Internet » Technology Tools for Real Estate

rss newspaper icon Your feedreader is supposed to save you time by allowing you to see all of your favorite web content in one place. But if your feedreader is overflowing with unread articles, it’s not a time saver, it’s a time sinkhole. Here are 6 tips to help you get control of your RSS reader and manage the overload.

Put a time limit on it. Limit in advance the amount of time you’ll spend reviewing articles in the feedreader. When time’s up, move on to other more productive work.
If you’re not reading it, get rid of it. Like the items in the back of your closet that you’ll never wear, articles from blogs you visited once probably languish unread in your feedreader. Be honest with yourself: if you’re not reading it, unsubscribe.
Put new feeds on probation. One way to keep from accumulating items you’ll never read is to save your newest feeds in a folder labeled something like “Probation.” If you find a new feed useful, you can elevate it out of the probation folder. On the other hand, if you realize that the articles are not as good as you thought they would be, you can unsubscribe to the feed before it takes up residence in your feedreader and starts accumulating.
Feel free to mark all as read. If your reader has hundreds (or even thousands) of articles waiting to be read, it’s probably better to empty the reader by marking all items as read and starting again.
Search to find the gems. If you use Google Reader, you can Search by topic to find items of interest. The articles that meet your search criterion are pulled out for you to read and tag as needed. This keeps you from having to page through all of your articles to find the few you want to read. You may want to do this before you mark all as read.
Save the best for another time. When you find articles that you want to read in depth, you can mark them with a star to be read later, or you can tag them as a “Favorite”. Then you can come back to them at your leisure. Set aside a specific time in the day or the week to do your catch-up reading. Beware of tagging so many Favorites that you never get around to reading them all.

Google has a slew of cool tools. One of them—Google Alerts—can let you know what bloggers, the press, and even the general public are saying about you or any topic of your choosing.

While Twitter is an excellent source of info about what people are talking about, someone has to put it in a tweet in order for it to be picked up. But Google Alerts let you “follow” stories that no one is tweeting about yet. It also lets you follow stories that are of interest to you, but may not catch the attention of others on the Internet.

Use Google Alerts to

Listen out for good (or bad news) about you or your company
Generate intelligence on what your competition is doing
Find items of interest to tweet about
Follow a news story that interests you
Get up-to-the-minute information on changes in interest rates, the housing market, zoning laws, or anything else that impacts your business

Here’s how it works: You enter a search term in Google Alerts. When a news story, blog post, or video is added to the Internet that would appear among the top ten search results to someone using that search term, Google will alert you.

For example, let’s say you want to be alerted when anything new happens with the first-time home buyers tax credit.

Go to www.google.com/alerts
Enter the exact words you would use if you were searching for it on Google, in this case: “first time home buyers tax credit”.
Enter the type of content you want to be alerted about. For example, do you want to know when there’s a new news story, a new blog post, or some other kind of written content on the Internet? Choose “comprehensive” if you want to be alerted about all three. You can also be alerted if someone uploads a new video about your topic (choose “video”) or if your topic appears in a new e-mail aggregate (choose “group”).
Enter how often you want Google to check for new items: once a week, once a day, or continuously. If you want Google to check continuously, choose “as-it-happens”.
Enter your Google e-mail address (You must have a Google account to use Google Alerts). If you use Google Reader and you prefer to have your alerts sent to you as a feed rather than via e-mail, select “feed”.
Click “Create Alert”.

Once you log in to your Google e-mail account and confirm, your alerts will start coming to you. Because you checked “as-it-happens” you may start getting alerts right away. And because you checked that you wanted them to come to your e-mail, your alerts will look like the example below. Here you see links to two news stories about the first-time home buyers tax credit that popped into your e-mail inbox within minutes of setting up your alerts.

alert e-mails

Keep in mind that you’ll only be alerted when there’s something new on the Internet that would appear among the top search results. If you don’t ever get any alerts, it’s because there’s nothing new, because there’s nothing new that comes up high enough in a Google search, or because your search term isn’t very good. You can always go in to Google alerts and make changes. To do that:

Go to http://www.google.com/alerts.

edit alerts

Click the link that lets you edit your alerts.
Select the alert you want to edit and make your changes.

To delete an alert, simply check the box next to it and click the delete button.
delete
How might you use Google Alerts?

There are three types of social networking posts. Each does something a little different, but each is an important ingredient in successfully creating an online presence.

Blog Posts. Think of a blog as the main element in a stew, the meat of your Internet mélange. Blog posts can be as long or as short as you wish. They can be tightly edited and written in a journalistic style, or they can be rambling, freeform essays that chronicle your inner thoughts and feelings. And because you can use them to write as much as you want, blogs give you a huge degree of freedom to craft your online personality.

