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Must Have Apps and Gadgets For Realtors

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A lot of changes have taken place in the last two years in technology. Along with these changes, real estate professionals are also busy finding ways on how to communicate effectively with clients and to keep track of a highly competitive and volatile market. Luckily, there are modern gadgets and apps that have been developed to serve every facet of their operation. To give you a head start, here are some of the newly updated gadgets and apps available on the tech market today designed specifically to serve real estate busybodies.

Gadgets You Should Not Miss
A Tech-y Desk
Most real estate agents have offices at home and having a 40-inch touch-screen that you can easily tuck on your desk is one great option. EXODesk allows you to connect, view and operate virtually any computer on either Windows or IOS platform. Apps can be added to suit your business needs.
Tablet Computer
Mobility is your game. Instead of buying a separate computer for home use and laptop or tablet for mobile use, buy one which features both. ASUS Transformer AIO P1801, for instance, works as both a PC and a tablet. It also has a dual operating system to serve its purpose.
Wi-Fi Camera in 3D
You will be taking pictures of homes to sell and what better way to do it than in 3D. Samsung NX300 features not just pixel-perfect results but also the ability to connect to a Smartphone or computer automatically sending photos in a click.
Smartphone and Accessories
Regardless of the size, a Smartphone is an essential gadget that realtors should not work without. This keeps your communication line open for clients and colleagues, and also doubles as your gateway to the Internet. Have a ChargeCard and DeLorme Inreach ready, too. The former gives you an extra charge for your battery while the latter serves as your satellite device when no signal is available.
Portable Scanner
As a real estate agent, titles and other documents are crucial in your transactions. A mobile scanner like that of Xerox comes handy. It can easily convert paper documents into PDFs or JPG files and then, sends these documents directly to your recipient via wireless contact.
Be Watch-ful
No matter how busy, you can always check for your email and phone calls through your “smart watch”. This watch allows you to tell time, retrieve emails, dial phone numbers, and go through social network updates.
New Apps to Consider
Every day, new apps are being developed for public consumption. For realtors, here are some of the current ones worthy of praise:
1. DocuSign - for digital signing of legal documents
2. Magic Plan – creating floor plan in a snap
3. Google Apps – Gmail, Calendar, Google+, Maps, Chrome, Google Drive, and more.
4. Dropbox – for back-up and storage
5. Sitegeist – great tidbits on people and housing, weather, and so on
6. DreamScore – access to local MLS listings
7. DreamPro – search app designed for realtors and brokers
8. Casmy – gather open-house info in real time
9. Open Home Pro – creating listings via phone
10. HomeSnap – take a picture of a home then, find out its market value, bed and baths, taxes, access to schools, hospitals, and so on.

In the months and years to come, more and more tech-y gadgets and apps will be introduced to the real estate arena. You need to keep your eyes open for these changes and updates. In a highly competitive industry like real estate, your chances can be determined by how well equipped you are.

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Tech Tips For The Busy Real Estate Agent

