Leveraging Foursquare For Your Real Estate Practice

In mid-June of this year, the location-based social network, Foursquare announced they had reached a major milestone: 10 million users! This is particularly amazing in that they’re pretty new in the social media realm, having started in March 2009.

Of those current 10 million users, about 3 million check-in somewhere each day, and about 400,000 businesses use Foursquare as a marketing tool.

Checking in is becoming more and more popular. The latest ComScore report released in May 2011 revealed that nearly 1 in 5 smartphone owners access check-in services via their mobile device. Foursquare had 381,576,305 check-ins in 2010 alone.

So how exactly does this affect real estate? We are starting to see brokerages adopting creative social media strategies, like the ‘Race for the Home’ event that Prudential Georgia Realty did. Based in metro Atlanta, they teamed up with property search site HomeFinder.com and mobile gaming platform SCVNGR to offer some 500 prospective homebuyers the chance to compete for a $15,000 down payment on a home purchase. We’ve also seen The Corcoran Group, a New York brokerage, embrace Foursquare and is now a major brand on Foursquare. Foursquare fits beautifully into Corcoran’s core brand ideas in that the process of searching for a home is just as much about what’s outside of the 4 walls than it is inside.

What are some of the ways you can start leveraging Foursquare in your own business?

Add your own business location to Foursquare - Provide clients who check-in to your location regularly with loyalty rewards. Offer incentives for people to write tips that mention you by name e.g. “Go to Jones Realty and ask for Sally Jones. She knows Jonesville like the back of her hand.” It’s a great way to generate word-of-mouth referrals.

Check-in when you’re doing an open house - If you are a Realtor sitting at an open house, do you have a Foursquare special set up? Think of it as just one more way to market to the people who are in the immediate area and just may be looking at open houses on your block. Remember, EVERYONE who checks in somewhere nearby (the local coffee shop, hardware store, etc.) sees not just the place they’re checking into but other places nearby; including your open house IF it’s there to be found! Your Foursquare check-in provides a map to your location. Conversely, it also works the opposite way. If someone comes to your open house by way of seeing it in an ad, but are unfamiliar with the area, they can use the ‘Explore’ tab on Foursquare to check out nearby places friends have visited or are popular with locals. It’s a fantastic way to go somewhere new and try something different. You can even filter it by the type of venue you’d like to visit – the type of food you like for example. Their vast inventory of user-generated tips is the content that ultimately describes what those experiences are going to be like prior to actually going there. If you’ve never tried it, it’s a powerful form of suggestion-based marketing that often leads to some amazing recommendations. Most importantly, it keeps people engaged with you and your content in a meaningful way. The unexpected search result or experience in a sea of noise, that creates real value related to what the user was originally looking for, can be a very powerful place to position your services.

Advertise that the property is open for review on Foursquare - Mention in your web advertising that you’ve added the property location to Foursquare. Invite home open visitors to write a review. Their review will be available to other Foursquare users.

Ask your colleagues to check-in when they show the property - Get them to add a brief review while they’re at the property on an agent caravan or when showing buyers. And reciprocate by doing the same for them.



Sources: Mashable, Tech Savvy Agent

Five Email Design Must-Haves

Even with the mad rush to embrace all the growing social media platforms into one’s marketing, there remains value in a good old email marketing campaign… if done correctly. The average email subscriber faces an inbox filled with clutter. Once they sort through a variety of personal, professional and marketing messages, they won't look kindly on messy or incoherent email offers. "Without a well-crafted, clear and consistent design for your brand, your email is going nowhere in a hurry," says John Murphy in an article at MarketingProfs.

Here's how to avoid such a pitfall:

Use a good balance of text and images. Many spam filters consider an email's text-to-image ratio when deciding if it will reach a recipient's inbox. If there's too much text or too many images, it risks banishment to the spam folder.

Assume that images will be blocked. There's a good chance your subscribers will only see embedded images if they actively click on a link to display them. Because of this, the text in your message has to make sense even if its images don't show up.

Provide a back-up option for image-rich backgrounds. A number of clients—Gmail and Microsoft Outlook, for example—don't support background images. But there's a workaround. HTML allows both an image and a color to be coded in the same tag, which means that if a mail client supports background images, the images will be displayed; if it doesn't, then the chosen color will appear as the email background instead.

