Ning

Recently, the creators of Ning made the decision to start charging for Ning networks in return for providing more features and more support.  The change will take place starting in July.  That means if you created a social network using Ning, you’ve got to decide whether to keep your group and start paying, or dissolve it.  And that can be a tough decision if you have a vibrant group with many members and lots of activity.

If you’re a WordPress users have a third option.  You can use BuddyPress, a free WordPress plug-in that lets you transform a WordPress blog into a social network site.  Then you can use a Ning to BuddyPress importer to migrate your users to your BuddyPress-created social network.

BuddyPress is completely customizable so that it can have the look and feel you want.  It gives network members an activity stream that lets them follow the actions of their friends à la Facebook; it also allows them to create profiles and set up blogs.  It has groups, forums, private messaging and a growing number of plug-ins that extend its capabilities.

It has the potential for a number of really great real estate applications and—better than Ning or Facebook—you own the content, you set the terms of service, and the members and their information belong to you.  What could be better than that?

If you have network built on Ning, take a look at what  BuddyPress can do.

Facebook’s

In fact, your blog turns out to be one of the most valuable Internet marketing resources you have.  Here’s why:

1. You don’t own your Facebook account, and therefore, you have no say over what changes Facebook might implement.
2. You don’t own the content on your Facebook page so that if it were shut down for some reason—or if some change in Facebook policy were to go too far and you decided to close your account—your content would be lost.
3. You like to think of them as “your” followers, but you can’t control how Facebook chooses to use the private information of people who like your page.
4. Your content (and that of millions of other people, of course) is what makes Facebook successful.  Your effort enriches Facebook.  Are you getting back as much as you give?
5. Your blog, on the other hand, is yours. You set it up, you make the decisions, and you own the content.
6. Your blog enriches only you, your brokerage, or whomever you chose to write about.
7. Your readers are your readers and your subscribers are your subscribers.  As long as you put out good content and treat them well, they’ll stay with you.   (You don’t have to worry that changes someone else makes might erode your readership.)
8. Other than occasional upgrades to the blogging software, there will be no changes that you don’t authorize.

The Internet and the social media tools we all use will no doubt continue to change and evolve as the big players try to find ways to gain market share and turn a profit.   That means we’ll frequently need to review our Internet strategy and the usefulness of the tools we’re using.  In the mean time, don’t ignore your blog.  It’s one of the best tools you have.

It makes a nice addition to your real estate blog and installing it is easy.  You can even configure it to match your blog’s color scheme.  Watch the tutorial below for step-by-step instructions.

• Write about people in your neighborhood who’ve overcome tremendous odds.
• Share stories about local companies that have donated to outstanding causes.
• Describe heroes in your community who’ve lent their time and talent to help people in need.
• Write about nearby churches or community organizations whose soup kitchens or homeless shelters have bridged the gap for people in these tough times.
• Feature a senior citizen who’s gone back to school or who is doing great things in retirement.
• Tell about teenagers who are making a difference.
• Highlight local teachers, police officers, nurses, or fire fighters whose efforts go above and beyond what’s required of them.

Scour community newspapers and websites for people to write about.  Include photos and testimonials on your blog.  Encourage people in the community to contact you if they know of others you could feature. Focus on the positive in your area and let it become the centerpiece of your blog.

The more you do this, the more people will see you as an asset to the community.  Market yourself without directly marketing yourself.

One Chicago Realtor® has solved that problem nicely by making data her major focus.  Fran Bailey’s Chicago Area Metro Real Estate blog regularly features easy-to-understand, visually-appealing graphs that help her readers understand the Chicago real estate market.

Offering data is a great way to pull readers in because so many homeowners want to know what their home is worth now, or how long it might take to sell it in this market, or whether prices have come down enough that they can finally afford a home in XYZ community.

Data can also be an easy blog post if you don’t like to write; charts and graphs often speak for themselves so you don’t need a lot of other copy. In addition, there’s no shortage of material; information about the real estate market is everywhere.  You just need to be good at grabbing small bits of it and putting it in an interesting format.

