Real Estate Solutions

Who Should I Host My Blog With? | Real Estate Blog Pro

I get this question a LOT – Who should I host my blog with?

The problem with WordPress hosting (or hosting in general) may be there are just too many options to chose from. Sometimes I wish there were just two to three web hosting companies, not 500 million. OK, there probably aren’t 500 million web hosts out there. But there are MANY and as with any service, there are great hosts and lousy hosts.

First let’s look at types of hosting.

via realestateblogpro.com

Good information shared by Jay Thompson — otherwise known in the real estate blog space as The Phoenix Real Estate Guy  -  Linda Davis

My iPad Dozen

You woke up on Christmas morning to find an iPad under the tree.  Now what?  There are over 50,000 apps to choose from, so what’s a girl (or guy) to do.  In the last two weeks I’ve had several lucky new iPad owners ask me if I had a  list of favorite apps and I promised I’d send them an email with my list.  I know my promise sounded reminiscent of “the check is in the mail” but I was determined not to let them down.  Rather than send an email to a few individuals, I decided to put together my Top 12 and share it here, in no particular order.

I’m hoping some of you will comment with your favorite apps because I’ve only named a dozen.

1.  If you like to read, then the Kindle app is a no brainer.  Keep it along side the Amazon app and you’ll never get stuck again on a trip or in the dentist’s office without something to read.  You might even find you enjoy waiting in airports.

2. Even though I didn’t put this list in order, DropBox is certainly in my top three.  “Dropbox is the easiest way to sync and share your files online and across computers.” Since I’ve gone paperless, I carry my iPad to closings and with Dropbox, I can open any of my files  right at the closing table.  Need a copy of something? I just email it from my IPAD to the closing attorney or paralegal.

3.  The Google App is an obvious choice. No, not as a search engine but for the whole suite of products including GMAIL, Calendar and Documents.  I use them all and share the Calendar and Documents with my assistant.  With Google Docs, we can easily collaborate on a “to-do” list or project.

4.  I only have one game on my IPad and that’s Scrabble.  What I enjoy most is playing against friends through Facebook.  I have successfully avoided the temptation of Angry Birds.  I hear it is addicting.

5.  I’ve tried out all sorts of task managers but I’ve found Things for iPad to be just right for me, whether for keeping a simple to-do list or to organize long term projects. I really really like this app.  I’m thinking top 3 again here.

6.  Flipboard is hard to describe so I’ll let iTunes do it for me:  “Named Apple's iPad App of the Year and one of TIME's top 50 innovations of 2010, Flipboard is a fast, beautiful way to flip through the news, photos and updates your friends are sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Google Reader and Flickr. See your social media in a magazine layout that is easy to scan and fun to read.”

7.  Despite using Flipboard, HootSuite is my app of choice as a social media tool for Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare. The best part:  you can schedule your updates!  Hoot!  Hoot!

8.  There are lots of real estate related apps but my favorite is Zillow.  I love the ability to do a neighborhood search from my car.  It does so many cool things that I’ve included their Zillow on iPad video below.

 

9.  The most expensive app on my iPad is LogMeIn Ignition but at $29,95, it is worth every penny. It gives me the ability to access my desk top computer from my iPad.  How awesome is that?

10.  I’m a weather nut.  I have eight weather apps on my iPhone  but my favorite hands down is The Weather Channel. Besides the typical weather stuff, you can watch local and national weather forecast videos and get real-time Twitter feeds from the Weather Channel hosts.

11.  Reeder is my RSS reader of choice. I like the way it organizes.  Gizmodo describes it as “RSS with attention to detail.”  Can’t say it any better.

12.  I admit I have several photo apps on my IPAD.  My favorite is Adobe Photoshop Express.  You don’t need to be a Photoshop expert to use this simple to use app.

Personally I like Apps better than shoes and almost as much as jewelry.  My favorite place to find new apps is an app itself called AppAdvice.  That would be number 13 but I can’t help myself.

