By: Randall Reynolds

Executing an effective marketing campaign for your listings can seem like a dreadful undertaking – specifically for newer agents – but it doesn’t have to be. You’ll likely find yourself asking, “How should I present this property to the public? How should I present myself?” The solution to this seemingly beleaguering problem is actually found in this simple answer: there are essentially three ways to brand any listing.

What exactly is a brand? For our purposes, we’ll define a brand as a design strategy associated with a product. The application of the brand to a product or service is called Branding or Brand Management. Through regular branding, the consumer is trained to remember & recognize your product by its direct association with your design scheme. A brand establishes a feeling for a product – a visual connotation of sorts – that is essential for effective marketing.

There are three ways to brand your listings:

1.) Utilize your company brand

A great benefit of hanging your license at a real estate firm is the ability to use its brand to your advantage. Depending on the company, the brand can be a powerful marketing tool because all of the Brand Management has been done for you through years of consistent presence in the market. Therefore, the general public is already familiar with that brand – even if they do not recognize your name – and you should use this to your every advantage. Sotheby’s International Realty, for example, caries with it such an impressive reputation that you can enjoy the brand’s benefits with little effort, allowing you to do what you do best – selling homes.

2.) Develop & use your personal brand

A second avenue for branding a listing is the creation of your own personal brand as a realtor. Many of the world’s top producers understand this. They have a consistent listing portfolio, they are known in their respective geographical areas & they advertise continuously to their spheres of influence. This is achieved through persistent Brand Management. An agent’s personal brand can be anything from a recognizable logo to a consistent color pattern to a unique type treatment – or any combination thereof. A smart brand integrates well with the brand of the broker. An agent’s personal brand should never clash with the company logo & should always be versatile.

How does this effectively brand a specific property? This approach communicates to the public that you are a consistent producer of not only sales volume, but of quality marketing. With your personal brand, you build the same level of trust with your clients & prospects as any mainstream commercial product, giving the public confidence in you as their realtor.

3.) Create a brand that is entirely unique to a specific property

We all know an exceptional property when we see one – perhaps it’s a well kept mid-century modern in the suburbs or an early 19th century Spanish architectural in the hills. These special properties deserve special marketing. A talented graphic designer or marketing team can tailor your specific campaign to reflect the soul of the property in its design scheme, creating marketing materials that reflect the personality of the home. This route not only wows your sellers, but signals to the public that the listing belongs in its own category & should be treated as such.

Now you’re ready to go!

Now that you’re familiar with the three ways to brand a listing, you can more easily structure your “plans of attack” when releasing your listings onto the market. Each of the three above methods can be blended together or used singularly as desired – just remember to keep your brands consistent & complimentary of one another.

And now it’s time to sit back & watch your listings fly off the shelves!

Maintaining your referral business

By: Stephen Roesler

Speak with most real estate professionals and they’ll likely confirm that 85% of their business comes from referrals. Real estate is a historically local business that lives and dies by relationships. With that fact established, it’s important to understand how a market saturated by internet savvy clients can be used to the benefit of agents.

First, step into the shoes of a consumer. Let’s assume you’re looking for a new restaurant that specializes in Spanish Cuisine. You haven’t had a respectable paella since you studied abroad and your significant other has been casually mentioning how you no longer go on spontaneous dates. Given that you want the relationship to continue, you need to come up with a plan. Where do you go for a recommendation?

If you’re like most socially minded people in 2011, you probably ask your closest friends and your favorite search engine. Although the search engine will undoubtedly give you suggestions, you may doubt the credibility of the restaurant. That’s where your friends come in. You need a peer recommendation. Socialnomics states that, 90% of customers trust peer reviews, where only 14% trust advertisements. More than likely, you’ll choose the Spanish restaurant that receives multiple satisfactory reviews, like any rational consumer.

