Marketing to the Social Web: How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business helps marketers and their companies understand how to engage customers, build customer communities, and maximize profits in a time of marketing confusion. Author and social media guru Larry Weber describes newly available tools and platforms, and shows you how to apply them to see immediate results and growth.

This is a great book that really gives you some good insight on the right way to build your business through engaging your customers. Even if you don’t have a particularly tech-savvy clientele right now, a lot of the same mentalities are there in the form of new and different expectations they now have when dealing with you as a sales person and business owner. Check it out!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, social media marketing for Realtors®, real estate marketing coach

An important tool you have at your disposal is an analytics package, like Google Analytics. Being able to track your visitors, where they’re coming from and how long they’re staying on your site can help you make sure that your website speaks to your target market. It would be a terrible thing to know exactly who you’d like to be working with, but not be bringing any of them in due to a bad (or untargeted) website.

Here’s a great overview of Google Analytics from both the Group Manager at Google, as well as from a Realtor® that’s currently using it on his site. So be sure to put tracking in place on your site as soon as you can, so you can start making more intelligent decisions about your website and online presence. And don’t forget, this isn’t just for your site. Any single-property site you’re creating for clients should have tracking in place so that you can see where you’re getting the most traffic from, see what ads are working and what aren’t , and provide valuable info to your home sellers.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, Google website analytics for Realtor®, online real estate marketing tips, real estate marketing coach

Today’s Web 2.0 Wrap-Up is a great post from Diane Guercio on ActiveRain - Get Better Known at a TweetUp. TweetUp’s are local gatherings of people on Twitter, and it’s a fantastic way to develop or deepen relationships that have started on Twitter. Putting real faces to names, getting the opportunity to chat with local people that have embraced social media sites like Twitter, and just meeting new people from your area are just three of the many reasons to go!

Diane also has some great tips on putting a TweetUp together, getting publicity for it, and making yourself known at the event. You can also check out “Using Twitter To Drive Local Business and And How To TweetUp Succesfully” another great post from Mary McKnight. She walks you through the process of putting together a TweetUp, then marketing it successfully.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, using Twitter for real estate marketing, how to organize a TweetUp, real estate marketing coach

For example, here are some stats compiled by Quantcast on what first-time buyers look like in 2009:

* 58 percent female
* 41 percent are between age 18 and 34 (59 percent are 35 and older)
* 62 percent are Caucasian (26 percent African-American, 7 percent Asian and 4 percent Hispanic)
* 80 percent have no kids
* 35 percent earn between $30,000 and $60,000
* 58 percent have some college education

Can you describe, in a few words, what your ideal client looks like? Take a look at your past clients (or at least, the ones you’ve really enjoyed working with, that have sent you referrals and/or become repeat clients). Look at their age, their income, the type of work they do, etc. and you can begin compiling stats for your own business. You can also utilize analytics and tracking systems online to see where you are getting a lot of traffic (and business) from. In the next week, we’ll be looking at some different ways you can track your business online, but in the meantime, think about what your clients have in common. Be keeping their personality traits, interests, habits and preferences in mind, it can immediately help “drill down” your marketing by including the things that will appeal to them, and leaving out what won’t.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, creating a real estate target market, real estate tracking and analytics

Here are three traditional marketing methods that still work very well. Make sure that you don’t forget about traditional techniques in your marketing, in addition to your online marketing, because you can never completely replace that person-to-person touch in an industry like real estate.

1. Make a quick call to potential, present and past clients just to touch base.
2. Drop a personalized note in the mail to say “hello” and see how they’re doing in their new home, now that they’ve gotten settled.
3. For past clients that you know a little better and know where to find them, stop by their work or home with a small “thinking of you” gift that will be completely unexpected.

Although each of these is a simple act, I’m always surprised at how few Realtors® actually implement them. What traditional marketing methods are incorporating in your mix? How are they working for you?

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, traditional marketing methods, personal real estate

TweetLister is a new, free service that “allows you to post, schedule and manage real estate listings on Twitter. Track clicks received on your listings, as well as collect and download contacts you get through those listings (available via an Excel Report).”

While at first glance it might seem ideal for real estate agents, I think Nik Nik is absolutely correct that it actually take away from the power of Twitter by being so automated, and not allowing for your own thoughts and insights into the property.

What do you think? Is it a valuable tool for busy agents, or does it miss the boat entirely?

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, Twitter for real estate, online real estate marketing tips, real estate marketing coach, MyTechOpinion

Here are some more tips for optimizing your Facebook fan page so it works even harder for you!

1. The more active your Facebook fan page is (through comments, photos, wall posts, etc. by you and your fans), the better it will do. A great way to make sure that you have activity on your page on a regular basis is by defining a publishing schedule for the page. Updating the page may not stay at the top of your mind like updating your blog might, so mark on a calendar how often you’d like to add new content to the page. It can be as simple as posting a link to your blog post every time you publish, adding a link to an interesting article or helpful site as you come across them, or being sure to upload photos of your new listings after you add them to your website, but the more you plan to publish, the more successful and active the page will be.

