Well for your website it’s starts with a game plan and we thought you could use this little diagram to get you started.

Is there something we missed? Add your comment below we loved to hear from you! Click the thumbnail for the full size image.

This is for all the Realtors out there that want to take thier business to a whole new level.

Rules are the same as last time.

1. Add comment below with your Twitter ID

2. Make sure to tell people why they should follow you.

That’s it!

Goodluck and here’s to next year being a huge success!

But we know better, in fact twitter passes us information, news and friendship from across the world keeping people in touch at all times. I’ll admit I was skeptic and it took me much longer than I care to admit to finally get on board. But I’m a convert, evangelical in nature even.

But my conversion can be attributed to those who make the effort to provide real value out to the twitterverse. That’s what this post is all about, paying homage to those I respect and follow.

1. From http://www.hubspot.com.
@mvolpe and @Karenrubin - Because of Hubspot.tv and the fact that these two use twitter to answer question during the show. They also showed me the benefit of binding Social Media, SEO and Web marketing together for best benefits.

Also, special shout out to @ellieeille for her excellent linking and great sense of humour.

2. From http://jimsmarketingblog.com @Jimconnolly for his constant support to the community. His blog is fantastic! A good example is this post here. He answer direct messages and replies with thought, and tells the truth about what he thinks when you ask his opinion.

3. @joelrunner he was one of the first to actual follow and retweet one of my post. I don’t think people realize how excited a person gets when they see something they spent time and energy on get reposted. I’m know that many of my leads came from his first retweet. Not sure how I’ll repay the favour, since he never wants anything in return. You can find his blog at: http://activerain.com/blogs/joelrunner

4. @BeeRealty if you choose to follow anyone follow this Lady, she’s amazingly funny, tweets about all sorts of things, and must cause me to follow have a dozen new people each day just to find how she even got on a subject. I’m pretty sure she’s the reason Twitter exist. Her website is: http://BeeRealty.com

There’s more, and I’ll add them in another post down the road. But I promise you if you start to follow these people you’ll get what Twitter is about, and you’ll see why I’m convert now.

What or who caused you to be a twitter addict?

I’m giving away a brand new copy of “The Emyth Revisited” by Michael E. Gerber.

Anyone one who wants to grow their business yet free up your own time to enjoy your life needs this book.

That leaves only one question, how do you win.  Well you made it here so that’s a good start.

The next part is just as easy, submit a comment below, be sure to include your twitter name.

If you’re feeling really generous, retweet the contest out to the Twitterverse, be sure to include @tlyons in the tweet so I see it and I’ll give you 5 extra chances to win.

Be sure to follow me on twitter, that’s how I will announce the twinner(tweet winner), on Friday, December 18, 08.

Make sure to include your twitter address in your comment below and in 140 characters or less, tell other what you do and why they should follow you.

Goodluck and let’s have some fun Tweeple!

UPDATE:  Congratulations to Dave Blockhus,  @losaltoshomes

Winner of “The Emyth Revisited”

Well they’re right.  The IPhone, Blackberry, Google G1, and every other smart phone is changing everything.  Because if you’re under 40 you’ve probably used your phone to find a local business.  If you’re under 30 you probably used the GPS in your phone to drive to a location.

Are you starting to understand?  I DID NOT USE A PHONE BOOK!!  I used my phone, it’s with me all the time.  It gives me a map of where to drive, sometimes the hours of operation.  It can give me more than one option and perhaps some reviews.

Sure the phone book is good if the power goes out, or your phone is dead, or you’re lost in the desert with no cell reception, a phone book and a payphone.  But beyond that it really serves no purpose.  Do people still use it? Yes, of course they do but let’s face it, the phone is replacing the phonebook.

So what’s the hold up, well, many contractor still don’t have websites.  They don’t know how to get on Google Local and Maps.  These small companies are not Geeks like I am, and although they hardly use the Yellow Pages either, it’s the only way to find them.

Come on people, lets do two things.

1. Let’s make sure we get ourselves listed in Google Local.

It’s easy. Click Here to Sign up for Google Local

Just follow the instructions and you’ll be listed in no time.

2. Everyone one of us has a friend who’s contractor, plumber, accountant, dentist, you get my point.  Get them listed, it will take you five minutes to make it happen.  You’ll help their business, that’s what friends do.  Friends don’t let friends waste resources and money.

No let’s get out there and help the little guy!

I want to hear your thoughts, add your comment below!

My goal is to help others, specifically help Realtors get more from their web presence.  That’s where my sweet spot is, it’s where I feel I can help the most.  I answer a lot of questions, give a lot of free advice, and in the process build relationships and build my business.  I love this approach because at the end of the day, if someone does business with me or not, there is no rejection only the feeling that I provided value.

Well today I saw an opportunity for an organzation, they were not really in my sweet spot, but they were close. I knew that with a little bit of coaching and a plan they would have the perfect material and message for social media.  They had truly valuable information that could help hundreds to thousands of Realtors do better this year.

