Active Rain members were asked to come up with the 101 Best Ideas for Your Real Estate Blog.  As with all great ideas, the ball just couldn't stop rolling and they actually came up with 125 ideas for your next blog.

"Now there are no excuses when you need to come up with new things to write about." says Kerry Lucasse, a real estate consultant from Atlanta.

To get you started, we have listed the top 10:

• Metro Area Quarterly Market reports
• Neighborhood Market Reports / Sales Data
• How's the Market in XYZ Neighborhood?
• Local Absorption Rates
• Most expensive recent sales in XYZ neighborhood or town
• "Dream" homes for sale in XYZ neighborhood or city
• Celebrity home sales
• Homebuyer incentives
• Interest rate changes (or forecasted changes)
• Changes in current legislation (that would be important to home buyers or home owners)

To read the full list, go to Kerry's blog, "In & Around Atlanta".

For Cool Graphics, go to CoolText.com

Posted in Blogging, Real Estate Industry Trends

Slow down and keep it simple advises Senior Writer Julie Rains on Open Forum.

"If you slow down and delve deeply into what seems everyday and ordinary, frequently you can make fresh discoveries and ignite new ideas you can apply to your business." she says.

Take the pressure off and engage in a favorite hobby or pastime, focusing on something different might get those creative juices flowing. "Fixation on one topic can cause frustration, which is counterproductive to creativity. Taking a break allows you to move from laser-like focus to broadened understanding." she says.

Creative thinking is not always instantaneous, writes Rains. "Give yourself time instead of rushing to get results." Contemplate on ways to create new business opportunities and resolve old problems.

Get advice from someone smarter than you.  "I am amazed at how much information smart people are willing to share." says Rains. "Toss out a topic and you can garner insights on historical perspectives, current trends, and predictions for the future. Listen and probe to gather wisdom relevant to your business."

Ask for advice on targeting your customer and how to get your message out.

Integrate new technologies and media.  Embracing new ways of communication can help you reach a new audience.  Reach your customer through the power of video, website blogging, podcasts and Social Media across the web.

Read everything you can on your business to discover what's missing from your business plan.

Learn from your kids.  Kids are not afraid to try anything.  Their endless experimentation is the process by which they learn how actions create reactions, writes Rains.

Experiment with new ideas and find ways to test them.  Try sending out different email campaigns to see which one gets the best result and then refine them.

We need to look differently at the way we do business in order to grow and create new paths to success.

Read the Full Story at OPENForum.

photo credit: ednl

Posted in Headlines, Internet Marketing, Traditional Marketing, Blogging

Blogging brings customers to your website, which in turn generates more leads for your business.  How well is it working for you?

Churning out interesting articles can be a chore sometimes.  What to write about is the biggest blockade but defining WHO you are writing to is the key to having a successful blog.  Sherilynn Macale, the Social Media Editor for The Next Web gives some great tips on how to define your blog's target audience.  

Decide who your audience is and what their interests are.  This sets the tone of your writing and helps you decide on appropriate material.

What is Your Expertise?  Focusing on a specific topic will most likely define your blog and your audience will find you through SEO (searching key words on the web) or through word of mouth

"Gearing all of your content towards that niche or category will give your readers a sense of familiarity." says Macale, "If they are looking for a specific type of content that they know you will provide, they know to come to your blog.

Reach Beyond Your Target Audience

"Having readers outside of your target audience is not always a bad thing." says Macale.   Just make sure that your articles are reader- friendly and don't contain industry jargon that might not be understood by everyone.  For instance, if you are talking about the HECM program, it is necessary to educate the reader that you are talking about the Home Equity Conversion Mortgage, somewhere in your article.

In this way, every reader who comes along should be able to feel like they "belong" to the writing. Instead of feeling left out or not "cool enough" to be a part of our readership, they will instead feel included in our very niche community because we've taken the time to include them as well.

Macale adds that it's important to understand who else your audience is reading.  This sets the level of quality that your readers are used to.

"This doesn't mean that the look and feel of your blog should be identical to the formats of your more popular counterparts," warns Macale, "but it's important to understand why these blogs are successful in order to keep these points in mind when creating your own entries."

