Advanced Access Blog

In honor of Halloween, I thought I would go over a topic that strikes fear into the hearts of real estate agents all over the country: Social Media.

Social media does not have to be spooky. It does not have to be a all-consuming effort either. If you can talk to another person, you can tackle social media.

For those just joining us, social media includes interactive websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and various Q & A websites. Chances are you have been nervous to jump into the conversation, but now is the time to get involved.

What’s in it for me?

The first thing we need to establish is that social media is about the conversation and not primarily about the conversion. By getting involved in social media you can add a voice to your business and your community. By building relationships with other realtors and the general public you are opening yourself up to future ventures, be it referrals or your next real estate transaction.

Where to start?

Niche Communities

By now I’m sure you’ve heard of sites like Active Rain, Trulia, and Zillow. Each community has its own features and own purpose. If you are just starting out in social media, these are probably the best places to test the waters since you will be familiar with the audience.

General Social Media

Though not niche specific, there are still a number of social media websites and tools to help you get into the social realm. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are good starting points. Again each has their own advantages, though in this case each site is very unique in how you interact with other real estate professionals and consumers.

I Get The What and Where, But How?

Start simple! If you’re new to social media start slow and build 1 profile at a time. More importantly if you start a profile do so with the intentions of finishing it. This means have a brief bio and picture ready to post on the site. Remember to keep the bio original, even though you may want to talk about the same things you don’t want to look automated.

Social media is just that, it’s social. If you aren’t giving people a face and an idea of who you are no one is going to want to interact with you. Give people at least SOMETHING to work with and be sure to put a link to your real estate website or blog in any profile that will let you. This gives potential friends and followers just one more idea of who you are and what you do.

Once you’ve set up your account explore the community a little. Again each of these social networks has different features and work in different ways. Observe the community and get a feel for the conversation, the tone, the kinds of comments and questions being passed around. Take the time to get a better perspective of how the community works before you dive in with your own thoughts, ideas, and insight.

If you need help, feel free to find Advanced Access on various social media websites and connect with us to get started.

If you want more leads from your website, it doesn’t have to cost you more money, and it doesn’t have to take too much time. There is a reason Advanced Access is the leader in real estate websites: we already include the tools you need to make your website into a powerful lead generator…are you taking advantage of them?

If you take a quick tour of your website, you’ll notice several default contact forms. These are a great start for lead generation, but you can step it up a notch. And in times like this, who doesn’t need to increase the return on every investment?

What are you telling potential clients about right now? What is the topic of conversation? How do you make those cool leads into hot leads and sales? Whatever your strategy, take fifteen minutes and write a quick list of compelling reasons someone should do business with you right now in your locale.

Turn that list into a couple of paragraphs of text. Add the text to a new page on your website, then add a form to that page. Be sure to include a “Questions” box on your form so you have a good conversation starter.

Add a link to that new lead generating page on the homepage of your website; don’t be shy! If you have a blog, create a post that drives people directly to that page. If you use Twitter or Facebook, update your status including a link to that new page. Remember to use a title that grabs people, such as “3 Reasons You Can’t Afford to Wait On Real Estate!”

The key here is including the form. You can make a special IntelliCards list for the leads to go to and start the contacts on a campaign. We recommend calling your leads right away if they provide a phone number, or at least emailing them back immediately.

Do you have any other secrets to getting leads from your website? Email us at marketingtips@advancedaccess.com – we love to hear your ideas!

Advanced Access is happy to announce that we have added Google Base as our newest listings syndication partner!
We are now exporting all hand-entered listings to Google Base. This is another significant boost to your internet presence and marketing your listings from Advanced Access! The best part is, you don’t have to do much to take advantage of this FREE addition to your service.

What do you have to do to get your listings to Google Base? Enter complete listing information into ListNOW. The “Export this listing” box will be checked by default. If you want your listings exported, don’t uncheck it. That’s it!

Complete listing information vs. the bare minimum

Once you add your listings it seems many of you enter the bare minimum. That is not a very effective marketing strategy. You want your visitors to connect with a property and want more. You don’t want them to need more because there’s practically nothing there.

I have heard many agents say they don’t add extensive listing information because they want the website visitor to call them. It’s a way of getting leads. In my opinion, this is not the best way to get leads: someone calling you because they felt your information was inadequate. Will they really call you?

Your website content is the place to engage your visitors. Relevant placement of contact forms within your content is paramount. This is the way you want leads coming to you: confident in your knowledge and abilities. Listings are prime content for a real estate website!