Include a table of contents for lengthier messages. When an email has several sections, ease its navigation with a simple table of contents that links within the message to the topics a subscriber wants to read.

Remember a call to action. You've sent the message because you want your recipient to do something—so make sure they can.

How it works matters as much as how it reads. Don't sabotage your strong content with weak email design.

Source: MarketingProfs

Social Media's Impact On Business

If you’ve still any doubt social media is an indispensable tool for business, check out these staggering statistics of what social media campaigns accomplished for these businesses:

An Old Spice campaign resulted in a 60% increase in Facebook fans, with between 500,000 to 800,000 new fans in one month’s time. Twitter followers jumped an astounding 2,700%, and YouTube subscribers more than doubled to over 150,000.

Under Armor’s campaign to find their “Ultimate Intern” resulted in a 130% in Facebook page Like’s, a 25% increase in Facebook active users, and a 45% increase in Newsfeed impressions.

Coca-Cola got 86.5 million impressions for a Promoted Trend on Twitter. Yes, MILLION!

Evian’s video “Roller Skating Babies” received 65.5 million plays in two years.
20 million impressions came from Network Solutions “Go Granny” Super Bowl tweets.

McDonald’s showed a 33% increase in check-ins (Foursquare, Places, etc.) from a one day campaign randomly rewarding $5 and $10 gift cards for check-ins.

There were 184,000 players checking in during a scavenger game campaign at Buffalo Wild Wings.

In general, Foursquare had 381,576,305 check-ins in 2010 alone.

Are you beginning to get the picture? The numbers associated with expertise in integrating social media campaigns into your business marketing can be mind-blowing! And with social media continuing to grow, the numbers can only get better, as businesses better understand how to effectively engage people (I.e. = potential consumers). Those potential consumers ARE using social media…. Are YOU?

Source: Mashable's Todd Wasserman and Lauren Drell

Is Your Website Mobile? Part 2

People are so entrenched in the information they can gather from their mobile devices these days that they expect to be able to get what they are looking for on a mobile device… exactly when they want it. This is the case even though most real estate websites are not formatted for use on the mobile device. People have turned to apps from companies like Zillow, Trulia and Realtor.com. There’s nothing wrong with this… in fact they have great apps, however, it presents an opportunity for you as the agent to take back this consumer.

There is a good chance that the real estate consumer who texts-in for information was not aware of you or your firm prior to that text message. Now you have just provided them the exact information they wanted at the precise time they wanted it by incorporating a text message solution on your listings. In addition, if you had a mobile website, where they were able to not only get information on the property that they were looking at, but search the entire MLS, use GPS to see the 10 closest listings to the one they just looked at and get all your contact information as the agent who has provided them this information, they would be thoroughly impressed. I would go so far as to say that if you were able to provide this experience to a potential real estate consumer, the chances you could convert them to a buyer or seller have just increased dramatically.

However, if standard practices are not adhered to, potential pitfalls can occur. A poor mobile website portrays a bad impression of you and your business, potentially turning away customers. You must recognize that the needs of mobile browsers are different from PC Internet users. Based on knowledge of your customers, you should focus your message, so that it is contextual to the mobile arena and targets your mobile browsers’ needs. This must be achieved while also keeping your brand identity and marketing message consistent with your other communication media. A poorly designed mobile website will not be credible. As with the PC Internet, it is vital that mobile websites are easily accessible and are optimized for search and discovery tools.

Due to issues such as small screen sizes, slower download speeds and device incompatibility, industry standards around the Mobile Web are imperative. With the rush to create mobile websites we are seeing a wide variance in the quality of the websites created - from the captivating to the single static page.

Guidelines for mobile website development have been released by The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), an international community where member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop web standards. dotMobi engaged with the W3C Mobile Web Initiative (MWI) to help formulate the MWI Best Practices for mobile content. The practices outline a number of ways to achieve good user experiences on mobile Web-enabled devices, and recognized several methods of implementing these practices. These are intended to communicate to website developers how to improve the user experience, thus ensuring that the Mobile Web is more reliable and accessible.

The unique challenges inherent to Mobile Web include:
• Size of screen on most mobile devices.
• Scrolling on a mobile phone.
• Typing on a mobile phone.

In addition, there are wide variations in the capabilities of mobile devices; from the smallest mobile phone, to PDA handsets, to laptops with mouse and QWERTY capabilities.

