Looking Out From the Garage

I like Twitter.  I communicate with some consumers as ell as some of my peers through Twitter.  As an organizer of Social Media Breakfast Atlanta (#smbatl), we use Twitter for promotion as well as to recap... and even during the event.  Heck, I have 1200+ followers and almost 2800 updates... obviously I think it is a worthwhile tool. 

But as I was reviewing my new followers, I was actually shocked by a tweet from one of them... needless to say, I did NOT choose to follow them back.  In under 140 characters she dropped the F-bomb twice... and had a couple of poop commentaries (she utilized another short word). 

Personally, I'm not offended by colorful language.  I have been known to use a little myself... especially in Atlanta traffic...  But I don't generally use it lightly and over a manicure appointment...  Ok, I don't get manicure appointments, but if I did I don't think I would cuss at the world if it got canceled because someone was sick... especially if the salon called to let me know before I showed up. 

But all of that is just unimportant detail...

The important part...

This was a person with an appropriate avatar.  They have a respectable number of followers.  They had several hundred updates.  But the first thing I saw when they followed me was a string of obscenities over nothing.  Is that how ANY of us wish to represent ourselves?  I think not...

Back when the rest of the country was playing with CB radios (we Jeep guys STILL use them), everyone knew what the squelch dial was.  The short definition is that it was a knob that lowered the sensitivity of the radio and got rid of background noise. 

I just turned the squelch dial on that one...  And I do it regularly.  On my @LaneBailey account, I am pretty open to whom I choose to follow back.  Aside from spammers, pornbots and people that just broadcast crap all of the time... I'm likely to follow back.  But with my @Lilburn account... not so much.  If you aren't in Gwinnett County, I probably won't follow you back.  I have a few people in the industry I follow... but it is consumer and geographically focused. 

Don't be afraid to use the squelch dial...

Turn down the noise.  Don't follow people that aren't worth following.  Unfollow people that aren't worth following.  And don't contribute to the noise, either...  Be follow worthy.  And to be honest... I am not always follow-worthy.  I have too many of my blog posts going to Twitter automatically.  I need to spend more time engaging.  But at least I have crossed the first step... I know there is something I need to fix. 

And that is the final idea...  Examine your presence on ALL of your networks.  Change it as needed.

***Warning... Hard Core NOT real estate talk ahead...***

You've been warned.  I can write about why it is good for your business to be connected to the community, your clients and prospects through social networks.  But I'm not going to right now. 

This morning I had an epiphany.  I thought about someone that I think about regularly, but with a different direction.  And I was able to do something about it... because of social networking.  Curious yet? 

When I was growing up, my family hosted a series of exchange students.  We had a couple of them from Manta, Ecuador, then one from Popayan, Columbia.  We also had one from Strasburg, France.  We visited the families whose kids we hosted in both Ecuador and Columbia.  Our families became friends.  In fact, the brother of our first exchange student lived with us for a year while we hosted out third student.  And the first two that we hosted were actually best friends. 

So, after having them live in our home for a year, and visiting South America a few times, we had a great relationship.  The other wrinkle was that as an only child, these were the closest thing to siblings that I had.  Don't be sad for me...  I had a wonderful childhood.  But, as a kid in 2nd through 5th grade, they made a tremendous impact on my life.  Fernanda, Gina, Mercedes and Patricio (Fernanda's brother) were a big part of my childhood.  Honesty flash... the French student we hosted always seemed to be a visitor to the family and never a part...

So, today I devoted about 15 minutes to seeing if I could find any of them.  In fifteen minutes, I had the email address of Gina.  I found her nephew in Ecuador, and he sent me her email address.  How cool is that... I haven't had contact information for any of them in decades... We've moved, they've moved.  And now I have reconnected with part of my life that I never thought I would be able to reconnect with. 

There is still a long way to go, but this is a good start.  The nephew that I echanged messages with today happens to be best friends with Patricio's son.  And of course that means I should be able to find Fernanda and Patricio... he is helping get them in touch with me. 

When I was a kid, in order to call to Ecuador, we had to make prior arrangements.  And then the conversation would be limited to just a few minutes.  Letters were iffy...  And now, I was able to find a lost friend, and communicate IN JUST MINUTES. 

I have actually connested with scores of friends from around the country through FaceBook and Classmates.  From Michigan to Virginia to Minnesota and then even here in Georgia, utilizing social networks, I have been able to connect to long lost friends and family.  Sure, business is nice... but what about all of those friends that you have shared your life with?  I have learned that they are A LOT more important.  Yes, I tell all of my friends what I do... they know.  In some cases I have gotten calls from friends of friends to help them here in Atlanta.