So my first thought was to reach out and try to help.  I explained how and what soemthing a simply as twitter might do for them, and how they could use it to help more people be more successful this year.  A true win/win in my mind.

I sent off the email not expecting a new client but perhaps a curious dialogue would begin.

Here was the response, I’m going to give it to you word for word.  Hold on to your hat.

“Thanks”

Yep, that’s it.  The response did not even make sense given the email I had written.

Maybe I’m sensitive today, maybe they just did not understand what I was trying to communicate to them.  But my gut feel here is that these guys just don’t get it, they don’t realize the conversation that is going on.  And maybe, just maybe, I was barking up the wrong tree.

Ofcourse, maybe they just don’t see the opportunity, maybe I failed them.

What’s your opinion, do I owe to this company to convince them they are missing the boat?  should I care enough about them because I believe in the product and mission of the company?  Should I simply accept the apathy and move on?

That’s the new world folks, I don’t work for this company yet here I am debating whether it’s my role to make them market themselves better.  I’m not alone out there, people are doing it with bands they love, products they adore and companies can assist these evangalist or risk alienating them.

I’d love to hear your thoughts below, add your two cents.

So now that you know the why, let’s start looking at the how.

Today we only want to do one thing.  Set up our profile in Facebook.  I’m a beleiver that if you can do one small thing each day to move you the direction you want to go, you’ll be amazed how far you get over time.  It’s a tortoise/hare thing.

So that’s what were going to do, start slow, and over time if you stick with me, you’ll go far.

Step 1:  Go to Facebook.com

Step 2: Sign Up for Facebook

Step 3: Confirm your email address.

Step 4: Facebook is about making and keeping connections. The part of the picture we are creating right now is personal side of your Facebook presence.  It’s called your profile, and it’s about the more social friendly side of Facebook.  Which means we need to find some of your friends.

The first stage is checking which of your current friends are on Facebook.  Facebook makes this a little easier by allowing you to scan your current email contacts.  If you’re worried about Facebook having access to your email, you can always skip this step.  There are other ways to find friends.

6. Continue with the steps facebook walks you thorugh to set up your new profile.  Remember to be complete in the information you give, but be yourself as well.  Social media is about authenticity.  If you would be uncomfortable telling something offline, you don’t need to share it online either.

7. Ok let’s head into the profile once it’s set up.

See the photo below.  You’ll notice the arrows point to my status update, it’s one of the key tools of communication in Facebook.  It tells people what you are doing, what’s happening and is your tether to all your friends.  See how Tara’s status has been added to my page.  She’s giving away some concert tickets cool, maybe I’ll comment back or give her a quick call, or email, or txt.  She’s actively found a away to engage me, her friends and customers.  In fact, she gave away her 10 ten tickets in minutes with that post.  Do you think that built customer loyalty?

Ok, we’re going to stop here for now.  We don’t want to get all fancy quite yet.  What I hope you’ll do why you wait for the next post is go out and make some friends, start some conversations and play with it for bit.  A word of caution.  Even though this is your personal face in face book, keep it professional, clients are still interacting with you through this medium.  Don’t go crazy with Apps, use your judgement and take things slow so you can get comfortable.

Don’t hestitate to find me, I’ll be your friend!  And feel free to ask me some questions.

Here’s my Facebook Page. http://www.youhavetom.com You’ll notice it’s a facebook page not a profile, we’ll get to those soon.  Become a fan, and I’ll friend you back.  And of course if you really want to ramp this stuff up, get in touch with me about our “Making You Findable Program”, nothing wrong with a little self promotion.

I mentioned in the past post that Facebook had more than 120 millions users online. I also mentioned that the demographics of Facebook puts the users at a prime home buying age.   So we need to really look carefully at how to use Facebook to improve our business.

First let’s look at current marketing methods and compare them against Social media and the internet in general. I think you’ll start to see why most of us just don’t get it, and why it so hard to pull in business.

Traditionally, as Realtors, our advertising efforts focused on interruption marketing. Send a flyer, run a newspaper ad, start a radio ad campaign. Our goal was to insert our message into the life of a possible client. We threw a really big net hoping some fish would get caught.

Online the rules are different to a degree. We still run ads, such as Google Adwords. But for the most part, our goal on the internet is to have our message appear when a possible client is specifically looking for our services. Such as a Google Search. Our goal became less interruptive (assuming that’s a word). Here we throw a smaller net, but we know where the fish are, so we catch more.

With social media like Facebook, we are part of a community(we are one of the fish), you are like the shy new kid at school, no friends, and with no friends it’s harder to meet someone to make friends. One might ask, what’s the point in going out for recess, I don’t know anyone, I have no one to play with.  We may be swimming with the fish, but we no longer have the net, so we don’t catch any.

But here’s thing, if you don’t go out to play, you will NEVER have a friend. On Facebook, you need play. I don’t mean that literally, I mean you need to join, create a profile, create a page, add some content and then start networking.