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There is no denying the fact that technology has continually shaped everything that we know of now. Aside from affecting consumerism, one massive impact is continually being felt in the real estate realm. Today, real estate agencies are becoming more visible online. The Internet has become a huge factor in advancing its clout even when goals and objectives are locally concentrated. From virtual assistants to interactive websites, iPads and SmartPhones, and needed thingamajigs, “tech-cessorizing” your real estate wardrobe is no longer just an option but a must.
For a real estate agency to standout in a highly volatile market, these tech-savvy tips must be carefully considered to ensure productivity, reliability, transparency and sustainability.
1. Perfect Fusion of Quality Content and Visual Design
Having an online presence is a must but the clamor does not just stop in creating a website. In order to entice potential buyers and sellers, the need to project a visually captivating web design with reliable and trustworthy content is essential. In the last two years or so, data provided on realtors’ websites are experiencing major overhaul. It is no longer just an attractive website but one that is search-engine and mobile friendly, artfully integrated with social media and blogs, easy importation of listing from MLS, and equipped with special scrolling technique that eases the use of a potential buyer or seller.
2. Going Mobile
Another significant impact in today’s high-tech realm is the continual updates on gadgets. Real estate agents, in their need to be competitive and up-to-date, must come geared with necessary tools and equipments. This is the reason why most realtors nowadays are tied up with their Smartphones and Androids, tablets and laptops, Bluetooth, hands-free headset, GPS, and so on. Communication, time management and research are critical aspects in real estate, and these tools give them wide-ranging avenues to pursue their objectives. Meeting up clients, explaining a home-buying process, making follow-ups on payments, updating oneself on current real estate market news and trends, and so on, are now geared for more mobility alongside the continued rise of portable digital technology.
3. The Rise of Cloud Computing
Cloud computing solutions have become a standard norm in many up-and-about real estate firms and independent players. This practice allows expansion of your office while reducing overhead and going paperless. This ensures that agents, brokerages, clients, and potential buyers or sellers gain access to software and documents online regardless of where and the devices used. When it comes to cloud computing, however, there is no such thing as a “fit-all” design. You need to carefully assess your market, work style, and other important aspects that make your business unique than the rest. This also gives rise to the success of real estate virtual assistants.
4. SEO, Social Media and PR
If you have been told that social media is everything, not anymore. Today’s online marketing aspect no longer just focus on social media platforms but rather on the integration of SEO, PR and social media. As most real estate firms, agencies and independent players become more attuned to using online platforms, keeping tabs with highly sophisticated algorithms require more qualitative content, transparent social media marketing, and targeted PR to keep your authority high.

Indeed, the continual integration of technology in real estate management and transactions has made management and tracking much easier. Technology puts them in a powerful position to initiate, compel, and put communication with their target markets on the right track. With easy access to free data on customers’ needs, purchase behavior, and concerns as well as expectations, this gives real estate agents the needed competitive advantage to provide better service and increase sales.
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Busy business owners, executives and professionals sometimes have a hard time coping with their workload and get overwhelmed by all the tasks. There are times that they feel swamped and because of that feeling of helplessness, nothing gets done in the process. If this is the kind of feeling or atmosphere that you have, it might be time to hire an assistant or a virtual assistant to ease up on your busy schedule and for you to be more productive.

Now, finding the perfect assistant might seem easy at first glance seeing that there is an increase of virtual assistants in the web but it really is not as easy as you think. You will need to find one that fits your criteria and requirements and your budget as well.

Here are some helpful tips on how you can find the perfect VA for yourself or for your business:

1)    Figure out your budget and how many hours of work you need. It is very important to figure out how many hours of work done per week you need for a VA and how much you are prepared to pay. This ensures that you don’t go over budget and your VA can work on the amount you provide.

2)    Check what type of work you need done. You need to figure out what kind of work you need from the VA so that you can explain to your VA what tasks you want and therefore prevent wasting the VA’s time or yours for that matter.

3)    Gather as many candidates for VA as you can. Receive as many applications as you can and prepare a shortlist for your interview based on the VA’s qualifications and experience. Spend adequate time in recruitment for your VA since you want someone who can work with you well, so invest the time. Be sure that even if you have chosen the successful applicant that you also keep in mind 1 or 2 next to that applicant if in case the successful one does not work out well.

4)    Make sure that you and your VA agree on a trial period for work. Having a trial period ensures that you are really sure of the fit of the VA and your needs. Also this is sort of an adjustment period for the VA and you and will show or somehow predict the kind of work relationship you both will have.

5)    Agree on scope of work and specific terms of the VA’s contract. Agreeing on specific terms of employment and the scope of work will ensure that all needs are met and expectations are covered both on your side and the VA’s as well. This bodes well for everyone concerned and prevents miscommunication and disagreements for a better working relationship.

Sometimes finding the perfect VA is easy and sometimes it is not. The tips above are designed to be helpful in guiding you to meeting the VA that can satisfy your needs, if not exceed them. Sometimes also it could be a trial and error method. Different approaches work as well.

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What's in a Tagline

What’s your company’s tagline?