Fran’s posts often feature a particular neighborhood in the city or just one suburb.  Sometimes they’re about only one type of property.  In a recent post, for example, she presented data on the price distribution of 4-bedroom homes in just one suburb. Fran does post articles about other things, but her frequent use of data gives her blog a predictability that readers can depend on.

So, what’s your niche?

Don’t despair.  It happens to all of us.  Sometimes it happens because you’ve been busy on a project or with a particularly demanding client.  Sometimes it happens when you’ve taken a short break or a vacation and stopped focusing or your blog for a few days.  Sometimes your creative juices just aren’t flowing.

I know the feeling because it has been happening to me; for several days over the last week, I attended a conference that had nothing to do with technology or real estate and for those few days, I didn’t even think about my blog.  The result is that now, I need to reprime the pump in order to come up with new ideas.

What to do when you can’t come up with a good idea for your blog?  Here are three suggestions.

• Write about what you’ve been doing.  If you took a vacation or spent some time with your family, write a blog piece about something funny or interesting that happened.  In fact, including occasional pieces about yourself and what you do outside of your professional life helps people identify with you.  But keep it short and don’t do it often.  After all, prospects are more interested in real estate than they are in you.
• Find the real estate connection in ordinary events.  For example, the venue for the conference I attended was a Michigan Avenue hotel in downtown Chicago.   I couldn’t help but notice the vacancies on and around the Magnificent Mile, including an indoor mall built on Michigan Avenue only a few years ago that is now shuttered.  My observation could spawn a series of articles about the state of commercial real estate.
• Write about your writer’s block.  People who write for a living will tell you that one of the best ways to outwit writer’s block is to start writing about it.  If you have nothing profound or earth shattering to say, write about that.  It won’t be long before you have an entire article and you’re back on track.

Fifty-four, actually.  That’s enough to get you through the rest of the year and easily into 2010.  Some may require a bit of research and some will require you to use pseudonyms to protect the privacy of your clients.  But all will help you position yourself as a mover and shaker in your community, and a knowledgeable real estate professional.

1. Describe how the Internet is changing (or has changed) the real estate industry
2. Write about how technology is changing how real estate agents work
3. Review the provisions for the first time home buyers credit and remind your readers to get moving if they want to get in under the wire
4. Offer a list with links to the best web sites for finding property
5. Write an article that reviews the best new homeowner websites, like HouseLogic or HomeSpace
6. Create a step-by-step lesson on how to log in and use the consumer features of your local MLS or your company’s property search website
7. Offer a list with links to local economic data
8. Offer your predictions for the 2010 housing market based on what you’ve seen so far
9. Write about neighborhoods or communities where buyers are finding real estate bargains
10. Create an article that offers resources for homeowners who need to refinance
11. Have a loan officer write a guest post
12. Offer links to useful, need-to-know information for homeowners who are thinking of renting rather than selling
13. Offer easy or inexpensive home updating ideas for sellers who will be putting their homes on the market this year
14. Post a list of questions prospective sellers should ask prospective listing agents
15. Write a down-to-earth article about the realities of selling in today’s market
16. Describe what to look for when choosing a home inspector
17. Have a home inspector write a guest post
18. Describe what to look for when choosing a lender
19. Post a list of financial documents and personal information prospective buyers will need to assemble in order to be pre-approved for a mortgage
20. Write an article (or a series of articles) about what buyers can expect when purchasing a foreclosure
21. Write an article (or a series of articles) about what sellers can expect when doing a short sale
22. Write an article for homeowners about how to contest a property tax increase
23. Describe how you help buyers quickly and easily find the perfect home despite the huge inventory
24. Offer several quick and easy home staging tips
25. Have a home staging professional write a guest post
26. Explain why buyers and sellers need a real estate agent (that is, describe what real estate professionals do that they can’t do for themselves)
27. “10 Questions To Ask Yourself Before Putting Your Home On The Market In This Economy”
28. Write an article for first-time home buyers telling them what they need to know about owning a condominium
29. Invite a real estate attorney to write a guest post
30. Consumers often don’t understand the difference between a real estate sales agent and a real estate broker.  Write a post that explains the difference between these two types of licenses
31. Write a post about how you use Twitter and how your readers would benefit by following you
32. Ask a question and poll your readers to get their response
33. “8 Social Media Tools I Use Each Day and How They Help Me Help You”
34. Or, “Why I Don’t Use Twitter, Facebook, or Other Social Media”
35. Tell about a client who sold a home quickly in the past few months and how they were able to accomplish that
36. Tell about a pair of homeowners at risk who were able to restructure their mortgage and keep their home.
37. Invite your readers to submit their tips for frugal living in the current economy and write a post which includes the best tips
38. Create an article with links to green living resources for homeowners
39. Describe 5 things you do for clients that most other real estate professionals don’t do
40. Describe 5 things your brokerage does for clients that most other brokerages don’t do
41. Summarize the conferences you’ve attended, the training you’ve undergone, and the required courses you’ve taken in the past 12 months and how those experiences translate into better service for clients who work with you
42. Describe the biggest problem a client had in the past year and how you helped that client solve their problem
43. Share a testimonial sent to you by a client
44. Write an article about the recent FHA changes and how they will affect buyers in 2010
45. Write an article to help sellers understand that they don’t determine the selling price of their home, the market does
46. Lease with option to buy: explain what it is and how it works
47. Post a story with pictures of an important local event (e.g., the high school team winning a championship)
48. Write about a person or an organization doing good things in your community
49. List the “best places” in your community (e.g., the best place to picnic, the best bike path, the best beach, the best place to ice skate, the best place for tobogganing, etc.)
50. Invite your readers to submit their lists of best places
51. “25 Free Activities for Families” (or singles, or couples, or seniors)
52. Write about a local organization in which you’re active and encourage your readers to get involved
53. Write an article about a special property (e.g., historic landmark, famous former owner, luxury property, etc.) your brokerage is listing
54. Write a article that reminds your readers of their fair housing rights and includes links to fair housing resources

