The internet is all abuzz about Twitter.

Twitter is a “microblogging” platform that lets you send 140 character “Tweets” (sort of like instant messages). People “follow” you, and you “follow” others. It’s a social networking platform that is undergoing tremendous growth. (See this article from Nielsen Ratings for more info. And note the largest user demographic is those aged 35 – 49. That’s prime home buying selling age folks…)

Realtors tend to jump on anything that has even a hope of getting them business — and there is nothing wrong with that provided you investigate and understand what it is you are getting in to. And yes, Twitter can get you business. It is a wonderful tool for expanding your Sphere of Influence and for networking with other professionals in and out of the real estate industry.

While there are no “rules” for the proper use of a platform like Twitter, there are unquestionably some guidelines and generally acceptable etiquette practices that, used properly, will accelerate your business growth and used improperly may result in you never getting anything out of Twitter. Continue reading this post

On a panel with Matt Fagioli, Michael Simonsen and myself at RetechSouth last week, Pat Kitano remarked that it was rude to not follow the Twitter followers who follow you.

Do you agree? 

Take the poll:

Louis Cammarosano

homegain.com

Matt Fagioli organizer of ReTechSouth and I were talking last night. “I agree to talk while you are talking” is how I described the practice of following those on twitter who follow you in a bid to get your follower numbers up.

This practice seems near mindless. Most people who agree to take on hundreds or thousands of courtesy followers immediately filter them out using Tweet Deck or some other software (you’re not so clever, they do the same to you!)

I recently asked a couple of friends who have thousands (one has over ten thousand) followers to tweet one of my blog posts with a Tiny URL (a great tool BTW) attached.

Later I checked Google Analytics (another great tool) to see the number of visitors received from Twitter from my friends’ tweets. The amounts of visitors were surprising:

Continue reading this post

Consider: Why do you think they call it “social” media?

In the words of Todd Carpenter who was recently appointed as social media manager at the National Association of Realtors :

“You won’t “get” Twitter until you stop trying to figure out how to get business from it. You have to do it for fun. You have to genuinely want to talk to people, not market to them. If you just try to market yourself there, nobody will want to connect with you.”

Remember social media whether facebook or twitter, is not business media. Mixing business with pleasure is often difficult.

Todd futher advises:

“Again, I’m on Twitter because I like to meet and talk to people. I don’t care if it ever earns me a dime. But on the other hand, the top referrer to my newest blog is… Twitter. Five of the first six people who confirmed they were coming to RE BlogWorld, I met on… Twitter. The local meetup of RE 2.0 talent I organized today was promoted and organized largely on… Twitter.

I didn’t “get” Twitter either because I was trying to figure out a business use for it. But I got hooked on it because it was fun, and now the business opportunities are bearing fruit.”

Louis Cammarosano

At Inman Connect last week I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Fagioli.  Mr. Fagioli, a HomeGain AgentView customer, has organized an impressive “Inman South” conference called RETech South, which boasts a fine roster of speakers to be held at the Gwinnett Center in Atlanta on Friday March 20.

Yesterday Matt and I spoke about RETech South and its objectives.

Matt is also a member of HomeGain Nation a 200+ member interactive forum on the Ning platform. This morning Matt posted a blog entitled “How Print Marketing Still Brings Home the Bacon” and I have reproduced it in its entirety here:

How Print Marketing Still Brings Home The Bacon

I had the pleasure of a phone call yesterday with our friend Louis. His view of “all this 2.0 stuff” is really refreshing because he realizes that while it’s all very cool and trendy and slick, it does NOT replace print marketing - nor does it replace the good old fashioned handshake. Our 2.0 world merely compliments our off-line efforts.

Continue reading this post

On December 30th Google updated its page rankings. According to Google “pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher Page Rank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search rankings“.

Google last updated its page rankings in February of 2008. Since then HomeGain launched the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network. In the latest Google page rank update, many HomeGain AgentView blogs scored page ranks of three and four! HomeGain AgentView blogs are also appearing at the top of Google search results for the key words “[city name] real estate blog”

The HomeGain Agent Blogging Network provides each AgentView subscriber with a blog, along with a place to post their profiles and listings in an exclusive and advertising free environment.   Upon launch of the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network, many were skeptical “Why pay for a blogging platform when you can set up your own word press blog for free?” The answer is page rank and higher placement in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and built in traffic from your instant home values tool.

AgentView subscribers blogging on the HomeGain Agent Blogging Network benefit from HomeGain’s and the HomeGain Real Estate Blog’s high Google page ranking.

Here are a few examples of some highly ranked HomeGain AgentView blogs:

Continue reading this post