putting into the stream a year ago are now reserved for Direct Message. I don’t think I have changed; the medium is more populated.

And maybe even that isn’t the point. Say I am at work and sneak onto twitter and say something that could get me in legal trouble- is my employer liable now too? If Todd answers a question about a NAR-related thing while on twitter on his personal time, who is responsible for the content of his answer? If an agent goes home after having listed the home of the client from hell and says something like, “Great. Another overpriced listing” – on his own time in his own living room into his personal twitter stream-  could his broker be sued? If someone misunderstands an issue and posts publicly about it in an agent’s forum, possibly damaging someone’s reputation- who is responsible for the lawsuit that may ensue? The broker?

If you make a video on a camera that you wrote off as a business expense on last year’s tax returns is it a business video? Where is the line drawn between personal and professional opinion?

Sherry Chris asked on our radio show today whether Maya, Lesley or I had ever gone back and erased tweets. I have had some DM fails that I probably gave me third degree burns from the friction of erasing, so yes. I know that I have had moments I would have liked to erase, without a doubt.

Frankly, real estate agents are always at work. Does this mean that their brokers are always liable if their agents mess up online? How about franchise owners?

I think this is a bigger issue than just a he said- he said problem, and I do not think we will be seeing easy answers to any of these questions, given the fluid nature of new media. One thing I am fairly sure of: if you watch the stream carefully, a good portion of those tweeting after midnight in their time zones are at least somewhat tipsy, and the distance makes it harder to bring them home and tuck them safely into bed.

empty seats

There is no such thing as “business as usual” in business today. Most businesses are planning on implementing a social media strategy this year, if they have not already done so. What I notice most in this article is that the Inc 500 respondents use social media in a fluid way.

I was reading an older (read: mid ’90s) book about marketing and while the ideas behind the book were really relevant, the vehicles were not. Friendster was noted as being one of the go-to places for being noticed in marketing.  Fifty years ago, fifteen years would not be enough to cause a really large shift in location.

Today, Friendster is a distant something-or-other to Facebook, twitter and MySpace, as far as the online Malt Shops go. And there are niche hangouts popping up every day. These niches are where the real action or interaction will be, I think. As of April 2009, Ning had 1,000,000 user-created networks. Our TwitterQueens is one of these, and while the growth was slow at the beginning (I remember being excited when we had 20 members), today we have 466 men and women. This is the face of the future. People will interact with the twitter followers in their favorites column, mostly, because the rest of it is just too darn big. That, mainly, is why I don’t understand people wanting a million twitter followers- because unless you are only broadcasting information, you can’t deal with a number like that.

But fluidity- change- is going to be the hallmark of a complete social media package. You have to keep looking around to see what is new, to see where people are going, and to build from there. You can’t say, “OK, I have built my twitter stream and have a great FB page. Phew! Glad that’s over with.” In five years it is very likely that someone will have come out with a better twitter and only the nostalgic will be playing there.

for choosing me as one of 7 winners of the Carnival of Real Estate, edition #172. I feel really honored! Here’s the link so you can check out the others, and the honorable mentions: http://www.7dsassociates.com/7ds-blog/2010/1/25/extra-extra-read-all-about-it-the-carnival-of-real-estate-ed.html

Again, thank you!

carnival ride

Motivation?

I am always trying to think of inventive ways to involve readers-and find them. I want to do this here and for the real estate company that I am working with now- Towne & Country. I KNOW that we can service the client the best out of all of the brokerages in the area. The trick is connecting in the online space first- and that is difficult for an independent to do. You have to be imaginative.

I have been reading Brand Hijack by Alex Wipperfurth, which was a gift to me from the amazing Sarah Cooper (@SarahWV on twitter). It talks about when the ownership of a brand is taken from the company by the consumer. I have observed this phenomenon, and am interested in seeing how it can be implemented.

And there’s this: the VlogBrothers, whom my daughter watch religiously. They pass messages back and forth on YouTube in a way that invites voyeurism. What interests me is their effective calls-to-action. Watch this:

Effective! The brothers also have a rule- their videos can’t be longer than 4 minutes or the offending brother has to perform a punishment that is decided by the other brother based on ideas posted on the vlog. It keeps my daughter monitoring the posts in hopes of being able to contribute to a punishment- another call to action. Their audiences are involved- and passionate.

