So I guess you’re wondering what this has to do with business cards? There’s a neat tool I want to share that encompasses both worlds of live interaction and social networking online. It’s called a dropcard, and it allows you to give people you meet your business card via text message or over the web. Not only does it allow you to give your contact and business information, it also enables you to connect with these new contacts via the various social networks you have a presence in. I didn’t mention the awesome functionality that’s built into this process to integrate contacts directly into the iPhone, but I will have to save that for a future post…

Well, Matt Heaton and Jonathan Washburn have rolled out an advertising platform for their system. For a minimum of $10/per campaign you can start putting up impression-based ads on the ActiveRain network. Your campaign can be targeted at specific pages on our site, specific user groups, members or non-members, regional areas (state, county, city), or all users on all pages.

Other items of note:

1. The minimum campaign budget is $10
2. Ads have SEO value – Search engines walking the site they will see your ad as normal content.
3. You can choose to have your ad displayed only 5 times to a particular user session or choose to have it be unlimited
4. You can stop/start your ad at anytime and update your bids whenever you wish

The SEO Link Problem

[Update: this has since been changed/fixed on ActiveRain]

I would like to bring up one little point – bullet number 2 in particular. I’d be careful of claiming that at this point in time. You see, I follow some of the conversations on SEO, and I know that Matt Cutts has stated Google’s position on any type of sponsored links to be expressly tagged or mentioned as “sponsored” somehow.

Now Google doesn’t own the internet, nor have they been anointed as the “high priests of what you’re allowed to do online”. However, they do control a lot of SEO traffic – the lion’s share, so that allows them to be the big bully if they so choose. Basically, I’d be cautious of making that SEO claim, since all it takes is one little algorithm adustment to add make ActiveRain links be devalued as much as PayPerPost and Text Link Ads (which they’ve done).

In Summary
Okay, besides all that, I still think it’s a great platform for advertisers who have something to sell to real estate professionals. Smart marketers will do more than just advertising here, they will get in on their conversations and prove their value.

• You know your property will be on the market for a long time
• The property is exquisite and needs to be showcased properly – not in some pre-formatted real estate brokerage site
• The domain is part of the sale – the new owner gets the domain as well as the house

It’s Going to be on the Market for a Long Time
You’ll likely list the property in all of the traditional ways, but since you know the property will not be sold soon it’s worth the investment of creating a special site for it. You probably want to make sure that your property isn’t buried and lost in a sea of other listings over time as well, which makes perfect sense for large or expensive property types.

I came across a great example of this recently “230+ Acres of Prime Connecticut Real Estate” has it’s own website. The designer of the website mentioned the reasoning behind his client coming to him:

The site owner figures the property being sold — 230+ Acres in Connecticut — will be on the market for a while. At only $1.5 million, though, I suspect it’ll sell in a flash. It’s a very nice piece of prime real estate. In any case the owner wanted the site to be highly indexed so hopefully it will be. The tools are in place.

Showcase High-end Properties Better
If you’re selling a piece of property for a lot of money, a case can be made that spending some money on a really well designed website can make you stand out, be noticed and shared more easily.

The Villa Pelican beachfront property in Montecito, California is amazing. With 8 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms, great grounds and neighbors and a view to die for, it’s worth making sure people can really see and enjoy it. Here it is listed at LuxuryRealEstate.com, and here is a link the Villa Pelican specific website created for the property. See the difference? For a house selling for $34,000,000 it probably makes sense to have a good looking site for it specifically.

The Domain (if it’s a good one) Becomes Part of the Value
Realtors can start thinking of including the domain as part of the package. If it’s a well done website that showcases the property well, then it’s an asset. When the new owners want to show people what they just bought, or when they decide to sell it themselves, they now have a way to do that more easily.

Smith, president of Realogy Corp., the largest residential real estate broker in the U.S., said the portion of his Coldwell Banker and Century 21 branding budget devoted to newspapers will shrink by as much as two-thirds next year from 2006 as spending moves online. Newspapers will receive 70 percent of Realogy’s home-sale advertising by 2010, down from 84 percent this year.

A change is coming, who is ready?
I opined a couple months ago about the need for a real estate ad network that would allow marketers to easily place their ads on both real estate specific sites (such as Homegain, Move.com, eppraisal.com, Trulia, etc…) and on the ever growing social scene found via social networks an blogs.

For companies like Realogy and HomeServices to take it seriously, the network needs to be both simple and far-reaching. It needs to harness the types of media that are working today – think video and interactivity, not banner ads. Above all, it needs to be flexible and work for everyone from bloggers to big business.

However, in order to be successful it will need to make the marketer’s job easier. At the end of the day, it is the stressed out/strung out media buyer that will make a lot of the decisions. Put yourself in their shoes. You have $20 million worth of ads to place this quarter, where do you start?