The W3C and dotMobi guidelines include catering for these challenges as well as a renewed focus on website efficiency. These key elements are:
• Minimizing the number of clicks. An additional click may be a minor irritation on a PC, but on a mobile phone it is a bigger issue, information is expected quickly.
• Reducing the number of kilobytes in each downloaded page.
• Delivering specific information. Mobile devices are currently less likely to be used for general browsing but more for retrieving specific information.
There are many mobile services that provide mobile web technology that complies with the “W3C Mobile Web Best Practices”. Some optimize an existing non-mobile website for mobile use, and recognize when someone has come to the website from a mobile browser and redirects them to the mobile version. There are stand alone mobile sites. Determine which works best for you and GO MOBILE! Real estate agents with standards-compliant search-optimized mobile websites will clearly have a competitive advantage. You can become the destination for real estate information mobile devices of consumers in your local market if you format your listing information for mobile.

Sources: Sybase, a SAP mobile intelligence company; Google Insights; Nubiq; REALTOR.com®; RISMedia

Is Your Website Mobile? Part 1

According to comScore, 36% of Americans browsed the mobile web in December 2010, and this is particularly important in real estate, where mobile buyers are looking for quick access to the best property listings available. Demand for these types of sites has grown substantially and if you would like to see your real estate business stay above the curve, you need to understand the importance of using simple mobile websites for it. You must be able to anticipate what your customers needs are and then meet them.

Bottom line though, you’re a real estate agent, you aren’t, nor should you be, a technology guru. Technology tools are to help you be a better real estate agent; because if you don’t do transactions, you don’t make money. But no matter how much technology one embraces, real estate will always be a people business. Mobile web is simply about finding them differently, communicating with them differently, and leveraging consumer-demanded technology to generate leads differently.

Consider these statistics:

• Over 70% of the world population now has a mobile phone, that’s over 5 billion mobile subscribers, and in places like the US, it’s 9 in 10 people. Apple has sold almost 60 million iPhones world wide, while Google’s Android OS is growing at 886% year on year and now activating over 160,000 devices a day, across 60 devices in over 40 countries.
• In 2014, mobile internet usage will overtake desktop internet usage and already in 2011, more than 50% of all “local” searches are done from a mobile device. Mobile search has grown 400% in the past year.
• 85% of mobile devices will be web-enabled by 2012.
• There are almost 5 times more mobile devices than there are computers. Text messages have a 95% read-rate, and are read in an average of 4 minutes.
As Realtors use social media more and more in their marketing, the following stats become even more important to pay attention to:
• Over 1/3rd of Facebook’s 600 million+ user base uses Facebook Mobile.
• 50% of Twitter’s 165 million users use Twitter Mobile.
• 200 million+ YouTube views occur on mobile devices per day.

It's time for your business to make its next Internet visibility and marketing investment in a mobile website. Your current website is probably available on a cell-phone, but is it readable? Is it user-friendly? Really?? Tiny print, tiny pictures, and impossible to click navigation will not cut it. The biggest user frustrations with the Mobile Web are:
• Site Load Time.
• Site Navigation.
• User Friendliness.
• Web Page Layout.

The stakes are higher in terms of providing a good user experience. If a user’s time is wasted on their mobile phone, they are less likely to be forgiving.

By establishing a good mobile web presence, you are opening up a new window of opportunity and are providing a richer user experience to your mobile customers.

Sources: Sybase, a SAP mobile intelligence company; Google Insights; Nubiq; REALTOR.com®; RISMedia

Now is the Time to Buy and Hold Real Estate

As part of our Guest Blogger series we're pleased to introduce James Guajardo, Managing Partner with Arizona Equity Partners LLC. James provides his insights on the Arizona investment market.

Dow Jones Loses More than 500 Points August 4th 2011 yet Arizona is a “Bull Market” in Single Family Cash Flow Investments..
National investment strategists eye the Arizona single family cash flow investment market.

Now is the time to buy and hold real estate. Why? Rent rates are stable and the ability to buy single family homes at liquidated values makes for very promising investment returns of up to 25% not including the future appreciation potential plus depreciation expense on your taxes!

How does this make for a perfect real estate investment market? Answer: The increase in foreclosures and the tightening of lending standards has created the greatest opportunity for positive cash flow investments in our lifetime.