Now- to get this company hijacked by its clients, and turn the blog into a local obsession.

Note: Several friends on Facebook gave me great advice and several ideas about Calls-to-Action. Friend me at facebook.com/heyamaretto and follow this link:

http://www.facebook.com/HeyAmaretto?v=feed&story_fbid=449630940524 to see their ideas.

This was reprinted with permission of the author Lesley Lambert- one of the best bloggers I know of.

As I did my normal perusal of Facebook today I noticed something very odd. Many of my friends had a color as their status update. Just a color…nothing else. My page was rife with: green, white: plain white, beige, black, leopard and even a champagne.
I thought it was strange, but it was a limited group at first, so I brushed it off. Fast forward a few hours and when I look at Facebook all I see is colors and I now have some Facebook messages inviting me to join. The messages said something like this: “Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY women no men …. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the women have a color in their status…”
WHY DIDN’T ANYONE POST PINK?
Now, the really amusing thing was that many of the color updates that I was viewing were posted by men. So much for keeping them in the dark (and good for you for being secure enough to come out with your bra wearing habits boys!).
Let me say straightaway that I am a HUGE supporter of breast cancer awareness. I had my first mammogram at age 30 because of a family history that includes both my mother and her sister. My aunt passed when she was 38 from breast cancer. I actually put my $ where my mouth is…..btw.

That being said…I am not really clear how this update business will help fuel Breast Cancer awareness. I went ahead and posted this as my Facebook status: “I am a huge supporter of breast cancer awareness, but I don’t think anyone really cares what color my bra is….or that telling you will make anyone more aware. If you are interested, just use your imagination: I am sure that will be more exciting than the reality.”

The responses came in and were plentiful. Many people were confused about what was going on and were thankful that I put it out there so they got some answers. My response to them is: Why are you too chicken to ASK? I went on Twitter and said WTF is going on with Facebook statuses being all colorful and got the answer right away.
Many people agreed with me. But one person didn’t agree, my Twitter friend Melissa Case DelGaudio (@startabuzz), and she came right out with a very valid point: “As silly as it might seem, I submit that EVERYONE is talking about this right now. So whether anyone actually cares what color anyone’s bra is, it’s got people talking about awareness, which was the whole point. :)”
My opinion on this topic isn’t swayed by her point…I still don’t see how Breast Cancer research will benefit from knowing what color my bra is (and I am still not telling you dirty lecherous beasts). I do see her point and I get that it brought this to everyone’s attention, BUT what it brought to my attention was THIS….
SOCIAL MEDIA IS FAST.
Before you get too deep into “duh Lesley”….I knew this already, you did, too, but I mean REALLY REALLY fast.
How powerful is this tool? How amazing that someone (and do we even know who started this bra nonsense anyways?) decided that today would be the day to post your bra color (tee hee hee) and suddenly WOOSH every woman (and many men-not that there is anything wrong with that!) were doing just that and within hours it was a huge topic of conversation.
What does that tell us?
Well, it tells me that my grandmother was right…clean underwear all the way. Cuz if I get in an accident I don’t want you all going viral with the fact I died in dirty underwear.
What it tells me (really this time, no REALLY I swear) is that social media is becoming the most powerful marketing tool in history.
People, fasten your seatbelts: this is the best ride ever!
oh and ps. Go donate to Breast Cancer Research.

I have been testing to see if Posterous has been able to “work around” difficult web posts- blip.fm songs, for example, and the elf yourself videos, which you create and then are available for download if you purchase them.

post what?

Posterous is “smart” and can figure out how to translate a lot of things into a post, and then pass it on. When “disallowed” access to media- as in these cases, I assume- it does the best it can and at this point does not circumvent the “stops” that are in place. In a nutshell, Posterous will post the link, but not the media.

I had seen reference to whether or not Posterous blurs “copyright standards” even further than they are. I use Posterous often to grab an interesting article that I see, and post it. You can tell on the site itself what part is quoted and what isn’t, and after the first few times, I took only enough to lead me back to the article and show up in Posterous search. I tend to use Posterous as an online bulletin board- clip something interesting, pop it up, and reference it later.

You could even tell which was which on most of the themes that I experimented with on WordPress. Some even put big honking quotation marks around the “quoted text”- and that was fine with me. I am not out to steal someone else’s ideas- only “build off of them” and “learn.”

