blog, digital media, social media

google places for real estate – post 3 of 31

marketing in a social age is devoting 31 posts this month to social and digital media and the real estate industry.

I’m only 3 posts in and I’m getting the feeling that this is going to be harder than I thought.  I want to make sure that what I blog about over the next little while helps you. So if you, as someone who is in the real estate industry, have a question about how you can use digital and social media tools, please comment below.

Google Places:

Make sure you own your piece of real estate on Google.  And this means creating a profile for yourself on Google Places.  (You’ll see by clicking on the link that when you enter my domain name in Google Maps that you see where my office is located.)

A Note About Google Places:

You will need a Gmail account to use Google Places.  So if you do go ahead and create your profile.  If not, what are you waiting for?

Back to Google Places:

Ok. Here’s a couple of really neat videos made by Google on the cool features of Google Places.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6kT6LWEkZk]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUzMu8GXNUM]

I would love to read your comments on how you will use Google Places for your business. Comment below.

blog, digital media, social media, Toronto, twitter

are you searchable? – post 2 of 31

marketing in a social age is devoting 31 posts this month to social and digital media and the real estate industry.

Are you searchable?

If not you should be.  If I did not personally know a real estate agent there are a few places I would go to search out for one.  I will share with you how I would look for them and where I would be.

Google

Are you searchable on Google (or really any major search engine)?  People might not search for you but they are searching for agents in a neighbourhood or within a specific area.  For example, if you specialize in condos in Toronto’s Scarborough Bluffs area, make sure you can be found if someone types in : “Toronto Scarborough Bluffs real estate agent”.

How do you do this?

There are a number of ways.  Here are two ways.

First, optimize your search.  A good SEO expert will make sure that the keywords you want to be found by are used on your main website.

Second, take advantage of social search.  A proper blogging and using micro blogging strategy is a great way to increase the chances of you being found.

Twitter

Being searchable on Twitter is not hard.  The point here though is twofold.

First, make sure that you tweet enough that your content gets becomes relevant and is then found by the search engines.  Second, create enough good content that people on Twitter find you interesting and useful.

Important Twitter Point:

It’s okay to tweet out your listing.  However, what might not work is ONLY tweeting out your listings.  Be human.  If you were at a party (unrelated to real estate) would you only talk about real estate? Try it and see how fast you’re looking for someone to talk to who’s interested.

Facebook

I will cover Facebook a bit more in a later blog post.  Understand this though: Facebook has become one of the world’s most popular search engines.  Many people will search on Facebook just like they search on Google.  And Facebook’s search is powered by Bing; a competitor of Google’s.

My advice here is to create as much relevant and compelling content on Facebook as you do on your blog and on Twitter.  One of the things you can do is to publish your blog on Facebook.  This allows your thoughts to be read by those who may be Facebook friends of your’s but not savvy enough to search for your blog.

 

blog, digital media, social media, twitter, video, youtube

31 for real estate – post 1 of 31

Why wait for New Year’s Eve to make a resolution.  Not that this is a resolution. But to make a decision like this one in one of the busiest months of the year can be considered insane.

All month long I am devoting this blog to sharing my thoughts on digital and social marketing.  My focus is going to be on the real estate industry: real estate agents, real estate companies, real estate service providers, and mortgage professionals are just some of the subjects that I will comment on.

How will I come up with 31?  With your help of course!

I do have almost a decade of experience in the real estate industry so I’m sure Ill have plenty of content.  However, if there are questions you have regarding real estate and how digital and social marketing are effecting this industry, please feel free to comment on this blog.

In the meantime, here is my first piece of advice:

1 of 31:

Don’t be afraid to learn.  I was recently at a real estate social marketing conference.  The one thing everyone had in common was fear of the unknown.

What was this thing they call social media?  Do we need to know how to twitter to survive in the new economy? I’ve been in business for 15 years so why do I need to learn all this new stuff now?

You need to learn because you want to learn.  You need to learn this new stuff so that you can relate to and serve your clients.  You need to learn so that you can continue to stay relevant and profitable.

Feel free to comment and ask questions below.

digital media, social media

yorkville media centre – day 2

There’s something interesting happening at the intersection of Yonge and Bloor in Toronto.  And I’m not talking about the expensive shopping boutiques or fancy restaurants.

I’m referring to the Yorkville Media Centre.

