online tools
5 Tips for Better Video Engagement
5 Tips for Better Video Engagement
Video hosting and marketing experts at Wistia.com recently released this informative article on how to get your video viewers to take action after viewing a video. While you may think it’s logical that someone who’s watched a listing video or virtual tour of your home will naturally pick up the phone or fill out a form to contact you, the addition of specific calls to action can have a dramatic increase in the effectiveness of your video marketing.
We encourage you to read the entire article, but if you’d just like the highlights, here are the top five tips for driving engagement with your videos:
1. Include a clickable link at the end of your video.
2. Offer some incentive for video viewers only.
3. Ask for (and listen to) viewer feedback with comment forms.
4. Link to more information sources from the video (downloadable PDF flyers, MLS info, blog posts about the neighborhood, etc.)
5. Encourage people to share the videos with social networking widgets (for Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
Read the entire article online here:
How To Get Viewers to Engage and Convert With Your Online Video
http://wistia.com/blog/how-to-get-viewers-to-engage-and-convert-with-your-online-video/
online tools
So What’s the Walk Score?
November 20, 2011 by Scott · Leave a Comment
So What’s the “Walk Score?”
Walkscore.com is a useful tool which allows you to determine the “walkability” of any address. By entering in an address, you can instantly find out how well a particular property scores in terms of shopping, dining, schools, basic needs, and more.
From the website: “Walk Score’s mission is to promote walkable neighborhoods. Walkable neighborhoods are one of the simplest and best solutions for the environment, our health, and our economy.”
Use of your listing’s Walkscore can enhance the value of the property. Walkscore offers the following points for discussing Walkscores with your clients. A home’s Walk Score is important because:
- Walkability and public transit are associated with higher home values
- Transportation costs are the 2nd largest household expense
- Commute time and places to walk are two of the most important criteria for home shoppers
- A home’s location (location efficiency) is often more important than the building’s energy efficiency
For extensive information on how real estate agents can leverage Walkscore, check out this guide provided by the company. It just might provide you with an additional marketing edge in your community:
http://www.walkscore.com/professional/real-estate-professionals.php
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Workflowy.com: Organize Your Brain
August 25, 2011 by Scott · Leave a Comment
What if you could manage your life in one to-do list?
WorkFlowy.com is perhaps the simplest and most intuitive “to do” list manager we’ve ever come across. If you have multiple projects you’re juggling (like multiple listings, for example), and you want an easy, fast way to track outstanding issues, questions, and “open loops” that are floating around in your brain and need to get organized on paper, WorkFlowy.com is the way to go.
With a completely free account, you can begin organizing all of the thoughts floating around your brain in no time flat. Be sure to watch the introduction video before you sign up, and then check out the “how to use” video after you’ve opened your free account.
WorkFlowy works directly in your web browser. All lists you create can be simply exported and saved on your computer. Bravo to this San Francisco tech team for making such a useful, free tool!
Try it out:
http://www.WorkFlowy.com
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[If you join My Real Helper, you can easily manage your action plans using Workflowy!]
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Please be sure to visit us at: www.OakleySign.com
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Use This Magic Word When Googling for Tech Support
August 11, 2011 by Scott · Leave a Comment
Adding one word to your Google searches will help find solutions faster.
The next time you’re pulling your hair out over a technical support issue, you might want to try this simple trick to help you find real answers to the problem you’re experiencing:
Add “solved” to your search query. Rather than just describe your problem, i.e. “Outlook won’t sync to my Droid smartphone,” try adding +SOLVED to the end of the search. Many tech support message boards use “[SOLVED]” to close threads on technical support issues.
One other trick is to use ~solved instead of +solved. Using the “~” (the tilde) tells Google to not only look for “solved,” but also synonyms for solved, such as “fixed,” “resolved,” etc.
Getting great results from Google is usually a matter of writing better queries. Here’s a helpful article on ways to improve your search skills, straight from Google:
http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=136861
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[This productivity tip provided courtesy of My Real Helper.]
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Please be sure to visit us at: www.OakleySign.com
online tools
Backup Real Estate Files with Amazon Cloud Drive
April 12, 2011 by Scott · Leave a Comment
Get 5GB of Free Online Storage
Backup important files, music, and more with Amazon.com dependability
Amazon.com recently launched Amazon CloudDrive, a service which allows you to backup files as well as stream digital music from any web-connected computer.
Right now, anyone can register and receive a free 5GB account at no charge. (5GB holds roughly 1000 songs.) But there’s no reason you have to use the free space for songs. If you have photos, documents, or other “can’t do without” files, Amazon’s free 5GB of CloudDrive is a great place to back them up.
(As a bonus, if you happen to purchase an MP3 album from Amazon, they’ll give you 20GB of storage free for one year.)
Amazon has famously stable and secure storage, and even their paid plans are extremely affordable. While we love competing services such as Dropbox.com, Amazon’s CloudDrive is actually 58% cheaper (when comparing 50GB plan).
To get your free 5GB account and learn more, visit:
https://www.amazon.com/clouddrive/learnmore
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Syndicate your real estate videos
July 12, 2010 by jwhite · Leave a Comment
Tech Tip: TubeMogul.com
Syndicate your real estate videos more effectively.