But the line is blurry. When my Posterous clips are “shot over” to Facebook, they are stripped of a lot of the “identifiers” th at let you know when one person’s quotes leave off and my thoughts begin. Even sometimes when I click the “share” button for ordinary events I want to pass on from other friends you can’t discern that “it really isn’t my post.” I have to go back in and make an attribution note.

Likely, if it is posted on the ‘net, someone is hoping the content goes viral. We all want to be the next Shay Carl or Robert Scoble- well, I would have to be a hell of a lot smarter to be Scoble, but you “catch my drift.” And online, that is possible.

Diane was quite possible a Zagat Guide in a past life

Thinking outside the box, and in some cases there’s no box at all. The funny thing is- what is startling and innovative today will be commonplace tomorrow.

Here’s one that I think less sells the home and more sells the Realtor- which isn’t a bad thing. I fell a little in love with her when she showed up with the tie or scarf around her head:

Here is a clever one by Mike LeFebvre of Hallmark Sotheby’s International in MA:

It won two prizes, and Mike said that it was directly responsible for selling the house.

This video “showcases” what would be a fairly typical REO home in our area.

It caught my attention, and I have shown hundreds of these homes. And the little piece at the end? She is telling me what she will do for me, and it has already been underscored by the fact that I have watched the entire video and feel predisposed to her.

I think this video really works because the humor is fairly cutting, but it doesn’t feel to be mocking the house. By using a lot of common real estate jargon, she keeps it very light-hearted.

Three different videos; three different homes. What I feel they have in common is that- through humor- they absolutely humanize the agent.

puzzle

Every once in a while, I check out Google trends. I tend to be hopelessly outclassed when it comes to- oh, I don’t know- knowing what people think is topical.

I mean, I was the girl with the red Devo jumpsuit in high school. I was either really edgy, or so far out of it that I would never reenter orbit. So it is no wonder that a good half of the trending terms are things I have never heard of.

Leaving aside the sports and the sex trends, neither of which I would expect to be familiar with, and you get these, for example:

• We’ve got Miley Cyrus dead. I hadn’t heard of that, and just as well- it isn’t true.
• When appulous was tiny – the rest of this is: it ran on a VPS provided by __________.com. Okay, I am not as smart as I thought I was.
• Gus is a bug – children’s book… why?

Does it have anything to do with this:

• Kelly blue book, BJ Wholesale Club Locations, sams club, jet blue reservations, black friday 2009 walmart ad, washington state unemployment: all indicative of the times, I’d say
• Chimpanzee rips womans face off- at least they are spelling “chimpanzee” correctly, although who am I to mock voyeurism, given the subject of this post?

In one sense, I am missing it all, because what I would consider my personal trending topics just aren’t important enough to make it here. But it feels good to swim in the mainstream for a bit.

But- as an aside- what I see here backs up an observation that Rob Hahn had made in a post (although I couldn’t find it to link here).  People know what they want to find when they search- they just need to know where to get it. They aren’t cruising around with a vague idea of what they are interested in. They know specifically what they want to learn more about. They aren’t checking out primate behavior – they are tracking down Chimpanzee rips womans face off.

Or more appropriate in a business sense- they aren’t searching “real estate.” They want to find “3 bedroom homes in downtown Shirley, MA.”

Getting involved in these social spaces and wondering how to pass that information along? Just trying to fit your contact information and your purpose can be daunting.

Yes, Virginia, there is an easier way.

There are several ways to store your contact information in online repositories and add the link to your business card, website or blog. These storage places are good looking and make a one-click bridge to the sites where you are active.

Two of these that I have tried are Retaggr and Card.ly. Both are similar in their motivation. I have used both in my Yahoo email signature, which is kind of neat. I have used Retaggr for a long time, relatively speaking, but I am thinking I like the setup of Card.ly better.

Retaggr page

Retaggr lists all of your social media and “real life” contact information and has widgets that you can use to integrate interaction. It is more comprehensive than Card.ly- and that is perhaps why I prefer Card.ly.

