It’s hard to believe it’s been a year since my first blog post here at FOREM!

I remember when I was first asked to be a contributing author to the blog. Brad Inman, the founder of Inman News, emailed me shortly after I had started at Inman News to let me know he wanted me to start writing for FOREM.

My first reactions: humbled, honored, excited and nervous.  Personally, I had been a FOREM reader for years and had long-admired Joel Burslem and the content he produced day in and day out. I also knew that the readers of FOREM were extremely tech-savvy and had high expectations. I knew the content I would have to provide would need to be fresh, innovative, and cutting-edge.

I remember the first month or so struggling a bit. I enjoyed the writing but was really trying to “be Joel” instead of just “be me.”

Many of you have emailed me and have asked me how FOREM has had the success it has. There is no “secret sauce” but there are a few things that I think we do pretty well that has helped us stay ahead, and keep our readers coming back for more.

1. Be real. I talked about this last week in my blog when I talked about being authentic. It took me a little while for me to “find my voice” with FOREM. As a blogger, the most important thing you can do is find your voice. Write posts you would like to read. What is interesting to you? What makes you laugh? Why do you click on a post? Would you read your own posts? If you aren’t being genuine and letting your personality shine through, you will probably have a mediocre and boring blog.

How can you be real? Write your blog post as if you were talking to a good friend. Insert your personality!

So many REALTORS® tell me they couldn’t start a blog because they are not a writer or they have no idea what they would say.

I couldn’t disagree more. The next time you think that – think of all the conversations and emails you have with your clients. Each conversation is perfect fodder for blog posts. Keep a notepad handy and evey time you answer a question about the market, or a neighborhood, or your experience, make a note of it. You have more to talk about than you can imagine!

2. Don’t be afraid to think outside the box. A blog post can be anything you want it to be. It doesn’t have to be a 500 word essay. It can be a few short sentences. It could be a video. It could be images. What are you most comfortable with? At FOREM, our blog is a little bit of all that.

Need inspiration? Look at what Jay Thompson, Krisstina Wise, Dawn Thomas, Maya J. Paveza, and Torelli Realty have done on their blogs (just to name a few!)

3. Be respectful. This is a personal preference and something that was very important to Joel – to be respectful. It’s ok to disagree but I will never bash a company or product. It’s just not me to “flame” someone or something. I think you can debate and disagree but do so in a respectful way.

4. Read a lot. I read more now than I probably ever have. What do I read? New York Times, WSJ, TechCrunch, Gizmodo, AdAge, Marketing Profs, Open Forem, Mashable, and of course Inman News – just to name a handful. I follow over 500 Facebook pages and tons of blogs via RSS and Twitter. I am able to see what trends people are talking about and get inspiration for FOREM.

Reading makes me a better blogger and has helped me find my voice. If I was a real estate agent, I would make sure I read anything from my state and local board (i.e. C.A.R.), home improvement articles and blogs (like HGTV), local and national real estate news sources, and local community and school info. As an agent, all of these sources would be great inspirations for a blog!

5. Post regularly. This one thing made a huge difference. I remember chatting with Joel about how he started FOREM and he recommended creating a schedule and committing to a certain number of posts a week. Since that conversation, I committed to having at least 3 posts a week. By making that commitment, it has made me a better writer and it keeps our readers engaged because they know that there will always be fresh, new posts coming from FOREM.

If you are new to blogging or even if you have been blogging for some time, make sure you blog on a schedule – treat it just like any other “must do” for the week.

So those are just a few of the things that have kept the wheels spinning here at FOREM. In addition to what I have learned, it’s been fun to look back over the course of last year to see what new technologies emerged, which ones thrived (Apple iPad) and which one dived (Google Nexus One).

Bonus: Check out this cool video from Google – it’s a quick “Year in review” of the most popular searches in 2010 – really fun video and made me reminisce over this past year here at Inman News and at FOREM. I am super excited about the 2011 and can’t wait to see what’s next!

What types of posts would you like to see in the coming year? I’d love your feedback and opinions, leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News @katielance

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Guest blogger Jay Thompson is the designated broker and co-owner of Thompson’s Realty in Phoenix, AZ. You can find his award-winning blog at PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com. His latest blogging adventure is RealEstateBlogPro.com.

On September 14, Twitter announced its most ambitious site redesign to date. The rapidly growing “information network” is introducing, “a new, re-engineered Twitter.com that provides an easier, faster, and richer experience.”