If you’re using video to market yourself and your properties, smart move! Did you know there’s an effective, free way to better syndicate your videos online? TubeMogul.com can help get your videos a wider audience, and most importantly, tell you more about how those videos are being viewed.
From their website:
“TubeMogul OneLoad is a free service that provides a single point for deploying videos to the top video and social networking sites. OneLoad distribution is accompanied by our powerful analytics showing you who, what and where videos are being viewed. In addition, TubeMogul’s InPlay(R) analytics (for supported sites), provide the most advanced suite of video analytics on the market. See real-time viewership, audience engagement, geographic tracking, stream quality and much more for your videos.”
Consider distributing your home tours, neighborhood profiles, and “main street business videos” (short clips which feature those small businesses which make your town unique) with TubeMogul. It’s also a great way to let clients know you’re going the extra mile to market their listing.
Learn more and take a test drive with a free account here:
http://www.tubemogul.com/
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Free Photos for Your Website
July 8, 2010 by jwhite · 2 Comments
How to Find and Use Free Photos For Your Blog…
And Not Get Sued!
Free and legal photos…
You may or may not realize it, but just because a photo is on the Internet doesn’t mean you can use it for free on your own blog. In fact, if you use a copyrighted photo illegally, you could be facing an expensive lawsuit.
So where can you get free photos? Believe it or not, there are lots of photographers out there who want to share their photos with you. All you have to do is know where to find them and what the rules are for using their photos.
Flickr.com, a massive photo-sharing site, allows you to search for photos which have special usage rights under the provisions of the Creative Commons License. This means you can search for images which will not only fit your topic, but will also be free to share. Check out the information available on Flickr’s “Creative Commons” page:
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
Also, here’s a tutorial which shows you how to search Google Images and find free images you can use:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-rZ8D1lqg0
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Using RSS Feeds
July 2, 2010 by jwhite · Leave a Comment
How to Use RSS Feeds to Save Time & Learn Faster
Stay current on your favorite websites in half the time…
Ever wonder how some people manage to keep up with dozens of news, industry, and entertainment websites? The answer is simple: They follow their favorite websites using RSS feeds.
RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” It’s a standardized format that allows people to automatically syndicate website content. Rather than going out on the web to check in on your most frequently visited websites, you can have that content pushed to you in one convenient, easy-to-read spot.
The following videos will show you how RSS works and how you can start taking advantage of it today:
How RSS Works:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU
What is Google Reader?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSPZ2Uu_X3Y
You should add Free Help for Real Estate Agents to your RSS reader. Once you have a Google Reader account, subscribe to our RSS feed:
http://www.freehelpforrealestateagents.com/feed/rss/
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Open House Mobile Application
Foursquare: Useful Open House Tool?
Could this game-like mobile app drive more people to your open house?
File under cutting edge: Foursquare.com is a mobile app that encourages people to connect people and help them explore their city. Foursquare allows users to “check in” to physical locations (bars, restaurants, shops and other points of interest) via their mobile devices to earn virtual — and sometimes real — prizes. Check-ins can earn you points of pride in the form of badges and mayorships, and even score you deals at some of your favorite businesses.
A creative real estate marketer should see opportunities to use this app to not only drive more traffic to their open houses, but also expand the number of friends and past clients they connect with on casual/social business “meet ups” on weekends. Offering incentives for “check ins” might just be a great way to connect with young, tech-savvy buyers.
To learn more about how Foursquare works for businesses, check out this page:
http://foursquare.com/businesses/
Even if you think Foursquare may be a little “out there” for your real estate business, you might it’s another great network you can use to get your name out in the community. It doesn’t get much more hyperlocal than this!
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Special Live Chat Offer
May 11, 2010 by jwhite · Leave a Comment
Convert More Web Leads: Alive Chat!
Get personal in real-time on your website and close more deals.
Out of all the upgrades you can do to your site to capture more qualified leads, none are as effective as adding a live chat option to your site. With a single click, Alive Chat allows your visitors to personally interact with you– no delay, no email delivery problems, no hassle.
Alive Chat benefits include:
- Instant human interaction means you can immediately answer questions
- Turn “visits” into live leads; catch them before they browse off
- Studies show Alive Chat is used before, during, and after the sale, making it a convenient client relationship management tool
- By requiring an email address to start a chat session, you can build your email contact list easily through Alive Chat
- Efficiency: Unlike the phone, Alive Chat lets you chat with more than once contact simultaneously
Alive Chat is the very system Oakley Signs & Graphics uses to answer questions on our website, so we know from hands-on experience that it is one of the best options available. It also includes a free 10-day trial, so you can see for yourself if it fits your style.
EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT FOR TUESDAY TACTICS READERS:
Right now when you use promo code TT50, you’ll instantly receive 50% off any Alive Chat subscription! (Please note: Oakley Signs & Graphics does not receive a commission or advertising fee for recommending this service.)
Sign up at http://www.websitealive.com
You’ll be chatting with visitors and closing leads before you know it.
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