2010-03-20T01:50:42Z http://transparentre.com/atom.aspx Quick Blogcast tag:transparentre.com,2010-03-09:dc489b12-fbe3-4110-8020-3d77ced4daea Pat Kitano 2010-03-09T16:51:00Z 2010-03-09T16:51:00Z Chris Thorman who blogs about real estate technology at Software Advice shares leading edge concepts that are aligned with what I see coming down the mobile social media pipeline. Turnkey / automation / service delivery and execution are critical to mass adoption, and when service companies can provide this instantly in one click, they will get customers.Chris' guest post on an automated mobile service concept:----------The real estate technology market has been flooded in recent years with "location-based" applications to help buyers find properties in their area. With little variation, they all work in about the same way:Start an application on your mobile phone;Utilize your phone's GPS to determine your location; and,Have the application retrieve location-based real estate data.What if a prospective real estate buyer didn't have to initiate an application to get real estate data? What if the data just came to their phone automatically?Sound far-fetched? Well it isn't. Advertising company Placecast has developed a service called ShopAlerts and we think it has very interesting implications for the real estate industry. ShopAlerts allows users to opt in to receive marketing message on their phone from retail stores that are nearby. For example, a person would sign up for alerts from Old Navy and would automatically receive tailored text message marketing notifications each time they were close to an Old Navy store.This could work in the same manner for the real estate industry. Users could opt in to receive alerts about specific types of properties. And when they near those properties, they cross a "geo-fence" which prompts an automatic notification to be sent to their mobile phone. Essentially, a person lives their life and in the meantime, receives notifications about properties they're close to that match what they want. Is this ideal marketing technology or what?----------You can read the full article ... tag:transparentre.com,2010-02-18:2bd22e1c-9744-4033-8229-5be3026fcebb Pat Kitano 2010-02-19T00:43:00Z 2010-02-19T00:43:00Z The sales methodology of the real estate industry is unique. Its sales force, primarily agents and brokers, needs to market themselves widely to a local community in order to capture transactions that happen infrequently. The traditional way has always been a form of promotion, or "push marketing" - advertising, drip email marketing, direct mail, open house guest book trolling. The net effect of a generation of million plus real estate agents trying to get their foot in the door with any consumer has spawned the stereotypical image of the glad handing agent.With the real estate industry's new found craze for Facebook and other social media as a channel for networking, the same traditional push marketing methods are being recast. Agents slap up Facebook fan pages, write blogs and tweet out their listings with the same messaging either overt or hidden within their conversations - see how good I am and what I can do for you. One trend is Farming 2.0. Agents on Twitter often follow everybody in their hometown hoping on the off chance that they are in the market. The problem with this approach is spammers do the same thing.The community blanketing approach of say, inviting everybody to become a fan of their Facebook page, may not work with the potential client down the street who wants a professional, not a social relationship with a Realtor. These tactics need to change before the agent's reputation as a flycaster for leads precedes them in their evolving community social space.What the real estate industry fails to grasp is the concept that the social media makes its participants transparent in the long run. From the consumer perspective, it's obvious that someone is a broker or agent simply by reading their profile on, say, a HomeGain web/blog system or examining their conversations ... tag:transparentre.com,2010-02-01:0b083bfe-8e1b-4e93-a86a-6dbdb5abc428 Pat Kitano 2010-02-01T08:32:00Z 2010-02-01T08:32:00Z Todd Carpenter did a nice job chronicling the birth of real estate social media at http://realtynex.us/2010/01/29/a-six-year-history-of-the-re-net/.This is my contribution to these early days that I sent to Todd for his article:I met Larry Cragun at Inman 2006, who proudly proclaimed he was a real estate blogger. That got me started on blogging (my first blog article), and I've always called him my blog godfather. Teresa Boardman showed me enough of the ropes to blogging to be christened "blogmother" (Teresa, I still feel bad about the Weenie crisis that got you unfairly labeled as some sort of misanthrope, but it is still the funniest thing three years later). My first "virtual friends" (in 2006, everybody was in awe of the idea that friendships could be made by machine) Joe Ferrara, Jeff Corbett, Jim Cronin, Mary McKnight, continue to be social media lights. In August 2006, Teresa sent me an Active Rain invitation. Active Rain profoundly changed blogging into the conversation machine you now see on Facebook. The series of quick comments "Great article!" became more a salutation than a continuing discussion point. Real estate bloggers in late 2006 became re.net (term usually attributed to Greg Swann) and Real Estate 2.0 (oops, Redfin seemed to have trademarked that term and caused this Real Estate 2.x hoopla). The first Inman Bloggers Connect in the summer of 2007 was the christening of the blogger IRL events that have now become industry standard with the REBarCamps. In retrospect, it's easy to see the real estate industry leads other industries in the adoption of social media (called "blogging" in 2006). Up to 2006, blogging was the province of techies and a burgeoning teenage crowd creating MySpace profiles (arguably a type of blog). Real estate agents jumped into blogging primarily ... tag:transparentre.com,2010-01-03:f225c087-8a73-4285-aa40-39fdecbed1ec Pat Kitano 2010-01-03T18:02:00Z 2010-01-03T18:02:00Z Here are ten 2010 predictions for real estate. I listed 