Love Facebook?  Hate Facebook?  Have a personal Facebook profile, but not sure how to use it for your real estate business?

(All of the above?)

Regardless of which category you fall into, here’s what you need to know:  Having a Facebook business page (also called a Facebook fan page) is a great way for you to market yourself online as a real estate agent.  It’s free, easy to set up, and easy to keep updated with content such as links to interesting articles, photos, and even videos.

How much or how little you put into it is up to you.  But, here’s the catch… most real estate agents don’t know how to create a Facebook business fan page to begin with!

Fortunately, it’s easy.  Here’s a video I made showing exactly how to do it, along with tips on choosing the right title for your Facebook business page.

Thinking about sending out a monthly email newsletter to your real estate clients?

The first question to ask yourself is, “What information am I going to be sending?”  Or, more specifically, “Why should someone open this email?”

 This is HUGE.  Let’s face it, can you think of any one of your clients who’s not already bombarded with marketing?  People are so pressed for time these days, and every one of us has to sort through an email inbox that’s cluttered with unwanted correspondence.

How many times can you expect your clients to continue opening emails telling them that you once again sold or listed a home?

On the flip side (and partly because people are so busy) there’s plenty of useful information that homeowners need and are not getting.  Things that you know that can help them increase the value, safety or enjoyment they get from their current or future home.

Let me say that again, because it’s really important:

People need information that helps them increase the value, safety and enjoyment they get from their real estate.

This is how we structure the main content of all our done-for-you real estate e-newsletters at Tools For Real Estate.  After all, can you think of any current or future homeowner who would say “No” if you asked if they’d like to increase the value, safety or enjoyment they got from their home?

No one would say that.  That means it’s a good basis for the content you put in your email newsletter.

If you’re writing your own client e-newsletter check back in to this blog for more tips.  And if you’d like to save yourself some time and stress, please check out our done-for-your email newsletters at  www.ToolsForRealEstate.com.

If you’re a bit of a techie you should know about a great site I was referred to by Seattle pet photographer Jamie Plughoeft (you can check out her excellent dog and cat photos at www.cowbelly.com.)

It’s called Dynamic Drive, and you can find javascript and dynamic html script to create all kinds of cool features on your website or blog, including easy slideshow creating scripts.  (That one is the one used on the home page of our www.ToolsForRealEstate.com main site.)

If you’re not a techie it’s still worth giving your webmaster a heads up about this site, and you’ll have fun looking at the demos that are usually available for each script.

Think you don’t need your own domain name because your real estate company hosts a page for you, or you don’t have a website at all yet?  Wrong!

You can buy a distinctive, easy-to-remember domain name for just a few dollars a year and forward it to any other website, including one your company provides for you.  And even if you don’t have any kind of website, owning a domain name means you can set up an email account to that address, so that your email looks professional instead of ending with something like yahoo.com or gmail.com.

Here’s a short video that shows you step by step how to buy a domain name:

That’s all there is to it – get your domain name now, before someone else does!

Want to grow your contact list of future real estate clients? Make it easy for people to get great information from you!

Watch our video tutorial on how to add the signup link for your email newsletter to the email signature line of all your regular emails, so that people notice it and can easily sign up for your email newsletter.

Or, you can also download the printed instructions (a pdf file) showing
how to add your email newsletter signup link to all of your emails (click the underlined link.)

Here’s a cool way to add some interesting content to your real estate website or blog. Just copy some code from Tim Carter’s Ask the Builder website, paste it into your website or blog, and you’ve got this little widget, below:

You can choose different styles and sizes of the video box just by checking a few options, and you don’t need to know any html at all – it’s just copy and paste.

Here’s the link to the page to get the code:

http://askthebuilder.magnify.net/widgets/playlist?playlist=recent

Tip: Check the box that says “Open in new window”, then click “Refresh Widget” before you copy the code. That way people don’t get permanently directed away from your site when they click on a video link.

Have fun!

Well, confession time here at The Agent Guide headquarters.  We’re in the process of a massive website makeover, including even a domain name change (so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life explaining on the phone that no, I am not “The Agent Guy”. 

I fell into the well worn trap of stopping a consistent business practice, in this case blogging, because I felt like I was just adding to something that was about to change, and it was tempting to not deal with the old stuff and just wait until the new site was ready.

(Translation:  Until things were ‘perfect‘.)

Dumb mistake!  Not only did traffic to our website drop, but we also lost a level in our site’s Google Page Rank.  Plus, during that month there were a number of useful ideas I wanted to pass on via the blog that I never got to.

So, let’s turn this into something useful for real estate agents.  (Because, let’s face it – this is classic real estate agent behavior.)

I can’t tell you how many agents I talked to a year ago about putting a ‘subscribe’ box for their email newsletter on their site, and they decided to hold off until their new website finished.  (You know, the one being made by programming experts, that was going to have a member-only password protected client section and the dancing house waltzing across the screen when someone clicked ‘Send’ on a contact form – that one.)

A year later,  they still have the generic company site, and no subscribe box….

So please, learn from bozos like us:

• When it comes to marketing, done ‘pretty well’ is 1000 times better than ‘nearly perfect, but never completed’.
• If you put a project off until something else is perfect, expect to stumble over its dusty, uncompleted remains sometime next year.
• If you’re posting content online, make it relevant, and make it consistent – and Google will appreciate you, even if it’s not perfect.

Here’s a thought:  Take 10 minutes today and write down the good marketing ideas you had over the last year that never got executed.  Pick the simplest, least time-consuming one and schedule an hour this week to get it done.

C’mon – why not fire up Microsoft Word and give it a shot now?

