It didn’t take long once the pressure was on to shut down Realtor-complaints.com. The Web site was misusing the REALTOR® trademark, posting false complaints about real estate practitioners, and demanding money to have the complaints removed from the site.
On Jan. 10, I wrote a post about the site and more than two dozen readers responded. Many recounted their stories of finding their name on Realtor-complaints.com and being asked to pay to have the complaint removed. NAR and many state associations were working in concert to end the misuse of the trademark. Yesterday, a page appeared indicating that the site had been sold and that it would be re-launching May 1. Today, the site is simply a page of links operated by one of the advertising sites.
The WHOIS record indicates that the site is suspended. “That is encouraging,” says National Association of REALTORS® attorney Mike Thiel, “but we are trying to find out what that means going forward.”
One thing’s for sure: The closure of Realtor-complaints.com isn’t the end of such Internet scams. My Jan. 10 post included simple steps you can take to manage your own reputation online. But there’s one step you should never have to take: paying money to have false information removed from a site.
A Web site of suspicious origin is misusing the REALTOR® trademark in what seems to be an attempt to get money from real estate practitioners.
The site, Realtor-complaints.com, supposedly publishes consumer complaints about real estate agents. However, an investigation by the New Jersey association of REALTORS® showed a string of complaints against its members, all using similar phrasing. “This leads to suspicion that these are not all public-submitted complaints,” says Lauren Castellano, director of communications for the New Jersey Association of REALTORS®.
Not only that, when agents who have been the subject of a complaint attempt to make contact, the site offers them the “opportunity” to pay to have the complaint and their name removed from the site, says Michael Thiel, an attorney for the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. NAR legal staff checked the WHOIS record for the site and discovered it’s hosted on servers located in the Seychelles. “It’s recorded as having been initially registered on Jan. 1, 2013,” Thiel says, ”which makes the site’s claim of having been around since 2002 very suspect.”
Thiel’s office has received a number of calls from members who’ve been informed, via e-mail, that their name is listed at the site. NAR attorneys are investigating and, if necessary, will take steps to have the site shut down. [Jan. 23 Update: Wendy Legerton below asks why NAR isn't taking more aggressive action. In response, NAR Associate General Counsel Ralph Holmen offers this: "This site does not have authority to use the term REALTOR®, and NAR has taken action to stop them from using it. That action does not (yet) involve litigation, but the possibility of initiating suit remains if our efforts are not successful.”] But it’s important to approach with caution any service that claims to either track or burnish your reputation. Online reputation management—and reputation trashing—is a growing enterprise, and there are simple steps you can take to manage your own reputation online:
- Make sure all of your profiles (on social media sites, at REALTOR.com, and so on) are complete, up to date, and consistent.
- Be proactive in asking customers for reviews in legitimate forums, such as Yelp and LinkedIn.
- Search Google and Yahoo for your name and your company’s name. Save each search as a browser favorite and check them daily.
- Sign up for Google Alerts so that you’re notified when your name appears in a search. Also set up alerts for variations of your name, your company name, and other keywords.
- Ask your customers where they’ve gone to search for information about real estate and other professionals.
- Correct errors quickly. Immediately contact the Web site and be willing to prove your case with information from your MLS or other sources. But don’t be tempted to pay to have information removed. “It’s hard to imagine a legitimate site requiring you to pay to take down false information,” Thiel says.
Okay, I’m looking for an honest answer here: How often do you install an application on your phone without reading the terms of service? If you are like most people, including myself, the answer is probably “all the time.” I’m generally cautious about what I install and use on my phone, but I can’t say that I typically spend much time reading through lengthy terms of service (TOS) on a small screen. This is especially true when I’m loading an app for a particular purpose, one that is on my mind right now.
Instagram lets you filter, frame, and share photos for free, but are you giving away more than you're getting?
Because I love taking photos, one of my current favorite apps is Instagram, which allows me to upload, filter, frame, and share photos with the people who choose to follow me. My photos range from conference snapshots, to photos taken in and around our D.C. office, to pictures of my children’s latest escapades. Instagram also lets me keep up with photos of friends I’ve followed there.