Card.ly offers 38 skins (some of them are premium, but most are free) and you can locate something professional there- regardless of your profession. You add your contact information in- just as you do with Retaggr- and choose the look:

Card.ly

from an email frm @lesleylambert:

The following is a brief overview of the activity at TwitterQueens this week.  I hope you will take a minute to look over some posts you may have missed!  Lesley

We have a fantastic blog about our next radio show:http://twitterqueens.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mothers-fighting-for-others-on

Lisa Loden’s Pumpkin Art and Blog post which is about so much more than carving pumpkins…a must read!http://twitterqueens.ning.com/profiles/blogs/my-beautiful-imperfectly

Morriss Partee’s very insightful post on “Wooing a TQ”http://twitterqueens.ning.com/profiles/blogs/help-her-with-the-housework

In discussions:
David Pylyp on new develpments:http://twitterqueens.ning.com/forum/topics/i-am-so-pleased

Lots of activity on blog v website:http://twitterqueens.ning.com/forum/topics/blog-or-website

Photos:
http://twitterqueens.ning.com/photo

Videos:
Pumpkin talk: 

Just when you thought it was safe to answer the phone...

Do you want to know why some sales people are struggling?  Because they are believing all the whiners, sales snipers, and so called gurus who like to “talk” sales instead of “make” sales.  These “big talkers” are filling everybody’s head with junk!

I’ve had enough of hearing people talk about how “prospects like to buy, they don’t want to be sold”.  I’m tired of hearing that sales is “all about building relationships”.  I’m sick of hearing that “cold calling is dead,” intrusive, and whatever else!- Doyle Slayton in SalesBlogCast

Beginning with a quote from another blog- a sales blog.

First, read his entire post. Then, here are a few of my thoughts, for what it’s worth.

I agree about the relationship part. You don’t go to a dentist because of your great relationship with him; you go because he/she does a good job while imparting the least amount of pain. I think that the “friendship” part came in when the way the sales world works was dissected, and the effectiveness of types of leads was quantified. Word of mouth/referrals were the best qualified leads for a salesperson, and one way (easy/effective) to be remembered is to create a friendship relationship.

And while this is easiest- sending birthday cards, holiday notes- I for one HATED it when it happened to me when I was a consumer. Don’t send me a card telling me how to carve a pumpkin. For god’s sake, get my house sold. That will keep you top of mind.

But regarding cold calling:

If you are in sales, does this method work for you? I am particularly interested in RE sales, but I am curious generally. I don’t think cold-calling should be confused with follow-up, because they are two different animals.

If you are a consumer- and we all are- have you purchased anything as the result of a cold call in the last year? If you have, what was your motivation- price, unique product offering, getting off the phone with the sales person, or something else? Did you regret the purchase later?

Knowledge is power. If you are in sales, you need to know what works, and will work for the long term.

And as a consumer, yes, I have made purchases online because of pressure and not wanting to seem impolite, and I have regretted it. I won’t anymore.

Another one to add...

Well, I am happy to be heading home, but we had a great time in Delaware. Ignite was very cool! Met a lot of people and saw some old friends. Thanks to Bill Lublin for coming to see us- he had to leave early for BlogWorld the next day, but was there to show support.

Our classes at DAR convention at Dover Downs went well too. We realized after the feedback the first day that we needed to simplify the content, so we revamped our class prior to the second go-around, and made it more relevant.

You know what I wish, though? Online relationships are great, but I wish that I lived closer to Lesley and Maya. I would never have met them had it not been for twitter- Lesley is outside of my service area, and Maya is so far away from me. But they are both brilliant, and I love being with them. We are very comfortable with one another.

So your scope enlarges with a social media presence, but there are more “good-byes” to deal with. Trying to figure out where to plan another TQCamp- Chicago? Florida? The face-to-face meetings are energizing and we are ready to do anything.

I wanted to post a few things coming up that some people had asked about:

Oktober 10: Oktoberfest Tweet-up in Maine- Smugglers’ Den Campground, Route 102 – Southwest Harbor, Maine, to be exact

Horny Goat Beer

Next we will be in Delaware:

October 13: Maya, Lesley and I are honored to be one of 12 chosen to present at Ignite Wilmington. We are working on our presentation now for that- we will have 5 minutes to say what we want, and anyone who knows us will realize that that isn’t a hella long time.

October 14: The next day, we will have a booth at the Delaware Association of Realtors Convention. We will also be presenting our 3 hour CE course from 2-5 then and on

October 15. After the second presentation of the course, TwitterQueens are organizing a tweet-up at Fire and Ice at Dover Downs from 7:00 PM until whenever. Thank you so much, @DoverDowns!

