Shock and Awe Marketing Tutorials in Plain English

Alright, it's the weekend and I totally don't feel like talking geek, SEO, blogging or real estate.  So, here are some of the things I have found on the web that I couldn't imagine living without.  These things either greatly entertain me or make my life/job easier and I think you should know about them too.  Oh yeah, these tools are also totally free, which rocks, 'cause I'm cheap.

1.      Hulu.com - watch streaming TV shows and movies for free

Hulu is just cool.  Watch your favorite TV shows and movies online for free.  Totally legal (because none of us would ever violate a copyright by using the torrents.) because they sponsor to usage of the copyright with ads!  I use this all the time to entertain my son.

Prefer to Download Movies?

Speaking of the torrents, thePirateBay.org is my favorite, closely followed by seedpeer.com.  For the uninitiated - Torrents are peer to peer networks (meaning my machine and your machine can search each other) where you can download movies, images, software, music etc.  Because I go old school from time to time, I also like eMule (although it freaks me out it is written in Visual C++ which basically means that it s held together with rocket science theory, Miracle Whip and scotch tape.)

2.      Actionext.com - create and listen to free music play lists

Actionext.com Killer site that allows you to search for songs, listen to them and create playlists.  It also has an open wiki-like tool where you can get lyrics to the songs you are listening to.  I love being able to find the songs, build the playlist, share the lists (see the embedded widget on the left of my blog - totally annoying, right?  Another reason you should NEVER have music playing when a visitor lands on your site!!!) and even read the lyrics in one place.

Want to share music socially and see other's playlists?

Other music search and playlist sites you might like: 8tracks (another playlist site), Tagoo.ru (terrific site for finding hard to find songs online - lets you search and download from other people's machine's).

Try Blip.fm if you want to share music and fid other people that like the same kind music you like.  It's life streaming for music - you can even connect it to your twitter account so you can share your music with all your followers.

3.      Jing - record screencasts with voice overs and capture images from your desktop and share online

LOVE THIS.  I can record screen casts with audio and publish them to the web.  Very easy to use and high quality!  Think of Jing as a supplement to all your chat discussions, email threads, forum posts and blog entries. It sits nicely on your desktop, ready to capture and share your stuff at a moment's notice. Simply select an area of your screen, capture it as an image or record it as a video, and then click Share. Jing conveniently places a URL to your content which you can paste into any of your conversations.

Download Jing now!

4.      Skype - make free phone calls, conference calls and even video calls

We all love something for nothing. With Skype's free software - by the way, it works seamlessly with your internet connection - you can chat away with free Skype-to-Skype calls and never worry about cost, time or distance. Share the love and get your friends to download Skype so you can talk, chat or make video calls for nothing. You can also make local, long distance and international calls to phones and cell phones at great rates too. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.

Check it out and SKYPE me at REBlogGirl or simply search for Mary McKnight on Skype!  Click te logo below to download Skype.

5.      Audacity

Do you want to import, export, edit, mix, record, add sound effects or analyze voice, music, sounds, etc?  Then Audacity is the program you need. 

Download it for free from Source Forge at:

Audacity at Source Forge

Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
• And more! See the complete list of features.

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Princeton real estate blog is focused on home buyers and sellers in the Greater Princeton. This article "From “I found you on the Internet” to “Let’s get married"- or 5 easy steps to convert a “lead” to a satisfied client” was originally intended for another audience and another site - Active Rain. There I publish and share advice with other real estate agents around the country. I am publishing it here, because it could be useful for my regular blog readers and if you are just starting to look for a Princeton real estate agent to sell or buy your Princeton area home. In this article I share my ideas about client relationships. This gives you another opportunity to see if we are on the same page and if this is what you are looking for in a relationship with a Princeton realtor even before we talk in person. Here is what I wrote as advice for real estate agents:

This article is not a prescription for getting the largest possible number of clients in the shortest time. It is about building long lasting relationships with clients.