Last spring, Instagram was purchased by Facebook. This week, the company posted new terms of service, set to take effect Jan. 16. According to some sources, the changes to the TOS grant the company the ability to use your photos in ways that you may not have intended, and this has caused a bit of a firestorm. Many users are complaining publicly. Here’s why:
According to an article on CNet.com,
Under the new policy, Facebook claims the perpetual right to license all public Instagram photos to companies or any other organization, including for advertising purposes, which would effectively transform the Web site into the world’s largest stock photo agency.
Without getting too deep in the legalese, the interpretation is that Instagram could take a photo you’ve uploaded and sell it to another company to use, without notifying you. But you don’t necessarily need to delete your account yet. Late yesterday, Instagram issued a reply on their blog, promising to revisit the language of the terms and explaining that their intention was to allow targeted advertising within the site, in much the same way that Facebook operates.
You can choose to make your profile private. Instagram’s current TOS says that their sharing and use is based on your account’s privacy setting; but the new TOS don’t include that language. For now, that will protect your photos. With the dustup about the language change and what their intent is, Instagram may reinsert this language before the January 16th cutoff. If not, you can consider deleting your account before the deadline.
As real estate agents, your big consideration on Instagram comes with any photos you may have taken and posted of your clients’ homes (current or past)—not MLS listing photos, but photos you have taken and shared. I’m sure your sellers wouldn’t want photos of their homes used commercially, so if you are sharing those types of photos, you need to know how and where they could be used. Flickr is a great replacement option, with better privacy settings, and the app now has photo filters, too. I’ve heard you can also get similar results by using the filters in the Hipstamatic app first, and then sharing the photo via Flickr. The Flickr app, like Instagram, is free, but Hipstamatic will cost you a cool 99 cents.
Still, a legitimate question remains: Should you be sharing photos of your listings on a photo-sharing site? Lots of practitioners do it. But it’s your responsibility to protect your photos of clients’ homes on those sites. In general, it’s also a good idea to protect yourself by having written permission from your sellers to take and publicly display and distribute photos of their home. Many listing agreements now include this type of language.
At the end of the day, you need to remember that at times you are using technology as a business person, and not just as a consumer. So protect your clients and yourself by making sure you understand the terms of service of the apps you use.
~Heather
The big story in the blogosphere this week is that Facebook has released Timeline for business pages. Blogs will be written, tweets will be made, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were a few webinars in the works. All of this is great. But just remember one thing;
I wrote that post two years ago when the latest shiny object was that everyone needed to have a custom landing tab for their Facebook business page. Since then, many crazes have come and gone. Quora, QR Codes, Empire Avenue … the list goes on. Some of these shiny objects are just plain fun, and it’s okay to play, just don’t call it work. But too often, I see real estate agents spending way to much time chasing the latest shiny object for their business.
This week we are obsessed with Facebook again. The question at the heart of all the chatter: How are we going to take advantage of all these new features? If you have a business page, you probably should take a look at what has changed. But just like two years ago, the real issue is the business strategy behind your online efforts. Have you been spending your time trying to learn how to master the latest shiny object before you’ve even determined why you need to? Are you focused on pinning or winning?
Don’t get caught up in the hype. Here are five tips for avoiding social media syndrome. It’s a good list. Remember to focus on the proven stuff that already works and let others chase the latest shiny objects.
By Todd Carpenter, Director of Digital Engagement, National Association of REALTORS®
I wrote my first blog post about the real estate and mortgage industries on Jan. 27, 2005. Much has changed, but several truths about blogging have remained pretty constant:
1. Knowledge is learned, expertise is imparted.
Take all the training you want. Read every book. Learn from a lifetime of experience. Nobody will really care until you share that knowledge. Until I started my blog, I was just a good account executive for a lender. After I started it, I became an industry expert that other news organizations wanted to quote. People don’t want you to tell them you are an expert. They want you to prove it.
2. Have a business purpose behind every blog post you write.
I’ve written about this before. Beyond proving your own expertise to a reader, a great blog posts also serves additional business purposes. They could be designed to help you network with local businesses, or win in the search engines, or to build a library of FAQs you can reference later. Whatever it is, try to establish a business purpose for your posts before you write them.
