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What is the ROI of Pinterest?

February 1, 2012 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

Facepalm - Image via Wikipedia

“How do I leverage Pinterest for my real estate business?”

The title of this post, as well as the above question is starting to get asked a lot around the real estate marketing circles and social networks I follow. And I must tell you, it makes me cringe to hear it. Many agents are joining this relatively new network, looking increase their marketing reach and hoping it’s the holy grail of lead generation. Frankly I think they are missing the point and purpose of Pinterest, and may be sorely disappointed in the lack of “ROI”.

Just what is Pinterest, some of you may you be asking? Pinterest is an new-ish social network where users can Pin images, putting together a visual collection of things they love, their interests and inspiration, etc., on pin boards users create in their accounts. These pin boards can be related to anything from food to crafts, fashion to home decor. The possibilities are endless.

Personally, I LOVE Pinterest. For me it is a great source of creative inspiration, craft and DIY project ideas, home decor ideas, recipe ideas, and a place that I can daydream by pining images of my dream home or dream vacation spots. For me Pinterest is fun and and inspirational.

Where I believe that people are really going wrong, especially those that want to “leverage Pinterest for their business,” is that marketing and self promotion is not in the spirit of what Pinterest was designed for. Just simply look at #3 on their list of the Pinterest etiquette guidelines:

Avoid Self Promotion

Pinterest is designed to curate and share things you love. If there is a photo or project you’re proud of, pin away! However, try not to use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion.

When embarking on any new social networks, Pinterest or otherwise, my advice is to first explore it and really observe. Get an idea of what this community really is about. Observe how other users are utilizing the network. Then go have fun with it. On Pinterest, you may find that you can create new connections and meet like minded people you never knew before. But don’t have high expectations that it will be a magical source of lead generation.

If you are looking into to Pinterest purely as a way to promote yourselves, your listings and generate your business, then frankly I think you should move along. Pinterest is not exactly the place for you, and I think you will find very little ROI, if that is your main goal. Your time may be best spent elsewhere.

There are certainly ways to use Pinterest and relate it to your real estate business, and you can do so without shameless self promotion. Coming up in a follow-up post, I will show you come creative ways to use Pinterest as it relates to real estate, and show you some examples of those in the real estate industry who are doing it right. Stay tuned!

And if you want to follow me on Pinterest, find me here. You will see that I am definitely not all business all the time.

The Ultimate Guide to Mastering Pinterest for Marketing (hubspot.com)
What Is Pinterest and Why Is Everyone Talking About It? (accesscomptech.wordpress.com)

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.

Filed Under: Misc., Online Marketing, Recent Posts, Social Networking Tagged With: Business, DIY, Facebook, internet marketing, Online Communities, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Pinterest for real estate, Real Estate - General, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Mistakes, roi, roi of Pinterest, Social network

Facebook Timeline: A Quick How-To

December 19, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Facebook, Getting Down To Basics, Social Networking Tagged With: Facebook, facebook pages, Facebook Timeline, getting down to basics, How-to, Real Estate Technology, Social media, Social network, Social Networking, Technology

Social Media vs. Traditional Marketing – There Is No Magic Bullet

May 25, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

Old school vs. the new school. Traditional marketing methods vs. Social media marketing. Ways of the past vs. the wave of the future. Around the online real estate world, a small debate was going on about the different schools of thought on real estate marketing methods such as social media and online marketing, and the more traditional routes such as cold calling, door knocking, and direct mail.

Some have quickly taken one side over the other, dismissing the validity of the other point. The “old school” folks cheer on the statement that social media is a total waste of time. The “new school” people think the ones who deny the potential of social media are dinosaurs of the industry that should step aside. I think the the bigger picture here in this debate is that a balanced approach using both old and new methods is necessary to succeed in this market.

Is social media a complete waste of time? I don’t certainly think so. If you know me, you know that I am a big social media fan, and use things like Facebook and Twitter quite often personally and for my business. I have even signed new clients that I’ve met via social media.

