This is a good article written by Jimmy Mackin – I suggest starting out with a website in which your blog is a page within in it. Your goal is to drive traffic to you website and to optimize your web site – Call me for more information how this can be a part of your real estate marketing plan!!!

Facebook Page or Blog? Where do I start?

Where do I start?

Many Realtors® who are new to Blogging and Social Media do not know where to begin.  A common mistake many Realtors® make is they try to do everything at once.  I want to share with you the strategy we used to build our brand.

July 2nd, 2010 – we launched our Facebook Page.

Over the next 6 month, we focused all of our attention on connecting and engaging with our community.  As a result of our efforts, we were able to consistently grow our Facebook Page month after month.

When we launched our blog (Jan 12, 2011)- we immediately started seeing traffic flowing in from our Facebook Page.  In our first 108 days, we have driven in over 16,000 visits and 35,642 Pageviews.  Our readership is growing by approx 30% per month.

The important takeaway here is that only 8.84% of our traffic is coming from the Search Engines.

We often think that the only way to drive in traffic is to rank well for relevant keyword phrases, we have found that there is an alternative marketing strategy that you can use that may help you get better results.

Pre Social Media

Realtors® would launch their blog, hope that Google would crawl their site, index their web pages, and “hopefully” rank their pages for highly relevant keyword phrases.  This is a push and pray marketing approach  - push out your content and pray that Google ranks your pages well.

The challenge many of us face with this approach is that we cannot control how well we rank for specific keyword phrases.  We can optimize our sites until we are blue in the face, the fact remains, that ranking well for highly competitive keyword phrases very difficult.

Post Social Media

Facebook allows us to take more of a proactive approach to building a following.

There are two very important distinction worth making

Establishing yourself as a resource for valuable information is a great way to attract followers.  This doesn’t require you to create all of the content, you simply need to be a good curator.  A perfect example of this is The Corcoran Group.

People are the engine that drives growth – not bots.

What have you added this year to increase your real estate advertising or marketing?

1. Did you add an improved, effective and affordable WordPress website?
2. Did you start to blog to increase your Organic Search Engine Optimization?
3. Did you open a Facebook Personal Page and then your FB Business Page?
4. Did you start to Tweet?
5. Are you on YouTube?
6. Have you subscribed to informative and educational rss feeds to keep you in the know of your marketing and what is going on with technology?
7. Have you implemented Business Management Software for your listings, closings and client data base?
8. Have you started a marketing campaign to stay intouch with your existing clients and sphere of influence?
9. Have you started a monthly newsletter?
10. Have you set up a system to manage leads consistently?
11. Have you outlined and scheduled your monthly marketing for all 12 months? Is is within your marketing budget?
12. Have you aligned yourself with a real estate coach?
13. Have you reviewed what you did last year – what didn’t work and tossed what didn’t work aside? NEVER to be used again?
14. Have you interviewed Assistants or Real Estate Virtual Assistants to do what you don’t have time to do?  Or a Professional Real Estate Virtual Assistant who is experienced in Real Estate marketing to implement what you need?
15. Have you scheduled your trip to a distant island so you can refresh your resources?

We’re almost 2 full months into 2011 – what are you doing different this year?

When are you going to start?

Have you seen this?

Do you know you can customize it and make it USEFUL?? Like this?

IGoogle would be your internet HomePage – what you go to when you first log in AND it can be customized making it very very useful. IGoogle has gadgets and widgets.

My IGoogle as feeds from Realtor.com, my Twitter and Facebook accounts, weather icons for all my clients all over the United States along with their newspaper feeds (so I know what’s going on there). I also include feeds from Seth Godin, Jeffrey Gitomer, Wall Street Journal/Real Estate, and Google Translator. It’s pretty easy to set up and customize. Many of the feeds are already geared to be on your IGoogle account with their rss feeds – will ask if you want on Igoogle or Google Reader – I like them on my Igoogle so I can breeze through them at a glance.

What you can do with you IGoogle homepage is endless. Definitely put it in your tool box!