3. Social networks come and go, but your Web site is forever.
There’s only one place on the Internet where you get to make all the rules. You get to decide when to ask for the sale. You get to decide if others can advertise next to your content. You get to decide who else gets to comment on your work. Where the platform’s very existence is assured. That’s your own Web site or blog. If you have put all your eggs in a basket where you don’t get to make the rules, what are you going to do when the rules get changed for you? A Web site or blog has to be the hub of all of your digital communications. Continue reading »
By Todd Carpenter, Director of Digital Engagement, National Association of REALTORS®
I had the opportunity to speak last week at the Social Media Club Chicago’s holiday party. Talking to a group of your peers is always great, but the best part is the opportunity to network before and after the presentation. The event went well, but I came away thinking about the dynamics of networking events and how they relate online.
During the event, I talked with seven people I already knew well. It’s always good to bolster the relationships you already have, and frankly, it’s the easiest networking you can do. Six people came up to introduce themselves to me. A benefit to speaking is that everyone in the room knows who you are. Obviously, having people come up and introduce themselves is also pretty easy. What’s hard is being the one who approaches someone else. I introduced myself to three people. Out of those three, one turned into a real connection that could lead to future opportunities.
Looking back, I don’t really remember the people who introduced themselves to me. I know I met them because I have their card. If a relationship grows from the event, it will probably be because they put in the effort. The same is true for the one good connection I made by introducing myself: I will need to make the effort. So, out of an opportunity to meet lots of great people, I only met one. I felt like I was doing a good job networking, but now that I look at it, I’m kind of disappointed. Networking is hard.
Online social networks aren’t really all that different. Just because someone follows me or want to friend me doesn’t mean I will make the same investment in them. I know this applies to me as well. I need to work to develop the relationships that can help me the most. Continue reading »
By Todd Carpenter, Director of Digital Engagement, National Association of REALTORS®
What was your initial reaction to Facebook? Was it anything like this:
“So far, my ‘friends’ fall into two categories. People I already knew before Facebook, and people I still don’t know, but asked to be ‘friends’ with me … It appears to be more of an online playground, perfect for college kids, but kind of dumb for professionals in our industry.”
I said this in a blog post in November 2007. People were throwing sheep at me. I didn’t like it. I was sure Facebook would be a colossal waste of time.
Change is hard. Even for people who like the idea of change. This week, I’ve see a lot of people writing posts like the one I wrote almost four years ago. Only this time, it’s about Google+. Continue reading »
By Todd Carpenter, Director of Digital Engagement, National Association of REALTORS®
Does anyone remember the first time you heard the term “FICO Score?” You know, that number, determined by some fancy computer algorithm, that determines how likely you are to pay back a loan on time? What was the first thing that came to mind after FICO was explained to you? Come on, be honest. It was, “I wonder what *my* FICO score is.”
Why do I bring this up? Well, there’s a new fancy computer algorithm out there called Klout that’s starting to grab the attention of many online agents. Here’s their elevator pitch: “The Klout Score is the measurement of your overall online influence. The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses over 35 variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score.”
I know what you’re thinking right now. It’s okay. Go ahead and check your own. What was it? Mine is a 60. That sort of sounds like failing to me, but it’s apparently well above average. I admit that the idea of being able to assign an influence score to an online profile is an idea I find interesting, and I occasionally find myself checking my own score. But as much as I like the idea, paying too much attention to this number or using it to identify people you should network with is really not a good idea. Continue reading »
Have you heard the buzz about Google’s new social network that’s being rolled out via invitation? Wired Magazine wrote a great piece about its development and as of this week, invites are starting to spread across the Web.
Many are worried that this will become yet another walled garden to tend, but in the end, if you want to use social networking platforms to market your business, you will want to get familiar with this new platform as soon as possible.
If you have an invite, great! Go check it out. But if you’re still waiting, there’s a few things you can do to hit the ground running once the invite shows up: Continue reading »
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