Apps That Help Your Business

There are so many apps out there, it's hard to know what is beneficial to your business and what is a waste of time. So we've done some of the work for you! We are kicking off a blog series on apps that help you in your real estate practice. Keep checking back, we'll be posting info on a regular basis regarding apps we think will help bolster your business.

Are you posting video to YouTube, to your own website, as another tool in your real estate tool belt? With real estate professionals using video more and more, a great video production app can help today’s mobile agent get the job done.

For you iPhone 4/3GS and iPod Touch running iOS 4.2 and higher users, one app you may want to check out is Splice. The Splice app will allow you to create and even edit videos from your smart phone without ever having to use a computer or laptop.

Video editing can be a really frustrating experience, especially if you’re trying to do it with only a few inches of screen real estate. Splice removes the pain, allowing you to put together HD photos and videos in an amazingly simple way with a raft of powerful but super easy-to-use tools. You’ll be able to create videos using your videos, photos, and even music from your iTunes library. Add sound effects, transitions, borders, special effects, trim video and audio, narrate with your own voice, and much more.

If you’re an Android user looking for video editing capabilities, than Clesh Video Editor is a great option. Clesh is a cloud based video editor that provides an assortment of editing capabilities and features, and even allows you to publish your videos directly to Facebook and YouTube with no advertisements.

Supercharge Your Online Marketing

Today’s web is a very noisy place, so competing for eyeballs is no small feat. Smart marketers know that it’s no longer enough to talk about you, your product, how fantastic your service is, throw a couple of testimonials on your site and call it a day.

In order to create action & engagement, you must first earn the interest and trust of your target. So how do you do this?

Create content that informs, educates or excites, or all of the above. When you create content that people read and interact with, that is a great start. Create content that people share, well now you’ve discovered the secret.

Bring on social media and blogs. The rise and popularity of social media consumption gives you as a marketer a great opportunity to create the type of content mentioned above and convert social media and blog readers into customers. But, don’t think of your online presence as a hard sale sales tool. Not only will this type of content not attract new readers, it will turn off the readers you have. So as tempting as it is, listings don’t make for effective blog posts.

Where to start? What to write about? This is the challenge that content marketers face every day. Think about your interests, your passions, think outside real estate. Connect with people with common interests.

If you’ve a passion for black and white photography, write about it from time to time. Or gardening, collecting fabulous wine, etc.; you get the idea. Not all posts must or should be real estate related. Connect online to people as people, with a shared interest, just as you do in the real world. Interact with them on your blog, Facebook page, etc. and forge relationships with those readers; you’re adding these relationships into your pipeline of eventual customers (when the time was right).

Now think back to real estate. What do you know about the market, selling a home, home staging that consumers would be interested in? Write about it! Position yourself as a leader, an expert, another great way to build trust.

Social media is not a short term strategy, it takes time, patience is a virtue, write like a human (no corporate speak), let your personality shine through, look for new and interesting angles, use the web for inspiration (what are your peers blogging/posting about, what content is working for them) and have fun!

Source: Marie Still, Director of Marketing for MRIS.

Tiffanie Hobgood Joins Fidelity Phoenix Team

We are pleased to introduce the the newest member of our team, our new AVP/Branch Manager for our new Arrowhead branch office, Tiffanie Hobgood.

Tiffanie's career in the Title and Escrow business spans over 20 years. She started as the front desk receptionist for a busy title company in Scottsdale, and later went on to achieve numerous awards for her accomplishments as an Escrow Officer including awards for highest revenue county-wide as well as statewide.

Now Tiffanie brings her passion for excellence and customer service back to the Northwest Valley as the AVP/Branch Manager for Fidelity National Title’s new Arrowhead branch, beginning an exciting new chapter in a long and successful career in the Title and Escrow business.

Tiffanie is a native Arizonan. Originally from the Maryvale neighborhood of Phoenix, Tiffanie later moved to the Northwest Valley where she eventually met Dennis, her husband of over 15 years. Together with their four-legged “children”(actually its three basset hounds), they continue to live in the Northwest Valley.

Please help us in welcoming Tiffanie to our team. To contact Tiffanie you can reach her by phone at 623.277.4949 or by email at tiffanie.hobgood@fnf.com. You can also meet her at Arrowhead branch grand opening on February 23, click here for more info.

Tips for Using Pinterest

What is all the buzz about Pinterest??

We’ve heard it countless times, folks that have created a Pinterest account, dabbled a bit by pinning a few items and then forgot about it… until the recent tsunami of interest flared up. Now it’s become almost impossible to escape tweets and status updates that mention Pinterest. There’s quite a frenzy around this new player on the social media scene. And the number of people who openly claim to be addicted to pinning is rising at alarming numbers.

Pinterest is growing rapidly from unexpected demographics and changing the rules of social media engagement. It’s a new way of interacting, the interest-graph, and is not prominent on Facebook and LinkedIn. It provides a new opportunity for public companies with strong brands and highly visual products to reach a captive audience that is more than willing to advocate on the company's behalf.

It is a virtual pinboard (or you can also look at it as a social bookmarking site) that focuses on images. It allows you to share images and videos you find anywhere on the web and link it back to the original content -so it’s great for generating links and SEO.

You can look around other people’s pinboards to discover things from people who might share common interests. You can organize your images by subject or however works for you by putting them in different boards. People can choose to follow all of your boards or any individual boards. As well, you’re able to like, repin and comment on other people’s content. Just like Twitter, Pinterest is an open network so anyone can follow you and you can follow anyone.