Social networking can certainly have potential to be a time waster, with the virtual farms, virtual mafia, and the penchant to announce what one had for breakfast. Certainly if you spend too much of your time living on Facebook and Twitter, you are not going to get much done in general, or be able to effectively work with your clients. But if you handle your social networking activities correctly (strategically), you can get potentially attract new business through your social media engagement.

It is also necessary to have the right mindset and expectation about the potential business social media marketing can bring you. Connections that you attract through social media can take a long time for them to convert to actual business, much like other internet leads. But if you look at the bigger picture, social networks are a great tool to foster new relationships with prospects by engaging with them and repeatedly be out in front of them.

Through some of the more traditional methods of cold calling, and door knocking, most of the “old school” gurus direct agents to go through their database, sphere or lists looking for buyers and sellers that are ready to make their move RIGHT NOW. And then they’ll instruct them to cross the prospect off the list and move on the the next if the are not ready to do business in the immediate. Where this differs from social media marketing is that you are spending little time incubating those warm or cold leads, and going directly for the hot ones. While this approach may be successful for some, it is not for everyone, and even some prospects find this type of communication a total turn off (Hello Gen Y?).

Both social media marketing and more traditional prospecting methods both have their place in today’s marketing plans. Cold calling for hot leads can help you generate business that is ready to move right now, while social media marketing can help fill that pipeline of incoming leads that can eventually warm up to actual business too. I believe a balanced approach in your marketing plan is best.

There is no one marketing method that is the magic bullet. But use any combination of them with the right approach and mindset, and they will bring you new business.

What side of the debate do you stand on? Or what marketing methods have yielded the best results for you? I want to hear from you, so please comment below!

Social Media vs. Traditional Marketing There Is No Magic Bullet

Filed Under: Direct Marketing, Facebook, Online Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Real Estate Mistakes, Real Estate Technology, Recent Posts, Social Networking, Twitter, Websites Tagged With: Cold calling, Facebook, Generation Y, internet leads, internet marketing, Marketing, real estate video, Social media, social media marketing, Social network, twitter

Have You Updated Your About Page Lately

March 22, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

Take a look at the “About Me” page on your website. Have you not updated your bio within the last several years on there? Or worse, do you have canned content from your template website provider? Or worse yet, you have the phrase “This is where you put in information about yourself” in that spot?

The About page on any given website is about the first or second place a visitor clicks on when visiting a new site (on a real estate site, it’s probably 2nd to property searches). People want to know the person or people that are behind the business and what that business is really about. It is important to show who you are and still give people a reason to stay on your site and want more from you.

I recently decided to take a new approach to my own About page on my website. Before, my page was just like any professional profile or resume, stating my certifications, my past work experience and so on. It was a snooze fest. And I really didn’t think it conveyed who I was or represented me authentically. So I changed it up, re-wrote it in my own voice and added some more personal information about me outside of my business. I still kept at the end bullet points with my professional certifications and such, but now I gave a little more insight to the REAL me.

Now, I’m not saying that my new about page is the most compelling thing ever written on the planet. But I feel it is more authentic. I wrote it in my own voice, telling more of the story on how I got to be in the business I’m in, and showing the REAL person behind the business (who is a busy mommy as well as a wine lover).

Now I have mentioned before, that real estate consumers don’t really care about the agent at first, and that mostly is true. They mostly want property info and market conditions. But once they ARE ready to care about the agent they want to use, you’re about page can help to convince them that YOU are the one they can be comfortable working with.

About pages don’t have to be boring and resume like. Check out this blog with 12 of the best about pages from around the web. You can also check out this site About.me and create your own profile on there as well as get your creative wheels turning. You can check out my own About.me page here with a slightly shortened version of my bio.

I recommend you examine your own About page right now. Does it authentically represent you? Does it say who you are and give people a reason to stay and find out more. Does it tell of all of your professional experience and most updated certifications? Does it have an updated photo of you, or glamor shot of you from 25 years ago? Go look at it, re-work it and make sure it makes a great first impression.

Have a great About.me page or an about page on your site to be proud of? Leave me a comment and share it below!

