Google Ventures Further Into Real Estate, and Other Inman Connect News

By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

During a session yesterday morning at the 2010 Inman Real Estate Connect conference in New York, Inman News founder and publisher Brad Inman pressed Sam Sebastian, Google’s director of local and business-to-business markets, about the search engine’s plans to buy Trulia. Sebastian would neither confirm nor deny, but did elaborate that Google is actively looking to acquire one to two small technology companies a month.*

Corporate M&A activity aside, lots of innovative real estate ideas and tactics were discussed at the event. A majority of the 2,000 practitioners and techies in attendance agree that 2009 forced them to do business differently and rethink their plans. Read more

A Fresh Look for All NAR Blogs

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

While Speaking of Real Estate relaunched last May, today marks the completion of our migration to this fresh new look for the entire group of NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS® blogs. Here’s a complete list:

• YPN Lounge – http://ypnlounge.blogs.realtor.org
• Styled, Staged & Sold – http://styledstagedsold.blogs.realtor.org/
• Appraisal Insights – http://appraisalinsight.blogs.realtor.org
• Resort Life – http://resortlife.blogs.realtor.org/
• The Weekly Book Scan – http://theweeklybookscan.blogs.realtor.org/
• The InfoCentral Blog – http://infocentral.blogs.realtor.org/
• Leadership Lab – http://leadershiplab.blogs.realtor.org/
• Voices of Real Estate – http://voicesofrealestate.blogs.realtor.org/

Check ‘em out!

The most important social network to participate on is your own.

By Todd Carpenter, NAR Social Media Manager

Online community building expert, Chris Brogan wrote an interesting article last week on what he would do if he was a REALTOR®. I disagree with his strategy not to talk about work, but that’s another post for another day. What I really like about his post is its focus on building online communities hosted by a REALTOR®

I’ve often been quoted from a presentation I did at SPARKt a year ago with regard to the rules of participating on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. I compared them to church. Why do you go to church? Is it to play bingo? Do you go for the free crackers? Do you go so you can talk with your friends about football? What about this: Do you go to sell real estate? If you said yes to any of the above, you’re going to hell. You go to church to worship. If all that other stuff happens secondary to worshiping, great! But worshiping is why you’re there.

Online social networks are like any other social network (church, the Rotary or an Elk’s Club…). The key is to identify the rules for that network and work within them.

Consumers don’t turn to Facebook to find a new home. They might use it to find an agent. But if you did your job outside of the sales cycle, that consumer will already be connecting with you on your own social network when they’re ready to buy a home.

The most important social network to participate on is your own. Read more

Top 10 Real Estate Developments of the ’00s: #8

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

Our review of the top real estate developments in this decade rolls on with a look at the eighth-ranked entry: Read more

foursquare, and the Mobilization of Social Media

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

There’s been a lot of talk lately about foursquare, the new kid on the social media block. And whenever a new social network starts to take hold, the first thing many professionals want to do is measure the return on investment (ROI) involved in participating on such a network. My reaction? Meh.

foursquare is a silly game. The ROI ought to be fulfilled by the smile on your face while playing it. Silly games like these rarely result in a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That said, foursquare is a really fun silly game that also happens to represent the future of social networking, especially in the real estate industry.

Below is a copy of the slides I used for a presentation I gave to the Cyber-Professionals Group at their semi-annual meeting in San Diego last month. They’re mostly screenshots I took while playing foursquare on my iPhone and might help you follow along with my train of thought here.

foursquare is a mobile, smartphone-based social networking platform centered around the idea that people should go out at night and have fun instead of sitting in front of their TVs and watching Friends reruns. The idea is to go somewhere fun ( a restaurant, bar, movie theater, the park…) and check in. The more times and places you check in at, the more virtual currency you earn.

This virtual currency comes in three forms: Read more

Are You LinkedIn?

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

During NAR’s 2009 Conference & Expo, I was able to grab a quick interview with Gary Rogers, a key contributor to our LinkedIn networking group. See what he had to say in this video:

Social Media Best Practices

By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor REALTOR® Magazine

Social media should be used to create communities and not to push listings out. You wouldn’t go to church to hand out your listings, and therefore, you shouldn’t do it through your Facebook page.

That was one of the main arguments presented by Ginger Wilcox, GRI, Kelley Koehler, and Mariana Wagner—all experts with the Social Media Marketing Institute—at the Introduction to Social Media session at the 2009 REALTORS® Convention & Expo this morning.

The panel advised real estate pros to think about using social media to connect with people to build relationships that will eventually lead to communities.  Read more

REALTOR®2.0: Getting Started in Social Media

By Todd Carpenter, Social Media Manager, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®

The world of social media, as applied to the world of real estate, is about five years old. Yet we are only now reaching a critical mass of agents who realize this is not a fad. As with mobile phones and e-mail, social networks and blogs are becoming mainstream tools for REALTORS®. If you’re ready to get started, here are three excellent resources to get the ball rolling.

1. Look at this post. Read more

All Things Tech at Inman Real Estate Connect

By Katherine Tarbox, Senior Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

The mood in the Grand Ballroom of the Palace Hotel in San Francisco, the site of the 2009 Inman News Real Estate Connect (August 5-7) conference, was remarkably upbeat. With this week’s encouraging news about the housing and job markets, the atmosphere was palpably different from just six months ago at RE Connect in New York. At 1,800, attendance was notably up from last year’s conference, and most sessions were standing-room-only.

Presenters seem to concur that signs point to a slow recovery, but recovery or not, the industry still needs to adapt to a different environment. Sherry Chris, president & CEO of Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate LLC, argued that the average office space will need to decrease from 124 sq. feet per practitioner to 49 sq. feet and that newer associates will demand more technology. Read more

Authenticity and the Social Web

By Brian Summerfield, Online Editor, REALTOR® Magazine

In the September issue of REALTOR® magazine, we’re bringing you a cover story on the realities of doing business on the “social Web” — i.e., the vast array of sites that allow people to communicate, collaborate, and network online. Our aim for that article is to help you sift through the constantly changing tools, terms, and techniques in social media and uncover some core characteristics of this extraordinary new virtual world.

One of the more significant bits of advice that I came across in my research and writing was the importance of being genuine. To use social media successfully, you have to be yourself. This sounds easy, but there’s always a temptation to project an image of yourself that overstates your abilities or experience, or perhaps alters your demeanor to fit a potential client’s perception of an ideal real estate professional. Read more

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