This is a huge opportunity.

They’re calling it “Watermark Plus“, and with it you can add some flair, logo or watermark to any image you use online. If you want to do full image editing online, use something like Snipshot, that’s probably a little to much for most real estate agents though.

Where it really shines, and where I haven’t seen any other tool do something similar, is when you’re embellishing the photo. It’s simple and it works great. It’s free too, so make sure you give it a try.

Features and benefits:

• Ability to protect by adding visible watermarks and logos
• Ability to enhance images and attract interest from buyers by adding sales, product and pricing information (”For Sale”,”Just Listed”, “Only $20”)
• Ability to brand images and include contact information by adding company logos, personal photographs or contact information

I covered the basics behind blogging and social media, the reasons why it’s important to know about and start participating in the conversations, and how to get started. The attendees had some great questions that told me they were not only interested in the topic, but were going to be taking part in it soon.

So, thanks to everyone who attended, I hope to see your blog online soon (or at least see you begin commenting). A special thanks to ORRA for telling everyone about the event and supporting it through the use of their facility.

[UPDATE: I'm excited to announce the first new blogger from our session. 2 days after, Debra Horowitz has started Orlando's Avalon Real Estate blog - Congrats Debra!]

I really like how diversified their classified are – they cover residential, commercial, business, even time shares. It costs $30 for an annual membership, and it’ll be well worth the money spent as the site grows.

Go check it out!

The Problem
Let me lay it out from the advertisers point of view. You have a service, property or product that you want to advertise and get the word out on. You’d love to advertise on sites that are relevant to your demographic or geographic region.

It would be nice if you could get a package to advertise on sites like Trulia, Hotpads, Homegain, Zillow, and eppraisal.com, etc… In fact, you’d like to advertise on blogs of people within a specific area too, so being able to tap into independent real estate bloggers and geographically target the Active Rain network would also be nice.

Well, you can. The only thing you have to do is contact each one of these parties and work out a deal, cut 15 different checks and create advertising creative in 15 different sizes and formats. Hmmm, it’s not so easy to manage, and it’s no wonder that advertisers balk at the idea. It’s just not efficient.

The Solution
Let’s say an independent (meaning not part of any existing technology solution or company) party creates an ad network targeted at real estate. It’s a tool designed to harness what is possible with technology online, use the power of segmentation by demographics and geographic targeting to provide real value.

Why it works:

• Advertisers can finally reach the long-tail of real estate online
• The network’s size allows it to specialize and give proper attention to publishers and advertisers
• Publishers (blogs, web sites and social networks) can be pre-vetted for quality
• It’s a simple to use tool that makes it a one-stop-shop for buying ad space
• The payout can be larger than what other “meta-networks” (think Google) can provide

Challenges
In a competitive space like real estate, publishers tend to think that they can handle their own advertising platform just fine. That, and no one likes giving up control. What happens is marketing dollars only go towards the “big players” and each dollar spent is not as effective as it could be. The large sites will continue to protect their own monopoly on ad dollars, but it’s not in the best interest of marketers to let this happen.

Some will say, “why don’t you just use Google, it’s an ad platform designed to reach the long tail?” Simply put, the big meta-networks can’t give either the advertiser or the publisher the attention that they need. Secondarily, the payout for the publisher is not near what it should be for the space that they’re providing.

What about trust? Why should bloggers and big publishers place their trust in an outside entity to manage their revenue stream or their marketing budget? Besides creating a simple and powerful tool, the second hardest part would be building trust. However, if it works, that’s all the proof that both publishers and advertisers need to make it a viable platform. So, testing, adding value and relationship building are the only ways to counter this argument.

Summary
In the end, it’s a tool for advertisers that makes their lives easier. When you provide a tool that allows people who spend money for a living to do it easier and see a greater return, you’re bound to create a winning situation for both parties.

(Why not something as simple as what Federated Media does, except for the real estate vertical?)

One of the areas that I’m particularly going to be paying attention to, is how these platforms can be used for the real estate industry. I’m sure a lot of that will come from the expo floor, just seeing what is out there, but also from the panels and discussions on social media and its impact. Actually, I’ve had a lot of thoughts on this recently, having just been in town for Web 2.0 Expo last week.

I’ll be in the Bay Area through Friday morning. If anyone wants to get together, shoot me an email through the contact form.

In many cases, it is the agents themselves who are snapping the pictures and posting them on the agency Web site. Because of this, it is important that sellers choosing an agent know who will take and pay for the pictures and whether a professional photographer is available.

This article is worth a read. However, this is nothing new to most real estate agents. Rain City Guide has some excellent pieces on this as well:

Real Estate Photography — Camera Choice
The Value of High Quality Photos for Real Estate Listings