Have you added the Facebook “like” button to your website yet? I just added it to the REVATS site, and it was pretty painless.
Of course, our REVATS website is a WordPress site and after some searching and trial and error, I found the plugin that simply adds it to each page.
To find this plugin, log in to your WordPress site, and click “Plugins”—“Add New” on your dashboard sidebar. Search for FBLike and this plugin should appear.
Click on the Install button and then go take a look at your page. Hit refresh, if needed, and your Like button should appear!
What is really cool about this plugin is that someone can like specific pages. So let’s say a new visitor to your site likes a blog post you wrote (like this one!), they can click the Like button and it says they like that post. If they go to another page on your site, they can click the Like button again.
Here is a screen shot of what showed up on my Facebook wall after I clicked “Like” on two different pages of the REVATS site and a post on Online Dominance’s blog. (They have some really great stuff by the way!)
So what benefit can this have for your real estate business? How about this…you can create a WordPress blog post for each of your new listings and people can actually “Like” every single listing. How cool will it be for Mary Smith’s friends to see that she likes the house for sale at 123 Main Street! Talk about word-of-mouth marketing!
Not only that, but the Like feature also shows people if any of their friends are Liking the page. Which Realtor would you want to go with? The one that 5 of your close friends “Like” or the one that is apparently not liked?
Now if you don’t have a WordPress site, it’s a bit more complicated to add the Like feature. You can do it the simple way and get just a general “Like” button, or you can break it down to add a separate one to each page on your site—with similar results to the WordPress plugin.
If you are unable to use a simple plugin, go to the Facebook developers’ page http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like, fill in the details and your code will be generated for you. Simply take that code and plop it into the code for your website. Now anyone viewing your page can click “Like” and it will appear on their wall for all their Facebook friends to see.
Want to learn more about utilizing Facebook for your real estate business? Check out this great webinar that I attended last night. (It’s why I finally took the time to pay attention to this Like feature!) It features Brad and Bobby Carroll of Dakno Marketing speaking about real-estate specific Facebook changes and how to use them. Great webinar! Thanks Mr. Internet! Click here for the recorded Webinar.
Oh, and don’t forget to click our “Like” button!!
–Kim Scott, Virtual Assistant
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Want to take your business to the next level with Facebook marketing, but don’t have the time? The virtual assistants at REVATS specialize in Social Media marketing, especially all things Facebook related. Email us today to let us know what we can do for you. Or give us a call at 417-310-9827.
You’re stressed. Your day is jam packed full and yet you could still use several more hours in a day, or perhaps a few extra days a week. You don’t know where to turn. Turn to us.
The virtual assistants at REVATS have years of combined experience assisting real estate agents just like yourself. A few hours a week on our end can free up much more time on your end. We are quick, we are efficient, and we do things your way.
We may offer advice, advice learned through countless hours assisting other agents and from multiple training sessions with experts in their fields. But we assure you, we will never assume we know how to run your business better than you do. Everything we do for you will be done your way.
Facebook is incredibly popular. Everyone has heard of it. Many people have a Facebook page. And many of them are even active on it! Now that you can update it from a variety of sources, including your cell phone, the activity on Facebook is tremendous. In fact, Christmas day set a record for Facebook—it was the most visited website on the net! It even beat out Google!
What do people do on Facebook? Well, they keep up with their friends, they make new friends, they play games, they promote political and social causes, and they expand their business connections. Just about anything. Facebook is a place that people “live”.
Businesses are finding that the free advertising they get on Facebook is more effective than thousands of dollars of television or print advertising. We have long known that word-of-mouth is an effective way of getting business. Facebook is, in large part, word-of-mouth (err…hand?) marketing at its best.
Here is how it can work. Shelley goes on Facebook to knock out a few more “Mafia enemies,” and while she is there she thinks about her upcoming house hunt. She has browsed houses online quite often, but she wonders if there is a local Realtor on Facebook. So she searches for one. And sure enough, she finds one! Let’s say the Realtor’s name is Jim. Shelley becomes a fan of Jim’s business page and begins to get great updates about real estate in her area. When Shelley becomes a fan of Jim’s business, every one of her friends sees a nifty little update about her, it says something like “Shelley became a fan of Jim’s Real Estate.” Shelley’s friend Mark is also thinking of buying a house in the future. He sees Shelley’s update, and clicks on the link to Jim’s page. Mark likes what he sees, so he also becomes a fan of Jim’s page. Mark’s status is updated to reflect this, and his friend Peter sees it and clicks….well you get the idea. Once the first fans have been found, a business page can spread like wildfire!