Every field in ListNOW serves a purpose, and should be completed to the greatest extent possible. You may think you don’t have the time. If time is money, invest it wisely. Take the few minutes to enter complete listing data.

Why bother? There’s a photo, they’ll either like the property or not. I’ve put it in front of them, the rest is up to them. Wrong answer. If you leave out the most important information, you may find yourself without “them“.

Consider your seller for a moment. They want to know you are doing all you can to get the most exposure for their property as possible. Without adequate listing data, you run the risk of having your listings excluded from our syndication partners.

We export manually entered listing from ListNOW to various sources - the newest being Google Base. Once the listings reach our syndication partners, those without enough data are dropped and not displayed on their site(s). This is an industry standard in marketing your properties; you need to be sure you take advantage of the options available to you.

Trends in building websites come and go as time progresses, much like changes in clothing and popular culture. At one point in time it was the height of fashion to wear legwarmers and crimp your hair. These trends have changed and so has the Internet. Here are some online trends that were popular in the past that you should avoid. Check your website for these so you can change anything that might not be getting you the right kind of attention. You can contact our customer support team to help you jump into your site and make any changes so that you’re up to date.

Spinning and Animated “Gifs”

A .GIF file or a “gif” is a picture file that compiles several images to create the illusion of motion or animation. In the late 1990’s and early 2000’s it was “all the rage” to fill your pages with little moving or flashing icons that represented some sort of call to action. These might be email boxes that spit out letters, spinning “Search the MLS” text, clever images of cartoon people reading maps, etc. These are no longer effective methods of engaging a website visitor. Where you may have used these in the past, replace them with a textual call to action. This will help you add even more content to your website which will help you become more relevant to specific search terms.

Using “Click Here” for your calls to action

When the Internet first became popular, there were a number of users who were not familiar with browsers, exploring the Internet, and navigating between websites. It became common practice to use the phrase “Click Here” for links because it was generally held that people wouldn’t know to click the hyperlink to get more information.

Now there is a whole generation of people who have grown up with the Internet as a part of daily life. People are now familiar with a hyperlink and how it works to pull them to another page with more information. Therefore, you want to make sure that you are using keyword-rich anchor text links to connect people from one page to another and why not to use “click here”.

Over Using Text Colors, Highlights, Formats and Background Colors

When you are attempting to draw attention to a part of your page it can be very easy to go overboard and over utilize extra formatting. IF YOU HIGHLIGHT EVERYTHING NOTHING WILL STAND OUT. But if you use bold, and italicize sparingly you can make certain elements standout from the rest of the text. Underlining is not recommended because web users might think it is a hyperlink.

Making good use of these techniques will help make your content more user friendly, giving your readers an opportunity to pick up on the primary topics of your page. Be sure that you are not over-using color on your page as well. Usability tests indicate that the best use of color is black text on a white background. If you visit the top websites online like Google, Yahoo, Zillow etc, they use simplicity to maximize the readability of their websites. If you feel really strongly about using text colors on your page, make your headings stand out from the main text by bolding or changing the color at that point. Also, keep the contrast as high as possible by avoiding the use of two shades of the same color.

Moving Forward With Your Website

These are all areas of web design that have changed over time. As we understand more about how people use websites, the better job we can do to provide our visitors with the best user experience. These modifications can keep your visitors on your site, and help them stick around to become clients.

Join us for the next FREE Secrets of Top Selling Agents™ Webinar,
“Negotiating and Handling Objections” with Orly Steinberg, Melinda Estridge and Judy Markowitz on Thursday, October 8th at 1 pm ET/10 am PT.

A crucial part of the sales process is the negotiation phase, and it is poor negotiating skills that most often lead to lost sales. This Webinar offers YOU the chance to ask our experts the tough questions you may have been asked by clients. Orly, Melinda and Judy will give you plausible and professional answers to these hard-to-answer questions during our special panel discussion.

Ask your negotiating and handling objections questions NOW!

Normally, opportunities to ask your negotiation and objection questions to this panel of highly experienced real estate experts only occur at expensive real estate conferences that spend both your money and your valuable time.

Visit the event page at SecretsWebinars.com to submit your questions for our expert panel prior to the Webinar.

Don’t miss your chance to have Orly, Melinda and Judy answer your questions FREE at the next Secrets of Top Selling Agents Webinar. Submit your questions AND Register for this Webinar TODAY!!