Lastly, keep in mind that your target audience might change and your topics might need to change to include this new audience. 

"The goal is ultimately to provide a place where your audience knows they will be getting quality and consistent content." writes Macale.

Read the full story at The Next Web.

photo credit: CameliaTWU

Posted in Internet Marketing, Blogging, Real Estate Industry Trends

It seems you work harder every day to maintain your business.  Bernice Ross, real estate coach, offers these tips to work smarter and more efficiently instead of working harder.

We all have systems, says Ross, "The question is which of your systems support your business to thrive vs. which systems create a drag on your production. A system can be as simple as taking a different route to work each day to search for For-Sale-By-Owners or as complex as doing all your business online."

Ross outlines four areas to streamline your system and be more efficient in your business:

1.) Contact Me!  We all have numerous numbers listed on our business cards, making it difficult for clients to reach you.  How many numbers will they try before giving up? Usually one, and they might leave a message...or not.  Google Voice offers an array of features to simplify this dilemma...one number does it all!

Be Green...Go Paperless.  Ross says that more and more companies and agents are going paperless. Contracts can be found online and signed on tablet PC's or an iPad.  Look into systems such as DocuSign.

Create digital forms for pre-listing information, your marketing plan, digital brochures of the property and develop single listing websites for your clients.

2.) Blog About It!  "Many agents struggle with the idea of starting and maintaining a blog." writes Ross.  She suggests looking for ideas in your outbox.  "Every email where you answered a client question is a potential blog post." suggests Ross.

"A simple way to create great content for your blog is to answer client questions using your blog rather than your email. Post both the question and the answer in your blog." says Ross. "You can also post market updates plus upcoming neighborhood events."

3.) Create a Social Media System:  Ross suggests taking 10 minutes a day to contact your friends by liking or commenting on something they post.

Hootsuite is a social media dashboard which offers a simple way to automatically create a Tweet, a Facebook or a LinkedIn post by forwarding something of interest.

4.) Evernote is ever valuable!  "How much time do you spend entering notes you have taken at listing appointments, inspections, or walkthroughs on your computer?" asks Ross.  She suggests using the paid version of Evernote to take notes on your smartphone, iPad or personal computer. Your notes will then be available on every device with Evernote.  No more wasted time transferring data.

Try these tips to use your time more efficiently for better business.  "The real test," writes Ross, "is in finding a system and then developing the habit of working with it regularly. The more you work with a system, the more efficient your use of the system becomes."

Read more from The Real Estate Coach Blog.

photo credit: ChrisM70

Posted in Blogging, Real Estate Industry Trends, Technology And YOU

Yahoo has overhauled their email service; adding new features to merge your social networking accounts into your email interface. 

"The new Yahoo Mail will let users respond to messages from Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Yahoo Mail and other webmail providers from one reply bar." reports Chris Crum on WebProNews.com. "Users can view photo slideshows and inline videos in the inbox, and can view and share notifications and updates from Twitter, Facebook, and Zynga from a new "Updates" tab."

This new version will help you prioritize messages and contacts that matter most, so you can conveniently access lists for composing messages. They are introducing new apps to help you organize your mail and increase productivity, and there are 50 different themes to choose from to personalize your page. You can easily unsubscribe from unwanted mail using the Unsubscribe app and send mega files using YouSendIt to send attachments of up to 100 megabytes.

"Yahoo's vision for online communications brings together all the tools that people use to connect-email, chat, SMS, and social updates-and makes it easier for them to share content and engage in conversations with the people that matter most to them," Yahoo Chief Product Officer Blake Irving said in a statement.

Yahoo says that using cloud technology, your experience with the new version will provide 2x faster performance. The new email interfaces with all mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad and Android. It also includes advanced Spam Guard technology which will help cut down on spam; Yahoo says they block over 550 billion spam messages a month. Yahoo Mail has 280 million users worldwide.

To celebrate, Yahoo Mail is giving away a year of free coffee to some lucky Yahoo user, reasoning that Yahoo Mail and coffee go together to make a perfect morning.  Go to http://www.yahooperfectmorning.com/ to enter to win.

Posted in Blogging, Real Estate Industry Trends, Gen X-Y, Technology And YOU