At the end of the month of October, Lesley and I will be presenting about twitter to the Greater Boston Association of Realtors. We have a couple of other things going on in the month that will not be open to the public. Starting to get busy!  Hope to see you at least at one or the other tweet-up!

We were on the Social Media Edge Radio show yesterday. I say “we” because EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the show was a TwitterQueens except Ken Cook, who became one halfway through. Lesley, Maya and I all spoke, and the audience was studded with group members. More listened to the recorded show at night, and I think it is safe to say that we all had a great time, and shot out some information at the same time.

One question that was posed was something I have heard before. “What do you do with TwitterQueens once you are signed up?”- and it’s a good one. It’s like, “What do you do with twitter after you have signed up?”

What DID you do with twitter? I know that at first I took it for its word: when it asked what I was doing, I answered. I treated it as a location update. Probably Gerry “RealtyMan” Bourgeois was most influential in changing the way that I looked at twitter. Although I had figured out that it could be used as a means of connection, he showed me how widespread the conversation was and introduced me to many of the people who are my friends now. If I had not made that connection with Gerry, my experience with twitter would have been very different.

So how does this translate to TwitterQueens? I would start 3 ways.
1. On twitter itself we use the hashtag #twitterqueens to contribute to the conversation. Follow that.
2. Check the blogs for not only the treasure trove of information that they contain but to connect with the individual that is writing about what you are interested in. Which leads to the third way…
3. Contact people who are of interest to you. Contact blog authors, contact other people who look interesting. Contribute something interesting to the blog so that they have a reason to contact YOU. Get together face to face with those around you.

And spread the business around the base. Know someone who wants to buy a house? Ask who is the best agent in your area. Want to throw a party for the girls? Paula Eramo- @rapturemassage- will bring a chair massage to your party in MA. Need a Facebook page designed for you? Mike Mueller does that. If I were, for example, a Virtual Assistant, I would post something about everything a virtual does to make life easier for the business person and put in links to satisfied customers. You will be building a book of business with a connected intelligent group of people.

TwitterQueens

From Mike Mueller’s blog/website:

If you missed the show today – they were great! You are not completely out of luck though.  You can listen to the archives.  Just go to the Facebook Page, become a Fan, and click on the Archive Tab.areweconnected.com, TwitterQueens on the radio show, Oct 2009

You should read the whole article.

Top Ten Ways you know you are addicted to social media:

10. You know what hashtag and retweet mean.

9. You know which side you are coming down on in the number-of-followers v. quality of followers debate.

8. You head home early from a party so you can tweet about it.

7. You no longer send kisses or throw sheep at your Facebook friends.

6. You know who Scobleizer is. You even follow him.

5. Some of the wildest nights of your life have happened on blip.

4. You understand the relative merits of TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop and Streamy, and wonder if Co Tweet really is a better business solution.

3. A friend tells you that they just don’t get twitter, and you smile slightly and say, “Don’t worry. You will.”

2. The doctor put you on paxil at the beginning of 2009 because of frequent FailWhale sightings

and the Number 1 way to know that you are a social media addict:

1. You google yourself.

I saw a great title for a post today. It was:

Social media measurement -- It's like being a great bartender

[from {grow}]

The post discusses, among other things, the difference in thinking about social media results as ROI or Impact.

It can be difficult to quantify exactly where business comes from  if you are active in social media. Say someone starts to follow you on twitter because they found your @name on your Facebook fan page, and 3 months later calls you to retain your services because your microposts imply your expertise. First of all, they may not even give you this information; second, at what point do you start tracking it? Where, exactly, did your involvement in social media become effective advertising? Judging effectiveness probably requires something more all-encompassing: a social media gestalt, I guess.

Gary Vaynerchuck says it very well, as he usually does:

But back to the bartender comparison. If we are all selling drinks, the ones doing the better job- and reaching the most people- will pour the most. If you are certain that you reach the most people by sending out postcards, sending out one card every two weeks will not cut it. Same thing with social media. It takes time to build up a group of friends or followers, and even more time to cultivate them. I try to engage my group of followers on twitter several times a day, and watch the stream for their comments because what they have to say is important to me. When I drink what my followers are pouring- well, as the old saying goes, “Candy is dandy…”

And sharing a drink or two is best of all.

