I am heading for San Diego for the National Association of Realtors convention for the next few days.  I hate packing for any kind of trip, but the final rush to pack the right clothes, the mandatory cool kid accessories (Moo and Moleskine), the various chargers, batteries, music, spare glasses, etc., etc., usually ends about 2 minutes before I have to get in the car for the airport.  When I unpack at the destination there is always some critical item, like all my shirts, that has been forgotten.  And, as if by divine design, my business always reaches it’s annual crescendo the day before I have to leave town.

Gonna see the folks I dig……
Joni Mitchell – California

I am looking forward to meeting with some of the thought leaders of the real estate business and some great friends, via  a real estate BarCamp, and various forums and presentations at the convention itself.  But the best ideas are usually shared at tweet-ups, cocktail hour, and other informal settings.  Some of those folks I only know through from social networking, but past experience tells me that it will be like old friends getting together.

I’ll keep you posted  here and on Memphis Real Estate Buzz, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc.

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Every once in a while you get a new Twitter follower who makes you think about the whole Twitter numbers game:  Followers, Influence, C(K)lout, Lists, etc.  There seems to be more and more emphasis put on metrics than content and participation in the community.  Here’s an example of a new follower:

44,000+ followers, listed on 37 lists, and  8 tweets (not indexed on Klout – Twitter.grader score 99.3).  IMHO, there is more to social media than accumulating friends, followers, and connections, but those numbers seem to beget more numbers.  I always take the profile or bio that mentions Twitter followers  or Facebook friends with a grain of salt.

There will always be ways to game the system.  I could make 100 twitter lists and put you on each of them, and, Shazam, you would “listed” 100 times, ratcheting up your clout and influence scores.  Go ahead and try it.  Lots of folks are already doing it.

I would like to hear about your favorite Twitter metrics tools, why and how you use them.

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Spring Forward – Fall Back

Most of us in the USA revert back to Standard Time on Sunday Morning, November 1.  Set your time keeping devices back one hour before you go to bed Saturday night if they don’t take care of it themselves.

This is also a great time to change the batteries in ALL the smoke detectors in your home.

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I think the very first sales aphorism I remember is “Sell the sizzle, not the steak”.  That sales instructor explained that people buy benefits, not products, and that a good sales person always stresses how his/her product will solve a problem, be it by eliminating pain or inducing pleasure – the  Sizzle.

Yesterday, I was rather shocked to get a phone call from an out of town sales lead who wanted a relocation package – you know, a folder of interesting printed information, maps, brocures, coupons, etc. about the Memphis area.  Well, if your company does not have a relocation department, they are were a pain to put together, cost a lot to ship, and generally did not result in any business.  I think many students order them to research their geography projects.  So I stopped using them over a year ago, offering links to virtually everything Memphis.  I can understand the tactile gratification of holding  a lot of printed material in your hands, but my prospects seem quite happy researching for themselves online.  As it turned out, this person had no concept of searching online, and hopefully, the .pdfs I sent were helpful.

That type of customer is very rare these days.  Most new customers come to me knowing as much as or more than I do about the macro and micro aspects of this market.  They have found the steak, eaten it, and now are looking for someone for some after-dinner talk.  And that’s Sizzle 2.0.

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[Note: I invited Sheila Hensley, a social media newbie to post here for some perspective. I think those of us who are immersed in the new media and active in that community are often not clear about why we do it when we are communicating with those who don't. Sheila's post brings up some interesting issues for veterans and newbies. Find Sheila's original post on her blog here - JS]

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I just paid the $30 to upgrade Animoto .  That allows the user to include (what appears to be) an unlimited number of images included in the video. Unpaid users are limited to 8-15 images for about 30 seconds of video/slideshow.

You don’t have to watch this video. I just wanted to test the Animoto capabilities, so for this demo, I took all 182 images from our wedding and wedding party, added a long piece of jazz music, and ended up with a 9 minute slideshow.  Probably way to many images and too much movement, but just wanted to test the capabilities.

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I thought of Ghandi’s 7 Social (spiritual, deadly) Sins In the wake of what seems to be an endless number of Twitter posts of great quotations less than 140 characters.  I have heard this list since i was in high school, and in some quick research found that the reference to the exact list and explanation is a little vague.  Probably the best attribution is from the Mahatma Ghandi Information Website to Ghandi’s English language tabloid Young India, which stopped publication in 1922, but the site’s date for the list  is 1925, and calls it  7 Social Sins instead of the spiritual or deadly adjectives we often see.

All 7 are still relevant  in our Web 2.0 world.