I recently blogged about the YMC on Techvibes.  (I encourage you to check it out to read what good work the YMC is up to.)  What I didn’t say was that I was also a guest speaker during Day 2 of their 9 Day course.  Here’s a glimpse into what is taught at the YMC and a bit from my guest talk.

More that me being on video, I’m really proud of Mark and Alkarim for what have have built and what they continue to build.

Enjoy the video.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIcXLlrw0_8]

 

social media

itunes and beatles – does it matter?

“Who cares?”

This is what millions of Beatles and iTunes Apple fanboys asked when Steve Jobs announced that the most popular boy band of all time, the Beatles, were finally coming to iTunes.

And at first look they may have been right.  Just this past decade, The Beatles have appeared on the BillBoard Top 200 for 5 of these years.  So, sales and airplay have never been a problem.

So why bother FINALLY going into the iTunes store:

Here are some stats from Reuters:

  1. More than 2 million songs sold.
  2. 450,000 albums sold.
  3. Abbey Road was the top selling Beatles album and ended the past week on US iTunes charts at #6.
  4. The Beatles Box Set was #10.

So maybe some people didn’t think this was big news at the time of the announcement.

However, after almost 2.5 million paid digital downloads both Apple and The Beatles think this does matter.

Which brings up an important question:  Does this all matter in the age of people and pixels?

Yes.  And here’s why:  It’s about content.  Content that matters.  Content that  is good.  Content that is timeless.  And after decades of not making new music as a band their content is still timeless.

So here’s the takeaway:  When it comes to creating content (blogging, online video, making a product, writing a book or song, etc…) understand that one thing will “keep it alive”.  And it’s not the tools (The Beatles are a prime example).  It’s content.

I would love to hear your thoughts.  Please feel free to comment below.

Uncategorized

mobile money

This past summer I had the glorious opportunity to travel to East Africa for 6 weeks.  I would highly suggest this to anyone who wants to take a break from Canadian life and see how the other side is doing it.

While in Kenya I hooked up with someone I first connected with on Twitter, Soud Hyder.  Soud is a mover and shaker in the technology and innovation space in Kenya.

Recently, Soud wrote an article about a product called M-Pesa which is a mobile money solution that first launched in Kenya.  With his permission, here is that article:

M-Pesa is a mobile money transfer service conceptualized in Kenya by Safaricom/Vodafone and funded in part by the UK government. M-Pesa has since grown exponentially with a user base of over 50% of Kenya’s adult population, throughput of over 11% of the country’s GDP and higher transfer rates than those of Western Union globally. The service has slowly expanded to Tanzania, South Africa and Afghanistan in Vodafone networks. Other operators in the region have also deployed similar services.

If there is anything better than sliced bread for the average Kenyan, it has to be M-Pesa. A money transfer service that proves that endogenous growth of an economy mainly populated by the bottom of the pyramid is possible. All human beings are endowed with certain unique skills which can be monetized in a market oriented world. For Kenyan micro entrepreneurs M-Pesa has been the right lubricant that has catapulted them to be active participants in the economy. Growth in mobile telephony has allowed millions of people in the informal economy to connect and communicate with each other to render products or services. M-Pesa has allowed the same people to receive and send money to each other, thus greatly enhancing the velocity of money moving around the system.

M-Pesa’s success can largely be attributed to its open business model that allows local entrepreneurs and organizations to serve as M-Pesa agents. They pretty much act as rudimentary bankers that exchange hard cash for virtual cash stored in mobile phones. The virtual cash is transferable to all Safaricom subscribers who can withdraw the same as hard cash at any of the over 20,000 agents countrywide. The mobile operator charges a commission for the service, part of which is shared with the agent. An agency model such as the one used by M-Pesa has exponentially expanded the service and has allowed the service to permeate across all sectors of society across the country. A seasoned salesman would say “sell to people how they like to be sold to” and M-Pesa has done exactly that. By partnering with local shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, banks and other formal as well as semi-formal organizations, M-Pesa has piggy backed on established social and business networks to create a service that is very convenient with huge customer satisfaction. The thought of a recipient receiving money hundreds of miles away within five minutes of the transaction being executed creates an air of solid trust in the service. Never before has this been possible in a developing country such as Kenya plagued by challenges in infrastructure development and a relatively under developed financial sector that only served a certain segment of the economy.