The update will roll out to users gradually over the next several weeks and include such features as:

New design: A rich details page that promises a cleaner timeline. “Infinite scroll” means you no longer will need to click “more” to view additional Tweets.

Media: Twitter is partnering with numerous large players in Internet media such as Flickr, YouTube, Vimoe, Ustream, and TwitPic (to name just a few) to embed and integrate photos and video directly on Twitter.

Related content: Click a Tweet, and a related content panel will show additional information on the author or subject.

Mini profiles: Click on a user name and you’ll be presented with on-page access to the user’s bio and related Tweets.

Here is a video that Twitter released highlighting some of the changes. Less than 24 hours after the video was published, it had been viewed almost 400,000 times…

What does this mean for third-party Twitter clients?

My first thought when I heard about the new Twitter.com was, “I rarely go to Twitter.com now, I doubt I’ll go there in the future.”

Like many Twitter users, I use a third-party Twitter client to monitor and interact on Twitter. TweetDeck is my client of choice, and Seesmic Desktop and HootSuite (a web based application) are other popular clients. Many of these clients already incorporate the functionality of the new Twitter.com. However, according to Twitter founder and CEO Evan Williams, 78% of unique Twitter users are using Twitter.com (seems high to me, but I’m not the CEO of Twitter…).

Why don’t I use Twitter.com? Because – in its current incarnation – it doesn’t offer the same experience as the third-party applications. I find it painful to navigate, and I’m constantly having to go off the site or open other windows to get the information I need. The third-party clients provide a much easier, faster and enriching experience – exactly what the new Twitter is offering.

What Twitter’s redesign may do is cause these third-party applications to review and enrich their products. Competition tends to lead to innovation, and with Twitter stepping up its game the third-party providers are going to have to do the same.

However, one of the things about Twitter that appeals to many is its simplicity. Will the new Twitter, and the push to include more and more information ruin this? I hope Twitter doesn’t lose that simplicity. Many are calling the new features “Facebookish” – and Facebook is already known for having what can be a confusing and cluttered user interface.

I suppose only time will tell. With 90 million Tweets being sent daily, and 370,000 new users getting Twitter accounts every day, Twitter is a force to be reckoned with. Generally speaking though, people are resistant to change. How this change manifests itself will be interesting to watch.

And clearly people are talking about the change. At the time of this writing, there are 31,800 news articles indexed on Google News – less than 24 hours after the announcement.

What do you think about the new Twitter.com

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I am constantly amazed by the stream of great content and information that comes through my Facebook and Twitter stream as well as my RSS feed.

Below are my top 20 stories I read in the last 7 days. You will see a variety of sources and authors.

I am a big believer in learning from outside our industry – sometimes that is where you get the best ideas. This is one reason I absolutely love our Real Estate Connect conferences. We bring in speakers and experts from outside the real estate field – their perspective and insight never fails to surprise or inspire me!

Special thanks to all of the talented writers and bloggers who publish great content day in and day out. Enjoy!

Social Media
The Basics of Social Media ROI

The Rules of Engagement

6 Common LinkedIn Mistakes Small Businesses Make, and What You Should Do Instead

Foursquare Makes it Easy for Businesses to Sign Up

Nobody Said Social Media Was Easy

Twitter
10 Acts of Twitter Kindness

21 Twitter Tips From Socially Savvy Companies

How Future Historians will use the Twitter Archives.

100 Tips Essential to Being a Smarter Better Twitterer

Facebook
13 ‘Old-School’ Marketing Techniques That Take Your Facebook Fan Page From Wimpy to Wow

How Facebook’s New Features Could Help You

The Ultimate Guide To 11 BIG Facebook Changes–And What They Mean

Facebook Users Promote Fan Page Brands

The Age of Facebook

Blogging
7 Tips to Boost Business by Blogging

20 Common Mistakes Made By New Bloggers

The Single Best Way To Build A Love For Blogging

The Recipe For A Successful Blog!

Blogging with Numbers

Top Ten Easy Steps to Starting a Business Blog

Which type of articles are most valuable to you? Leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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In one of my earlier blog posts talking abut Twitter, I said that so many agents get caught up in NOT participating in social media or blogging because they fear they ‘have nothing to say!’ Of course nothing could be further than the truth – agents hold a wealth of info in their minds with their local market knowledge and experience.