I was sitting outside today with my daughter and a person working for the local newspaper drove up- giving away copies of that paper. I was surprised at how thin the paper in general was, and when I glanced at the section that contained the classified ads was really shocked at how few there were.

Getting the word out about your business isn’t a dead endeavor, but it is changing.

“Yes, it was built entirely out of 140-character messages, but the sum total of those tweets added up to something truly substantive, like a suspension bridge made of pebbles.”- Steven Johnson in Time.com

This, of course, refers to twitter. Social media is changing the way businesses interact with present and prospective clients. Frank Eliason from Comcast introduced a customer care presence on twitter that has brought attention to the company- even if the twitter presence did not enhance customer service, the free PR generated was priceless. And consumers do feel that their problems can be solved more quickly.

Twitter, Facebook, social media microcultures- these are all low-cost ways to enlarge your presence with both consumers and with other businesses. And there are two aspects to it.

One is the technical- exactly how do you go about setting up this presence? Where can you make the most impact in this changing online environment? And the answers, of course, vary from business to business.

Even more important- do your employees, who have been tasked with the mission of representing you, know how to go about that? Social media is a “pull” type of contact, as opposed to traditional media which pushes your message out to many in the hopes that something sticks. Are your employees cognizant of the unwritten rules of engagement?

Get up to speed with what is going on. You don’t want to be stuck between chihuahuas and chows in a place no one goes.

Dinosaur

]]> http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/22/in-a-place-no-one-goes/feed/ 2 http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/09/twitter-client/ http://heyamaretto.com/2009/07/09/twitter-client/#comments Thu, 09 Jul 2009 20:21:30 +0000 Diane http://heyamaretto.com/?p=501 ...Read the Rest]]>

Twitter itself is hard to follow and sort unless you have untreated ADHD, which may be another reason that I like it (Hey- is that a squirrel?).

But most people download a client to help sort things out- like Seesmic Desktop , TweetDeck or PeopleBrowsr.  I have TweetDeck up, and I have filtering several columns that I have set up, including Faves, twitterqueens and twitteratti. I used to use TwitZap, but since twitter increased the API, I haven’t been timed out on TweetDeck, and am finding it easier to interact with all of my followers. That is why I am on there- to meet new people and interact, and the app that lets me do this the most easily will be my huckleberry.

This is a screenshot of my TweetDeck:

TweetDeck Screenshot

You can see some of the titles of my columns. I added search terms to the default terms by clicking on the sixth button from the left, labeled groups. I haven’t even fooled with the colors or anything- by using the little wrench in the upper right hand of the screen, but I probably should before I go blind.

So TweetDeck is my flavor of the month. I like the ease of use, but my most important objective is to relate to people. I like being able to easilly see all of my friends’ updates (TweetDeck used to be jerky, but now if I am on, they scroll by pretty smoothly) so I can comment and interact. I think it is really important not to interact with the same five people and that’s it- I could do that at home.

Anyone who knows me even remotely well knows that I am a card-carrying member of the TwitterQueens. This proves it:

So there you have it. What are TwitterQueens? Well, it started out being a group of mainly women who chatted online, forming friendships and helping each other out online. It was mostly women, but not all; they were mostly REALTORS, but not all. Later we added the hashtag #twitterqueens so that we could keep track of the conversation in one stream- if you add the hashtag, you can filter out all of the responses with that tag if you use tweetgrid, tweetdeck, seesmic desktop, or twitzap.

Later as the group grew, we had members that were very new to social media, and decided to create a community where they could go and see posts with information (here’s one on SEO), share leads, ask questions and get answers, and share video and pictures. We now have nearly 250 members, probably about 15% men.

The “Boys Allowed” issue caused a little stir but we made it through. I think that none of us really was aware of how fiercely people identify themselves and define themselves within a group context, but I guess I do too. I would have to say that- male OR female- most of my best friends are members of this group.

That is why I am really REALLY looking forward to our first tweetup/social media boot camp. This is going to be on June 27 at the Grand Hyatt in NYC, and I am going to get to meet the people that I am so excited about online face-to-face (some for the first time, some again). Bill Lublin , Morriss Partee, Jennifer Shaheen and Rebecca Corliss from HubSpot are among those either speaking or leading sessions, and Lesley, Maya and I will likely throw our hats into that ring too.