Is it simple, succinct, easy to understand, and memorable? Is it something people will be talking about for years to come? Does itproperly reflect your business, what you sell, and who you are? I could go on. Do you have answers for all of these questions?


A tagline isn’t an easy thing to come up with. The problem is how little time you have to grab a person’s attention. Taglines aren’t longand they aren’t a detailed look at the company. A tagline is often moreabout a feel than anything else. Nike’s tagline of Just Do It emphasizesaction and speed, both of which go along with sneakers.


Before even starting to brainstorm you should look at the audience you’re trying to appeal to. Obviously for Nike they focus on sports, onexercise, and on other action oriented activities. The taglinereferences not only the company and its products but also the audiencethey’re aiming for.


How well do you know your customers? Take the time to think about what it is they want out of a business like yours, and what kind offeeling they’re going for. Nike knows their audience wants action.Figure out what your customers want and how you can appeal to them.


Remember, feeling is what counts, and a tagline needs to be powerful if it’s going to work. The best taglines are five words or less, whichmeans you don’t have a lot of room to work with. Short phrases are a loteasier for people to remember, and the more concise you are the fasterthey’ll be able to understand what your company is all about.


What can you say about your company that people will latch on to and remember? What phrase just begs for people to give you their undividedattention? I’m not trying to say this is going to be even remotely easy,and only someone who intimately knows the company will be able toreally understand what feeling should go into a tagline.


How to use a tagline is just as important, too. Coming up with one may be the hardest part, but what good is it if no one sees it? Makesure when printing business cards that all of them have your tagline onit. Do you send out a lot of letters? Letterhead printing labels all ofthem. Pocket folders are another way of ensuring everything you send outconnects with your company’s tagline.


And, of course, don’t forget about printing posters to put up around your store. Everything you do should have an association with yourtagline if you’re going to get people to remember it.


Forming a perfect tagline can be one of the hardest things for any business to do. Just because they’re short, don’t let that fool you intothinking they’ll be easy to make. Writing one might be difficult, but itwill definitely pay off in the long run.


Hope this Helps,


Brian Roth/Operations Manager
503-630-6233 Office
503-867-5355 Cell
503-609-0894 24 Hour Emergency
206-888-7373 Fax
Brian's Email



Check our Website at the following: R&R Property Services, Inc.

Our Mission Statement "Preserve Our Neighborhoods for Tomorrow" and by doing so, we maintain the integrity of our communities.

My profiles: Blogger LinkedIn Tungle.me YouTube Google
Contact me: Google Wave/ rrpropertyserviciesinc
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First, a little bit of history.

You may not have ever heard of Techwood Homes however, that doesn’t negate its pivotal role in American history, our history.

Techwood Homes was the first public housing project in the U.S. Located in Atlanta Georgia, it was completed in August of 1936. However, keep in the back of your head that it wasn’t till November 1937 that it was opened and dedicated by the trumpeter of Social Housing, Franklin D. Roosevelt, himself.

Now, it’s also important to know why America decided to get in the business of Government housing. The reality is, America had a concentrated number of poor and most all of the poor were living in slums. These were not nice places. In fact, many municipalities contributed large majorities of all their criminal activities to the slums and the poor who lived in them. So, in many ways, the American Government got into the business in the name of reducing or eliminating crime and yes, if it also progressed the Socialist Agenda…….well, that was a side benefit that wasn’t talked about much.

Now, the Techwood Homes were posh. They had bathtubs, electricity, ranges, garages, laundry facilities, library and even a kindergarten on site. By all accounts, they were nice, for what they were.

The sad part of this story was, the irony behind what eventually happened to Techwood Homes. You see, it became what it was supposed to prevent, a nest of crime, corruption and an example of urban blight.

After Techwood Homes were developed, many other Social Housing units sprung up in many urban settings, namely, New York, Chicago, New Orleans and San Francisco. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a single one that was ever trumpeted as a triumph…..I wonder why?

In 1996, Atlanta decided to destroy the Techwood Homes, it was an embarrassment to the city and because they were entering the world stage due to the Olympics, they couldn’t allow the blighted structures to stand.