Facebook for Real Estate

The lesson: spend your time coming up with better ideas, not with more (faux) followers.

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Since I wrote the post My Facebook Experiment, I've jumped to over 1100 fans. Instead of inviting (faux) followers, I've followed Seth Godin's advice and provided good content. It works.

Facebook Resources

There is no question that Facebook is my favorite social networking site. Sure, I play on the rest, but Facebook is where I’ve been best able to engage real people in my community. Without ever sending out an invitation, I was able to go from 12 fans to over 1000 in just a few weeks.My best advice about creating a Facebook Page?  Provide good content.

You’ll find the technology you need to get started by visiting the links below:

Facebook Resource List.

Mashable’s Guidebook 

Building Your First Page 

All Facebook  

Inside Facebook 

Custom Facebook Pages

My Facebook Experiment

The goal shouldn't be to have a lot of people to yell at, the goal probably should be to have a lot of people who choose to listen. ……..Seth Godin

I admit I came to the realization that I needed a Facebook Page pretty reluctantly. In fact, you might say I started a page kicking and screaming. I was really sick of getting those “Rebecca Maloney suggested you become a fan of Rebecca Maloney” messages. Or worse yet, “Jon Kelley suggested you become a fan of South Park Subdivision in Birmingham, NY.”  I mean, why would I want to do that?

After listening to Mike Mueller at a number of events mention that Facebook rules prohibit using a personal profile for commercial gain, I became convinced. Mike helped me set up some tabs and I created both a Ledyard CT Real Estate Page and a plain Ledyard CT Page which has no real estate references. It was a bit of an experiment.

I invited a few (less than 10) friends to my real estate page to get started but pretty much ignored the simple Ledyard page for several months.

Ledyard CT is a small (less than 15,000 population) town in Eastern CT. There aren’t many Ledyard folks twittering and that was where I was spending most of my time. An event in town changed my thinking. Like many towns, Ledyard is facing some severe budget issues. The school system was looking at some reorganization and parents took notice. They created a Page on Facebook called Ledyard Residents for a Common Sense Budget and it quickly grew to over 200 fans. I had no idea that so many people in town were on Facebook and many of them were past customers or people I knew. I soon became Facebook Friends with many of them and began to engage by talking about anything but real estate.

Most importantly, starting about 3 weeks ago, I began contributing some good content on my Ledyard CT Page. Today as I write this, I have over 250 friends on my Ledyard CT Page and most of them are town residents, not real estate agents, like most agent fan pages I see. I could have easily sent out a mass invite, “Linda Davis suggests you become a fan of Ledyard CT” and had 1000 fans, most of them other agents. That wouldn’t be me. I’m building my page one relationship at a time.

How social do we have to be?

By Linda Davis with Bob Carney

Social Networking has been around awhile but it seems in 2007 it all got kind of crazy. Invitations arrived in my inbox at a hectic pass and my Catholic upbringing took over.  I felt guilty if I didn’t accept someone’s invitation; I wasn’t raised to be rude or hurt someone’s feelings.  Then the Facebook crowd started throwing sheep and poking and writing on my fun wall.  I had a fun wall?? 

My friend, Bob Carney from Frederick, MD experienced the same social networking stress and decided to do something about it:

"I have been totally overwhelmed by the amount of the social network invites that I received lately. There is no way you can actively participate on all of these networks, be effective and actually get work outside of the internet done. I have never had the time to really just work one and create an actual plan to make it effective. It seems that I have just been following the flock to the next new network. So, as part of my 2008 New Year’s resolution…manage the social networks, before they get the better part of me."

Read more about Bob’s idea to tame the social networking beast in his blog post Social Network Tips and Networking Plan.

Bob Carney is a very smart real estate agent in Frederick, MD. You can find more of him at Focus on Frederick and at Bob’s Brain Dump.  I’ve asked Bob to stop by and dump on us periodically.