Well, today's presentation turned into a Part I... Too much stuff, and not enough time.  And even if there were enough time, there is SO much information that we could never touch it all... and if we did, it would be out of date by the time we finished...  Pretty bleak, huh? 

But, no worries.  Here is the PowerPoint for the presentation.  We had about 50 minutes of discussion, and only made it about half way through the PPT.  There were a lot of great questions.  I'm looking forward to covering a little more next time.

And just for fun, here is a little video that Rich Jacobson had posted today..

At RE Bar Camp, I asked a question... and it turned into one of the break-out sessions. 

This all came from a question that John Novak asked me in the comments, here...

Hi Lane - I won't be at Inman, but would love to find out if there is a consensus as to what the 5-7 sites are where real estate professionals absolutely must have a presence. I'm thinking ActiveRain, a branded outside blog, Trulia, Zillow, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, and Twitter ... oops, that's eight!

So... as I sat there in the morning, I decided to volunteer to ask the question to some folks that are smarter than I...  Pat Kitano, Jeff Turner and Teresa Boardman.  This was before the session started.  Three sites popped out imediately: LinkedIn, FaceBook and Twitter.  My impromptu advisory board all agreed those were the basic sites.  Next up, Jeff and Teresa agreed on Flickr, and Pat didn't stop them. 

So, off to moderate the VERY open discussion. 

I had some very capable participants in the session.  After getting a list together of sites that the audience was familiar with, I immediatey turned to Jeff Turner to talk about Flickr.  We actually talked about Flickr for quite a while.  Teresa provided GREAT examples of how she has used Flickr in her business.  We also talked about how to use Flickr to enhance the other sites and our visitors experience. 

LinkedIn and FaceBook didn't require much discussion... everyone liked them and determined that they were on the list with Flickr. 

Twitter was an interesting, if short discussion.  Pat liked that one could jump in and out, but also loved the way it (and some of the sites that syndicate feeds to it) could be used to broadcast information and announce blog posts, etc.  Teresa and Jeff are also fans.  Most of the participants seemed to like the capabilities Twitter offered.  It gets to stay on the list. 

The fifth component was the local connection.  It is vital that we talk with our local folks.  And, aside from TwitterLocal, the sites so far aren't getting us that hyper-local connection.  And... as I have been expounding, as well as many of the Inman Connect speakers did as well, Hyper-Local is where the action is at. 

Teresa Boadman again inspired us with the way she has managed to use sites like Flickr and others to find people with similar interests to get together in real life... and it is delivering business.  At this point I wish I had the names of everyone that participated because the discussion was excellent. 

Finally, we discussed Active|Rain and Localism.  There was a split here.  On one hand, A|R is seen as a MUST have SN site.  On the other, it is best for agent/agent communications... not agent/consumer communications.  Localism on the other hand is a VERY powerful engine for hyper-local content.  For the purpose of getting business to the closing table, A|R (not including Localism) is only marginally valuable. 

Now, the value of A|R is really in the knowledge base of the membership.  As such, I would say it is a place where most of us should hang out. 

But for business, Localism is worth inclusion on the list.

Like there aren't enough sites on the plate already. 

• Yoono...  This is actually an add-on for FireFox.  It is an organizational tool for SN (Social Networking).  I need to play with it some more in order to really pass a judgement. 
  
• Plurk...  Like Twitter... and updates Twitter, Facebook and other sites... BrightKite, too.  Right now, the drawback is that it broadcasts, but doesn't recieve. 
  
• Brightkite...  Another micro-blogging platform like Twitter... but adds location into the mix.  I might try to take advantage of this during Inman...  You could literally find me from my updates.
• Ping.fm...  This might be the platform of choice for Inman.  I can update all of my SN places, and do it via email.  I know that I can get emails out without a good internet connection. 
  
• FriendFeed...  I'm finding it a little clunky, but it does broadcast and collect over a pantload of SN sites.  What I like is that blog posts, flickr photos and Twitter updates are all here.  I don't like the presentation.

And then there are things that are completely different...

• Slideshare...  Embeded Powerpoints are what is happening... but I have set a couple of the aggregators (Plurk and Ping.fm) to broadcast when I put a new one up.  Maybe I can get Magtoo on there too...
• Pandora Radio...  Just music to listen to.  All kinds of music.  Free.  I like free.  
• Plaxo...  I'm not thrilled yet... especially since they want $50 for me to upgrade after 30 days.  I'll play in their sandbox a little, though.  

So, that is my most recent update. 

