Interviewer: Today were talking with Ed Hardey from Integrity Real Estate Group. He's the Vice Chair for the Metrolist Board and Chair for Metrolist Rules and Regulations. Ed, welcome to the show.
Ed Hardey: Thanks for having me.
Interviewer: We wanna talk a little bit about support services and online marketing. Every agent pretty much these days is involved in online marketing and, of course, they probably need a little help from Metrolist, is that right?
Ed Hardey: Yeah thats right. Thats obviously a big issue in one of the services we provide. So a broker can have their listings go out to places like in IDX feeds, RE Colorado, realtor.com, as well as things through ListHub, which is over 35 sites, okay, you can have your homes go to.
Interviewer: So I dont have a personal website or a realtor has a personal website and they can call Metrolist and say, Id like to have my listings displayed on my website and you sign it, what they call, an IDX agreement, correct?
Ed Hardey: Correct.
Interviewer: Charge for that is?
Ed Hardey: As of March 1st itll be zero; that will be included in the fees for Metrolist.
Interviewer: Flat fee for Metrolist? Okay, and of course, you got to have some type of third party display those listings on your website, whoever that may be, whoever you choose to do that, but theyll work in conjunction with Metrolist to get the data, is that correct?
Ed Hardey: Correct. You get to choose your own vendor, but we provide the data and we update that daily and so thats one of the big pluses for Broker.
Interviewer: Now here is something interesting that I found out, which was, I went back to my third party provider, and I wanted to start displaying new contracts and solds, and they are not equipped yet to do that. When I asked them why, they said because the majority of Metrolist boards, or majority of MLSs across the country, dont provide the feed.
Ed Hardey: You know one of the things...its true, one of the things that we do is we give brokers a choice, including your membership fee, is the professional product that includes active listings. Some people wanted more, under contracts and solds, so we provide that, that is the fee, but a lot of brokers dont take advantage of that and it depends on the broker's individual marketing, what they want to do.
Interviewer: Thats kudos to you and the board, because clearly from talking to the third party provider who works with MLSs all across the country, youre way ahead of the curve because they dont have enough participating MLSs to launch their product.
Ed Hardey: Yeah, in talking about that and making that decision quite a while ago, we saw the data was available regardless whether we provided or someone else, so lets get it right, now let's give our members that option.
Interviewer: Right, now you mentioned some other listings, syndications and distributions. Tell me more about these.
Ed Hardey: Well, probably the biggest one is ListHub, and that allows any broker to, at no charge, distribute the properties to 35 different websites, no additional effort. They can even choose which ones they want, if they only want some of those. One of those websites thats brand new is our exclusive agreement with DenverPost.com. Were pretty excited about; were the only ones that can do that.
Interviewer: Yeah, and now people can go to the classified sections online at Denver Post and search for homes and get the, a lot of the same information.
Ed Hardey: Yeah, theyll get that information, but theyll get it right and the broker gets the credit for their home sale.
Interviewer: And theres two websites that are also really important, that I know a lot of people that are included in, that is...
Ed Hardey: One of them is realtor.com, largest in the country for that. The other ones RE Colorado, which is Metrolists consumer site, and thats the largest in Colorado.
Interviewer: Yeah, its good stuff, you guys are doing a great job, thanks Ed.
Jim Turner of One By One Media is no stranger to social media, he has been an avid blogger since 2004. Jim has been able to become a consultant with social media by helping others become more knowledgeable in the trade. He'll help change our view on marketing, advertising and public relations.
Bill Lublin, founder of the Social Media Institute is a realtor and is actively involved in leadership at N.A.R. He is based out of Philadelphia, PA and is a regular speaker for REBarcamps across the country. At the Denver ReBarCamp, Bill will share with us the value of Whuffie and how to accumulate it.
The ever so accomplished author and informative blogger, Lorelle VanFossen teaches us how to engage in conversation that leads to conversation. Lorelle on WordPress is her book and it elaborates on building blog content and community.
Rob McNealy one of Colorado's top Twitter users and a true authority, shares with us his thoughts and strategies on using Twitter and social media to gain more visibility.
BrokerIPTV: Hi. I
am Mark Eibner with RE BarCamp Denver and I have the great honor to be speaking
with Rob McNealy and Rob McNealy is the most followed individual on Twitter at
least in Colorado he claims, not in the US, but in Colorado and welcome Rob.
Rob McNealy: Hey, thanks for having me out.
Interviewer: Hey, great, great speech today. Great talk today. I think there is a lot of people that are
still confused about what Twitter is.
What's the simple essence of twitter?
Rob McNealy: It's conversation. It's that simple. Being able to engage with lots of different
people in lots of different places, efficiently, easily, across the world, that
is all it is. It's nothing more
complicated than that.
Interviewer: Yeah, it's really just the ultimate
networking tool. It's like being able to
attend 20 parties at one time instead of one party a month.
Rob McNealy: Exactly.
The beauty is that you could have a conversation about anything any time
of the day. If you have a decent amount
of followers, you could talk about anything and there will be someone that at
least is knowledgeable about that, that has some experience in that, that has
interest in that, and then once you connect with those people, it's just great. So, I am... some days, I am on Twitter on
Friday nights you know screwing around[Phonetic] and I will get nostalgic
and listen to some old YouTube videos, music in the '80s for instance. I will post I am listening to this Random Man
that I used to like back in the '80s and a big conversation will come up and
that leads to things like what they were doing when that band was popular,
like, "Oh, I was in high school," and "Men at Work was out there
or "I was you know dating my first girlfriend." "Oh, I really loved that song when I got
my first car when I was 16" and then you get to really know people and
develop these friendships because ultimately that's what you would talk about
in a bar.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Rob McNealy: That's what you would talk about if you are
meeting someone at a cocktail party.
Twitter allows you to do that 24 hours seven days a week with people all
over the world.
Interviewer: Yeah, it really truly is amazing. I mean the whole social media phenomenon is
something even more powerful than like the Gutenberg Press. I mean it really is.
Rob McNealy: I don't know if it's that influential, but I
definitely think that it's a paradigm shift in how people collectively
communicate with each other without having to go through gatekeepers and I
think that's fundamentally what the big difference in social media is, but
right now at this moment in time, Twitter is the best tool that you have.
Interviewer: So, you are an independent businessman, you
run a flooring company, is that correct?
Rob McNealy: I do.
I run a flooring company and a digital marketing agency called
contrivedmedia.com.
Interviewer: Well, let me ask you this other than music
that you are listening to when you are bored on Friday night, what... what's the
main emphasis? What do you mostly tweet
out to your followers? What do they want
from you?
Rob McNealy: Well, one of the things I do a lot is I look
and search for interesting information, not only just for my followers, but for
me. I am really very selfish. I am looking for things that I find
interesting and things that I find interesting, I make the assumption that
people are following me also might find interesting and I send and post those
links to that interesting content. I
think it's probably the number one thing that I do on Twitter and then you
know, I am just trying to make friends with people. I am trying to connect with people. People buy and work with and joint venture
with and partner with people they know, like, and trust and it takes time to
develop that trust and that friendship and so the more, you know, mundane
details people know about you and your life and your passions and the dreams
and things you have done, the better you can build that relationship.
Interviewer: Yeah.
Well, actually great information today Rob. We really appreciate you giving us the
interview.
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