Readers have a limited amount of time and because there’s so much content online, they have to pick and choose.  Why should they follow you rather than someone else?

Therefore, before you post, consider the following:

Value.  Is this message important?  Does it impart value to the reader? Does it answer a question or solve a problem for them?  Does it give them information they don’t already have?  Better yet, does it give them information they can’t get anywhere else?  Does it make them want to comment or answer back?  Does it make them want to save your message or share it with someone else?  By reading it, will they see you as someone who adds genuine value and is worth doing business with?

Viewpoint.  Let’s face it, everything you post is not meant to be a learning experience.  Sometimes your status updates will be insightful or personal.  So the question is, do you present a unique point of view?  Will friends and followers relish your posts for your good humor or your unusual take on the day’s topic?  Do you possess an outlook that sets you apart?  Are your messages worth reading because each contains a special little bit of you?

Verve.  Finally, are you exciting, energetic, entertaining?  Do you move people emotionally or spiritually?  Do your messages uplift?  Do they make people laugh or at least smile?  Do they make people think?  Does the information on your site or its very design convey something that grabs people? Will this post make people want to read more? Will readers feel like they’re missing out if they don’t subscribe or check back another time?  What is it about this post that will make readers want to come back again and again?

Certainly, everything you post is not going to meet all of these criteria every single time.  Your aim, however, should be to gradually, through a series of posts, shape the image your readers have of you.

Keep in mind that the words and images you post become you, especially for people who’ve never met you.  So craft your online image with care.

Blogging presents the biggest problem; when I’m taking time off, I don’t want to have to write and research articles.  Fortunately, there are ways to work around that.

One solution is to blog in advance.  In WordPress, for example, you can write an article today and schedule it to be published automatically at some date and time in the future.  My article Blog While You’re On Vacation shows you how to do it.  To make this option work, of course, you’ll need to write all of your vacation articles ahead of time.

Alternatively, you can rerun articles you’ve written previously.  TV and radio shows do it all the time so that media stars and their staffs can take vacation.  If Oprah can show reruns, why can’t you?

Another option would be to find one or more guest bloggers to write in your absence.  Guest writers can sometimes bring a fresh perspective to your blog and help keep your readers engaged.  This option assumes, of course, that you can find someone to write your blog who isn’t also planning to take some time off.