However, for a Realtor, to be great at social media and/or blogging you need to have quick access to great content to either:

• Post as a link – directing people to read an article OR
• To inspire you - to give you ideas about what to write about!

Here are my top 25 killer resources for great content for Realtors:

1. Your web site
2. Your broker’s web site
3. Your local MLS board web site
4. Your regional association web site
5. NAR
6. Inman News
7. Twitter and Facebook
8. Your local chamber, downtown or city web site
9. Your local newspaper web site
10. Trulia
11. Zillow
12. Realtor.com
13. Altos Research
14. HGTV Frontdoor
15. Realty Trac
16. Street Advisor
17. NabeWise
18. Outside.in
19. BizJournals
20. Flickr
21. Reddit
22. StumbleUpon
23. Technorati Top 100 Blogs
24. Online Newspapers
25. Google News (I love that you can customize your news feed – great way to get local, tech, or real estate news stories)

One thing to note – never, ever repost content and claim it as yours. Make sure you quote any content you use OR link directly to it!

Bonus #1: Need writing tips? Check out Copyblogger – this is one of my favorite writing blogs!

Bonus #2: Don’t forget, some of the BEST content are your own stories and experiences!

How do you generate great content? Would love your ideas – please post your feedback below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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For many real estate agents, starting a blog can be a daunting task. Let me first say this: if you don’t enjoy writing, or it is a chore for you, blogging may not be for you. However, the great thing about blogging is you don’t have to have your Master’s degree in English to write a great blog.

Your blog is your opinion on various subjects.

For real estate agents, your blog will probably include your opinion about your local market area, the communities you serve, local and national real estate laws, local lending trends, opinions about schools and neighborhoods, and much more.

Here are 5 elements to having a successful real estate agent blog:

1. Be consistent. One of the most important elements to blogging is to write consistently. When I first started blogging for FOREM, one thing that made a huge difference, was setting a blog schedule. For me, I am committed to 3 blog posts a week. By having that commitment, it makes it a priority for me. It also lets my readers know that I am serious about this blog, and readers more likely to follow it because they know content will be fresh! Tip: Look at your calendar and schedule 2 to 3 days a week that you will post your blog posts. Factor in the time needed to write, edit and publish.

2. Post local content. If I was a real estate agent, one of my blog posts every week would be a fun fact about the community or fun community event going on in the area. You hear it time and time again, but being the local source of great content is key. Still don’t think there is value in local content? If you haven’t already, check out this Facebook page started by a Realtor in Washington – all those posts originate from his blog. Did you see how many fans he has? As of right now, he has almost 9,000 fans! That’s the power of local content. Tip: Get local content from chamber web sites, downtown association web sites and your local newspaper online.

3. Post market stats BUT in an easy to understand way. Let’s face it: charts, graphs and an excessive amount of numbers are not very exciting for most of us. So post great market stats, but keep it to a couple graphs. The KEY is to add your opinion and your input to the market data. What trends do you see? What are some great finds you saw on Brokers Tour? What are your clients saying they are looking for. The story behind any stat is what makes a blog post engaging to read! Tip: Get local market stats from your local MLS, regional association, or from Altos Research – one of my favorite market stat companies for agents.

4. Do not post negative posts. There are many schools of thoughts about what type of blog posts to post – but in my experience it is best to ‘take the high road’ and not use your real estate blog for your ’soapbox’ of negative experiences. Keep it positive and people will respect you even more. Tip: If you aren’t sure whether to post something or not, write it, save it as a draft, and re-visit it the next day. Giving time to mull over a blog post gives you time to think if it is worth publishing.

5. Promote it! You can’t just ‘build it and it will come!’ You need to make sure you are promoting every blog post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and through your email list. For Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn you should re-post your blog post 3-5 times. I know many people think it is a “no no” to repeat content but I completely disagree – just ask Guy Kawasaki who notoriously repeats content on his Twitter stream. By re-posting your blog posts 3-5 times on these channels throughout the course of 2-3 days, your web traffic will be much higher. Remember, most people are only on their social networks for pockets of time throughout the day – so if you promote your blog on Facebook in the morning – you may be missing afternoon traffic.  Tip: Use Hootsuite – you can integrate your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn profiles AND control what day/time your post goes out. Once you have your blog post done, log into Hootsuite and post a quick message with your link to your blog post and schedule the same message 3-5 times over the next 2 days. Here is a great blog post about all the things you can accomplish with Hootsuite, including some exciting new updates that happened this week.