Who are the people in your area finding when they search for Facebook business pages? If you aren’t on Facebook, then someone else is getting fans—and customers—that could be yours!
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Looking for some help getting started? The virtual assistants at REVATS are experienced “Facebookers” and enjoy setting up business pages, managing fans, posts, etc. We would love to have you become a Facebook fan of ours!
I’m always on the lookout for new ideas, websites or tricks to help market my clients, or market myself. While scanning various articles that have accrued over the holidays in my Google Reader, I came across a few that sound interesting and ones I plan to check out. It’s a constant battle to obtain and remain on the first page of Google so any new ideas are welcomed. Today I will highlight Posterous.com.
Posterous is a new social media platform where you can post anything from text to videos to pictures. But you post these by sending an email. Pictures can even be sent via a cell phone. This sounds like it could potentially save precious time. As one reviewer states, “It’s also the ideal solution for sharing content that’s too long to tweet yet too short to blog post.”
Posterous also autoposts to all other social media sites you use. You simply email your content and it will automatically update your blogs and sites such as Facebook, Xanga, WordPress, Blogger and more. You can also publish your content on your website by setting up your Posterous account on your own URL, which could be a sub-domain on your website. And because posting videos and pictures is so easy, you will share more and more content therefore increasing your presence in online search results.
Posterous is easily customizable as well, and has plenty of themes to choose from. If you know CSS/HTML however, you can build your own theme. Google analytics is built in and Itunes podcasts work automatically.
This seems like a really innovative site worth checking out. To set it up, you simply email Posterous at post@posterous.com with your first blog post, or pictures, and your account is automatically set up. So easy! I’m going to try it now.
On the first day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
an SEO ready website
On the second day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the third day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the fourth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the fifth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the sixth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the seventh day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the eighth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the ninth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the tenth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the eleventh day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
eleven article submissions
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
On the twelfth day after the holiday my VA prepared for me:
twelve months of bookkeeping
eleven article submissions
ten new client info packs
nine transcribed audios
eight formatted reports
seven research projects
six months of blog posts
five social media campaigns
four booked speaking gigs
three personalized databases
two ghostwritten articles
and an SEO ready website
Remember, the virtual assistants at REVATS can do all this and more for you! Add to it 13 listings, 14 new leads processed, and 15 updates to TopProducer 8i! What a way to get your real estate business rolling!!
Last week Congress extended the tax credit that was set to expire November 30th. The tax credit of up to $8,000 is for qualified first-time home buyers purchasing a principal residence. The extension also authorized a tax credit of up to $6,500 for qualified repeat home buyers.
This video explains the credit in a way we all can understand.
I will shamefully admit that I only recently started using Twitter. Of course I recommended it to clients, attended different webinars on using social media for marketing yourself and your business, but I personally never used Twitter. I did sign up for an account, tweeted once, then thought it was pretty weird. Why would anyone want to follow me anywhere? I imagined my tweets being something like this:
‘I am heading to the kitchen to cook some mac n cheese because I forgot to grocery shop yet again’ or
‘Getting ready to call the doc because I still am not convinced dog food is harmless to an 18 month old’ or
‘Sitting here trying to think of something entertaining, important and informational to blog about’
However twitter is more than just announcing the mundane aspects of your day. I just learned this and am quite possibly addicted. I decided to log in after being told numerous times that I could get late breaking news from other Tweeps before it is ever on the TV news or internet news sites. I read up on how to use twitter (more info to come), and logged in. I started searching for hashtags related to my interests. All of a sudden these tweets start popping up with vast amounts of information, including links to the articles. I was in information overload!
So I started reading, re-tweeting some, posting articles of my own. Then in the blink of an eye (well, one week to be more accurate), I had 100 followers! I did not solicit people, or try to obtain followers, but evidently things I tweeted about were interesting to some people, so they followed me. It was then I realized the power of twitter!
Now I log in a couple times per day to read late breaking news that I mainly get from people I follow. In just a month I’ve built up a huge network of people with related interests as mine. Yet every day, I still get at least five more followers. Who would have thought a 10 second blurb and a link to an article or blog I just read would generate the amount of traffic and new contacts that I now have?