This decade long cycle will have long term financial impact on our next generation of college graduates as well as current baby boomers who are renting and not buying.

So, which side of the fence are you on?


James Guajardo
Managing Partner
Arizona Equity Properties LLC
www.azequityproperties.com
480-588-2211 ext. 9

QR Codes for Real Estate - Part 4

Today is the last installment of our QR Codes for Real Estate Series. Earlier in the week we provided an overview of QR codes, and throughout the week we provided ways in which you can use QR codes in real estate. Today we share the final two ideas for using QR codes to bolster your real estate practice. If you put these ideas to paractice, we'd love to hear your feedback!


4. Property Flyers – Considering all of the information about the listing is on the flyer right there in front of them I think that this is another opportunity to leverage video. If you have a full video tour of the home on YouTube link to that. If not create an Animoto video or something slideshow esque, upload to YouTube and link to that. If you are uncomfortable with video then link to a Vyoo.it listing page where they can then see additional photos and information that would not fit into a single page flyer. I have walked past 1000′s of real estate offices and have seen none of them leveraging this idea which again seems to fall into the no brainer category.

5. Your Vehicle – Hear me out on this one. I polled our Facebook fans a while back to see how many of them were leveraging their contact info and domain name on their ride. Seemed to be the majority. That being said how many agents have taken it to the next level and actually placed a QR Code on their car? My guess is zero, but hey I could be wrong. The strategy with this QR Code should be similar to the business card. Again, address in the video that you link to that you appreciate them taking the time to scan the QR Code on your vehicle and that if they are looking for a tech savvy agent to help them with their buying or selling needs you are the one they should contact when they are ready. An additional bonus is that if it replaces the current headshot you have on the window of your Camry I have made the world a better place!

Source: Chris Smith, Tech Savvy Agent

QR Codes for Real Estate - Part 3

Welcome to our QR Codes for Real Estate Series. As QR codes gain in popularity and usage, we want to share some information about QR codes and ways they can be utilized in your real estate practice. Earlier in the week we provided an overview of QR codes and the first of 5 ways you can use QR codes in real estate. Today we share another idea on using QR codes to bolster your real estate practice. Stay tuned the rest of the week as each day we will post a new idea.



3. Direct Mail – Tracking ROI through the mail is now actually very easy using QR Codes. If you do just listed cards use Vyoo.it to send them to the mobile optimized site for that new listing. If you are looking to generate leads and new business you may also consider doing a video unique to the mail campaign similar to the above business card strategy. So for example you are mailing to Cypress Creek…start the video with “One of the things I love about working in the Cypress Creek area are the people…” Then obviously let them know that when the time comes to list they deserve to work with a Realtor who leverages the latest online and offline marketing. Even include images and video of the neighborhood to really give it that hyper local touch. Again offer up all of your contact info and social media URL’s in the video and on the mail itself.

Source: Chris Smith, Tech Savvy Agent

QR Codes for Real Estate - Part 2

Welcome to our QR Codes for Real Estate Series. As QR codes gain in popularity and usage, we want to share some information about QR codes and ways they can be utilized in your real estate practice. Yesterday's post was an overview of QR codes and the first of 5 ways you can use QR codes in real estate. Today we share another idea on using QR codes to bolster your real estate practice. Stay tuned the rest of the week as each day we will post a new idea.

2. Business Cards – Another no brainer in my opinion but I can envision agents screwing this up royally. If I had to guess most agents will put a QR Code on their business card that will lead to a website where the exact same information on the business card is then regurgitated. NO VALUE there beyond maybe the web visitor but again is your website even mobile friendly yet? So here is the strategy. Record a video that you upload to YouTube that is 100% specific to the fact that they got your business card and scanned it. Then use Goo.gl to generate the QR Code. So for example the beginning of the video should say “Thanks so much for taking the time to scan the QR Code on the back of my business card it was great meeting you in person…” I would also then offer them up any other resources like your Facebook Page, Blog or Twitter account letting them know that you want to connect where THEY want to connect. In the video be sure to layover text with all of the other URL’s that would be relevant and mention that when it gets closer to the time for them to buy or sell hopefully they will remember that you leverage the latest technology both off line and online!