And don't forget, I'll be posting updates to Twitter from Inman and RE Bar Camp... and photos from the Trulia, Zillow and A|R parties to Flickr.  We'll see what sort of trouble there is...

It starts with putting yourself out there...

A few months ago, I had a post about My Social Networking Strategy (not linked as it was Member's Only).  In the post, I laid out the different portals i was going to leverage for Social Networking.  If you don't have a plan... you are driving without directions. 

About a week later, I went into depth with all of my Social Media Portals.  So many Social Networks... I'll show you mine  Basically, it is a list of all of the Social Media sites in which I have a membership.  I actually skipped a BUNCH of automotive forums.  Highlights are below...

• YouTube.  User: LaneOnRock.  My channel has almost nothing to do with real estate... but there are some fun videos.  I need to spend some more time surfing videos... and I'm going to call it work ;^D
• del.icio.us.  User: LaneBailey.  This is the one I am starting to dig in to.  It has a lot of potential.  I have loaded a few hundred links on here and they are all over the place from real estate to cars. 
  
• Twitter.  User: LaneBailey.  I am on here each day, but it is at odd times.  I have both of my blogs feeding public posts here.  This also holds a lot of promise...
• WellcomeMat.  User: Lane Bailey.  I don't have any videos up here, but I will in the next few weeks. 
  
• Linked-In.  User: Lane Bailey.  This is one of the Social Networks that I will be more active in over the next few months. 
  
• MySpace.  User: Lane Bailey/GeorgiaGarageHomes.  I joined here a long time ago, and had been posting my blogs there.  Now I have a widget with my LaneBailey blog on it. 
  
• FaceBook.  Use Lane Bailey.  I joined here a few months ago, and have NOT really leveraged this site.  I do have a blog widget there.

These aren't all of the networks I am part of, but a good selection of the "normal" ones.  

Ok, so you said it before... Why again?

A couple of reasons.  First, there are a lot of new people around here.  As well as a lot of "old pros" that are getting into the Social Marketing aspect.  I wanted to "tickle" those that might be interested in connecting... and since Inman is in about a week, I wanted to make sure that all of my friends had another opportunity to find me there... nothing like shaking hands with some of the folks that have been commenting and been commented on.

Also, this week I got a powerful reminder of how far the reach of these networks can be.  Despite the fact that three of the networks that I mentioned were all but abandoned, I got contacts through them from old friends (ok, it isn't nice to call my friends old... ;^).  I got a message from a friend on MySpace.  I got a message from a friend on FaceBook.  I ran across a friend on LinkedIn. 

The cool part is that all of my friends are connected with other friends that I haven't seen or talked with in a long time.  And I am connected with some that they've lost touch with. 

Some might be in the market for a home.  Some might be in real estate and interested in Diamond Dwellings.  If so, that's cool.  If not, I had the opportunity to reconnect with a long lost friend.  It is an absolute winning proposition. 

The execution of the plan has to change...

My final thought is that the plan needed a change.  I know that I need to maintain my profiles more actively.  I was forced to go into all of these sites and update information because of the change to Diamond Dwellings Realty.  And it seems that as soon as I did... I saw a direct and positive result.  So, I can't leave these sites alone for months at a time.  I have to be efficient about updating and working within the platforms... but I have to work in the platforms. 

I'd love for you to connect with me through these portals.  Follow my Inman updates on Twitter and my blogs.  If you are going to be there... say hello.  If you are a long lost friend from school or where ever, and you live in San Francisco... I'm going to be there from July 21 - 25.  Shoot me a message and let's catch up. 

For many types of marketing activities that are performed over time, there is a blossom. 

If you have done direct mail or blogged for a while, you might have noticed it.  As Satch Carlson like to say... "nothing.. nothing... nothing.... JET BLAST."  You know.  You are putting it out there for a month... and then two months.  Nothing.  Three months.  Four months?  Nothing.

And then one day the phone rings.  I saw your blog.  And then again.  I got that newsletter you sent me.  It isn't linear. 

This isn't just for real estate.  I am in a 4x4 club, and we host a pretty big blood drive each year.  I've written about it here.  I chaired the event last year, and handed it off for this year's event.  Last year, I was calling vendors and trying to get prizes and swag.  I did pretty well, too.  It was the 4th year, and this year's event was the fifth.  As I was calling last year, many of the vendors were ready for me.  We had been "back to the well" before. 

This year, it was different.  Vendors we hadn't heard of were calling us.  Vendors we had lost touch with were calling us. We weren't begging.  We were picking. 

And I am starting to get the blossom from my marketing.  I don't have to beg clients to work with me... but I have trouble getting to the point where I can pick and choose.