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Real Estate Marketing, Recent Posts, Virtual Assistant, Websites Tagged With: About Megan E. Barber, about pages, About.me, Business, business card, megan barber, Online Marketing, personal marketing, Real Estate - General, Real Estate Marketing, real estate virtual assistant, real estate websites, Social media, Social network

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

March 21, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Direct Marketing, Twitter Tagged With: 5th birthday, blog post, hootsuite, Online Marketing, Real Estate Technology, real estate tools, Social network, twitter

1 in 11 humans Are on Facebook [infographic]

February 17, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

via socialcommercetoday.com

I ran across a few great infographics on Social Commerce Today, including the above illustrating the growth of Facebook over 2010, top brands, and demograhpics. Click the image above to read the great post.

Anyone out there still unsure about the importance of building a presence for your business on Facebook?

Posted via email from megbarberva’s posterous

1 in 11 humans Are on Facebook [infographic]

Filed Under: Facebook, Real Estate Technology, Social Networking Tagged With: Facebook, facebook business page, Information graphics, Social media, Social network, Social Networking

Changes in How to Create a Facebook Page – Video

February 11, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

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.

Filed Under: Facebook, Getting Down To Basics, Recent Posts, Social Networking, video Tagged With: Facebook, facebook business page, Facebook features, facebook pages, getting down to basics, How-to, Real Estate Technology, Social network, Tutorial, video

How To Create a Facebook Page – Video

February 4, 2011 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

In this latest installment in the Getting Down To Basics series, I created a video tutorial for how to create a Facebook Page for your real estate business. In a recent post I went over the differences between a Facebook Profile and Facebook Page, so here I am going one step further.

I have encountered many agents that knew they needed a Facebook page for their business, just didn’t know how to actually make one. So in the following video I made, I show you just exactly where to go to create a new page and some basic page setup. Enjoy!

I want to hear from you! Have anything to add, or a request for future tutorials? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you want to hear.

Filed Under: Getting Down To Basics, Real Estate Technology, Recent Posts, Social Networking, video Tagged With: Facebook, facebook business page, facebook pages, getting down to basics, Real Estate - General, real estate video, Social network, video

Getting Down to Basics: Facebook Profile vs Page

January 28, 2011 By Megan E. Barber 1 Comment

On this first post on my Getting Down to Basics series, I am going to touch on some fundamentals of Facebook. One of the most common misconceptions I have found among many Realtors that have not fully delved into Facebook, is the difference between a Facebook profile and a Facebook page.

It is easy to confuse the difference between Facebook profiles and pages (often called “business pages” or “fan pages”) because they look very similar. But they couldn’t be more different than one another as they have separate terms of service and serve different purposes.

Different Looks

The Facebook profile has a slightly different look from the official page especially since the dawn of the “new” Facebook profile that came out in December 2010. The most distinct differences would be the personal information listed at the top, and below that, the banner of 5 photos across the top above your wall.

and the lack of “tabs” on the profile page is also a big difference (though with Facebook changing all of the time, who knows how long tabs will still be there in the future).

*Facebook takes your first 5 tagged photos and puts them in that spot above your wall. So be sure that you like and approve of photos you’re tagged in as they’re the first thing people will see on your profile.

Different Verbiage

Facebook uses different terms for those connected to your profile and official page, friends vs. like.

For Facebook profiles you will see the “Add as Friend” button to add the profile of others to connect with your profile, and the term “friends” when referring to your profile connections.

Facebook pages, you will see the “Like” button when stumbling upon a new page, and the connections to the page are referred to as “People Who Like This”.

Different Terms of Service

In the past few years where Facebook has become a popular business tool, this question has come up from a few of my agents: “I want a Facebook page for their business, so do I have to sign up for a whole separate Facebook account?” The answer is a resounding NO.

In Facebook’s terms of service, they specifically state that you cannot have more than one personal profile, so that is a major no-no. They also say that you may not use your personal profile for your own commercial gain. Your profile is supposed to represent an actual person, not a brand. So it is advisable that as a Realtor, you should not promote your listings or directly solicit business on your Facebook profile. The Facebook official page is your answer to this.

That being said, that does not mean you can’t use your profile to foster relationships with your sphere. You should definitely engage with your friends on Facebook, show your personality, share your activities outside of your business life, just not blatantly promoting your real estate listings all the time. Think of Facebook as a giant online cocktail party. You wouldn’t go from person to person just telling them about your listings all the time would you?