For the most part, your clients act in an almost identical fashion when choosing a Realtor. Now, however, the game has shifted given the accessibility of online peer reviews. One of the most dominating forces is Yelp. Gone are the days of restaurants getting away with poor service – diligent Yelper’s will be sure to offer their opinions. As a Realtor, Yelp remains a highly approachable, necessary venue that must not be forgotten. If your testimonials are something you hold close to your heart and often tout in your marketing materials, be sure that these testimonials are accessible online. Here’s what to do:

1. Set up a Yelp account
2. Add your picture, basic information and business information
3. Ask old clients to review you on Yelp
4. At the end of every smooth transaction, ask for a review
5. Remain an active Yelper by reviewing businesses you frequent

In a relatively short period of time, you can build a list of your most loyal clients in an online space accessible to the public. That way, next time a past client refers you business, you can point them to your Yelp page. After all, 90% of customers trust peer reviews.

The importance of your online reputation

By: Stephen Roesler

It’s no secret that your clients do their research on you. Whether they google you, browse through your facebook photos or follow your tweets, clients are looking to draw conclusions about your business from how you appear online. Realtors are constantly asking, “what can I do for my online reputation” or “how do people find me online?” Some agents have common names and compete for top spots, others once worked in a different industry and some have no content whatsoever. So, what can you do?

First, let’s start with ease versus effectiveness. Soshable recently published a graph that said ‘blogger relations’ followed by ‘SEO for social sites’ are the most effect social media strategies available. From my own experience, I agree. Blogging is perhaps the most effective way to shape your online reputation and define yourself as an expert in your industry. There is no better online branding than when your client finds a slue of real estate or community related blogs when googling your name. Your client is going to feel confident in your marketing & online aptitude. Ultimately, these indicators leads your clients to make judgements about your business. The point is, start blogging and make sure you are sharing each blog with your friends and followers.

Second, Linkedin offers a quick opportunity for agents to create a directory and history of their work experience. I routinely watch Linkedin serve as the number 1 spot on Google for many agents that lack online content. The trick is, thoroughly and accurately fill out the fields in Linkedin as it will serve as a great place holder while you build your blog and other social platforms.

Third, don’t discredit the SEO value of Twitter. Most agents don’t have time to tweet, think it’s silly or don’t use it properly. Simply setting up an account that describes your real estate business will help your online presence. Again, fill out the description and leave links that point back to your blog or website. And if you can tweet a couple times per week, it will keep your account more active than over half of all Twitter users.

Last and perhaps most important for realtors is their YouTube content. YouTube is the second largest search engine behind Google and it serves as your clients portal to your listings. Clients search your name and your listings on YouTube. Buyers determine their interest based on your property photos and price point. At Ewing and Associates we create a YouTube video for every listing we take, which helps tremendously with our agents YouTube presence.

Overall, realtors ought to remain attentive to their online reputation. When the majority of your business depends on referrals, you can’t afford a poor online reputation. Do not under estimate the power of your online brand.

By: Deena Nissley

Thanks to social media, we’ve all felt the silent sting of watching an X get progressively more attractive, a lot richer, or appear next to your old ‘best friend’on her latest photo album. With so many ways to run into people and information online today, we need the Ex-Blocker.

This application is an add-on to Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Explorer. In short, it prevents heartache. Enter your ex’s name, Facebook link or Twitter handle and they will be removed from your search. Even on Google.

It’s a righteous Band-Aid to the most modern of problems. If the dreaded target does pop up on your daily radar, you’ll see her info blurred out with the words EX-BLOCKED preventing you from any spying.

And when you inevitably reconcile, the Ex-blocker is a cinch to uninstall.

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

By: Stephen Roesler

Recently, Tina Stern’s listing on 221 5th Avenue in Venice Beach was mentioned in one of the most prestigious blogs for luxury items know as Luxist. The Cape Cod inspired home, listed at $1.899 million belongs to Mark Snow, the “X-Files” composer. Interestingly, the post on Luxist nearly doubled our daily internet traffic the last two days. Ironically, Luxist pulled the high end listing from the LA Times hot properties section.