So here’s the deal: We have decided to offer a free VIP stay with us, which means a hotel room for both nights (6/26-6/27) and free pass to the day’s event. One lucky person (man OR woman) will be chosen from among the people who tweet the following before Saturday June 20 at 4:00-

#twitterqueens- choose ME for VIP event reg because (then give us a great reason).

Yes, you will have to sign up on twitter.com and at least put out one tweet, but it will be worth it if you win!

See you in NYC!

A tweet-up is a face-to-face meeting, usually held at an informal place like a bar or restaurant. For a little amount of time and no money this is an invaluable way to meet some of the people that you have chatted with online, and get to know their friends as well.

My friend Maya (@mayaREguru) is helping to organize a Delaware tweet-up. They set up a website (less than $20, including domain name), and Maya has been on a radio show, in an online news report, and has been invited back again for another stint on the radio. The tweet-up is also helping to benefit the local food bank- attendees are encouraged to bring two canned food items with them.

So, in addition to doing a couple of good things, Maya is getting a collateral amount of publicity. She is not in people’s faces about what she does for a living- she is a REALTOR®- but it is mentioned each every time she is involved in the publicity. Maya is also a founding member of the TwitterQueens, and that position, together with her contacts, has helped her put together an appearance for that group on the CBS Morning Show. Do you think that they will ask her what she does and where she comes from?

Okay- and this is all BEFORE setting foot inside the tweetup and meeting people face to face!

How can you go about doing this? First, pick a date! Check and make sure it would be okay to bring a group to the location that you choose- that they do not hae an event already planned for that time. Find some way to benefit your local charity, not for publicity, but because it is the right thing to do. Maya’s group chose the Food Bank of Delaware (found on twitter as @foodbankofde).

Then get the word out! Radio, local newspaper (both the calendar section and possibly a news report), twitter itself. Check out MeetUp.

Even more ideas can be found here on Mashable’s site. You can be as simple or get as complicated as you like. Make sure you bring business cards with your @twitter name on them. I had special ones printed up:

These cards are strictly for social media events. Once you go to twitter, my background lists all of my contact information, so, really, all you have to do is google my name or find me by my twittername.

TweetUps- for networking, for business- for fun!

If you do organize a TweetUp. post it here under comments.

Wondering how to find out about hashtags? Some are listed in the Hashtag Dictionary, and more are created every day. Start a hashtag  for your area and keep local twitter traffic coming by adding calendar events and items of local interest.

Can you imagine someone in the area constantly watching this stream for traffic alerts and other pertinent news? What a great way to be established as a local expert- not by sending out your listings, but by branding yourself as someone informed who cares about the community.

originally published in ActiveRain

#1 I have loads of time.

2-5. See #1.

Okay, now that THATS out of the way…

None of us have tons of time.  If you are like most of us, you are juggling family demands, client needs, and the education that an ever-changing market brings.

So where does twitter come in? What is twitter?

Twitter isn’t the place in the social media world that most people go so they can meet up with people that they already know. Clint Miller likened it to a cocktail party- you know a few people, but at a good party you are there with a big mix of people for the intention of forming new bonds.

So- #1. I like twitter because I have met new people- smart, funny new people.

How can this help me with business?

#2. I have learned a lot from these smart, funny people. Knowledge will help you save time, and become better at what you do.

#3. You can pick up on “triggers” in the conversations of your new friends.

What is a trigger that relates to the sale or purchase of a new house? Divorce, birth, an impending transfer because of work- these are a few triggers that you might see in conversations. Does that mean that when you see that Judy’s husband lost his job that you should chime in with, “Judy, that’s too bad! If you ever know of anyone who needs to buy or sell real estate, call me!”

Of course not. Some agents have the word “Realty” or RE right in their name. I know a PhxREGuy, a BeeRealty and a mayaREguru. Everyone knows what they do for a living- every time people see their names they are gently reminded.

#4. Twitter is open-source so there are a lot of tools associated with it.

You can check your rank and find out who is near you with TwitterGrader. You can locate people near you with apps like NearbyTweets or TwellowHood – sites like this are golden for a real estate agent who is interested in a 10 mile radius, let’s say. And there are a ton more- see this article for a Top 20 list.

And my personal favorite- #5. It’s free.

Convinced…or at least ready to give it a try? Go to twitter.com and follow the steps to sign up for an account. And don’t forget to follow @HeyAmaretto.