I was at a Gala the other night, I know me at Gala, who knew. Anyway, I was at the Gala, my intent was not to do business BUT, as luck would have it, someone asked me what I do, I told them, they said call me this week we need you. Boom, new client, of course it was a little more involved, I gave him a ton of free advice, I asked him about his business and what he currently did on the internet, etc.   I was swimming with the fish, and he came to me.  I didn’t need the net to catch him.  If I have enough fish swimming with me, I’ll NEVER need a net.  Starting to get it!  It’s about surrounding yourself with enough people and providing value to them that when they need your service they are already your customer.

What’s my point, well, I went to an event, not to network, not to get business, but because of the nature of the event I did network and did get business. One of his questions to me was, I don’t get this Facebook thing, what’s the point of social networking if you’re not doing it for business. Hmmm, I don’t know, but I paid $125 bucks to attend a non business social event, what was the point of that?  Fun, networking, good food, charity, all of the above.  Oh and despite the fact I was actively not trying to do business I did anyway.

So my first piece of advice in this article is this:

Get on Facebook, start a profile, and start networking. The same way you would in the real world. Start a conversation, ask some questions. It’s a big Gala event with 120 million people attending, the stats say 1 in 12 people are looking to buy or sell a home. That means 10 million people on Facebook are actively searching for a Realtor. Too bad you didn’t introduce yourself already.

In the next post, I’ll talk more about specifics. The Actions you need to take, but for now, get your profile started.

And go to http://www.hubspot.com/archive/facebook-for-business/

Hubspot posted their webinar on Facebook for Business and the slide show is available for download in PDF.  It will give you a headstart in the coming posts.

Also, become a Fan of my Facebook business page.  I’d love to get to know you.

Don’t forget to follow me on Twitter!

On days like this I find myself reading tons of posts, viewing new websites related to marketing, reviewing my friendfeed and twitter accounts. I’m looking to find a loose concept that combined with massive amounts of scanned information starts to form a trend.

It’s sort of like looking at one of those cool pictures you can’t see until you defocus your eyes, then the picture is clear. My minds already defocused, so I use that to find trends in the global conscience we call the web.

Of course, one of our biggest trends is social networking, whether it be in MySpace, Facebook, Linked In, Active Rain, Twitter, Digg, Reddit, Friendfeed, etc, etc, etc…..

We’re looking at a new paradigm shift. The concept of how we do business is changing, and like the frog in slowly heating water, we don’t even know we’re about to be cooked.

Facebook has 120 million users! Consider that, one hundred twenty million users. That’s bigger than many countries, and even Facebook can’t figure out a good way to make money from it.

And here you are, the Realtor, looking at this massive collection of sellers and buyers. In fact, over 75% of Facebook users are over the age of 25, 70% have household income over $50K and 65% have college or higher education.(stats provided by Quantcast.com and Google Insights). So what do you, that’s only one social network.

Well let’s start looking at what you could do.

1. Get you profile address on your business card. Sure you have your website, email, phone number, maybe even your cell number. You be da contact master! Whatever. Get your profile address on there for all your main social networks. That’s the point of a network, and they won’t find you if you don’t tell them where you are.

Besides what a great conversation started, “Here’s my card, you can reach me on facebook, twitter, my website, email, by phone, are you on facebook?” Boom, another contact, networked and ready for a relationship with you.  I’m not telling you to assault people, it has to be natural, but the business card can help to lead into a further discussion.

There’s a great article about this over at the The Future of Real Estate Marketing

2. Start networking online.

If you use Twitter, start following people. Make friends on Facebook in your area.

3. Blend the two worlds.

Daniel(at The Real Estate Zebra) is starting to introduce clients to social networks with client seminars. By being their guide he’s the top of their network, building trust and friendships long before they are looking for a Realtor and also being a central hub for all their networks too. He has a great post here at: Realestatezebra.com.

4. Learn to engage your customer without offending.

The below video was held by Dustin Luther, Jeff Turner and Rudy Bachraty at the 2008 National Association of Realtors. I need to give credit the RealEstateZebra.com for the original find on this one.

5. Use the right network for the right purpose.

Place photos on Flickr, communicate with Twitter, build relationships and networks with Facebook.

This is just a start, and we’re getting pretty long here. So we’re going to call this post a wrap. But there will be more to come.

What are you comments for best practices in the Social Network world.

By the way you can follow me on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/tlyons

In the past, your postion using Google Adwords was based on the price you paid and how many people clicked on your ad.

Over time the score started to include the context of the title to the page it linked to, context of the words within the ad itself, etc.

The latest change includes how the clickthrough rate affect the position of the ad.  The issue was based on the fact that a higher placed ad naturally gets a higher clickthrough rates, giving it a higher quality score.  A self feeding cycle, higher clickthrough, higher ranking, higher clickthrough.

Google is going to take the higher clickthrough from position out of the equation, I’m sure with some very techinical and complicated math the Google PhD’s can come up with.

Gogole will also be putting more ads at the top of each page, this really is nothing new, we’ve seen this increase over the years anyway.  However, the blend of natural to paid searches in the average consumers eye will be less distinct with the ads at the top.  Possibly making adwords a better option for adversting than it was before.