5 tech tips_14
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Amy Bartusek | Social Media Director & Web Developer | CENTURY 21 Affiliated | [email protected]
5 Tech Tips to Jump Start Your Online Presence
I’ve been getting this question a lot lately: “What are the top 5 “Techy” things I should be doing in my
business. This is a very tricky question to answer because I cannot give a one size fits all answer. What
I have done is give you the 5 areas you should be giving some TLC in the order you should be doing it.
This is where you should begin and if you would like to create a custom plan in any of the 5 areas
please reach out to me: [email protected].
1. Your Agent Website—Working
Smarter not Harder Your first step to creating your online presence is to manage your website. You receive 2 websites from
the company, one is provided through CENTURY 21 Affiliated Online Office referred to as your Agent
Website and your second is provided through CENTURY 21 21 Online referred to as your MyC21
Website. Your websites are set up as “lead capturing.” If a Lead is interested in a property, signs up,
or registers on your website you will be notified immediately via email. The Leads that come through
your Affiliated website, are yours to keep and do what you want with. The Leads that come through
your MyC21 website are also yours, but do go through the Lead Router system. To get the most out of
your lead capturing website, a link should be supplied on all of your Marketing materials: flyers,
brochures, business cards, post cards, property signs, Social Media channels, Blog, listing and buyer
presentations, CMA’s, email signature, etc.
How am I supposed to manage two websites?
You receive 2 websites and unfortunately there is not an option to take one down. Consider this just
another way to be found online (more ways the better!) so if you are not proud of how your websites
look that is a problem that needs to be fixed. I suggest using your OnlineOffice website as your main
marketing tool and the MyC21 website as a supplement tool. Meaning put all your love into the
OnlineOffice website and supply the link on all of your marketing materials. Then on your MyC21
website, give a brief greeting and overview then supply a link to your OnlineOffice website for “more
information.”
By using the Website Builder, in Online Office, your website can be enhanced to give your prospective
client a clear picture of what to expect when working with you. Along with the following:
Pictures Links Video Custom Forms
Unlimited Pages Blog Widgets Social Media
‘Text Me’ Feature Target Audience Featured Properties Designations
Amy Bartusek | Social Media Director & Web Developer | CENTURY 21 Affiliated | [email protected]
According to the National Association of REALTORS, 90% of homebuyers and sellers use the internet
either before or during the home buying and selling process. Meaning there is a good chance your
website could be your prospective clients’ first impression of you. If they do not find you through your
website, they will “Google you” after you’ve met. Making your website an informative, educational,
and easy to use resource will paint yourself as a knowledgeable Real Estate professional.
>>>If you haven’t already, invest the $13 a year and purchase your name as your domain. This will
make it much easier to display on marketing materials. Instead of
www.c21affiliated.com/firstnamelastname your website URL will be www.firstnamelastname. To
purchase visit www.GoDaddy.com and you’ll need assistance in forwarding so please reach out to
2. CRM—Get a Grasp on Your Sphere of Influence
Your OnlineOffice and MyC21 websites come with a Customer Relationship Manager (CRM). Take a
look at your email, cell phone, Social Media pages, address book, and anywhere else your contacts may
be hiding and get them all into your CRM. This will make it easier to follow up with your sphere of
influence and make sure no one has been forgotten. Everyone you know should know you are a Real
Estate professional, and if they don’t know there’s your next step.
1. Start making good habits of adding to and updating your CRM monthly.
2. Include Agents in your CRM, making good professional relationships can lead to great things.
3. Make a habit of asking for emails when meeting potential new customers. Phone numbers often
change far more often than email addresses.
3. Give Email Marketing the Attention It Deserves You should make sure that you’re giving email marketing the attention it deserves. Every email you send
is reaching a targeted, interested person (more than you can say for a Facebook post), and you can
deliver great content straight to them. Tracking your Return on Investment (ROI) is important in all
marketing tactics including Email Marketing ( http://marketing.realtor.com/roi/ ). If you’re doing a monthly
email newsletter, that’s great – but do the numbers show that a biweekly newsletter would drive more
sales? Or, try rolling out triggered emails when customers visit your site, attend an Open House, or after
you get off the phone with a FSBO or an Expired. Automated emails can help you save time and show
you are reliable in your follow up.
In Customer Connect located in OnlineOffice, you are given a Customer Relationship Management
system, in which you are able to set your contacts up on Marketing Plans. These plans can be daily,
weekly, monthly or a mixture. There are plans for buyers, sellers, recruiting, FSBOs, and simply for stay in
touch purposes. There are also Holiday, Anniversary, and Birthday greetings you can send. Once you’ve
set a client onto a plan, the emails will automatically be sent on your behalf.
Amy Bartusek | Social Media Director & Web Developer | CENTURY 21 Affiliated | [email protected]
Every time a lead comes through, no matter how, you should have him or her put onto a plan. So when
life gets busy you know that you are still following up. All of our plans include “activities” meaning a
reminder to you to pick up the phone and call your client or, if you’re comfortable, a drop in. You will be
notified in your OnlineOffice Calendar and Activities Center when you need to follow up with your Lead.
