The Small Intersecting World of Real Estate and Search Engines
At Search Engine Journal today, I've authored the second in a series of articles related to search engine and Web 2.0 strategies for real estate. I discuss why real estate agents are so reluctant to blog, even when they finally understand how powerful a marketing medium it is, and introduce solutions to getting agents on board with blogging and Web 2.0. One of the solutions is the broker blogsite, which Jim at Tomato unveiled yesterday. Kudos to Jim and EWM !
I'm fascinated by how small the intersecting worlds of search and real estate is. Yes, there are entrepreneurs like the teams at Second Space and Terabitz who prominently apply search strategies to real estate, initially as industry "outsiders". I've also met some very influential, creative people who, as techies generally do, work behind the scenes at largish real estate institutions. As "insiders", they apply their past experience and knowledge to tech-enabling an industry that seems to finally be getting it. Here are a few of them, in alphabetical order:
Search engine marketing maven + Brokerage
Michael Bonfils - President of global search engine marketing company SEM International, Michael hangs his real estate hat at First Team Real Estate, a major independent SoCal brokerage. As a former investment banker, I was impressed with his strategic consulting work on SEO within the financial community... i-bankers are pretty selective about their data sources.
Tech i-banking + RE corporateChris Crocker - Vice President of Programs, Research and Development for the NRT Division of Realogy - Check out this video> Coldwell Banker's new tech-enabled Manhattan Beach office. At heart, despite the academic title, Chris is a corporate development fiend who learned how to execute as an i-banker, just what the largest brokerage in the country needs.
Tech networker + Association of RealtorsMark Flavin - one of an Association's principal missions is to educate agents on the future of the business and marketing, but most are dominated by old school thinking with reliance on the "tried and true". Although fairly young, Mark has become BayEast's go-to source for promoting innovative technology ideas, blogging and education to its member base. He just started a fine blog.
Tech blogger + Title insuranceReggie Nicolay - Author of the prominent real estate technology blog MyTechOpinion and perhaps overshadowed by co-author 
(now an RE.net icon). New thinking is required as title insurance moves towards becoming a data delivery service and less an exercise in buying real estate agent attention through donuts and office rounds.
SEO/internet + Brokerage (now an RE.net icon). New thinking is required as title insurance moves towards becoming a data delivery service and less an exercise in buying real estate agent attention through donuts and office rounds.Andrew Roth - Tech marketing at Prudential Locations Hawaii - I was blown away when Andrew told us about the size of PruHawaii's tech staff, how they generate their own research reports - all for 270 or so agents. Their technology resources seem to far surpass those of similar sized brokerages in the Bay Area. He says he learned a lot about how to enhance the PruHawaii website at the Search Engine Strategies conference in San Jose last week.
Tech PR + BrokerageDerek Overbey - VP, Marketing - Intero Real Estate seems synonymous with Silicon Valley...and its agent base is tech-savvy, making Derek's job easier to coordinate the new ideas that are popping out of Intero. It has a unique training center in San Jose that incubates new agents for two deal cycles before sending them out to the branch offices... it's a perfect setting for tech ed.
Technorati Tags: SEO, search engine marketing, search engine strategies, real estate marketing, michael bonfils, chris crocker, nrt, mark flavin, bayeast, reggie nicolay, andrew roth, pruhawaii, derek overbey, intero
Pat thanks for the link and introduction. Working with people like you has been among one of the many things that I love about my job.
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I checked out the broker blog over at real estate tomato. Some very cool stuff going on with their solution.
I hope to someday meet you, Pat. We have come to dominate the Hawaii real estate search engine market in a little over a year. We don't have the budget or as large as a tech team as Prudential Hawaii, but I think the technology in our website, and the search results speak for themselves.
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