Tag Archives: Twitter

John Merse

Prepping Your Website for the Busy Season, Part 3: Connecting on Social Media

[This article is the third post of our four-part series on how to prep your website for the busy season. Look for the following posts over the next few weeks to make sure that your website is ready for the rush.]

We’ve already talked about market research for the real estate busy season and how to capture the influx of buyers and sellers online. Now, we’ll talk about something even more important: how to connect with those buyers and sellers on social media.

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John Merse

What Does Twitter’s New Redesign Mean for You?

Looks like Twitter is jumping on the photo-centric bandwagon. Earlier this month, Twitter presented a brand-new profile redesign that features a header photo, an overlapping profile photo, and a three-column layout. Sound familiar? You betcha. Twitter’s new redesign is remarkably similar to Google+ pages and Facebook’s timeline. The redesign is proof that images are quickly becoming the new vehicles of communication in the social media world.

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Elissa Giroux

Meet the Sites: Social Media Marketing

Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest, oh my! If you’re a real estate agent looking to market yourself for potential clients, you might feel like you’re looking down the barrel of the social media marketing gun.

Here’s the good news: 92% of home buyers used the Internet to search for real estate in 2013. This number is continuously increasing. With that in mind, it’s crucial for real estate offices and agents to have a significant web presence. But a simple website does not a web presence truly make. Carefully managed social media profiles do a lot for your business; they round out your online brand, vastly improve your visibility, and increase website traffic and lead conversions.

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Union Street Media News

Top 10 Tips for a Realtor Online

I’m often asked by real estate clients, what they can do to drive traffic to their site to get more leads. It’s a simple question but with no one simple answer. There is no secret sauce or silver bullet. In my experience, it’s about hard-wiring various marketing techniques into your daily or weekly schedule.

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Ted Adler

Determine your Social Media Strategy

The appeal of social media is strong. According to Econsultancy, social media and blogs are the 4th most popular online activities, even beating out email. The mystery of social media is almost as great as it’s appeal, however.

There are a lot of social media terms thrown around these days, and sorting through all of the jargon can be tough. First, let’s differentiate between the “big three” social networks.

Facebook logo

Facebook logo

Facebook is a social network site that connects friends, family, and businesses. People can share updated statuses, pictures, personal information, links, and more. With more than 250 million users in the world, 120 million of which log on daily, there is a large market to reach here.

Twitter logo

Twitter logo

Twitter is another social network/micro-blog that allows users to to send and read messages (or “tweets”). Tweets can be up to 140 characters, and they are shared on your personal page and distributed to people who choose to “follow” you. In the last year, Twitter’s growth rate surpassed 1,000%. The potential here to reach customers is huge.

Wordpress logo

Wordpress logo

WordPress is a personal publishing platform that works as a blogging service and as a web hosting service that is run on PHP code and a SQL data backend. Confused? WordPress.com offers a free blog hosting service that requires no PHP code knowledge and a user friendly interface that allows easy updating, customization, and built in widgets to add to your blog. 77% of internet users actively follow and read blogs, so this platform also provides great opportunity to reach and engage potential customers. WordPress isn’t the only blog hosting application out there; there is also Blogger, Vox, and more.

Now that we’ve covered some basics, let’s go into more depth…

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Union Street Media News

Twitter: Using Social Media to Increase Business Success

Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck

According to Mashable, The Social Media Guide, Twitter saw a 752% growth in 2008. It’s no wonder everyone seems to be jumping on the bandwagon.

There are many benefits that come with proper Twitter usage:

• Reinforce your brand and increase awareness by linking your Twitter account with all of your other web outlets.

• Check your Google Analytics; Twitter is a direct source of traffic.

• Network with like minded professionals, potential customers, and other local businesses.

• Tweets are now indexed in Google; we smell potential for organic Google traffic!

What a lot of people don’t realize are the practical uses of this valuable tool. Many businesses recognize the potential with this platform and yet after creating an account, have no clue what to do. It’s important to know about Twitter etiquette, hashtags, practical applications, and more.

Before getting started, there are a few things to remember.

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Union Street Media News

Social media links for Real Estate sites

At Union Street Media we have rolled out another new feature with our new detail view social bookmarking and links toolbar, courtesy of one of our talented progammers. It comes standard with new Real Estate web sites and will greatly enhance their social media presence and the ability to acquire a wider audience in the relevant areas.

social links toolbar

This feature enables rapid sharing of information about listings, bookmarking blog posts about your local service area or a quick email to friends and family. It’s easy to use and provides a choice of platforms depending on what you want to achieve. Bookmark your favorite listings with Google bookmarks for example or Twitter a listing to an engaged group of followers and receive instant feedback. Use the Facebook function to participate in real estate groups or people looking for particular properties in certain areas.

As people become more accustomed to these links and use them more and more it adds further usability and interactivity for the viewer. For the realtor adds superb SEO opportunities especially in garnering relevant, inbound links from trusted sources.

Examples of our sites with this feature are:

Bryan Bomba

BCK Real Estate

Greybeard

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Union Street Media News

Targeting homebuyers through social networking

Image representing New York Times as depicted ...

This article from the New York Times highlights how savvy real estate agents are using social networking to target their buyers.

Some important points raised in the article include how the new trends on the web are reaching younger audiences for free. This more tactile marketing by many web-savvy professionals are now sending messages on Twitter, getting referrals on LinkedIn, posting blogs, uploading virtual tours onto the Internet and sending text messages and alerts to customers’ phones when homes come on the market.

Bettie Meinel, vice president for career development at Century 21 Laffey Associates, based in Greenvale, said that because consumers are already online seeing the photos and virtual tours, “that is their first showing.” Actually touring the house shows more serious intent, she explained. “If they like it enough, they make an appointment to come and see that property; that is the second showing,” she said.

Also check out other blog posts on these topics in the social media and video sections.

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