How does this relate to your real estate business? I will answer that tomorrow. Right now, I’m going to go tweet.
Once a seller lead turns into a seller-with-an-active-listing, be sure to add the listing info to TopProducer when you add it to all your listing locations.
The listing will be linked to the seller if set up correctly. It will be available to pull into flyers, post cards and letters. You can track showings and link them to other contacts.
You can also set up unique action plans specifically for current sellers. Tailor these to remind you or your assistant of all of the steps you typically take with a new listing and maintenance.
Be sure to set up emails or letters to send to your active sellers on a regular basis, just as you do with your leads. These emails are specific to individuals selling their home and preparing to move.
As you probably know, a virtual or in-house assistant can handle the posting of your listings to all of your websites, the tracking of your listings in TopProducer, etc.
Why spend your “spare” time uploading your listings when you can hand it off for an affordable fee? Wouldn’t you rather spend that time either pursuing more business or enjoying your life?
We have barely scratched the surface of what you can do with TopProducer. Just about every aspect of it can be customized to fit your needs. What do you do with TopProducer?
REVATS is a team of independent virtual assistants working together to bring comprehensive virtual services to real estate agents around the USA. Contact us today for more information!
Any real estate agent with at least several hundred leads or other contacts needs to be using a comprehensive database of some kind. While there are several on the market, my personal favorite is TopProducer.
Of course, I am simply assisting real estate agents with their TopProducer systems, so I don’t have a truly personal experience, but I still think TopProducer “does” just about everything you could wish it to do.
The primary usage of TopProducer is as a database for storing, accessing, and contacting your current, past, and hopefully future clients. (But it is so much more!)
TopProducer allows you to store your leads’ information, whether entered automatically via web forms the lead has filled out, or manually by yourself or your assistant. This information includes not only basic contact information, but also lead source, referral source, spouse’s name, employer details, personal website information, contact birthdate, etc.
You can organize your leads by one or several custom contact types and set them up in one or more action plans which will not only remind you to contact them directly, but will also send them regular pre-determined emails or letters. Many useful action plans come with your subscription to TopProducer, and you can modify these to suit your own personality or create your own completely unique action plans.
Managing your leads in TopProducer can be a daunting task at first, but given time and training, you will find your lead management efforts are paying off.
Need some help with TopProducer? Finding a virtual assistant who knows TopProducer isn’t as hard as it might seem. There are many great assistant who are experienced with it and some are certified. (We even have an assistant on our REVATS team who is certified in TopProducer!)
Are you using TopProducer? What do YOU like about it?
REVATS is a team of independent virtual assistants working together to bring comprehensive virtual services to real estate agents around the USA. Contact us today for more information!
Are you ready to delegate those tasks that keep you from focusing on what you do best? Is management of TopProducer one of the tasks you need help with?
Each year real estate agents use more and more technology to market themselves and to help them stay organized. TopProducer is the industry’s top sales productivity system, and qualified virtual assistants are in demand. Allow our team to help you.
Members of our team are TopProducer certified, which means they have industry recognition of their practical TopProducer 8i know-how in relation to REALTOR objectives like contact and task management, prospecting and marketing, and listing/closing coordination.
We offer a comprehensive service to Realtors needing to delegate so they can focus on what they do best. Contact Kim, Stephanie, or Michelle with REVATS to get started!
Click on the Install button and then go take a look at your page. Hit refresh, if needed, and your Like button should appear!
So what benefit can this have for your real estate business? How about this…you can create a WordPress blog post for each of your new listings and people can actually “Like” every single listing. How cool will it be for Mary Smith’s friends to see that she likes the house for sale at 123 Main Street! Talk about word-of-mouth marketing!
I’m always on the lookout for new ideas, websites or tricks to help market my clients, or market myself. While scanning various articles that have accrued over the holidays in my Google Reader, I came across a few that sound interesting and ones I plan to check out. It’s a constant battle to obtain and remain on the first page of Google so any new ideas are welcomed. Today I will highlight 
I will shamefully admit that I only recently started using 
Any real estate agent with at least several hundred leads or other contacts needs to be using a comprehensive database of some kind. While there are several on the market, my personal favorite is 