We have gone over what to post on your blog and possible ideas of where to get content.

Are there things you shouldn’t post on your blog?

I have mentioned several times –

DO NOT POST YOUR REAL ESTATE LISTINGS TO YOUR BLOG.

That is NOT what your blog is for. You have your listings on your website, MLS and Realtor.com ®. And it is FINE to point them to your listing web pages. However, Blogs are used to show your human side and your expertise. Facebook has a way to have a listings tab on your Business Page (which is different than your personal page). But don’t inundate your audience with your listings, price reductions, solds or new lists on your blog. There are better places than your blog.

Don’t post other people’s content or articles without their permission. That is Copyright infringement. As I mentioned before, do a “book report” of an article you read and give credit to the source of your book report. Don’t forget to hyperlink their article back to where you found it.

I know this seems OBVIOUS, but sometimes it seems you have an audience and get a little familiar with them and you start spouting about something that happened either with another agent or client. STOP. What goes on the world wide web stays on the world wide web – FOREVER. And as a Realtor® you cannot say anything inflammatory or degrading or erroneous about a fellow Realtor®. Also, if you post about a client (even if you don’t blatantly identify them), do you want your clients or potential clients fear they may show up on your blog sometime? That is not what you want your blog to be about. You have much more useful and interesting content to post about.

Have fun with your blog! It’s a great tool to add to your real estate marketing.

When mapping out your real estate marketing plan, one task you need to incorporate is to consistently write (post) on your blog.

How long does your blog have to be?

How often do you need to blog?

What should you blog about?

Where can you get content?

What shouldn’t you do in writing your blog?

How long does your blog have to be? There is no magic length. You can blog (write) in great lengths, or just a few sentences. Mix it up – long and detailed or short and sweet. Include pictures to jazz it up. But most of all target and pin-point who your audience is and write to them.

How often do you post your blog? Ideally every day. However, we are busy and it’s not easy to sit and write every day. Try every other day or minimum once a week. But do not let it lag or stop. A stagnant blog will not do you any good in your real estate marketing plan.

What should you blog about? Is your audience interested in what is going on in the community? Blog about that. Are they interested in buying or selling tips? Blog about this. Do your readers want to know what is happening in their market? Blog about that. Do they want other tips and tricks? The list is endless and you may want to start a folder (on your desktop or desk) with interesting blog topics. Microsoft OneNote is a super program to organize notes you want to use later. Mix it up so that it isn’t all of one thing.

Where can you get content for your real estate blog? Have you read the articles you have within your website? If your site is a templated site through a website company, more than likely, you have buyer and seller tips. Read those articles for inspiration. Chances are, you aren’t going to be repeating information to your audience.

Your National and Local Realtor(r) Associations have a wealth of information and topics at your finger tips. If you  haven’t started yet and you have a Twitter and Facebook accounts, you should be “liking them” and “following them”. They post at least daily of what is going on in the National and Local real estate market. If there is a newsflash – BLOG IT IMMEDIATELY!

The Realtor(r) Associations have local market stats and trends right there for you to use. Or find your own monthly stats to post about from your MLS. Several searches will show what has sold during that month, for how much and how many. Start tracking and give your own ideas about the market.

The list is endless because your blog is yours. I re-posted a blog on creative ideas recently 9 Killer Content Creation Ideas for Your Real Estate Blog or Website. Read that for a few more ideas and for inspiration.

What shouldn’t you have in your blog? Others’ content. You can repost and give them credit for it, but you are walking a very fine wire of copyright infringement if you post someone else’s content and photos you grab off the internet. If there is an article you really want to share, read it and do a “book report” about it in your own words making references about the author and article. Then track back to the author and article.

Once your article is written, go back to strategically insert key words for Search Engine Optimization including links back to your web site or squeeze page. After you have finished writing and it’s ready to go, post your blog on the real estate agent site ActiveRain, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. (How to do that will be in a later post).

Enjoy blogging!! It gets your audience to get to know you. Sprinkle in some tasteful humor and don’t forget the pictures!