Some additional points about your Facebook profile:

Facebook profile has a maximum friend limit of 5,000
Only those that you have mutually chosen to become friends with can see our full profile (unless you changed your privacy settings)

Facebook Pages on the other hand are specifically meant for commercial use. So your Facebook page or “Business Page” as I usually call it, is the appropriate place to post your listings, promote your real estate business, etc. Some additional info on Facebook official pages:

Facebook pages are indexed by Google
There are no limits to how many people can choose to like your page
You can track visitor stats via Insights
You can have as many Facebook pages as you wish

So that’s your basic overview of the difference between Facebook profiles and official pages. Here are some other great places to check out that explain this really well.

Pixel Coaching – Facebook Foundations: Profile vs. Official Pages (check out their awesome comparison chart at the bottom)
iClick Solutions – Difference between Facebook Profile and Facebook Fan Page

If you have any questions about some basics in Facebook , or any other social media or tech tool out there, we would love to hear about them, so please leave a comment below!

Next up in Getting Down to Basics, a video tutorial on how to create a Facebook page for your business.

Filed Under: Getting Down To Basics, Real Estate Technology, Social Networking Tagged With: basics, Facebook, getting down to basics, Real Estate Technology, Social network

My Rules For Twitter Engagement

September 8, 2010 By Megan E. Barber Leave a Comment

If you couldn’t tell, I Love Twitter. For 3 years it has been my source of much breaking news, the source of shared ideas and articles with my colleagues, and I discovered who this Justin Beiber kid is (and still don’t care). Twitter can be a fantastic resource and marketing engine if you use it right, or a total time suck if you don’t. It is all about who you engage with and how you go about doing it.

My time is limited enough as a small business owner/work-at-home mom. I have to keep my Twitter stream clean and not full of cluttered nonsense, so I am relatively selective when following other Twitter users. Inspired by Janie Coffee and her post on her rules of who she does and does not follow, I decided to come up with my own rules of engagement when it comes to my Twitter followers.

Do’s and Don’ts If you Want Me to Follow You Back on Twitter

Don’t

Don’t have nothing in your profile description, or no image uploaded. Besides seeing what is in your stream, how would I know who and what you are and know any reason to follow you.
Don’t post links to porn, look like a pornbot, post links to your private video show, etc. Not interested in engaging.
Don’t post nothing but quotes. The occasional quote is nice, but if that is all you’ve got and nothing else interesting to say, you are not worth my time.
Don’t put in your description the words MLM, marketing expert, ninja, guru, jedi master(yes, I’ve really seen that), MLM, wealth, “make money on Twitter”, etc. I really don’t believe you and you probably can’t back it up.
Don’t have endless tweets in your stream that look like “spammy” marketing and are nothing but links back to your crappy marketing website.
Don’t tell me how you made 6 figures on Twitter, Facebook, etc by using your “proven” system that you want to sell to me.
Don’t have a blank twitter stream. If you have nothing to day, why would I follow you.
Don’t follow me, then unfollow, then follow, then unfollow, then follow again. That is so annoying.

Do

Do tweet about things that are interesting and engaging. Such things that interest me are: real estate, real estate marketing, virtual assistant industry, entrepreneurs, small business issues, motherhood, new jersey, wine, coffee, chocolate, jokes, and Simpsons trivia.
Do have a picture uploaded. The picture doesn’t necessarily have to be of you, but at least I know that you took the time to personalize your profile.
Do have @ replies to other people. That lets me know that you interact and engage with others. You’re not just a shameless self promoter or totally self involved.
Do have a somewhat balanced Following/Follower ratio. If you follow thousands more than those following you, is looks fishy to me.
Do follow others that I know and respect.
Do reach out to me by DM with an actual personal message. Auto-DMs with links to your site turn me off.

Not following me yet on Twitter? Well go ahead and find me there - @MegBarberVA

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Real Estate Technology, Social Networking Tagged With: Marketing, Real Estate Technology, Social network, Social Networking, twitter, Website

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