This brings you out from behind your computer, and allows you to follow up with the emails you’ve been
sending. You will also be notified when a plan has ended, and reminded to put the lead on a different
plan.
Please note you also have a CRM system in 21Online complete with Email Marketing Plans. You would
use the Business Builder for this purpose.
4. Social Media—It’s in the Name The biggest mistake Agents make when thinking about Social Media for advertising is that they only
think Social Media is for advertising. Social Media is all about communication. It’s to be “social” with
your audience. Talking at your followers is equivalent to spending your Marketing time and dollars
talking to your wall. Instead talk with your audience. The same goes for creating multiple Social Media
platform accounts and not being consistent in using them, or not using them at all.
1. Get in the habit of posting consistently for 30 days before starting a new platform. It is better
to establish a following on one platform before introducing a new one. Most channels you can
get by with posting once per day, others may require more or less. Reach out to
amyb@c21affiliated for a “how to” guide if you need further assistance. Remember it should be
fun, if it isn’t, you may be on the wrong platform.
2. Make a habit of friending and following past, present and future clients. If you haven’t gone
through your email database yet and connected with them on a Social Media channel, start that
today!
3. Facebook (Business Page only) and Twitter offer an in platform scheduler. Use your Sunday
evenings to schedule your posts for the entire week, or even two weeks. Scheduling your posts
will not only make your life easier but it will create trust with your following base. If you are
on more than one platform, you can also use free multi-platform scheduling services like
HootSuite.
4. Make time in your schedule to interact on Social Media. If you want likes, retweets, and
comments then you need to be doing the same. Whether that is for 1 hour or 10 minutes, it
needs to be done, every day.
5. Before creating “business pages” be consistent with posting on your personal pages. You will
have much better luck getting people to like and share your new business pages if you’ve been
interacting with them recently on your personal page.
6. Once you’ve established a following base with people you know, it is now time to market and
engage with people you don’t know. Sponsored Posts and Tweets are one way to expand your
audience. Not only can you set your audience by location, but also by interests, and life events
(i.e. wedding, divorce, etc). Facebook and Twitter even allows you to market to “Look Alike
Audiences.” At a very basic level, Lookalike audiences are just another group of users that you
may advertise to. Significantly, however, they are users who are “most like your best existing
customers.” What this really means is that they are a group of users that are algorithmically
generated to match your existing advertising audiences as closely as possible. For example, if
you’ve uploaded a database of your email subscribers to either Facebook or Twitter, you can then
use that audience to generate an entirely new one that the social media platform deems to be
highly similar to those in your database.
Unsure of what to post? Utilize these sites for ideas:
Amy Bartusek | Social Media Director & Web Developer | CENTURY 21 Affiliated | [email protected]
C21Affiliated.com/blog StumbleUpon.com
Blog.Century21.com Pinterest.com
HouseBeautiful.com Local Community Calendar
HGTV.com Local Events
Home Depot’s The Apron Local Things to Do
5. Blogging—Create your Niche & Own it There are numerous reasons for a real estate agent to blog. The main reason is to drive traffic to your
lead capturing website. Blogs can supply your clients with valuable information, local know how’s, and
lets them get to know you on a professional and personal level. Just because you are a real estate
agent does not mean you need to keep your topics to real estate. Use the 80/20 rule, keep 80% of your
information real estate related and 20% your niche. Your niche could be a hobby or something you feel
passionate about. Possible topics:
Movies Community Events Restaurants
Cooking/Recipes Pets Kids
Night Life TV Shows Fitness
Crafts/DIY Tech Fashion
Outdoors Shopping Beer/Wine/Food Reviews
A few questions I get often are:
How long does my blog need to be? If you think about each blog as a question that you are intending
on answering it will make writing a lot simpler. To answer the question, however long it takes you to
answer that question. Usually a question cannot be answered in less than 5 sentences. You’ll always
want to end your blog with a call to action, something like “For more information on (topic) or any
other Real Estate related questions call me at ________ or email me at ________.”
How often do I need to post? The keyword here is consistency. Choose a schedule and stick to it. If
you think once a week is manageable then strive for that. I would suggest no less than once a month
and no more than once a day. Use the scheduler that is linked to your Blog in OnlineOffice to schedule
your blogs. This way you can use a free morning or afternoon to write your blogs, schedule them for
the month, and then all you need to do is post them to your Social Media pages. When you schedule a
blog it will become Active at 7:00 a.m. the day you scheduled it.
If I see a Magazine/Business/Personal blog that I like can I copy and paste it into my blog as long as I
source it? Unfortunately no. What you can do is summarize the highlights of the blog, add your
opinion, and then source where you received the facts and quotes.
How does a blog help my website be found? Your blog is connected to your website. Every new blog
you post will create a new page on your website and new opportunity to be found. Posting your blogs
to Social Media (Google+ is a must), StumbleUpon.com, and RSS feeds will also help with exposure.
Reach out to [email protected] for more info.