The BVAS Connection» Real Estate Technology

Facebook Timeline: A Quick How-To

Megan E. Barber — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 12:01:56 +0000

You may have heard about the new Facebook profile interface, the Facebook Timeline. (If you haven’t yet Check out this complete guide from Mashable) It is quite a radical change to the overall look and function the Facebook profile that they started previewing to users back in September. Now they are rolling it out for everyone to have access too, and should become the default profile setting for all users in a upcoming months.

Want to go ahead and change and play around with the new Facebook Timeline now? They’ve made it easy! Here is now:
(tips courtesy of Mashable)

Login & Click - Log out of your Facebook account, then go to this About Timeline page.
Get Timeline - At the bottom right of the page, click on “Get Timeline.” If you like what you see and don’t want to edit anything, publish it right away by scrolling back to the top of that page and click “Publish Now” and you’re done. If you’d like to edit, go to the next step.
Scroll Down and Edit - Scroll down on your timeline and edit or remove any items you don’t want shown. Do that by holding your cursor over the upper right of an item you want to edit, and then click on the icon that looks like a pencil — it will have a label that reads Edit or Remove.
Make Changes - From the resulting drop-down list, you can change the date of the item, add a location, hide it from the timeline, delete the post altogether, or report it/mark it as spam.
Highlight and Expand your favorite posts - If you’d like to “feature” any of your posts, click on the star icon to the left of that pencil icon. Then that item will be expanded all the way across the page, made larger for all your friends to see. Cool huh?
Publish Now – Or wait until Dec 22nd - Once you’re satisfied with all of your edits, either scroll back to the top of your Timeline and click “Publish Now,” or do nothing and it’ll be automatically published on December 22, 2011.

Megan E. Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, and owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions. With over 10 years of experience working within the real estate industry, Megan and her team Virtual Assistants provide top notch real estate support services such as marketing, lead follow-up, social media, WordPress websites, and more. Megan E Barber is also the creator and author of The BVAS Connection and VA Mommy.

Rich Real Estate Agent, Poor Real Estate Agent

Megan E. Barber — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 00:30:53 +0000

via activerain.com

What separates Rich Real Estate Agents from the Poor Real Estate Agents? Check out this awesome infographic and survey from Active Rain. Lots of striking information in this, definitely worth checking out.

Posted via email from megbarberva’s posterous

One Year Ago I Ditched Outlook for Gmail

Megan E. Barber — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 13:05:38 +0000

One year ago today, I made the decision to ditch Microsoft Outlook and move everything over to Gmail. And I have never looked back!

Why did I do it? Outlook at the time was continually locking up, crashing my PC and I was completely fed up. In the back of my mind, I had always considered moving it over to Gmail but was too afraid to take the plunge because it was so different than I’m used to. Then one day, after too much frustration, I did it. And it was so much easier than I thought.

So what are the Pros for leaving Outlook for Gmail? Here are a few of the great reasons:

Easy to use! If you are used to Google and any Google apps at all, you will easily be able to find your way around Gmail.
Access to your email from anywhere. Any computer with internet, any mobile phone, Mac or PC. That means if you buy a new computer, the transition instructions are so easy: 1. Turn on computer 2. Login to Gmail.
Like I mentioned above, you can access anywhere, that means it syncs everywhere. No worrying about double entry or deleting emails you’ve already received in other locations.
If you are used to using “Folders” and rules in Outlook, then “Labels” and filters work the same way, and even better.
Your Gmail, your Docs, Calendars (which syncs everywhere too!) is accessible in one dashboard
You can pull in multiple email accounts via POP3 if you use different email addresses for different things (you are not stuck with only @gmail.com addresses). You can do up to 5 POP3 accounts for free in regular Gmail.

I’m an Android phone user which made the email switch much easier since Gmail is it’s main email app. Also, within the last few months I have switched from a PC to a MAC and it sure did make my email transition much smoother (see above).