The success of the service naturally would attract the likes of micro-finance institutions. Commerical banks have also jumped into the bandwagon creating symbiotic relationships and partnerships with Safaricom. The biggest so far has been with Equity Bank on a product dubbed M-Kesho. This service allows M-Pesa account holders to register for a virtual bank account that enables them to transfer their M-Pesa balances into a virtual bank account that would accrue returns on savings. All this is done without filling up more forms, as the data that already exists with the mobile operator is shared with the bank. These meet all regulatory requirements including KYC rules and regulation of deposit taking institutions as the money is moved to the bank and M-Pesa just facilitates the transfer of money from one point to another. Credit and debit cards may possibly never really work in the developing world, but mobile money certainly is.

social media

how ali asaria uses social to succeed

One of the great things about social is that is doesn’t really depend on technology as much as it depends on people.  And of the Canada’s entrepreneurs who gets people is Well.ca’s Ali Asaria.

Who is this guy and what the heck is Well.ca?

Ali Asaria is the founder of the largest Canadian online health and beauty store that no one has ever heard of, Well.ca.  You can get everything including dry goods, cashews, glass water bottles and even board games like The Settlers of Catan.

So where does social fit in all this?  If we remember it’s all about the people then its easy to see how this all comes together.

More than anything Ali focuses on people over product.

Ali does his utmost to create a culture based on giving both his employees and customers reasons to come back to Well.ca.

It can be something like a morning catered breakfast for all staff.  Or something simple like a toll-free number on every page on their website.

Lesson:  It’s all good and well (see how I did that?) to have a cool business powered by an e-commerce site.  But what makes business work in this age of word of mouth and social marketing is when we focus on the people.  It’s what makes pixels profitable.

Well.ca employees
social media

will there ever be a Deep Throat again?

I finally did it.  I watched All the President’s Men on DVD.  It was this movie that popularized the code name Deep Throat.  Deep Throat was the insider who fed Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein with enough information, leads and clues that led to the downfall of American President Nixon.

It was an interesting movie to watch for me.  And not just because of the historical significance of the movie.  It was interesting because of how far technology has come since then.

There are no more rotary phones (except at my parents house), we have smartphones, the internet, Google, Twitter and Facebook.  We also have citizen journalists and WikiLeaks.

Which brings us to the title and question of this post: will there ever be a Deep Throat again?

Will there ever be an individual who will stay unidentified for decades yet be able to feed such valuable information to the media?  Does the popularity and ubiquity of free online social tools make it virtually impossible to stay undercover?

You would think that people would like to stay anonymous online.  Wasn’t that once one of the selling points in the “early days” of the internet?  Not anymore it seems.  Social tools like Twitter have given rise to people looking to cash in on their 2 tweets/seconds of fame.

Here’s my opinion:  I don’t think we will ever see a figure like Deep Throat again.  Why?  Everyone’s lives are on a search engine near you.  Seems like almost everything can be found online.  But then again, a site like WikiLeaks makes public that type of information which people would want to remain anonymous.

Your thoughts?

social media

from the walkman to digital downloads

Sony just announced that they are discontinuing their popular Sony Walkman.  Are you kidding me?!  I’m not outraged.  I’m surprised that they were still making those things.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I love(d) the Sony Walkman.  I actually own(ed) an original Sport version of the Walkman.  Big, fat, yellow, water-resistant and unbreakable.  I even played my first mix tape on the Sport Walkman.  But now it’s gone.

Now we put tiny ear buds or oversized earmuffs into/over our ears to listen to digital downloads.  The music we listen to comes in bits and bytes.  Sometimes we download from an online store.  Sometimes we listen to pirated music.

We have even started watching  concerts on YouTube.

The way we consume, listen to and interact with music has been an ever-changing story.  And it will continue to change.

This is the premise for MusicConnectTO.

MusicConnectTO is an event that a trio of us have organized for the Toronto community.

Taking place this Thursday evening at Toronto’s famous Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, we will be discussing the Canadian music industry’s response to social media, digital media and new media.

Here’s why I’d love for you to come:

  1. You can win cool prizes like a trip to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
  2. You will learn about a couple of Toronto tech startups, Mediazoic and YouPhonics, that will take the industry by storm.
  3. You will have an opportunity to learn how record labels and independent bands have approached the utilization of these new tools and technologies.
  4. You will have a great time with some great people in a great venue.

There are many more reasons for you to attend.  But if you’re a fan of music (and who isn’t) and a user of these new tools (I know you tweet!) MusicConnectTO is the place to be.

I hope to see you there.

For more information visit MusicConnectTO.  To reserve a spot (hey, it’s free!) visit our Event Page.

Thanks.