But with blogs, it’s not just what you write. It’s also how your blog looks and feels. When you decide to make a stew, you get to choose the main ingredient; will it be a Louisiana-style gumbo with crayfish and crabs, or will you be boiling corned beef and cabbage?

It’s the same way with your blog. You choose the style. Will it be colorful and crazy? Or will an understated black and gray color scheme suit your purpose better? Will it have a slick, polished look? Or will it be more folksy and friendly? The words you choose, the slant and style of the writing, the look and feel of the site—you get to put it all together. And the choices you make impact your image online.

Status Updates. Status updates give you the opportunity to let people know what you’re doing throughout the day. They’re kind of like the vegetables in your stew: add some of this and some of that. If you’ve got carrots, put them in. If not, the potatoes and onions will be fine by themselves.

Status updates are what’s happening with you now—whatever you happen to have at the moment. They can be funny and personal or they can herald your latest professional accomplishments. It’s all up to you; whatever you can share in a few sentences. Throw in some pictures if you have them. Get feedback from your friends and fans. Stir it all up to blend the flavors nicely.

Micro-blogging Posts. Finally, there’s micro-blogging. Think of it as the seasoning: a pinch here and a dash there. The best cooks know how to work magic with seasoning and you can do the same with micro-blogging.

Twitter has become the cornucopia of micro-blogging. And while some people use Twitter mostly for status updates, it’s really most powerful as a micro-marketing tool. Share blog posts and news stories about events that interest you. Give people a sense of who you are by what kind of content you link to. Gain followers by adding value based on the content you share. Remember all the while that—just like in a well-seasoned dish—simplicity and subtly often work best.

These three kinds of blog posts are the elements in your online mix. Combine them well to create an appetizing and irresistible brand.

Are you sitting on the sidelines when it comes to social networking because you don’t know how to get started or you don’t have the time?

For some agents, social networking activities are a breeze. They find it easy to post fresh information and keep friends and clients updated online. But for others, the prospect of building and maintaining an online presence is daunting, confusing, or just too time consuming.

One solution to building and maintaining an online presence is to hire a virtual assistant (VA). A virtual assistant is an administrative professional who uses technology and the Internet to stay touch and complete assignments. The ideal VA works closely with you to handle administrative tasks so you can focus your time on activities that lead directly to producing income.

Successful agents have always had licensed, personal assistants to help them answer questions about properties, show homes, and complete paperwork. But this new breed of helpers can use technology to help agents do things that don’t require a license.

A VA could build your website, for example, or help you set up your Twitter and Facebook accounts. He or she could even ghostwrite blog articles for you so that you could devote more of your time to serving your clients or running your brokerage. And because the Internet makes “telecommuting” so easy, your VA could live in another part of the country or even half way around the world and still be able to offer you assistance.

Virtual assistants can be hired to do just one project for a set fee, or they can be paid an hourly rate to work on an on-going basis. A growing number of organizations train and certify virtual assistants; the International Virtual Assistant Association, for example, requires its members to abide by a strict code of ethics. You can even find virtual assistants who’ve been specifically trained to work in the real estate industry.

If you’re challenged when it comes to technology or could use the help of someone who knows his or her way around the Internet, consider hiring a virtual assistant.

For agents, blogging is about developing name recognition and establishing yourself as an expert, as someone consumers would want to go to when they were ready to buy or sell a home. One secret to building your name recognition on the Internet is to comment on other people’s blogs.

But when you leave comments on someone else’s blog, you’ll also want to be able to post a photo of yourself for instant brand and name recognition. That’s where gravatars (and avatars) come in.

An avatar is a graphic representation of yourself that’s posted on the Internet. Most social networking sites encourage you to upload a photo or some other image (i.e., an avatar) that will represent you on that site. Avatars are useful because human beings spot and remember visual cues; we often recognize someone’s face, for example, when we can’t remember their name. Therefore, when you leave a comment on another person’s blog, it’s better for your name recognition if there’s a photo along with that comment. In fact, notice below how much more appealing it is when comment writers have an avatar rather than an empty box next to their name.

Comments A gravatar is a “generally recognized avatar”. Gravatars allow you to easily post the same photo as you comment on sites around the web. Without gravatars, if you wanted an image with your comment, you’d have to upload a photo every time you posted a comment on someone’s blog. But a gravatar is universal. You create it one time and thereafter, each time you post a comment, the same picture is placed automatically. And placing the same picture over and over again on the web is great for your name recognition.

Gravatars work on thousands of websites around the Internet. It’s easy to create one—and it’s free. To get started, go to www.gravatar.com. Watch the video and then create yours.