Why should you consider using Pinterest? With nearly five million users, and rapidly growing, nearly 1.5 million unique users visit Pinterest daily, spending an average of 15 minutes a day on the site. Think those inspiring vision boards don’t result in referral traffic to websites and blogs? Think again. In January 2012, Pinterest drove greater traffic to websites than LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, and Youtube — combined.

While lots of folks are flapping their jaws about the impressive statistics of Pinterest, some companies are quietly using this fabulous new tool to pin their way to better customer engagement and a visually interesting, personally appealing brand. Some tips for beginners:

• Make sure you feature your business name on your profile for maximum exposure. Use your business name as your username, or change your profile name to your business name after your profile is set up.

• Add a paragraph about who you are and what you’re interested in to the “About” section on your Pinterest profile. It will show up right under your photo, and will be one way that users can find out more about you.

• Connect your account with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Not only will it help you gain followers, but making this connection adds social media icons under your profile picture that link to your Facebook and Twitter profiles.

• Don’t forget to add your website URL in your profile, too!

• Pin lots of stuff. Pin content steadily, instead of in huge bursts, to maximize your exposure and engagement.

• Come up with creative and interesting board names. They get shared whenever you pin something, so make them enticing. But be creative — you need to keep your board names short. There isn’t a lot of room for long descriptive titles.

• Tag other Pinterest users in your pins by using “@username” in your descriptions. Network with other professionals and vendors in your field by using this feature. Not many people are doing this yet, so it’s a great way to build your following and stand out.

• Comment on other people’s pins. Just like with tagging, this feature hasn’t really caught on yet, so use it regularly to really engage with other users. Obviously, use the same good manners and common sense you would when commenting on a blog or other social media site.

• “Like” other people’s pins to give a thumbs-up when you want to recognize great content.

• Pin from lots of different sources, instead of just from one or two sites. Variety is important on Pinterest.

• Mix pinning your own unique finds with doing lots of “repinning,” which is repeating someone else’s pin to your followers (just like a Retweet on Twitter). The person whose image you repin gets notified via email, and they also get a credit on your pin, which increases their following.

• Feel free to pin your own blog posts, but don’t over-promote. Follow the usual etiquette rules of any other social media site, and don’t be the boorish one at the party who only talks about himself.

• Pin videos! Pinterest has a special section just for pinned videos, and there are far fewer videos than images on Pinterest at this point, so use them to distinguish yourself. Any YouTube video is easy to pin.

• When you pin an image, add a description under it. Be smart about these descriptions — a good description will stay with an image as it gets repinned all over the Pinterest world. If the image is something from your own site, definitely use your business name in the description.

• After you pin a new image using the very handy Pinterest browser bookmarklet (a great tool in its own right,) use its built-in social media prompts to re-share your pin on Twitter and Facebook, too.

• Use Pinterest’s embed option to publish pins as content in your blog posts and website pages. Note: As Pinterest is catching on, you may need to tell your users that they need to click on a Pinterest image to get to the original source. When I tried this last week, a reader wrote to me and asked, “Is there more to that Pin thing? Or is it just a pretty image?”

• Get the Pinterest iPhone app, so you can repin on the go, pin from your camera and add a location to your pins so others can find your images.

• Optimize your website content for Pinterest sharing (Part One): Use images in every single post you write, so your post can be shared on Pinterest. When you find yourself getting lazy about this, remember –- not using an image in your post means no one will pin it. And remember — the prettier the picture is, the more it will get pinned. The images that appeal to Pinterest members are powerful and emotive, so keep that in mind when choosing your pictures. That combination tends to work well for your blog readers, too.

• Optimize your website content for Pinterest sharing (Part Two): Consider watermarking your images, or adding text to them. If you’re using your own images on Pinterest, one of the best ways to help your image stand out is by adding a clear description to the image itself, or adding a watermark with your business name. Make sure it’s clear, but that it doesn’t block out the main subject of the photo.

• Create seasonal or holiday boards that relate to your brand. Example: New Year’s Resolutions, Fourth of July, etc. Users love these.

• Add a prominent Follow Me on Pinterest button to your website to advertise that you’re a pinner!



Source: Beth Hayden

How to Make Your Customers Fall In Love With Your Website

In the court of online real estate, your customers are judge and jury, but the testimony that you hear will take place out of earshot. The rules are unwritten but they are set in stone. Give your customers a really good reason to trust you, like you and feel like you can serve their needs and they will toss aside their inhibitions, along with their reluctance to part with their business. That’s because they want you, the right website and the right business, the right broker to make their decisions easy. Not guilty by irrational reasoning. (i.e. crazy in like) Your customers hear every message you send – intentional or not. Your attitude is nearly everything. Customers want you to show a certain degree of eagerness, but not desperation. They want you to believe in yourself and demonstrate why they should believe in you too. They want you to be fun but also someone they can lean on for help. They want to trust you.

The web version of chocolate and roses in the world of online real estate is:

-Build your site to answer your customer’s questions.
-Know your niche and be the customer’s expert on it.
-Get to know your customers and what their pain points are.
-Make searching on your site an intuitive engaging experience.
-Translate what you offer into solving customer pain.
-Build your site from the users perspective.
-Make it easy to gather and share what they came for.
-Use photo and video visuals liberally.
-Create interesting non-pitchy content and give it away.
-Always deliver on what you’ve promised.
-Provide absolutely impeccable service always.
-Optimize for SEO, rinse and repeat.

At the end of the day, what we’re working to cultivate is trust in an environment lacking human interaction. These are a just few of the ways that you can cultivate that trust, forge new relationships and enhance existing ones. Falling in love is just the first step; you have to deliver even after the bloom is off the rose.

Source: Seth Price, GeekEstate