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Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 7): LinkedIn

LinkedIn is perhaps the "Grand-Daddy" of the social networks.  It is far more "professional" in its presentation and appeal than Facebook.  Over 42 million professionals from 200 countries are using LinkedIn today.

From the Linked In "About Us" page:

When you join, you create a profile that summarizes your professional expertise and accomplishments. You can then form enduring connections by inviting trusted contacts to join LinkedIn and connect to you. Your network consists of your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know, linking you to a vast number of qualified professionals and experts. Through your network you can:

• Manage the information that’s publicly available about you as professional
• Find and be introduced to potential clients, service providers, and subject experts who come recommended
• Create and collaborate on projects, gather data, share files and solve problems
• Be found for business opportunities and find potential partners
• Gain new insights from discussions with likeminded professionals in private group settings
• Discover inside connections that can help you land jobs and close deals
• Post and distribute job listings to find the best talent for your company

Here is a video about how I've used LinkedIn, since 2003, to build my customer base:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 6): Facebook

Facebook is, in my opinion, one of the best social networks to be present.  Some statistics about Facebook:

• More than 200 million active users
• More than 100 million users log on to Facebook at least once each day
• More than two-thirds of Facebook users are outside of college
• The fastest growing demographic is those 35 years old and older
• Average user has 120 friends on the site
• More than 5 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide)
• More than 30 million users update their statuses at least once each day

Here is an instructional video about how I use Facebook for business:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 5): Active Rain

ActiveRain.com is one of the coolest destination sites for REALTORs.  To date, over 150,000 real estate professionals have registered on the site; a good bumber of them use the free blogging platform it provides.  Active Rain has a nominal monthly fee for a consumer-facing weblog.

Active Rain's Brad Andersohn shows you how to set up an Active Rain profile:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 4): Trulia

Trulia.com is another strong, national website which attracts both buyers and sellers.  In my opinion, Trulia is setting itself up as a national, online MLS search site.

Rudy Bachraty shows us how to set up a Trulia profile:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 3): Zillow Profile

Zillow.com is a powerful website which attracts both buyers and sellers alike.  Sellers often use it to check out the "Zestimate" for their home and neighboring properties.  Buyers are attracted to both listings on the site and the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace.

In this video, Sara Bonert explains how REALTORs can use Zillow to market themselves by:

1. setting up a profile
2. uploading listings
3. answering questions in the Zillow Advice section

Watch Sara's presentation:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 2): Google Profiles

Google is the premier search engine on the internet. It is usually the first place your potential customers would search for you.  One of the easiest ways to brand yourself on the internet is through the first pillar of social media marketing; declaration of identity.  Google Profiles makes it easy for REALTORs to "rank" on the bottom of the first page, for their name.

Brad Coy explains why REALTORs should set up a Google profile on Bloodhound Blog:

The personal profiles are not new.  I did share some of my thoughts on this in Unchained in Seattle.  They’ve been around for a while now, it just seems that every time I take a look at them they add more features.  First with a curious name verification process, then just last week with custom URLs.  They now support a pretty good amount of info on someone depending on your settings.  Numerous links to sites, an ‘about me’, contacts, and a Flickr or Picassa feed for photos.

None of this might be relevant except for the fact that Googling you is what people do.   Even my wife (against my personal preference) told someone to just look me up on Google the other day.  That person found me in a heart beat.

Watch this video from Lorna Li to learn how to set up a Google Profile:

Social Media Marketing For REALTORs (Part 1): Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing

This is a review for many of you but here are the Five Pillars of Social Media Marketing from The Marketing Pilgrim:

Any and all forms of Social Media Marketing tactics fall under at least one of these five forms of action. Often the same channel will incorporate two or more of these:

1. Declaration of Identity
2. Identity through Association
3. User-initiated Conversation
4. Provider-initiated Conversation
5. In-Person Interaction

Here I am discussing the five pillars at the BloodhoundBlog Unchained Online Marketing Conference:

RIP Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett passed away today:

Ms. Fawcett wrote her own epitaph. When her father, James, 91, flew from Texas to see her, she passed him a note that, according to O'Neal, read: "I've loved and I've been loved. I'm happy. I'm ready."

Among other things, Farrah was a pop culture icon to the 40-something  generation. Of course I had one of these t-shirts:

RIP Farrah

June 23, 2009 Mortgage Rates Report

All things quiet on the mortgage rates front.  I didn't realize this but Ben Bernanke is fighting for his job tomorrow (well, sort of).  The nerdy little Economics professor who spent his life's work preparing for the Great Recession, is facing competition from subordinate Janet Yellen and Larry Summers:

Besides keeping Bernanke, Obama’s options include appointing Summers or Janet Yellen, both among the most prominent Democratic economists and veterans of the Clinton administration, Jones said. Bill Burton, a White House spokesman, declined to comment.

Summers, 54, a former Treasury secretary who heads Obama’s National Economic Council, is considered the front-runner should the president want a change. San Francisco Fed President Yellen, 62, was previously a Fed governor and chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and would be the first female Fed chief.

Mortgage Rates are stable, prior to the Fed talk tomorrow:

Conv        5.3755% (no points)  5.125% (1 point)
FHA          5.5%  (no points)         5.25%  (1 point)
VA              5.5% (.25 point)           5.25%  (1.25 point)

June 22, 2009 Mortgage Rates Report

Mortgage rates stabilized after a three day rise, last Friday.  All eyes will be on The Ben Bernanke Alchemy Show, this Wednesday.  He has to convince markets that his policies won't be inflationary.  I actually think he can pull it off.  While I'm appalled at how the Fed has doubled the money supply (M1) in the past eight months, they may have pulled off an interesting arbitrage play:

Issue debt at 3.5%-4.0% (Treasuries) and buy debt at 5.5%-6.0% (Mortgage-Backed Securities).  In a rising interest rate environment, that could be a well-hedged trade...

...if Americans make their mortgage payments.

Just food for thought.  There are no big economic numbers coming out prior to Wednesday so I don't expect my absence today, as I attend the Gravity Summit, will cause the mortgage rates market to collapse.  My partner, Sean Purcell, has his hand on the tiller today and you can reach him at (619)-270-8666.

I'll leave you with two stories that make me think that higher mortgage rates, expected in 2010, won't come until 2010:

The World Bank thinks the recession is deeper than originally forecasted.  That's positive for mortgage rates. 

Traders may have already overpriced the prospect of inflation into treasury yields.  Essentially, treasury yields may be at the expected 2010 levels right now, and not reflective of the weak economy of today.

I WANT you to float your mortgage rate until we hear what Wizard Ben has to say but I'm awfully worried about volatility. I feel a 5% par mortgage rate "in my bones", sometime this summer but my mojo ain't gonna pay your mortgage if my gut feeling is wrong.  Keep locking all mortgage rates at application until hear from Wizard Ben on Wednesday.  If the mortgage rates market dramatically shifts downward, we'll be able to renegotiate rate locks with our lenders.