Real Estate Investing and Marketing

One of the biggest marketing trends in the area of Internet marketing is using social media to get traffic and awareness about your business.  Most business owners want to use social media for their business and start to look for help but the problem is that it seems everyone is touting themselves as a social media consultant. It’s hard to figure out who to trust when everybody claims that they’re the expert.

So how do you figure out which consultants to work with?  First, you need to separate from the people who walk their talk and the people who just talk.  Anybody can use social media sites but have they used it to promote their own business and for their clients?  Ask the consultant on how he personally used social media as well as for references to other clients.

Next, you need to find a consultant that knows how to use the different social networking sites to its fullest capacity.  Using Facebook is much different from using Twitter or maintaining your own blog.  There are different strategies that need to be put into place in order to build a following and communicate with them.  Likewise, you’ll have to set up different things for a blog such as commenting, RSS subscription, social bookmarking features, and more.

Third, find out if the consultant can measure the results.  So you’ve set up a Facebook and Twitter account but did it really translate into sales?  Some businesses are looking to communicate through multiple channels but small businesses need to turn their marketing into profits.  You need to find an expert that knows how to use these mediums to bring in more sales.

Fourth, look at their presentation from their portfolio, personal site, and background.  A qualified consultant should have a good portfolio for you to look at, a well designed professional site, and can verify any experiences they had working with well-known clients or businesses. Read more…

2  4

One of the newest forms of  hype information “gurus”  are  pushing is for real estate  investors to use Web 2.0 .  This basically means they want real estate investors to be marketing on social networking websites to connect with prospective clients.   The problem that many of these investors are running into, is that they are not able to effectively generate the leads, or when they do, they are not convert these interested parties into actual clients.

Yes, Web 2.0 can be used as part of a larger marketing strategy,  BUT it is not a “miracle” pill!! Web 2.0 and marketing thereupon still has some inherent factors that you must realize.  Firstly that many people who get involved,  quickly lose interest !!   There are a few things that you should avoid that will give you a much better chance of succeeding using Web 2.0.  Many of these gurus have not even figured out yet!  (It never ceases to amaze me how  small their social networks are as information gurus, yet the  pump you full of their expertise??  Would you not want to follow someone who has “mastered” marketing? )

The first thing that you must do is make sure that you commit to a schedule each and every day. You must publish your listings and pictures at the same time every day so that interested parties will know when to look. The problem with releasing this information at random times is that most people have hundreds, if not thousands, on connections on these sites. Therefore, they are receiving an overload of information every day, so they have to filter through this information and pick out the things that they are truly interested in. All it takes is for someone to miss your listings once for that person to move on to someone else, so it is well worth your time to make these posts. Also, make sure that you monitor your company on a consistent basis, as this will allow you to answer any questions that potential clients might have immediately. By actually communicating with people by using Web 2.0, you can bring your services into these peoples’ worlds, which will make you much more accessible for them.

When you are making your daily updates or posts, make sure that you provide value for your followers. If these people feel as though reading what you have to say is a complete waste of time, you will not have a whole lot of success. Even if you do not have many new listings on that particular day, you can still provide these people with information that they can use. You do not have to write a whole lot, but it will be well worth your while to provide these potential clients with some information that can help them going forward. Read more…

1  1

Last week I was the victim of a targeted and well planned hacking attack on my server. They used a pretty good attack method I must say. This hacker was able to cause some initial damage to my site and put up some pages that called me out by name and told me to stop making comments about what I felt  about some very suspect products.

They then proceeded to delete ALL the content on my domains. Every last drop. However, they must think I would be stupid if I did not have backups ! Sure it was a pain in the ass to be inconvenienced for 12 hours while I restored my site, BUT they are now part of a FBI forensic cyber-crime investigation.

I have 184 domains on my server .. BUT the ones they attacked were

http://www.AtlantaGaRehabDeals.com – my rehab business in this city

http://www.duncanwierman.com  – my course

http://www.duncanwierman.com/blog   – this blog

http://www.InternetMarketingConsultingGroup.com – my SEO consulting site

and a few others blogs that deal with marketing and  technology.

I find it ODD that only the websites attacked had a  “themed”  relevance that posed a threat to a few of my competitors where taken out..