For starters, let’s get rid of the salespeople favorite word “leads". Why do we insist on calling people “leads” instead of  “prospective clients". Some may think it’s a minor point.  For me, it  somehow devalues and de-personalizes the relationship before it’s even started. People looking for a romantic match on the Internet don’t say “I got a call from a very handsome lead". More likely it’s: “I got a call from a great guy I would like to meet". No different with real estate clients -we are looking for a relationship.

Having changed my marketing focus to blogging from the conventional methods, I learned  interesting lessons.

1. Write content for the type of clients you want to attract.
The people who contact me from the blog are more often then not similar to me. They are detail oriented, focus on and appreciate research, value education as part of the selling process, are looking for a lot of useful information, could recognize intelligence and knowledge when they see it, do not believe they know -it -all, have an open mind, are suspicious of hard core sales people .

This made my year a lot more enjoyable. In contrast, pursuing FSBO last year, as the conventional wisdom for the relatively new real estate agents,  produced, putting it mildly, a lot of stress. These are often people convinced they know it all, suspicious of advice, apprehensive of the value of your work, etc.

This as not what my heart desired.

2. Be there to answer the call.
I rarely have to call back -I am there when the phone rings, sometimes startling the person on the other line. One client said, of the several calls he placed, I was the only one who answered the phone…Clients said they were not sure why real estate agents advertise their phone numbers if they are not there to answer them.

E-mail immediately, if you don’t have the phone number to call. Be sensitive to the style of inquiry. Do not push to get the person’s phone number. Realize it could be a slow dance of getting to know each other through e-mails. The goal here is in each e-mail to provide value while finding out a bit more about the clients needs.

3. Judge the tempo
It could be a slow dance or it could be a cha-cha. It is often slower with buyer clients, then seller clients, since sellers are often under more time pressure. I had clients contact me after several failed relationships with other agents. What ever dissatisfaction  was generated with the previous agent, the client may need time to see if and how you are different.

4. No hard sell
One thing I never do is push. Some times clients get stuck in the analysis paralysis and/or unable to make decisions. There are agents who believe such clients need to be pushed towards making  a decision. I found two things could happen. The client gets stressed. If they make the decision, they are never certain later if it was the right decision and could come to resent you as an agent. If the stress gets to be too much, they would go somewhere else.

Buying and selling is stressful enough for clients. My job is to minimize the stress, not add to it.

5. Educate as you go
Let’s suppose the client didn’t take your advice and, for example, didn’t offer what you recommended. Let’s suppose it caused them to “lose” a bid. This is not the end of the world. In fact, better then anything you could say or do, it showed the client the value and validity of your advice.

This is one way my clients come to trust me - they see my words come true. It’s not about the promises of a great job, or the ads with my smiling face, or the hype of being #1 producer. It’s simply advising and guiding, so your words become verifiable facts. Does it take extra time? Yes. Does it stretch the process? May be. Does it built stronger relationships ? Most certainly.

One thing I found not to be the case. Prospective clients calling to hire you from a blog.

This is what I read a lot on Active Rain. Some may say my blogging has not risen to the heights needed for this to be the case. Fair enough. I am not sure I could fault prospective sellers for not hiring me right off the bat based on my blog. Again, my clients tend to be similar to me in many ways. I would not hire someone to do something very important, let’s say surgery, just because I liked their blog, or even got a recommendation. I would want to meet them in person, meet other doctors, and decide then. Having a blog should make the client’s task easier -more of a confirmation rather then investigation from scratch.

I found this to be the case with the sellers. When prospective clients ask me if they should talk to other agents, I say -"Sure". Why? Because:

• 1. It’s part of due diligence.
• 2. Blog is a resume and a bit of an interview. It’s not the interview.
• 3. Through my blog they could peak “into my head” over a long time, most other agents don’t offer it to their clients.
• 4. I am confident in my  abilities.
• 5. If they select someone else, it would have not been a good match anyway. This saves me time, expense and aggravation.
  
• 6. This is not the last chance we have to work together.
• 7. When the prospective client’s choice turns out wrong they come back appreciating even more what I have to offer.

Be smart, be focused, be responsive, be respectful, be an advisor, know your stuff, get the job done. Hey, it’s easy to get clients for life.