From the aspect of search engine optimization, this quantifies the value of inbound links from respectable websites. Not only does it help our traffic, it increases the exposure of the property. It’s explains the basic exchange of information that occurs on the internet all the time.

The Luxist article can be found here.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnzUKIYrn1o[/youtube]

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

Where does ‘good’ news come from?

By: Stephen Roesler

Creating a healthy blog oriented around community news is a project that requires an army of contributors that supply our readers with specific neighborhood news. Therefore, in light of our desire to expand and add more content, we’ve decided to open our blog to guest writers from the area. If you have community news that you would like to share on our site, please shoot me an email with your ideas. The goal of our blog is to create a platform where residents can visit and find highly specific news brought to them by existing community experts. Whether you’re a real estate agent, a local business owner, or a long time home owner, we believe the best news comes from within. You know what’s going on. After all, you live you here.

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

By: Stephen Roesler

The Canyon Club, at least the way I know it, remains infamous for burn out bands, crapped out voices, and sometimes repugnant personalities. Occasionally, however, the most unsuspecting groups prove they deserve infinite praise. This was the case with John Mayall.

Walking in a few minutes late, I observed the thinly spread crowd calmly reclined in their chairs, imbibing the sounds as if they were spraying through the room. I grabbed a drink and casually strolled to the center of the venue, noticing the notably older crowd. John Mayall, known more for his blues days in the late 60′s and 70′s, certainly attracted a well seasoned bunch. Scattered about, however, remained a healthy crew of up and comers, as Jeff Biebyuck, former singer of Bad Blood commented. It became clear that these young artists were around to receive an education.

I immediately noticed Tom Canning on keyboard. Standing as if he was straddling a horse, the slender artist known for his productive relationship with Al Jarreau captured me with his violent solos. Canning handed his solo off to guitarist Rocky Athas who spontaneously stole the show. Acclaimed as the guitar lead for Black Oak Arkansas, Athas slowly faded into a rhythm as he lost his inhibitions; for moments he seemed to be existing in an entirely different reality than the stage of the canyon club.

Mayall, known for a multi-instrumental music career of over 50 years, is most praised for the founding of John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Mayall was influential in shaping artists such as Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Peter Green of Fleetwood and Mac. Mayall’s long history was no mystery during the show as he and bass player Greg Rzab passed solo’s back and forth. Mayall, who is a sensation on harmonica, controlled the movement of the crowd as they vibed to the inherently pleasant blues rhythm. Long bass riffs followed by Mayall’s freestyle harmonica/beat box pseudo singing overtook the audience. There were people playing air guitar, women dancing, and one dude playing the drums with one hand and the bass with the other.

Despite my past Canyon Club failures, this event certainly revived my interest. Here is a taste of John Mayall:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwGL5LDb4u8[/youtube]

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

Mobile Internet’s correlation to Social Media

By: Stephen Roesler

With the rise of the smart phone, users are spending more time on the internet.

Let’s be honest, most of us desperately cling to our smart phone. We rarely spend a waking minute without the temptation to fiendishly flip on our phones and check our texts, missed calls or voice mails. Or maybe you’re a weather fanatic, constantly updating the weather app to see if the 10 day forecast in southern California has changed. Believe me, it didn’t. I am THAT weather fanatic. It’s almost impossible to get away from the constant desire to maniacally scroll through the latest facebook posts or to aimlessly scour your tweets. YouTube is not easy to resist either. I mean, auto-tune the news is simply superb.

Recently, a study by Ground Truth revealed that 60% of all mobile internet time was spent on social media sites and applications. Portals are the second most popular category with only 14% of time spent on mobile internet. Observe the statistics below.

Deconstructing the study revealed that social media platforms like MocoSpace and AirG, which are designed for mobile use, maintain higher engagement levels than Facebook and MySpace which were designed for PC access. Thus, Facebook and MySpace are considering ways to improve their chat functionality to mirror the platforms receiving the highest user engagement.