Who do you think it could be??  See how low my competitors will go to continue to market their hype and trash!

Look at this image, they are still gunning for me..

Read more…

Where do you want to be? On the first page of Google results of course; it’s where everyone with a website wants to be, especially if their website is part of their business. There are a lot of search engine optimization firms out there, with new ones popping up out of the woodwork daily in order to meet the growing demand for SEO services.

Naturally, real estate investment is like every other economic sector in that investors and brokers are taking to the web in the attempt to increase their visibility and to gain a larger share of the market. If you’re in the real estate business yourself, you almost certainly have a website by now – and you probably receive a lot of come-ons by SEO companies who are trying to convince you that they’ll be able to get your website into the coveted top spot in Google’s search results.

Before you pull out your wallet in response to their pitches, think for a minute. There are so many of these firms out there and a lot of them make these kinds of promises. Obviously, they can’t all be right and the vast majority of them can’t deliver any kind of results, let alone what they claim.

Before we go any further, I’d like to offer this little nugget of advice: don’t do business with anyone who promises you a spot on the first page of Google’s search results, especially if they tell you that they can get your website into the #1 spot.

Why? Because no one can guarantee this with 100% certainty; search engine optimization is not an exact science, since the algorithms used by Google and other search engines are closely guarded trade secrets and are constantly evolving. What this means is that what worked to improve a website’s page ranking six months ago won’t necessarily work today. This is why no reputable SEO firm will make these kinds of promises; but of course, there are a lot of SEO firms and consultants out there who are anything but reputable businesses. Read more…

There is a lot of buzz today in the computing and IT world about something that is being called “Web 3.0″.  This is supposed to be exactly what the label implies: the next generation of the Internet. The next great quantum leap forward in communications and doing business on the Internet.

We are currently residing online in Web 2.0. If “Web 1.0″ could be considered just getting the Internet up and running and working out the incredible “bugginess” of its original platforms, Web 2.0 was what we first reached at the dawn of the 21st century. Computer programmers are basically the ones who first notice any quantum leap forward in the entire fabric of Internet applications, and when they mutter “Web 2.0″ they mean an Internet with:

* enhanced communications by way of social-networking technology;

* improvements in communications and interactions between separate software applications by way of open Web standard applications for accessing and describing data;

* enhanced Web interfaces which mimic desktop applications’ real-time responsiveness inside of a browser window.

Now, say those who believe that Web 3.0 is landing on the White House lawn momentarily, we are about to see implemented a new Internet experience, one in which the Internet “gets smart” at long last and becomes much more like Artificial Intelligence (  A.I. )  This will, in part, be the “Semantic Web” that was prophesied at the close of the 20th century by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web. Read more…

1  1

Many people are working on Internet-based knowledge-organizing technologies that stretch traditional definitions of the Web. Lately, some have been calling the technologies “Web 3.0.” But really, they’re closer to “Web 2.1.” !!! Here is the facts folks, Facebook, YouTube and the other social networks are beginning to penetrate the mainstream, but they are but a pixel in a much larger picture. Web 3.0 promises Much much more.

I have made numerous post about this on Facebook without naming names. Since posting on Facebook I have come under attack by many in the “RE Guru Circle” calling and emailing me complaining and thinking I was talking about them ! What does that say to you? To me, it seems I hit a nerve with a few people. I will not sit by and let a clever marketing ploy happen that will allow some people to position themselves in the market place as something they are not, or even have technology that claims to be web 3.0 when it is NOT! Consider the fact that MS and Google are only in beta with web 3 technology to test what can possibly be done.

I am not naming names, just that marketing with version numbers is not ideal. Here is what is important.. Just like a business plan, have a “web marketing plan” and it should take precedence OVER just relying on a number with technology. Numbers don’t really matter in the grand scheme, it’s really the engagement level and social collaboration and usability that is the real focus. Version #’s are really a distraction and point of debate for many who create and hype a lot of vaporware.

Lets take a look at a few videos

1.  The Evolution of Web 1.0,  2,0 and Web 3.0

2.  Now lets look at the problems still we are facing..

So where does that leave us ?  Do you feel like this now…..