With all this gushing about Google and how great it is, if you are so used to Outlook, Gmail can be hard to get used to at first. First, it just looks different, and the threaded conversations and overall look took some getting used to. I also had to take some extra time to set up all my filters and labels in the beginning. But once I did, it was smooth sailing from there.

* I should note that I did not move my domain’s mail hosting to Google Apps. I have a dozen or so emails associated with it, and my host is awesome so I didn’t want to rock the boat. I really wanted to keep it simple! Regular Gmail suffices for me (luckily I don’t have more than 5 POP3 accounts to pull in).

Importance of REALTOR Safety

Megan E. Barber — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 22:08:45 +0000

Being a real estate agent can definitely be a difficult job at times. From managing several buyer and seller clients at once, to tracking paperwork and juggling upcoming closings. But he thought that your real estate career can present you with some dangerous situations, hardly ever enters your mind. Some scary stuff in the news lately is driving home the fact that Realtor safety should become a priority.

Realtor safety concerns are nothing new. Several years ago, when I worked in the front office for a major real estate company, the company had decided to offer self defense classes to their agents which some thought was silly. Since the subject came up, my broker then told me this story:

She was working with these first-time buyers, showing them several properties on the weekends over a few weeks. One Saturday morning, she was setting up a few showing appointments for the day, and called one particular owner-occupied home where a pleasant gentleman answered. He said it was the requested appointment was fine and he would make sure to be out of the home.

Since this was the first appointment of the day, she decided to get to the property ahead of her clients to preview it herself, open up curtains, turn on lights, etc. When she unlocked and opened the door, about 10 feet in front of her was a man sitting in a chair with a shotgun in his lap, starting straight at her. She quickly apologized for disturbing him, backed away, closed the door, and got in her car. She had her clients meet her at the next property instead.

Now that scary situation turned out to be ok for my former boss, as she was unharmed. But it has stuck in her memory and has always taken extra safety measures ever since.

The news tell us that some agents have not been so lucky.

Last year, two Realtors were found murdered in separate incidents, one found shot in a vacant home he was showing, and one found in burning home.

Back in April, an Iowa Realtor was found murdered at an at a model home open house.

In July, a Tennessee agent was attacked and robbed during a showing appointment.

Just last month, an Oregon broker was targeted in his office and shot by a revenge seeking gunman.

A few weeks ago, northern Ohio agents were warned that a man was calling female agents for evening showing appointments, to possibly lure them into vacant homes and sexually assault them.

The sad list goes on.

Real estate can be a risky industry. Agents can often find themselves traveling alone, meeting with and showing properties to people that they don’t really know well or at all. There’s worries that violence against Realtors is on the rise. And it is not just women that are victimized. (check out his report)

What can you do to keep yourself safe? Though past violent incidents don’t always have a common thread, and there is no way to prevent every crime, agents should certainly take any step necessary to protect themselves.

Take a self defense or martial arts class.
Google new prospects prior to initial meetings to sniff out anything fishy if you can.
Meet them for the first time in a public place, such as your office during business hours.
Call or text someone to let them know where you’ll be and who you’ll be with showing properties.
Use a tool such as Moby, which is a mobile app for your smartphone that can alert chosen contacts with a need for assistance and also tracks your location. And it’s FREE!

Do what you can to increase your awareness and fine tune your gut instincts. Please stay safe out there!

Happy 5th Birthday Twitter – 5 Things You Should Be Doing on Twitter

Megan E. Barber — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 02:51:06 +0000

Today is Twitter’s 5th birthday! I am an obvious lover of Twitter. I have been using it for over 3 years , or 3 years, 120 days and some change to be exact. It’s been fascinating to watch over these years how it has transformed the cultural landscape and how it has become the major source for breaking news on events and disaster updates.