As we consider the shift in hardware use from PC’s to mobile devices, we’ve responded by offering property YouTube videos to our agents. Anytime we receive a new listing, we create a YouTube video. With people spending more time watching video on their phones, this is another way to expose our properties. Our in-house social media team is working to give our agents the needed edge in a changing market.

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

By: Stephen Roesler

Similar to the buildup of military weapons by the Soviets and U.S. in the mid 20th century, there is a hot pursuit to win the race to the top of Google. Regardless of industry, SEO (search engine optimization) is the name of the game. Embracing a marketing initiative that aims to promote exposure via organic search engine traffic may qualify as an organizations biggest hurdle. The heart of our online marketing efforts revolve around the concept of an online community. Let me explain.

If things are going ‘social’ as I’ve advocated in the past, the goal then becomes utilizing our social power in a medium where the majority of people spend an unconscionable amount of time; the internet. Given that 85% of real estate searches begin online, we can assume our community relentlessly searches this diabolical machine named Google, which accounts for 65% of real estate searches alone. Therefore, we need to capture our audience on their terms. What are they looking for? How do they find it? What do they search? How do they think?

Answering these questions requires some research on Adwords and thoughtful website analytics tracking. But, that’s only one aspect of finding a community. Next, providing useful content becomes integral. EwingSIR has taken a unique approach which has doubled our organic traffic. We use a strategy that provides news to micro community’s in attempt to grow participating communities. By publishing online news that remains relevant to specific communities, we cultivate a community based on location. Not only are we highly targeted, we are personal and social. Therefore, we find specific buyers and sellers coming to our site, looking for services we offer. Not only does this community effort add to our arsenal of SEO tools, it builds an online community.

However, choosing to harness one SEO effort will only result in limited exposure. Winning the arms race requires a full scope of social media efforts rooted in a strong SEO crusade. Go forth, soldiers.

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.

By: Stephen Roesler

I often hear intelligent people saying they want nothing to do with Social Media. Habitually explained as “just another trend,” Social Media is frequently received as another trifling distraction from business. Instead of the desire to embrace, many prefer to remain blind to this social transformation. Whether we don’t have time or remain indifferent, apathy will not eliminate Social Media.

Rather than explain the business implications of ignoring the emerging social networking trends, let’s consider the societal implications of emerging technological forces.

Throughout education we are continually pounded like slabs of meat with one simple message, learn from history. However, if we’ve learned anything it is that humans, in fact, learn very little from these history lessons and that, itself, is a much larger lesson.  Continually, the human experience is full of shock and bewilderment at our social state. Holocaust, genocide, war, poverty; we are relentlessly caught off guard by the forces that have seemingly emerged overnight. Today, it is the rise of the machine.

As our society becomes further dependent on technology, we are forced to compensate with over organization. As a result, more people live subordinate lives as they slave to the rhythmic pulse of Google’s uncouth palpitation. Meanwhile organizations inflate, bureaucracy expands and hierarchy deepens. Before long we have massive sectors of society unaware of the progressing hand of technology and the undeniable change of social condition. Suddenly, people find themselves in places they didn’t want to be, relentlessly engaging in things they never intended to do.

Social Media is fundamentally changing communication. It’s transforming the way we gather knowledge, it’s shaping how we understand our world and it remains an undeniably catalyst for immense social change.

At the hub of this revolution stands the proverbial “Search.” We’ve created algorithms that allow us to scour the collective knowledge of the human race, something that’s never been possible before the Internet. We maintain access to nearly any fact that’s ever been recorded. And we can find it in seconds. We are creating robots that are more accessible and clever than the human mind.  Essentially, we are combining the brightest minds of our current world and pouring those capabilities into one organized system that is capable of hyper intelligence. I am not sure if it’s exciting, fascinating or redoubtable. Whatever it is, Social media is simply one clear way in which our society is progressing. Let’s not ignore where we’re heading.

EwingSIR does not guarantee information contained in this blog, readers are encouraged not to rely solely on this information and to do their own independent research of facts contained herein. Blog information was obtained from independent sources that we do not endorse, and we do not investigate this information for accuracy.