Ribeezie: Social Media Business Strategy for Real Estate & Small Business

Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets

I've always believed that knowledge is gained in two ways: 1.) learning from experience and 2.) learning from the experience of others. Therein comes "Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets to Creating A High-Profile, High-Traffic, and High-Profit Blog!" 

I haven't read this book yet, in fact I've barely cracked it open. But I can already tell that I'm going to enjoy reading it! It includes interviews from folks whose blogs I already read... People like:  

• David Armano: Logic + Emotion
• Derek Semmler: DerekSemmler.com
• J.D. Roth: Get Rick Slowly
• Neil Patel: Quick Sprout
• Pamela Slim: Escape from Cubicle Nation
• Penelope Trunk (one of my favorites): Brazen Careerist
• Rohit Bhargava: Influential Marketing Blog
• Seth Godin
• Trent Hamm: The Simple Dollar
• Yaro Starak: Entrepreneur's Journey

Out of the 40 top bloggers listed in the book, I've been reading the above referenced 10 for quite some time now (Penelope's and Seth Godin's are the only two that I subscribe to and read via email). I even interviewed Neil Patel last week to talk about what it takes to be successful in business both on-line and off-line. See, the simple fact is, I love learning (reading and learning from others satisfies the geek in me). I'll continue to host interviews via my podcast to learn from folks. In the process I hope that you'll learn something new too!

For now, I'm gonna get back to reading "Blog Blazers." First up is Aaron Wall, author of SeoBook.com...  

How To Build A Community Around Your Blog

So a little over a year ago I put together an e-Book titled: How To Build A Community Around Your Blog. A collaborative piece put together by prominent names in social media both inside and outside of real estate. 

Since several of you have asked, here's a copy of that ebook... (I think a re-write is in order and coming very soon)... 

[Full Screen Link: http://www.docstoc.com/docs/document-preview.aspx?doc_id=16643670]

How To Build A Community Around Your Blog -

How To Determine Prices

The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur has easily become one of my every day MUST READ blogs. If you haven't read it, you should head on over and subscribe (trust me, it's good and Mike is damn funny). You can even follow him on Twitter. But anyway, now that we're done with intro's and me telling you all about Mike, here's some solid advice from him on: How to Determine Prices. 

(Great advice for anyone in a service-based industry.)

On A Roll - How To Determine Prices from Obsidian on Vimeo.

Join Me for An Interview with Neil Patel, Author of QuickSprout.com

Neil Patel is the co-founder of 2 Internet companies: Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics. Through these 2 companies he has helped large corporations such as AOL, General Motors, Hewlett-Packard and Viacom make more money from the web. By the age of 21 not only was Neil named a top 100 blogger by Technorati, but he was also one of the top influencers on the web according to the Wall Street Journal.

To quote Neil:

"It doesn't matter what you do. The only thing that matters is how awesome you are to be around."

Well, it's kinda true ain't it?! You know, it's the whole "people do business with people they like" thing... 

We're going to talk to Neil about:

• What it takes to be successful in business
• What it takes to author a successful blog (you're not named a top 100 blogger by Technorati over-night)
• What it takes to be a good networker in social media

If you have any questions for Neil, I'd love it if you'd post them below in the comments! 

When:

Wednesday, November 18th at 3:00pm PST (6:00pm EST)

R.S.V.P.: 

You don't have to RSVP, but we'd sure love it if you would via our Facebook Event Page Here. Muchas gracias! 

Dial-In Info.:

Phone Number: (724) 444-7444 Call ID: 31897

JOIN THE LIVE CHAT HERE!

Singin' the Social Media Blues

It might not be quite as good as the Social Media Revolution video but I thought you might enjoy it anyway...

Less Broadcasting Please

I don't like to tell people "you're doing it wrong" because you know what, we all do it our own way. And that's ok. But there is one thing that has to be said because I see people new to social media do it all the time!

STOP BROADCASTING!

Blatant self-promotion and the hard sell really doesn't work around here. Do you know why? It's because people really only care about two things: 

1. Finding a solution to their problem(s).
2. Being entertained.

If you're not offering one or the other, you're not providing much value. Period.

