Dude, Blog Your Business!

A few weeks ago Tom and I did an impromptu interactive social media seminar at the 3000 Club Friday networking meeting.  It went so well that we decided to get together with our friend, Christine Springer, an expert and teacher on all things  LinkedIn, and create a seminar series on social media.

The first of that series – ‘Social Media Idol‘ starts on April 20th. Jasper is the seminars’ Simon Cowell character and the event and series have been designed to be interactive – in other words, you do all the work and we stand there and give our critique!  Only kidding –  don’t worry, Jasper isn’t nearly as harsh as Simon Cowell can be!  This first seminar is based on the premise that you need to know what the job is before you choose which tools you are going to use, and covers lots of interesting subjects like ‘purple cows‘, ‘buyer personas‘,  ’inbound marketing‘ and Web 2.0! 

This first seminar provides the groundwork for the later seminars in which we look at some of the specific tools of social media, such as Blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook, and Video Blogging – yes, even the video blogging will be interactive!  

Join Christine, Tom Hinchey and myself on Monday, April 20th OR Monday, April 27th from 6:00 – 8:00 p.m. at Catch 22 Sports Grill in Phoenix . (Food and drink specials will be available!) The cost is $34 in advance for the initial seminar – register here or at Christine’s site  www.LinkForSuccess.com.

Tom and I managed to high-tail it back from our regular Friday 3000 Club networking meeting in time to see a very good webinar by Mike Volpe of Hubspot and David Meerman Scott, Viral Marketing Strategist and author of the forthcoming book ‘World Wide Rave‘.  Viral Marketing is the holy grail of online marketing – “creating triggers that will get millions of other people to share your story and ideas”- without coercion – and without “the tyranny of having to spend money”.  

Viral marketing is very much what Dude Blog Your Business and Hinchey Studios are currently working on for a new client – watch this space.  Video, Tom Hinchey’s province, is very much the medium for viral marketing, and blogs are the platform that allows those videos to be shared and talked about.  The combination of the two things together is powerful enough, but add a touch of humor and creativity and we might just come up with something that people will be raving about.

Suitably inspired, I have put my pre-order in on Amazon for World Wide Rave, by David Meerman Scott. The book is due out on March 3rd and is published by John Wiley and Sons. I then twittered the fact and shortly after David Meerman Scott started following our Twitter! How cool is that!

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.

Last week Tom Hinchey and I spent some time putting together a short video for a presentation, showing people that video blogging can be relatively easy, inexpensive, and fun! With just a few simple tips and tricks most people can video blog for themselves. And that is what blogging is about – being empowered to do your own marketing in an inexpensive, professional and effective way. What we want to do is provide businesses and non-profits with a high quality vehicle that will get them noticed, draw people in, and put them on the cutting edge of online marketing. Then it is up to them how much input they need from us in order to maintain the blog. This five minute video provides a foretaste of what we are planning in the near future. Part of the video blogging package that we will be providing is a more extensive ‘How to Shoot Quality Video for Video Blogs’ DVD, to give our clients all the help they need to maintain their own blogs. For anyone interested in improving their own home videos the DVD will also be available for ordering online through both our blogs in the new year.