Bonus: Want to see some great real estate agent examples? Check out this blog post Stacey Harmon just posted with examples of 32 real estate agent blog sites!

Do you have a blog you’d like to share? Do you have any tips to add to this list? I would love your feedback, please leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News, @katielance

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Two well known real estate bloggers have launched a new training program for real estate professionals.

Jeff Turner and Bill Lublin have announced the creation of the new Social Media Marketing Institute (SMMI) and now offer a new designation to Realtors; Certified Social Media Marketer (CSM). The course is designed “to educate business professionals in the effective and responsible use of Social Media to generate business through permission-based marketing.”

Both instructors certainly have the chops to pull this off; Jeff is better known as the founder and president of the virtual tour company Real Estate Shows. He is a deep thinker and true pioneer in the social media space – you can follow him on Twitter (@respres) and on his blog Turner’s Perspective.

Bill is the CEO of a Century 21 affiliate in Phildelphia; you can read him on MOVEPHILLY blog, on Twitter (@billlublin) and is an active contributor to AgentGenius.

For more on the SMMI, read today’s Inman News article.

Other social media/online marketing resources:

• 1000Watt Consulting
• Reachd
• 4Realz
• New Media Labs
• Domus Consulting

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[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N94s7ix0JPo[/youtube]

Late last week I added Google Friend Connect to this blog (if you followed @jburslem on Twitter you would have seen my tweet asking for people to help me test it out). I did so after Google  made the service widely available to all web site owners.

Friend Connect is part of the Open Social movement that lets you, the web site owner, add community and social features to your site with single upload (ok, it’s two uploads but there’s still no programming required).

By doing so, you’ll instantly bring a new social networking aspect to your site. But the best thing is, rather than having people build new identities from scratch, Friend Connect lets people join your site using their pre-existing identities. Effectively countering the growing sense of social networking fatigue.

In short, by enabling Friend Connect on your site, your sites visitors can easily join your community by logging in with their Google account as well as a few others — which, as of today, also includes their Twitter profile.

For example, to join the FOREM community, click on the ‘Join’ button in the right side bar (RSS subscribers, get out of your readers and come to the site to see what I’m talking about). You can use any one of your chosen identities to log in and then begin to connect with the other members of this blog’s community.

For readers, the upside is it means you can see who’s reading a particular site and start to find other people who have similar interests to yours; clicking on their thumbnail reveals their profile and what other sites they are members of.

For publishers and site owners it is a way to build your traffic through word-of mouth recommendations, reader reviews and by adding other functionality to an otherwise static experience.

To add Friend Connect to your Blog

1. Log into your Google Account at http://www.google.com/friendconnect/home/

2. Click on the “Set Up A New Site” button.

3. Upload files - canvas.html and rpc_relay.html to the root directory of your blog. That’s it!

To add any the Gadgets (the community, Wall or Review gadgets) to your blog; just cut and paste the HTML code in your sidebar or use Wordpress’ widgets (if you use Wordpress).

Friend Connect is interesting project but is not totally complete yet. There’s still a few pieces of the puzzle that are missing.

I’d love for it to integrate into Wordpress’ comments system more deeply (but I suspect it is only a matter of time before someone develops the proper plugin). Moreover, as the site owner, I’d love to be able to message all members of my community (respectfully, of course) — if they did this it could turn Friend Connect into a highly effective permission-based marketing platform like Facebook Pages (see Marketing Real Estate on Facebook (and Other Social Networks)).

Let me know if you add it to your blog! Drop your URL in the comments section.

social networking, friend connect, google friend connect, web 2.0

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High profile Finnish search portal Igglo.fi is gone. Kaput.

The company was founded in February 2006 by entrepreneurs Jussi Nurmio and Mikko Ranin and in 2006 Benchmark Capital Europe invested 12.5 million euros in Igglo to help them fund their expansion deep into Europe.

But that investment now looks all for naught, as Igglo declared bankruptcy in February 2008 (see Wikipedia) and just last week, according to Forbes.com, ceased its brokerage operations and sold its web site to Finnish publishing house Sanoma Group.

Igglo was one of the very first online brokers and web sites to incorporate Web 2.0 technologies, winning it many fans at the time, including Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman who, whose company sought to be bring Igglo’s novel auction idea to the US (see Redfin Corporate Blog).