In the end, I did none of these things.  Instead, I took a break from Twitter and only posted brief Merry Christmas and Happy New Year messages on my blog.  But if social networking is about establishing and maintaining connections with friends and clients, is that the best approach?

Decide Who Your Audience Will Be

For real estate professionals, the first thing you’ll need to decide is whom you’ll be writing for.  Do you want a blog that connects you with other real estate professionals or do you want to write for consumers and the public?  Several sites make it easy for real estate professionals to create blogs to be read and commented on by other real estate professionals.   The best known of these is ActiveRain, but many agents also post on RealTown Blogs.

An ActiveRain “inside blog” is free and easy to set up, and with more than 150,000 members, it gives you great visibility among real estate professionals.  RealTown Blogs also has lots of members—more than 130,000—posting articles about sales, technology, and other useful topics.  Either one will give you a good introduction to blogging along with the opportunity to learn by reading the posts of other real estate bloggers.  Consumers can find and read your posts on either site.  But these blogs are primarily for real estate people to communicate and network with one another.  If your purpose for having a blog is to demonstrate your expertise, build a following among consumers, and generate leads, you’ll need to move beyond these blogs aimed at other professionals.

Choose a Turnkey or Custom-Made Real Estate Blog

Turnkey solutions provide you with everything you need to get started.  Select a design you like and the provider gets it up and running for a monthly fee.  Your site will probably include a feed from your MLS so your visitors will be able to search for properties.  You may also get syndication so your listings are automatically sent to sites like Zillow or Trulia.   You’ll probably also get some kind of lead capture tool—a way for visitors to give you their contact information so you can follow up with them.  Some providers will even write the blog content for you.   For turnkey blogging solutions, look into Point2 Homes, ActiveRain’s “outside blog”, or KineticKnowledge’s RealEstate Blogsites.

Real Estate Tomato custom designs self-hosted blogs (see below).  Each blog they create is different and uniquely designed to fit your business.  They also offer training in how to use the blogging software and how to get the most from your blog.  Because you’ll self-host the blog they create, you’ll pay a monthly fee to an Internet hosting company to keep your blog up and running.

Do It Yourself

Finally, there’s the do-it-yourself option. You can create a free blog at sites like Typepad, Blogger, or WordPress.  Blogs like these are absolutely free to create and maintain, and you can write for the entire world to see.  WordPress.com is the most popular of these blogging platforms; it’s easy enough to use that a beginner can have a free blog up and running in no time.

A free wordpress.com blog will allow you to establish yourself on the Internet and build your brand, but it has some major disadvantages for real estate professionals.  A big one is that it won’t allow you to include a feed from your local MLS, so visitors won’t be able to search for listings on your site.  In theory, if your blog is interesting enough, visitors will subscribe to it and read it anyway.  But the fact is, consumers want information about properties.  If you’re going to take the time to create a blog, you should probably create one that’s really going to work for you.

In order to include MLS listings, you’ll need a different kind of blog.  You’ll need what’s called a “self-hosted blog”.  The free blog from wordpress.com is hosted by the folks at WordPress.  They host it for free, but they set limits on what you can do with it.  If you want a blog that you control and that can include whatever applications you want it to have—including property listings from your MLS—you’ll need a self-hosted blog.  The most popular self-hosted blogging software is offered at wordpress.org. (wordpress.org is different than wordpress.com).

A self-hosted wordpress.org blog is probably too challenging for a beginner to tackle, especially since blogging is not your main job.  As it turns out, that’s what Real Estate Tomato does.  They design your self-hosted blog, get it installed on the Internet for you, and help you learn how to use it.   A self-hosted blog gives you the greatest degree of flexibility and creativity.   It might be the perfect choice for a broker with a tech person on the team, or an agent with lots of computer experience.  But if you’re new to working on the Internet, you may not want to start there.

If you’re a beginner, my recommendation is to keep it simple at first.  Try out a free blog and see how it works for you.  Once you get the hang of it and you’re ready to commit to writing articles and keeping your content up to date, then you can step up to something more sophisticated.