Not everybody in the blogging community believes that SEO is a viable component of blogging.  If you are of this belief, you can stop reading this post now and move it right along.  But if you want to be at the top of the search engines and you are just starting now, without SEO, you are going to have a really hard time in most markets. 

Look at the engines in your local market.  There are Realtors, directory sites and lead aggregators at and pounding their way to the top of the engines.  How are you going to pass them and arrive anywhere near page one?  Do you think a new site can do that without being fully optimized?

SEO is short for Search Engine Optimization.  No, you do not need a secret decoder ring, it is not about writing in code.  SEO is simply the act of optimizing your site for maximum performance.  It’s not a mystery and it doesn’t happen all at the same time, it’s not a race to the finish.  It is an ongoing process and once you have learned the basics it’s fairly easy to apply. 

If you are new to blogging it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, and it really can be.  There is so much new information coming at you, it just seems to jumble all up and come out wonky.  Don’t worry, most of us went through that in the beginning as well.   It does all sort itself out pretty quickly if you are paying attention. 

Once your blog is designed, you have purchased a keyword rich domain, added the right title tags and  keywords to your site it is time to begin to add content.  Writing blog posts doesn’t have to be a brain squeeze, although your first month blogging is actually a pretty important time for your blog.  You are laying the informational base for your blog and establishing yourself in Google’s eye’s.

The first month you should be writing keyword rich, sticky, neighborhood posts, describing the neighborhoods (your farm) in your area.  Tie them into real estate by describing the area, types of homes available, lifestyle etc…  You do know about your neighborhoods - right?  Write what you know, do some research, find some interesting facts, link to businesses, convention centers, restaurants, city agencies and programs and other neighborhood sites.  Give out some link love.  Write a series of posts on the history of your community, or highlight the finer points of it, go ahead and brag about it.  Write individual posts for each of the neighborhoods in your community.  Link them all together.  It’s not as overwhelming as it sounds.  Just sit down and write one post.  Then write another and link them together.  It’s not a race, do it in your time. 

Did you also purchase 1 Park Place lead generation system with your blog?  If you did, learn how to set up the RSS IDX feeds and link those into your neighborhood posts as well, make it easy for the consumer to search for homes in your lead generation system, by community and by neighborhood.  You are building a powerhouse here. 

Read also:

• The First 30 Days of Blogging
• Formula for a Successful Blog Post

The title of your post is very important.  You will want to include keywords that consumers use to search on the engines, which are also included in your post.  Your title instructs the search engines where to place your post. 

For instance:  If you are writing about the neighborhood of Celebration in Orlando Florida, Your title might read:

Celebration Neighborhood Resource Guide - Orlando Florida

This is a keyword rich title and will be a post that lives forever.  You can always change and update the information in it and keep it fresh.  The search engines love it when you freshen up old content and reward accordingly. 

Read also:

• Real Estate Blog SEO Tip: Keyword Use in Title Tag

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Because I love TMZ and The Superficial and because I just thought it would be fun to have an occasional real estate technology gossip piece - so, here are a couple of SEO related real estate rumors making their ways across the blogosphere.

Is Trulia cloaking pages?

Trulia Caught Cloaking Red Handed

Eric Bramlett catches Trulia in what appears by all accounts to be a serious case of cloaking.  Cloaking is an age old shady technique that based on user agent (i.e. GoogleBot, YahooSlurp, (robots) IE, Firefox (people)) serves one set of content to the search engine and another set of content to people visiting the site through regular browsers.  In this case, Eric shows how Trulia is using a redirect and cloaking to direct Google to Trulia's own Seattle Real Estate landing pages when it crawls Seattle Weekly's real estate section. This could be one of the possible cataysts to Trulia's recent jump on the engines in many major markets.  Basically, Trulia is boosting pageviews through partner sites and the techniques they are using while not necessarily evil it may be against Google's TOS.

Conspiracy Theories on Trulia's SEO

Is trulia cloaking? Interesting Sphin story

YouTube Video of Trulia Cloaking

Trulia.com Uses Hidden Text

Trulia's Web-ranking strategies catch heat | Inman News

Read also: White Hat, Gray Hat and Black Hat SEO Explained

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