The news that Igglo has exhausted its capital and folded, is not particularly comforting then. And I wonder if it’s just the tip of a cresting wave for many of the venture-funded real estate plays both here and abroad.

That said, it may not be the last time we see Igglo. According to Sanoma’s press release on the acquistion, Nurmio insists “Igglo will focus on its core competence, developing online business and internationalizing the service. This transaction provides Igglo with an excellent platform to take the housing portal concept abroad.”

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Word leaked that #1 Real Estate Blog Curbed.com is getting into the listings game a couple of weeks ago. As of today, the new service is live in Manhattan.

Curbed’s new Marketplace lets Realtors and brokers list their properties inside a traditional classifieds-type environment. For 99 bucks you’ll be able to reach out to some of Curbed’s 300,000 loyal readers.

The price is right, but it remains to be seen whether those readers will take the leap and move beyond their RSS readers to dig for listings inside the Marketplace.

More interesting however, is what Curbed is calling its QuickListings – which are advertorial-type property listings that are inserted into Curbed’s blow flow. Call them Sponsored Posts, but since Curbed generally treats listings as content anyway, this approach does not seem so incongruous.

The more I think about it, I like this approach a lot. As a broker or agent, your listing gets top billing and placement rather than being buried in the back pages. As the publisher, Curbed has already warmed its readers to receiving information they may be interested in. Readers will appreciate the clear deliniation between the editorial and advertising but may also appreciate the relevance of the content.

Newspapers, especially those who still have local real estate sections, would be wise to watch was Curbed is doing. It’s to these sorts of ideas that those fleeing advertising dollars will be going.

The only question I would have as a marketer is what sort of analytics are baked into the Marketplace and QuickListings – can I get reports how many times my item was viewed, what the CTR (click-thru rates) were? Even a geographic breakdowns of who was viewing my listing from where? Having that sort of information would make this product a home-run.

Coincidentally, Trulia launched a blogging platform last week, which makes for the very odd situation where you have a real estate blog is getting in to the property listings game and a propety listings portal getting into the real estate blogging game. Worlds are starting to collide here.

Will we soon be seeing featured listings inside Trulia Voices too?

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In its September 2008 issue, alongside its reviews of tub cleaners and organic produce, Consumer Reports turns its critical eye on the real estate industry.

The publication polled a sample of 3753 readers who sold or tried to sell a home, 4029 readers who bought a home and 7368 readers who did both. The results are illuminating to anyone in the industry; especially some of its findings which will surely be controversial.

Let’s look a bit deeper at the numbers.

First, the good news. Only 1% of sellers tried to use an online web site (craigslist, forsalebyowner.com etc.) to sell their home. 80% chose to go with an agent. It suggests that any fears that online players may someday distermediate the Realtors seem overblown. Sellers want to work with a real estate professional.

The bad news is that CR concludes is that overall “higher commission didn’t always translate into more service or better results.”

Moreover, respondants who “paid commissions of 3 percent or less were just as happy with their brokers performance as those who paid 6 percent or more.” In fact, those who paid more were “more likely to say they had regrets about the selling process”.

More troubling, is that CR recommends that consumers continue to aggressive negotiate the 6% commission downwards.

Seems to me that the real challenge here is that, moving forward, the industry needs do a better job of communicating its value (beyond puff advertising pieces) and, more importantly, delivering that value to consumers.

There are many ways to turn this tide, but I believe one way to slow the downwards trend on commissions is if brokers and agents can demonstrate to consumers they have an aggressive multi-modal marketing package in place for each and every listing.

Unfortunately, despite overwhelming evidence that consumers are looking for homes on the Internet (about 80%), it seems some Realtors are still choosing to ignore the medium.

According to CR, 85% of Keller Williams agents advertised homes on the Web – compared to only 76% of RE/MAX agents and 75% of Century 21 agents. The numbers, while high, are still unacceptable.

Agents should be syndicating their listings across the Net, taking dozens of high quality photos of the home, creating single property sites, doing video tours, blogging about their listings’ key selling features. Any or all of these approaches can add value (either real or perceived) to the bottom line of the transaction.

Brokers aren’t off the hook either. They need to be educating their agents on what the 21st Century internet-savvy buyer is looking for and then provide platforms that can deliver those services to their agents.

The Internet is not the be all and end all to getting a home sold. But far from being a threat to the 6 percent commission, it may just end up being its salvation.

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