The fact is, where you find poverty, you will almost always find high crime. It doesn’t matter how nice the house is, where the house is located, who maintains the lawn and plumbing, poverty is an incubator to criminal activity.

The Progressive leadership learned their lesson and decided that Social Housing, in the sense of large institutional style structures just weren’t a good way with progressing their agenda to provide government housing in their socialist society. I guess they never realized the power of poverty.

Shortly after these failed attempts, it became a political death nail in a politicians preverbal coffin however, it didn’t stop the agenda. It was during this time we saw private sector subsidy’s in the form of Section 8 housing and others.

Well, the socialist mantra, to never let a good crisis go to waste has never had such gusto. You see, during this housing crisis, which was engineered by progressives through the Community Re-Investment Act, they now see the light at the end of the tunnel. That’s right, a Progressive crafted crisis will give them the ability to forward their agenda and provide Social Housing through programs such as HAMP and other Foreclosure Prevention programs.

Yes, I am saying it and I am not apologizing.

I believe this housing bubble was engineered, crafted and laid in plan through the use of the Community Re-Investment Act and in turn, the Progressive dream of every American to have a home, laid down by F.D.R. can now be accomplished because no politician has the fortitude to tell people if you can’t afford your home, get out!

Make no mistake, I am all about saving people from foreclosure but, I also know that unless a homeowner has a job, counting peoples unemployment benefits as income so they can get approved for HAMP is a recipe for a bigger disaster or better yet, a door way for more Government assistance and possibly eventually allowing the Government to cancel the homeowner’s debt and remain in the home through a bank the Government has institutionalized or taken over……let’s say ….I don’t know…..Bank of America.

I do believe, it’s Obama’s agenda, along with the Progressive party, to either cancel the debt of homeowner’s who are struggling to make their payment or at least, give enough government subsidy that the homeowner can keep their homes under the waving flag of social housing. Be careful America, we are treading on dangerous ground.

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In the era of the internet marketing and search engine marketing it has become really important that we adopt good strategies to promote our products, services or other offerings. Web has become a great medium to popularize whatever we want to reach the mindset of masses or selected target audiences. However, people pay more attention to visuals than the written text and hence video marketing has become more popular than the articles.

In the era of web2.0 it is more important to use the resources in a correct manner. Nobody would sit and watch your videos if they are plainly filled with the pushy statements and connotations that "You should buy my product, it's the best". You need to create videos that educate the audience, tell them what's great about your product in a convincing manner and if you manage to do that then certainly people would be awed by your creation and promote it further.

You can create videos in variety of ways and they can be simple video landing pages, webpage with streaming videos, downloadable files or customer reviews etc.

Visual communication is always more impacting and influential than the written. It is rightly said that a picture is worth a hundred words because it helps to communicate an idea in a more precise and correct way without need of excessive explanation or detail. On the other hand if the picture or visual is not intelligently crafted than it may fail to give the real explanation and thus the thoughts and ideas may be mis-communicated. So there is need to create videos for video marketing in a clear and correct manner.

The creativity and ability to innovate is the key in this field. You may go in for animated videos or real life videos. It can certainly be used as a powerful medium to attract interested buyers into your market base. As per the statistics more than 9 out of 10 people would want to watch videos rather than reading articles. And another survey reveals that video marketing has more than 60% of the customers than the other channels of communication in the internet marketing.

It is important that the videos which you create are made in good quality and correct format. There are a lot of social video sharing sites like Yahoo video and YouTube by Google group which can create a lot of hype about your videos. You just need to share and upload your videos on these sites, If your videos have good content and are affirmatively educative and interesting, people would be more than glad to share them with others. In this way there would be immense popularity of your video. The more number of people watch your video greater would be the sales of your product.

Viral video marketing is indeed a great way to proliferate the sensitivity and idea behind your product to larger to a wider audience.

