Dude, Blog Your Business!

I discovered Social Median –  - through ecademy.com (more about this in a future post), where I followed a couple of news items that had appeared there. I liked what I saw and so followed it back to the social median website – liked what I saw there and signed up immediately.

It is a great site that provides news feeds from a variety of channels that you choose or that friends in your network ‘filter’ through to you. Check out the introductory video (above) with Sarah Crisman. You can also create your own news and it has great integration tools so that you can share it with other social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

Started in February 2008, one of Social Median’s founders was inspired by their job as a White House staffer where every morning news “clips” of the stories that The White House staff needs to know for the day were presented. The site’s popularity has grown rapidly and is is certainly one to keep your eye on this year!

Technorati is a great site which ‘collects, highlights and distributes’ information put out into the blogosphere. It can help you as a blogger to get found and noticed and provides readers of your Technorati profile a list of the blogs that you are involved in.

Technorati is the leading blog search engine and indexes more than 1.5 million new blog posts in real time. Once a business or non-profit has been blogging for a while they can enhance their blogging profile through Technorati. It is another good tool to get yourself and your blog noticed. To see our profile, click on the following link BlogDudes Technorati Profile

I came across a useful blog post on socialtrenz.com which highlighted a recent survey into the the reasons why companies haven’t yet adopted social media in their marketing strategies. The top reason was ‘lack of knowledge’. This is certainly what we are finding out in the field. However much you tell a group about the benefits of blogging and social media as a marketing tool it is not until we get into a one-to-one situation, where we can both sit down in front of a computer that business owners really understand what it is we are offering.

Some businesses have a vague notion that social media is something they should be doing but don’t know what it is, others have more awareness but don’t realise the intricacies of how to get the most out of social media.

The socialtrenz.com study is “the third in a special six-part research preview series from MarketingSherpa’s 2009 study, Social Media Marketing and PR – Benchmarks and best practices for harnessing the power of the social marketplace“. The book is due out this month and, I would suggest, should be appearing among the marketing books on the bookshelf of any company marketing executives that wish to be in their job in 2010!

And don’t forget, we are here and can get you up and running very quickly – all you have to do is give us a call!

Dave and I and Tom Hinchey  went to the SEVRAR Tech Conference yesterday at the Mesa Convention Center. I have to say it was a great event and well attended – a big thanks to the organisers with a special nod to our friend, Robb Gibbs for putting this event on. We shall definitely exhibit there next year.

This is a game-changing year for the real estate industry and, from what we observed, social media is going to be one of the big new marketing tools for connecting property buyers with property sellers. The two speakers we saw had some useful insights into the emerging trends of technology use in the real estate industry. The first, John Peckham (pictured above) of the Real Estate CyberSpace Society   documented the progression of technology use from the days of the typewriter and provided two great quotes which are worth sharing and are relevant to any business -

“Without promotion something terrible happens – nothing“. PT Barnum

and

“The principle mark of genius isn’t perfection but originality” Steve Jobs, Founder of Apple

Social media, and video blogging in particular, especially for the real estate industry can answer the needs of both those quotes.

The second speaker we saw was Jay Thompson – the PhoenixRealEstateGuy  - who has probably the best know blog in real estate circles, especially in Phoenix. He gave a superb insight into what blogging can do for a business but also highlighted the commitment that it takes. Indeed, it can do – but for those who want someone to do it all for them, or at least would like a nicely designed blog and the tuition to get them going, there is Dude Blog Your Business.

Like we say – customers buy more from people they know, we help your customers get to know you.

We have a particular plan for real estate blogs, one we would be happy to share with any real estate companies that are interested in finding out more.