I love it and have found it to be a source for business and a great place to market to potential clients. But I do see that Twitter is not for everyone. Many real estate pros still ask, why should they bother with Twitter. Well in the spirit of Twitter’s 5th Birthday, here are 5 ways you should use twitter.

5 Things You Should Be Doing on Twitter

Use Twitter to listen and interact to your clients and your sphere of influence. You can monitor what is going on in their lives, see what anyone is saying about you, and help them get to know the real you.
Make sure your tweets are something relevant and newsworthy. Nobody much cares about what you’re having for breakfast. So tell them about a deal you just closed, a fabulous new home that listed, or breaking news in your neighborhood.
Drive traffic to your blog and website with Twitter. Just wrote a great post about a hot button real estate issue or new listing? Post the link on Twitter, or better yet, have your most recent blog post get populated on your Twitter feed automatically through apps suck as HootSuite and TwitterFeed.

Image via Wikipedia
Make good use of Twitter lists, to help segment and organize those you are following on Twitter.
Use an app that will make your tweeting life easier. My all-time favorite that I use is HootSuite. You can schedule tweets, organize your twitter streams by lists into different columns, as well as analytics and tracking of links you broadcast. Not only that but you can use HootSuite to manage multiple networks. TweetDeck is another app that has similar capabilites, but not browser based.

Tips For Creating Fantastic Real Estate Videos

Megan E. Barber — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 16:02:51 +0000

This year I am on a mission to help REALTORS use video, and use it effectively to build their business. By now, you’ve seen many agents all over the web taking matters into their own hands and creating videos for their real estate marketing. Though some will say that it should be left to the video pros to use video successfully, agents are fully able to do it themselves with the right tools and tricks in place.

Here are some tips and best practices for video success.

Make sure you have all the right tools to get you started in video. Check out my last post on that subject.
Film in a a location with good lighting, be sure that the background is not too distracting, and try to be in a place with few off-camera noises or interruptions.
If you plan on being in front of the camera for your videos, practice, practice, practice. Do lots of takes and practice being on camera to help you be more comfortable and natural while being filmed.
Practice your filming movements with camera in hand. Don’t use jerky movements or pan too quickly. And make use of a stability bar to help with smooth filming and panning.
If you are not comfortable in front of the camera, get behind the camera and perform interviews and showcase your neighborhood, businesses and events.
Try and keep informational videos short and sweet. You will lose an audience with long videos that drone on, so keep your videos to around 3 minutes long, 5 minutes max. Anything beyond that, you risk losing the interest of your audience.
When shooting home tours, make use of a wide angle lens to get better shots of interior rooms.
Include a call to action and display your phone number and the url to your website/blog at the end of your video.
Make use of your editing software and edit the raw footage of your videos, add transitions and titles with your website link.
When uploading to your YouTube channel, make good use of the description using some keywords and be sure to include links to your website or blog in it.

If you haven’t started with video for your business yet, hopefully the above tips will get you going. And as always, you can make use of a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, to help with editing your videos and broadcasting across the web.

Update on the New Facebook Pages

Megan E. Barber — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 20:29:04 +0000

Facebook has changed once again, though this time we were expecting it. Facebook pages now have a new look and some awesome new features. In the midday hours yesterday, the much buzzed about preview of the new Facebook Pages was rolled out. The official switch date for all Facebook pages is March 10, 2011, but yesterday Facebook gave many the option to upgrade their pages early (which of course I did).

So what in new with Facebook Pages? Let me give you an overview.

New Look

The new Facebook pages now closely resembles the new Facebook profiles that were rolled out in December 2010. Now they feature the addition of the 5 image banner at the top of the page and tabs have been removed and moved to the section beneath the page’s Avatar. So now any of your custom FBML tabs, or applications you’ve added to your page have been moved to this new spot.

Another change to the look, albeit small, is they’ve added an “Edit Page” button in the upper right hand corner of your page, instead of a link below the page avatar.