“Quit now” was marketing expert Seth Godin’s Plan A advice a few days ago to the group of real estate agents he called “order takers”.  (You know, the ones who were just carried along by the great housing market we had until a year or so ago.)

To be fair, we ALL benefited from those conditions.  My bet is that nearly every agent can take a business gut check right now and find areas where he or she could up their game in marketing or offerings.

Seth’s Plan B is what I wanted to talk about  – actually, the second part of Plan B.

(The first part is micro-specialization in a certain area, customer or property type, which would have had me turning away in droves people who are now part of a fun, faithful client base.  I know it works, but I don’t think it’s the Golden Answer for most agents.)

Here IS the Golden Answer, as far as I’m concerned:

It’s Seth’s recommendation to earn the permission to follow up with people by offering TRULY USEFUL information, and allowing them to sign up for it through your newsletter or blog posts.

Seth quotes a NAR survey that shows 91% of agents never follow up with their client after a transaction.  Furthermore, most home buyers and sellers are under-informed before and during the transaction.  People need the expert information you have, about things like:

• Remodeling choices that pay off.
• How to get a good deal on a refinance or new mortgage.
• Home maintenance tips that keep their family and home healthy.
• Tax savings available to homeowners.
• What features to look for in a home that create real value.

There’s plenty of other information that previous and prospective real estate clients want – need – to hear about.  This is the kind of thing that creates trust and positions you as an expert.

In my opinion, you don’t have the option to not do it.  Your options ARE to either do it yourself or to automate it.  Here at The Agent Guide we created a done-for-you email newsletter service for just that purpose.

Whether you choose that, some other automated solution or you’re able to consistently do it on your own, take Seth’s (and our) advice:

Earn the permission to follow up with past and prospective clients.  It’ll be the key to your real estate success from here on out.

To read Seth’s article click here.

Want to see an example of a beautiful website?

Check out FreeRice.com.  It’s fabulously simple, and a great example of everything that most real estate websites are not.

(There’s no whirling, search engine-blocking flash entry page, you’re not immediately greeted with a big paragraph explaining what FreeRice does, and the page doesn’t offer you a ton of options.)

What it is, is extremely effective.

They want you to play a word definition game, and for each correct answer they donate 20 free grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger.

Here are a few reasons why it works so well:

• Your gaze is immediately drawn to the call to action (the game.)
• It’s completely clear how to respond (and it’s just one click.)
• You’re immediately motivated to take action (because you see the correct answer.)
• The headline tells you exactly what the site is about (which clearly states the obvious benefit.)
• The surrounding elements support the call to action (explanation links, a video of grain being donated.)
• Language is used sparingly and effectively (notice the grand total of 13 words in the left menu.)

What’s your call to action?

Are you asking people to do something on your website?  Do you provide motivation by stating an obvious benefit, and make it easy for them to take action without having to navigate several clicks away?

Do you keep it simple?

It’s a natural tendency to want to embellish and make things complex, but when you do, remember that FreeRice.com launched barely 3 months ago and has already donated over 16 billion grains of rice.

I dare you to go there and not add to that number.

Do your home listing photos end up looking like this?

Or are you able to transform them into this?

 Yes, that’s the same room.  C’mon, admit it – you’re impressed, no?

Here’s my prediction:

Good staging and photography are going to be absolutely key to getting home listings in the future.

(And, key to having them sell at the top of their market value range – aka, leaving you with happy sellers who rave to their friends about how their home was transformed.)

But so many agents still don’t do it!  Just this morning I saw a $2.5 million waterfront home listed with photos that had obviously been taken by a non-professional with a 35 mm camera.

Granted, it wasn’t atrocious, but the angle of view was so narrow that one-third of every room didn’t make it into the shot.

(What’s the commission on a $2.5 M home again?  Even if it’s discounted?  Seems like plunking down $250 on a professional photographer would be reasonable.)

Regardless of the price range you’re working with, putting a home on the market is extremely stressful for sellers.  Understandably so - there’s a lot on the line.

Here’s how you can position yourself as the go-to agent:

1.  Be able to give home sellers good advice on how to prepare their home for sale. 

Then, coach them through the process.  They need to feel that they’re in the hands of an expert.  This should be at least one thing being taken off of their plate.

If this isn’t your specialty now, find someone in your area you can hire to do it, or study up on before and after photos now.  It’s not just a trend, it’s the future.

2.  Get dazzling photos that showcase all of the home’s best features.

Home buyers’ standards are rising as they become more accustomed to high quality user experiences online, and I hear more and more complaints about how bad most Internet home photos are.

Home sellers often don’t know what they’re missing until they see it – but they sure don’t need to be told twice after being shown a before-and-after comparison like the one above.

Hire a pro if you’re in an area like Seattle where you can get a typical house photographed for around $170.  It’s a no-brainer.

(The ’after’ photo above was taken my all-time favorite Seattle-area real estate photographer, Tucker English.) 

If professional help is not available, get a camera suited for interior shots.  One with a 24mm lens or less, not 35mm.  And learn how to use photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop Elements so that when your warm tan wall comes out a cold blue because of lighting you can bring it back to its true self.

3.  Take “Before” and “After” photos of your listings and post them on your website.

Posting a great before-and-after photo gallery on your website is the best way I know of to get sellers wanting to list with you.

(This is a great opening for newer agents, by the way, since you don’t have to have a huge string of listings.  You just need to show what you’re capable of doing for your next home seller client.)

Bottom line?

The demand for higher quality home staging and photography is only going to become stronger, and now’s a great opportunity for enterprising agents to make a name for themselves.  (A superb opportunity – because the norm is currently pretty bad!)

Hopefully that will change soon.  In the meantime, you can see more before-and-after shots and get ideas for your own marketing at our Home Listing Photo Gallery page.