Source: Chris Smith, Tech Savvy Agent

QR Codes for Real Estate - Part 1

Welcome to our QR Codes for Real Estate Series. As QR codes gain in popularity and usage, we want to share some information about QR codes and ways they can be utilized in your real estate practice. Today is an overview of QR codes and the first of 5 ways you can use QR codes in real estate. Stay tuned the rest of the week as each day we share a new idea on using QR codes to bolster your real estate practice.

You can’t pick up a magazine without seeing them embedded in ads. Most of the print marketing materials in your mailbox each day contain one. Every big brand is using them, from Best Buy to Calvin Klein, to Google Maps. Those funny little square barcodes: QR codes (abbreviated from Quick Response code), encoded with text, URLs, or other data.

Although still considered “new” technology, QR codes have been around since 1994 (primarily in Japan, the Netherlands, and South Korea) and are quickly gaining popularity across the world when it comes to promoting, branding, and marketing businesses. Relevant and immediate facts acquired from “reading” a QR code, facilitates convenience for the end-user when it comes to getting more information about your business or offer. No longer do they have to wait until they get home to look at your website to get the information they want.

Businesses can use QR codes to promote special offers, coupons, discounts, or build a list of mobile subscribers. They can be used to direct people to your website, online videos, Facebook page, etc. The possibilities are endless.

Specific to the benefits of using QR codes in your real estate business, rather than reinvent the wheel, one of the best resources we’ve come across about this was written by Chris at Tech Savvy Agent, reprinted, in part, below:

Just like with Facebook, Twitter, Blogging, Mobile, Video and any other buzz worthy platform or new technology some will adapt it quickly and pick up market share, most will fail and simply use it because the other agents in their office are. So below you will find what in my opinion are the 5 best ways to use QR codes for real estate right now. I would never assume these are the only ways and would love you to add your own creative ideas in the comments below.

Quick note before we get started with the list. A QR Code is simply a bridge to a website that when scanned with a mobile device takes a consumer on a journey beyond the paper it is printed on. One of the major perks is that all of the scans are tracked and thus the ROI is fairly easy to detect, critical to any high level marketer. I also think there are 2 key things to consider when using QR codes:

1. The web page that you direct the consumer to MUST be optimized for viewing on a mobile device. Due to this I am recommending 3 sites that will cover all 5 strategies. The first is Vyoo.it which will create a mobile friendly landing page with all of the details of the property of your choosing including price, photos and of course your contact info. The second site is Goo.gl which allows you to turn any URL into a QR Code in seconds, again all scans are being tracked. The third is YouTube which is not only optimized well for mobile but will allow you to bring a video element to your QR code marketing. To make a long story short when I recommend a video be used as the destination simply go to YouTube and grab the URL of the video and then visit Goo.gl to generate the QR Code.

2. This is a new, rapidly evolving technology (visit Best Buy, public transit, hospitals, etc lately?) that requires further explanation than just slapping a weird looking icon on your print marketing. Anytime you use a QR Code be sure to in small text explain that it requires a QR Code Reader which can be downloaded for FREE to their phone NOW by visiting their app store. It is also critical that you provide a tiny URL as an additional option below the QR Code so that those who just can not figure out the whole scanning thing can type the shortened URL directly into their mobile browser and end up in the same place anyways. Both Vyoo.it and Goo.gl provide a tiny URL along with the QR Code making this very easy to execute.

One of the top 5 ways to use QR Codes for Real Estate:

1. Lawn Signs – This would be the most obvious usage in my opinion and this is where Vyoo.it will come into play handily. Consumers like to get as much information as humanly possible before calling a sales person (you BTW). By placing the QR Code on your sign riders you will be providing potentially the hottest leads, those driving around looking for homes to buy, with all of the information needed about that property instantly. Price, interior photos and community info are typically things that a lawn sign does not provide and by leveraging a QR Code you are really giving the consumer what they want when they want it. I know some Realtors would argue that there is no longer a need to call you if you give away all of that info through the QR Code on the sign. I would argue there is already no need to call you to get that information (think online portals like Realtor.com, Zillow and Trulia all of whom have mobile apps that provide those details). People work with people they like, they will like you more if you give them more of a reason to and stop holding back data that is easily obtained without you. Again, follow the guidelines I mentioned above by further explaining the technology and providing a URL alternative on the sign rider.