YouTube is truly an amazing marketing tool for real estate agents–posting videos of your listings, information about your area and basic information about buying and selling homes. Today’s successful agents are creating personal video profiles, posting them on YouTube and linking to their website, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media sites. Your personal video profile is a great way to...

It’s a curious thing. The real estate world seems to virtually stop from mid-November until after the first of the New Year. Why is this? One top-level office manager told me it’s because agents get disappointed about not meeting their year-end goal and they just give up. Interesting approach. The common thought is that buyers and sellers go dormant this time of year so agents do, too. I...

Canadian personal marketing success story Reid Greiner shares his secrets to real estate lead generation. When prospective clients first meet REALTOR® Reid Greiner, one of the first questions they often ask him is “Do you play the bagpipes?” It might seem like an odd question, but Reid will take that any day over “How do you plan to market my home?” or “Will you reduce...

Without even realizing it, Apple has unleashed massive changes in the way realtors are both showing and promoting homes. Within a few days of its release, a 30-something couple had their iPod Nano with them when their agent showed them a home that had a kitchen they loved. They pulled out their Nano and took some video of the kitchen. They proceeded to record each of the homes they previewed. That...

There’s a little known free Hobbs/Herder program that provides free consultation and idea sharing on real estate marketing and real estate lead generation. It’s the Online Real Estate Marketing Chat held every third Thursday with President John Surge. Here’s an edited version to see the types of questions that get asked and answered. Our next chat is September 24, 2009 at 1oam PST. Click here...

Agent Susan Vacheresse from RE/MAX Metro-City Realty, LTD, in Ottawa, Canada, took one idea from a Hobbs/Herder free workshop and turned it into a listing appointment! Susan listened as the Hobbs/Herder presenter showed a picture of a marketing promotion of an agent holding a sign that read, “Will Sell Your House for Food.” Part of the proceeds generated from the campaign went to local...

I read a great blog post from Augie Ray on SocialMediaToday.com on bad habits you can develop on the microblogging service that could potentially frustrate, alienate or disengage the followers you so carefully work to cultivate. On the Social Media Networking sites, it’s all about building and cultivating those relationships and followers, so these are foibles and breaches of web etiquette you...

TJ Thiara, a client from Northern CA, has come up with some creative and aggressive ideas with her real estate marketing! She’s literally driving her brand into the minds of local prospective clients! “I’ve had to change my driving habits a little bit,” she laughs, “such as not cut people off or tailgate, but it has gotten me some good leads!” TJ gets an A+ for being creative AND aggressive...

Tom Smith is no stranger to success in the business world. When he was younger, he started working at Wal-Mart as an Assistant Manager Trainee and worked his way up the ladder at record pace, ultimately becoming Vice President of Operations for the entire organization. He actually became one of Sam Walton’s most trusted executives (and a truly great friend), in the process learning a lot about how...

For a concept that is amazingly simple, Twitter can be rather confusing for real estate agents to understand and difficult to figure out how to turn this social media tool into a valuable relationship-building and marketing vehicle. In fact, the simplicity of Twitter can actually be a barrier in the beginning, because there’s not much available to help a new user see the big picture. To help...