2. Create an easy to remember URL for your page. There are a couple different ways to do this -

• Through the Memorable Web Address Facebook application
• Through a customized URL shortener like tinyurl.com or bit.ly
• Or, for the more tech-savvy, through a redirect on your site (you can visit How to make a Redirect for Affiliate Links for instructions)

3. Display different content for Fans and Non-Fans

This is a great tip from Mashable, and they give complete instructions on setting this up through the Facebook FBML code (sounds hard but only takes about 5 minutes).

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, optimizing real estate Facebook fan pages, online real estate marketing coach

With the changed economy, many buyers and sellers have new concerns and different questions they’d like answered. Think of ways that you can be the agent in your area that is providing the answers potential clients are seeking. Whether you create a free report for how short sales work, or what to do if a seller suddenly finds themselves upside down in their home, to the best ways to take advantage of the new $8000 tax credit, your freebie will work a lot better for you if it’s providing current info.

And don’t feel like you have to take the time to write up an extensive free report, either. With so many great online tools, you should be able to get something up quickly. Think about providing a free audio or video series answering many of the questions your clients have been asking you lately. Using an autoresponder system to deliver a series may actually increase the perceived value of your free offer, and can be very easy to create. Remember, people just need their questions answered - they aren’t looking for time-consuming reports to read, or long videos to watch. 2-3 minutes is more than enough to answer a question, and you’re showing that you value their time as much as they do!

So take a minute today to look at what you’re currently offering. If you don’t have a freebie yet, now’s a great time to create one!

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, online real estate marketing coach, freebie ideas for real estate agents

In addition to gaining extra visibility on Twitter, another way you can use the hashtags you create is by taking advantage of the Wordpress RSS widget on your Wordpress blog. To set this up, go into your Appearance tab, then Widgets. Add an RSS widget to your sidebar. Then visit search.twitter.com and do a search for your hashtag. On the side of the results page is the option to subscribe to the RSS feed for the search results. Copy this link and paste into your new RSS widget, and save. Now, in addition to all the great content you are providing on your blog, you have an extra source of info on the specific topic of that hashtag - whatever the subject may be (buyers tips, sellers tips, local events, whatever!)

Your readers will see that you have lots of great knowledge on all kinds of real estate related subjects. If they’re on Twitter, this might be an extra incentive for them to follow you and start connecting.

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate marketing coach, social media for real estate, Twitter tips, Real Estate Tomato, how to use Twitter hashtags for real estate agents

I am sometimes amazed at how many real estate professionals do not maintain a proper database. I think a lot of people are intimidated by the idea, and are under the impression that managing a database is a full time job in and of itself. Many people never had to bother with it when times were good during the housing boom, and now think it is too late to start. Others may think their past clients don’t want to hear from them. While this may sometimes be true you won’t know unless you try. The bottom line is that as a professional in the real estate industry you should be managing your database regularly.

The truth is that there has never been a better time to be considered a trusted advisor and expert in this industry. People watch the news and know what is going on in the housing market, they are anxious about the economy, and they need to able to go to someone they trust to answer their questions about what is going on. That trustworthy individual should be you. So your database needs to hear from you, now more than ever.

Some ways to continually build up your database is by importing your email contacts into your database, collecting business cards at networking events, adding an email opt-in form on your website, information from visitors to Open Houses, adding all past clients with their new addresses, and adding the information you collect from web contacts. If you find you’re not good at adding their information right away to your database, and worry that you’ll lose it, create an “Inbox” specifically for cards, names and numbers to be added to your Database, then schedule a time every two weeks or every month to go through add add them in.

Below are a few strategies that will help you build and maintain a working database that will yield consistent results:

• Make sure you use it. People often asked what the best database software/system is. The answer is … whichever one you will use consistently. Whether it’s in Excel, Outlook, or a more advanced database like Act! or Top Producer, find one that makes sense to you and that you will use.

• Provide Regular and Valuable Content. If you want people to pay attention to emails or letters when you send them then you must provide value. Reminders to give a copy of your mortgage statement to your accountant at tax time, or refrigerator magnets with sports calendars, etc will actually provide value to your client base after closing. Giving a closing gift that has a long shelf life, can be used often, and has your branding is also a good idea (wine opener, address stamper, re-usable “green” grocery bags).

• And finally, keep your database clean! If letters bounce back as undeliverable, try to get an updated address, and if you cannot then remove that person from your database. Same thing with emails, if they bounce back and you cannot get updated contact information then the person should be removed from your database. And lastly, always allow people to opt out of your list (this is especially important with email). Don’t worry about the people that remove themselves from your list - it just means your list has become more targeted, with people more likely to work with you again.

The industry standard for how many prospects you need to produce a transaction is 25 prospects = 1 transaction. NOW is the time to build that up. How many prospects are in your database?

Technorati Tags: Rich Rogala, real estate database tips, real estate marketing coach, lead generation tips