Ghandi’s Nephew, Arun, later added number 8

• Rights Without Responsibility

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I am little more than a rank beginner in WordPress, but like so many others, once I tried this popular blogging platform, I was hooked. WordPress plug-ins make the blogger’s life a lot easier, and developers are coming up with new ones all the time.  Of the hundreds of plug-ins I have checked out, and the scores I have in use, these are my favorites.  You can find them in the search for Dashboard|Plugins |Add New – just search the names and install directly from the “Install Plugins page”. See the video for visuals.  That is the easiest way to install.  Links below lead to plug-in info or development sites.

Apture allows you to add contextual images, links, maps, music, news, video and other media on the fly as you write your post.  2 Icons in the toolbar of your WYSIWYG editor let you find material to either link or imbed in your post.  The resources are comprehensive, and differentiate between copyrighted and permitted use material. [I used Apture to find and add media to this post]

Easy Adsense –Looking to monetize your blog?  Easy Adsense allows you to paste the ads you create in Adsense into the admin panel, choose where you want the ads to appear (location within the post, on pages, in widgets, etc.) and never have to think of them again until you want to change the parameters

Google Analyticator – If you use Google analytics, this plug-in adds a new dimension.  One very cool feature is that you can see stats for your blog on the blog’s dashboard when you sign in.

Lifestream – Lifestream for business, for your friends, or as a dynamic newsletter.  The lifestream plugin draws from your activities in any of your social media accounts that you choose to display, so the output might be very personal, very business-like or a mixture.  One very simple piece of code lets you make a Lifestream page.  You can also publish your Lifestream as a RSS feed and publish a daily or weekly summary as a blog post – a great substitute for an e-newsletter.

What Would Seth Godin Do- Worth clicking the link to see an explanation of how this plug-in came to be.   Options allow you to automatically add a small note at the beginning or end of a post to thank new visitors to your site.  There is a separate option to thank and engage returning visitors. [see the box at the bottom of this post]

Yet another Related Posts Plug-in -  Ever wondered how much trouble it was to note related posts, even old ones at the end of a blog post?  It’s incredibly easy with YARPP… after a little setup, the plug-in recognizes categories, content and keywords, weighs them and finds similar posts which are automatically linked below the current post.

I have some more favorites I will share in future posts.  Any suggestions?

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Recently I attended a brainstorming session sponsored by a local business to help the decision maker decide how to move forward with the organization’s implementation of Social Media.  The decision maker had little more that a conversational grasp of Twitter, Facebook, etc, and there he was at the table with the local SM literati. A conversation like that can quickly get esoterically out of hand, especially for those decision makers who are at the “you know something is happening but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones?” stage.

This video will first have you ROTFL;  but you will go back and listen to the words and message again. Caution: Strong Language!

It seems that everyone who can figure out how to open a Facebook account or do a few Tweets is a social media expert these days, and if they want to bill at a higher rate, they are gurus.  Almost everyone  seems to be jumping on the bandwagon that’s running down the yellow brick road to a gold mine. It’s easy to jump on the bandwagon, but it takes a little more effort to book passage on the Cluetrain.

I am not criticizing Social Media consulting – I really believe that the Integration of Social Media into PR , Marketing and Advertising is vital to business. The question is which thought leader do you follow? I oftenre-read and  link to Geoff Livingston and Beth Harte’s Top 25 ways to tell if your social media expert is a carpetbagger.

There has been an interesting conversation on the RE.net about the “most influential” social media users in the real estate business. Wow, the “gurus” make lists of top Tweeters. The analysts make lists based on statistical data, and now Inman News is having a popularity contest (Oh please vote for me so my ego won’t be bruised any more than it has already been by not being included on the other lists). The big question is Who Cares?  Are there really no better ways of measuring credibility and competence than inclusion on a list?  If I were hiring a SM guru, or reading his/her posts, or considering buying his/her books, or advising a client on how to make the choice, I would refer back to Livingston and Harte’s 25 ways and other posts along the same theme, like this one from Terry Ellwood or this one I wrote a while back.

Now, write me a check for 5000 Euros and I will say adios.

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1. 3 Must-Read books for social media marketers

When I read this article in the Memphis Business Journal, a few days ago, I didn’t realize the facelift had already begun at 1311 Union, in Midtown Memphis. I snapped a couple of pictures when I was in the vicinity today. Very recognizable images from the artists who have provided posters for the Center for Southern Folklore’s Memphis Music an Heritage Festival. A great improvement to this neglected section of Midtown.

1331 Union - East (Cleveland) Side

1331 Union - North (Union Ave.) Side

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