Deliver Edutainment:

A friend of mine used to always say that you have to strive to deliver "Edutainment" (the art of educating and entertaining). Here's a few things to keep in mind:

• Give away your Top Shelf content for free (through your blog, ebook or newsletter)! If you're selling a coaching (knowledge-based) product then it's ok to hold back a little but still, deliver the goods through your blog for free.

• Have fun with it (it's ok to have a sense of humor). You're not writing a college paper or essay. It's ok to get casual and conversational in your writing. And if you through up a "Just for Fun Friday" post that makes me laugh, heck, that's ok too.

• Remember, relationship before the sale. You know the old mantra: People do business with people they like. Well it's true! You have to hang out where your customers are hanging out on-line (on social networks, blogs, forums, etc.) and engage with them first. Friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter and start a dialogue that allows you to get to know one another. Then and only then, are they happy to promote your product on your behalf for free (and often times without you even asking them.

What do you think? Do you think people broadcast a little too much online? How do you find a good balance between engaging for fun, and broadcasting to make a sale?

Social Media: the best way to learn is to just do...

Yesterday I gave a presentation to the Arcadia Association of REALTORS® Young Professionals Network (it was a great group). As in most presentations that I give, there's always someone in the group that I bump into with some resistance. Here's the thing, in real estate, there's no one "right" way to do things. You do what works for you. For some, that involves social media. For others it doesn't. 

How Do You Know If It's Right For You? 

The best way to learn is to just do. It's like riding a bike for the first time. You might not get it right away. You might mess up and fall. But after a ride or two, you slowly start to get it. 

• Join Facebook (it's easy). You sign up for an account like you do anywhere else. Don't know if your clients are "social media savvy"? Here's a neat trick, Facebook allows you to import your email database. Do it. You'd be amazed at how many people in your database area already on Facebook. 

• Get on Twitter and tweet. Here's a short list of people to follow who I think are doing it right: @EvangelistaLA, @ChrisBrogan, @Startabuzz,@FunomenalRltr, and @unmarketing. Give them a follow, say hello and start tweeting. 

Then, the brilliant folks over at MyTechOpinion wrote an excellent resource titled: 

Twitter for Real Estate Twits

• Start a blog and just write. You can do this for free at wordpress.com. My friend Laurie March did this and now her site is hopping with readers and comments. 

• Subscribe and start reading other blogs both inside and outside of your niche. I use Google Reader for this (the folks over at Common Craft have anexcellent video tutorial for you). Here are some blogs to read and subscribe to: Problogger.net, Copyblogger.com, ChrisBrogan.com, AgentGenius.com and Ribeezie.com (heh, that's me).

Remember, you wont' always get it right straight from the beginning. That's ok. The trick is to pick yourself up and start riding again. And if you have any questions, well, that's what the comment box is for...ask away!

Meet the Founders of Posterous: interview with Sachin Agarwal & Garry Tan

Posterous (the service we've all grown to love), was founded back in mid 2008 and is showing some strong numbers to date:

It's basically a simple web publishing platform (a blog) and well, it does so much more than that! Text and files are easily uploaded to the site via email. You simply send your content to "post@posterous.com" and viola, you're set. It also embeds video, MP3's and other sorts of media into a player and has the ability to turn images into galleries. Not only that, it then syndicates all of that content to others social media hotspots like: Facebook, Twitter, your blog and more! 

Pretty rad huh? If you haven't tried it, you should... We can connect here: http://www.ribeezie.posterous.com

Then, join me for an interview with Posterous Founders: Sachin Agarwal and Garry Tan.

    When: Monday, October 26th

    Time: 10:00am PST

    Dial-in Info:

Phone Number: (724) 444-7444

Call ID: 31897

Q&A: 

After talking to the Founders about Posterous, we're going to open it up to some Q&A with them. I'd really love to hear how you, as an Agent, are using posterous if at all. Drop me a comment with a link to your posterous account and if you have any questions for the guys, leave 'em in the comments as well. 