10 predictions for media in 2010 at my social media blog Media Transparent.1) Curation is the new marketingAt Media Transparent, I called this "Curation is the new Syndication". Positioning yourself as the community conduit curating local real estate news to your client base is the new marketing. Mass media used to rule syndication, now anybody can curate and present content across a panoply of social media platforms. Curating breaking news is key to readership – it’s the reason why people follow CNN, Marketwatch or engadget. Twitter has distinguished itself as the forefront application for breaking news, and anybody can use Twitter Lists to curate Twitter feeds by topic, geography and industry. Curation tools, like Outside.in Publisher for hyperlocal news, are being developed for local content publishers. Curators are the new news editors, and the window is open to create new media properties. Curated local media will be a focus because there’s a media void that both national media and independent journalistic efforts are now trying to fill. This slideshow describes how real estate professionals and brokerages can leverage curation of local news to engage their immediate community. Innovative Community Engagement Strategies View more presentations from Pat Kitano. 2) Facebook is the new website, and it looks more like a Reader than marketing collateral25% of all pageviews in America today are on Facebook.Although writing a blog is the best way to propagate ideas and expertise, it's only one piece of a comprehensive online presence. More people we will be exposed to and read blog articles through Facebook and their brethren social networks over actually visiting the ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-12-22:c8cca83d-2a1f-4df7-8150-68ad053dc343 Pat Kitano 2009-12-22T08:05:00Z 2009-12-22T08:05:00Z One of 2009's biggest trends was real estate industry adoption ofsocial media marketing. What I find striking is the intimacy of thesocial interchange:(Conversing about a chain restaurant on the opposite coast... it is just like a cafe conversation...) The real estate industry, one of the most socially networked societies in part for the purpose of building business, is becoming a bellwether for how people interact in a new society. The new intimacy surprises the same people whose first impressions of Twitter was "why are they telling me their daily life stuff?". In fact, it's now the norm to weave the details of daily life onto the Facebook / Twitter lifestream.I had not thought of using social media as my personal life stream.That reflects my personality, which reflects the Japanese cultural norm of not talking about yourself. Many of my relatives and other Japanese we know are also bewildered at daily chronicling, as if it makes no sense.However, I'm starting to see how life streaming eventually becomes a diary. You're in essence writing a book about yourself in real time, for the rest of your life... I think that long term view is intriguing. One of my New Year's resolutions is to try to life stream more, albeit in the guise of a diary. Here's my family: Baby steps ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-12-07:9629f23e-730f-4dfc-a5e7-bc901e2cc4af Pat Kitano 2009-12-07T19:43:00Z 2009-12-07T19:43:00Z We're looking forward to being a part of the Mortgage Revolution... register now - Atlanta January 10-12 ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-12-04:1788287a-7110-4d17-84af-0e9b9826ad00 Pat Kitano 2009-12-05T07:39:00Z 2009-12-05T07:39:00Z We'll be discussing strategies for community engagement. December 8 9:00am PST... thanks to Louis, Jessica and HomeGain for the opportunity for a high level discussion... ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-11-30:f9b64993-a83f-42bb-ba57-baecc2e06c19 Pat Kitano 2009-11-30T18:32:00Z 2009-11-30T18:32:00Z Yelp is now so widely used as a consumer review system for real estate professionals that a 5 star review has become de rigueur.The natural inclination of any consumer search through Yelp is not to find the 5-star review, but to find out why somebody did not receive a five star review.The problem with a blemish review is simply the doubt that it plants in the consumer mind, particularly one who is comparison shopping. That nagging feeling of second guessing happens to anybody who reads one poor review for a camera or a car, and it forces them to delve deeper into qualifying their choice. On the other hand, perfection passes with flying colors and has become the standard on review sites. It's a hard reality. ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-11-17:5413242e-d583-4cc9-9811-07d5e36633fb Pat Kitano 2009-11-17T21:27:00Z 2009-11-17T21:27:00Z Kudos to Jim Cronin's @retomato and their crew for a successful Virtual REBarcamp. Webinars are a convenient and efficient way to get social media education out to the community and I'm hoping it becomes a monthly institution! ... tag:transparentre.com,2009-11-13:7e88fc6c-6ca3-4219-b504-8e56a91a0f85 Pat Kitano 2009-11-13T13:44:00Z 2009-11-13T13:44:00Z We've created a Social Media Training Center for Active Rain members that provides continually updated social media education. You can see details at my Active Rain blog.Special offer: If you're going to Inman's Real Estate Connect NYC January 13-15, please register at http://www.inman.com/conferences/real-estate-connect-new-york-city-2010/register. In the discount code box, add "Domus" and you'll receive one year subscription to the Social Media Training Center. Let us know you did that (@pkitano, comment here, email) and we'll register you in the Active Rain Social Media Training Center.About Social Media Training Centers We developed a Social Media Training Center product that we offer to Associations of Realtors and Chambers of Commerce for their members. One example is at Oklahoma City Metro Association. We're launching Training Centers with Boards and Chambers nationwide, with the California Association of Mortgage Brokers and several in the SF BayArea slated for early December. We're fulfilling a void by providing an agenda-free product that REALTORS are now demanding, even in Oklahoma! ...