One way to stay ahead of the competition is to be the first one out with the news. Yes, you can read the local newspaper or watch television to get the latest news in your market… but there is another way— let the news come to you by using email ALERTS.

Set up Google Alerts

Sample Alerts

Here are alerts you may find helpful. The idea is to catch the latest news ahead of the pack. And be informed for your clients.

• Neighborhoods
• New developments and buildings
• Builders
• Property types (include your market keywords to narrow results): “St. Paul Victorian” “Brooklyn historic homes” “ Miami Beach condos”
• Real estate issues: “short sales”
• Your niche or specialty: “green housing”

In order to get phone calls from clients, there must be a direction from you asking folks to DO SOMETHING, preferably NOW.

Here are some Call to Action phrases. They should convey ease and urgency. And don’t forget the powerful “FREE”.

• Call/email me now (Toll free? 24 hours a day) for help
• Search for all homes in my city, my state
• Get your home valued for sale today
• Sign up for our free seminars/reports/new listings, it’s easy
• Order your free copy today

1. Blog about a news event

2. Ask a question

3. Take a poll or survey

4. Have a contest

5. Have a quiz

6. Write about a controversial subject

7. Solicit comments by email

Blogging Tip courtesy of the HomeGain Blogging School Professor, Joseph Ferrara. To read the full blogging newsletter, sign up for AgentView and the HomeGain Blogging School.

Here’s some quick advice for AgentView real estate agents to manage that new blog you may not know what to do with:

1. Blog articles are great but they do take time to write. Generally, the first ideas new bloggers have for topics – how-to’s, hyperlocal news – have been done before by other bloggers. It’s hard to differentiate yourself starting up a blog.
2. So do something different. Think like a journalist; watch out for real-time housing market news and be the first to report it.
3. Take notes at the tour marketing meetings, subscribe to the feeds of local online news and real estate publications.
4. Think in sound bites. Whenever you hear something interesting, write a sentence or two in the blog. Be efficient, don’t take more than 3 minutes per idea. Use a cellphone to write it if you’re in a tour meeting or open house.
5. When you see an interesting article online, cut and paste the article title and create a link to it.
6. If you write down several ideas per day, you soon accumulate a whole portfolio of ideas and facts that will be displayed on the blog. This content is just as revealing about how you develop business and help clients as blog articles.
7. You become a go-to source for your market. Prospects will come back again and again to see your new “sound bites”. After all, you’re the only one reporting on a daily basis… this is compelling to a committed home buyer or seller. Analogy – if I’m doing a stock purchase, I’d much rather analyze it in real time on Marketwatch.com than pick up the current Business Week magazine.
8. You’ll soon realize you can expand on the sound bites to construct more detailed blog articles. You’ll lose your writer’s block.
9. Finally, it’s easier to automate the whole process of “reporting” using a variety of micro-blogging and bookmarking applications like Twitter , Friendfeed, Tumblr, Delicious and Diigo. This is another story.

To learn more about HomeGain’s AgentView product, click here.

If you continue to use your market keywords in your blog post titles and opening sentences, Google will bring visitors to your real estate blog. But don’t rely exclusively on the Google gods to bring you potential clients. Be proactive. Attract readers by leaving comments and joining online conversations.

Leave comments, with links to your blog, on:

• Other blogs, especially high profile ones
• Consumer forums
• Social networks, such as Twitter
• Mainstream media online news stories, especially your local paper
• Any websites that allow comments

The two keys to conversational marketing are (1) intelligent comments and (2) links to your blog. The comments will arouse interest “Who is this person leaving these brilliant comments?” and the link will take readers to your real estate blog.

Blogging Tip courtesy of the HomeGain Blogging School Professor, Joseph Ferrara. Sign up for AgentView and the HomeGain Blogging School.

Let’s face it. If you blog you are at the cutting edge, which means most folks aren’t doing it. And if most real estate agents aren’t doing it, chances are good most homebuyers and sellers are not aware of blogs either, unless they stumble upon them via an Internet search.

Therefore, it is important to market your real estate blog “offline” .

One way is to use traditional marketing techniques such as mailings. You probably mail postcards, holiday cards and calendars (these, by the way, should include links to your blog). Maybe you pay to send out pre-packaged newsletters. All well and good. Why not “tweak” the technique to showcase your blog content?