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This call is being organized via TalkShoe. You can either subscribe to my TalkShoe page here or listen through the widget below. 

Listen. Learn. Provide Value. Engage.

I just got back from REBlogworld and Blogworld & New Media Expo 2009 (two events that I'm definitely very passionate about). And I think Amanda Coolong (Chief Correspondent at Techzulu) said it well: 

 "1 word to sum up @Blogworld: EPIC. Major kudos to Rick & co. Amazing speakers, well attended, niche experts. Great @techzulu coverage #bwe09" - via @acoolong

300+ speakers, thousands of attendees (estimated 2,200), lots of learning & collaboration! There's nothing more inspiring than learning direct from the experts and then taking the time to mingle with them face to face. As Darren Rowse said: "Face to face meetings count for a lot!" I agree...

The hardest thing to do after getting back from a conference is gathering your thoughts into one coherent stream and plan of action. So, with this post, I thought I'd offer you my thoughts based on the sessions I attended and the overarching theme of things learned at #REBW09 and #BWE09. 

Listen: 

In just about every session at Blogworld, "Listening" was a big part of implementing social media successfully. Personally, I agree! You can't begin to provide value to an audience if you don't listen for the problems/questions you audience members are having. 

Here, go read Chris Brogan's post on the subject: Grow Bigger Ears in 10 Minutes

Learn:

There's not one "right" way to use social media. We all have different objectives. Different ways of doing things and communicating. Learn what others are doing in their space. And then just do and adjust accordingly. 

Again, read Chris Brogan's post: You're Doing It Wrong

Provide Value:

Again, you can't offer value without listening first to your audience. So listen. Then, offer value by sharing things via your social media that educates and entertains (my buddy @TPEntrepreneur calls it: Edutainment). 

The only challenging thing about social media and tools like Twitter is that it gives people unprecedented access to you which implies certain time constraints. You need to work on managing expectations with folks and customer service needs to be a top priority. If @Zappos did it, you can to (and they sold for close to a billion). 

Lastly, realize that face-to-face (as Darren said), truly accounts for a lot! It truly does. So as much as you engage with people online, do the best that you can to take some of those connections offline. I'm thinking meetups, tweetups, Facebook events and more! 

Engage:

Social media isn't a place for robot behavior. (Disclaimer: I on occasion am guilty of scheduling tweets. You click on the links and read 'em and you even retweet them. So I continue to share them. And yes, I do respond to @ replies). If you're thinking you can get away with using social media to "push-market" your service/product, you have another thing coming. Chris Brogan has a great analogy about that too.

So instead of focusing on the "hard sell" first, focus instead on engagement: meeting new people, responding to emails, tweets, Facebook status updates, sharing photos and more... Engagement is the key to it all!

So there you have it, a simple but effective strategy to leading a successful social media campaign: Listen > Learn > Provide Value > Engage.

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Follow me on twitter for more cool tech & social media tips and connect with me on Facebook. 

[New Poll] How much time do you spend working on your blog each week?

Most people don't realize that blogging: 

• Building a blog (design, etc.)
  
• Writing fresh new content
• Marketing your blog

...takes quite the investment of time and energy. A good investment tho for those looking for a way to cost effectively market themselves via the web as it turns out. Many folks market their real estate services or other small business successfully via their blog. 

Here are the stats according to Technorati's 2008 State of the Blogosphere (I don't know if they've released the 2009 report yet, if they have, please let me know so I can update this post): 

Even Gary's social media count offers some staggering statistics. 

Basically, Blogging = Cost Effective Marketing

And it works! But in order to get there (in order to author a successful blog that generates traffic, comments, leads, etc.), you need to promote your blog right, produce new content consistently, invest in the design and engage with your readers. 

For some people, all of this comes easy, for others it takes quite a bit of work. With that in mind, I thought I'd take a poll to ask how much time you spent on your site on a weekly basis: 

My intention is to follow up this post with a series of Best Practices for being more efficient with writing, marketing, reader engagement, etc. But first, how much time are you spending on your site each week? 

[Image Source: Technorati 2008 State of the Blogosphere Report]