New Features

Now here is the best part. Facebook has added a bunch of fantastic new features that make managing your page and your page’s content so much better.

You can now receive immediate email notifications when people post, comment or interact with your business page. Beforehand it was difficult to track people posting on your page unless you were regularly monitoring it.
You now have the option to post, comment, update or like, as yourself or as your business page. It is a great opportunity for you to be able to promote your brand/business on other page while commenting or other interactions using your Page.
You have the ability to change the category your page appears under. So if you want to switch from a Local Business or Place, to a Company or Organization, you can.
You have the option to change the arrangement of the posts on your wall to be either the order of the most recent postings or order them by the most popular or “relevant” posts on your wall.
You can feature your self or your business partners as the page owners of your business page. Prior to this, it was difficult to tell who owned or ran a particular page, but now you have that option.
You can feature up to 5 of your favorite liked pages over on your left hand sidebar. So feature other business pages of yours, or your favorites.
Just like in the new Facebook profile layout, there is now the banner of 5 images across the top. You can use this area to feature your listings, or you can get creative and carry your branding message across.

What stays the same?

You still have the ability to designate one of your other tabs as default landing tab. So if you would like your custom welcome tab to be the first thing a user sees, you still can. If you had done this previously on the old version of your page, there is a chance that you will need to redo it after you upgrade, so it is best to double check.
Your custom landing tabs have remained the same width as before at 520 pixels wide. So no need to fear making your costom tabs you worked so hard on even narrower.

What else?

The location of the tabs has moved to a much less conspicuous place (as noted above). They are small links directly under the page avatar. So this means if you want to draw attention to your custom page tabs that you (or your assistant) have worked so hard to create, then you will need to get creative and perhaps draw attention to them using your page avatar.

Also, rumor has it that Static FBML will also be going away after March 10, 2011. Pages that are currently using custom tabs with FBML, can still remain. But it has been rumored that one will not be able to create new tabs using FBML. What will take it’s place? We shall see.

Overall, I think the changes that Facebook has made to the are pretty great for those using Facebook pages for real estate, or any other industry. It gives many more options on how you can display yourself and your content, and it is a fresh new look.

What are your thoughts about the new Facebook Pages? I would love to hear it, so please leave a comment below to state your thoughts or your questions about the new pages setup.

Coming soon: A full video review for my Getting Down to Basis series displaying layout and giving the lowdown how-to on set up the new Facebook Page.

Changes in How to Create a Facebook Page – Video

Megan E. Barber — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 15:21:04 +0000

Just a week ago I posted a “How to Create a Facebook Page” video tutorial in my Getting Down to Basics series. Just when I show you one way, Facebook changes the game a little bit.

Facebook has rolled out some changes this week that slightly augments the way you create a Facebook page, as well as a whole new look to Facebook pages. So in my latest videos, More on Facebook Pages, Part 1 below will show you the changes they made to the create a page screen. Check it out!

Stay tuned Part 2 where I cover the new Facebook Pages layout and the cool new features they added!

Have any questions or a request for a tutorial on Facebook or any other tech tool? I would like to hear about it! Please leave me a comment below with your questions or suggestions.

Bringing Humor to the Industry Using Video

Megan E. Barber — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 16:04:37 +0000

Dallas Broker Turns Heads with New Web Comedy Series ‘The Agent’ | RISMedia

via rismedia.com

A new web comedy series titled “The Agent”, is coming to a computer near you. Created by David Winans, and his marketing team at Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate, David Winans & Associates, “The Agent”, showcases a young man who stumbles into the world of becoming a REALTOR, and hilarity ensues.
The series pokes fun a the industry featuring some of the trials and tribulations of an agent’s daily life in the field, which at times can be quite funny. Like David Winans says in the above article, a little self-depreciating humor is always healthy.

You can check out The Agent at http://theagent.tv and be sure to watch the rap song and video used to kick off the series “Makin’ Money”. Funny stuff! And a fun use of video.