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It's important to understand and know what is best for you and your blog, when you start blogging and invest your valuable time writing for your blog, you want good return over the time you have invested. The way you will gain your profits is by getting more and more visitors to your blog. Now which is a better way to gain visitors social media or search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing and other.Social media traffic - Positive side:• It can bring huge amount of traffic to a blog or website in a very little amount of time.• Your blog get exposure to new visitors, readers and advertisers.• It also gives you rise in your revenue sometimes.• A popular story on Digg, Stumbleupon or Reddit makes people link your story with their blog or bookmark in other social media websites like Delicious, Netscape and more, which helps in creating backlinks to your blog.Social media traffic - Negative side:• To bring traffic from social media you need a network of friends active in social media which demands lot of time investment, it completely depends on you if you want to invest your time to build a network in social media.• Social media traffic is not reliable because some day you might get peak in traffic and the other day you might get nothing also social media will only give you traffic until your post is popular and visible to mass audience.• Don't expect social media traffic to click on anything else on your page, majority of traffic will not even bother visiting any other web page of your blog which will lead to high bounce rate of your blog.• Eats up lot of bandwidth with almost nothing in return other than lot of page impressions and large spike in increased traffic.Organic Search engine traffic:• Search engine traffic provides targeted traffic to your blog, your visitors will look for more similar stuff on your blog if they like your posts and also will subscribe to your blog and more over spend time on it, all these factors will result in low bounce rate of your blog.• Gives you a moderate traffic but the traffic is steady and you will not face ups and downs in your traffic unlike social media traffic.• Search engine traffic pays you in long run.• Money makers: Search engine visitors are those visitors who come to your blog looking for something that they really want and if there is something you have which is useful to them then they would even won’t mind paying money to get it.Social media has evolved as a very powerful tool in recent times and the traffic from social media is very tempting to every one and to achieve that level of traffic people don't mind spending hours getting their story voted by others to make it popular.I can only say that both the channels have their own power and importance in blog promotion. I prefer search engine traffic over social media traffic but also I like sharing some unique and interesting stuff with my social media friends once in a while because it also keeps my blog visible in social media also.You can't just focus on either one of the channel's because you will be missing out on potential visitors from the other channel, so it's ideal to manage social media and search engines on regular basis and you can do this by optimizing your blog regularly for search engines and also chipping some posts for social media freaks to gain benefits from all the available resources available to generate traffic.
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How to Manage Your Online Reputation

If you've ever Googled your name, you know how important managing your reputation online can be. Each day, thousands of individuals are searching online for information about others simply by searching on Google or other leading search engines. With information being so readily available, managing your reputation is more important than ever.How to Manage Your Reputation OnlineFortunately, managing your reputation online isn't all that difficult, but it does take work. Here are 7 basic steps you can take to ensure that your reputation doesn't become negatively impacted by what's being said about you online.1. See where you stand. Start your reputation management initiative by Googling your name. Try it with quotes and with out (first and last name together). Look through each of your results on page one and page two of Google. Are there any negative items you wish to remove?2. Set up a Google alert. Visit Google and set up an alert for your name. After setting up the alert Google will send you and email to confirm that you wish to receive the updates. Accept the alert and each time your name is published to the Web, you'll know about it.3. Contact website owners for name removal. If there are sites that include your name and commentary that is less than desirable, contact the appropriate websites requesting that the information be removed. More often than not, website owners will agree to remove your name and/or inappropriate information.4. Purchase a domain with your name. Add sites and WebPages associated with your name and watch negative search results get pushed lower on Google rankings. Visit GoDaddy or another provider of website URLs and hosting, and purchase a domain that contains your name. Even if your name is rather common, experiment with variations until your name can be established in the form of a dot com. Once you own a domain, publish a webpage with your personal profile.5. Start a blog under your name. Blogger is a great tool for setting up your own blog which can be used to publish information about yourself. Popular blog sites are often picked up by Google and you can control the content. Be sure to sign up for Technorati after your blog has been published. Submit your blog for review and its popularity will increase, improving search rankings and continuing to push down negative search results.6. Free press release. Use free-press-release.com or a similar free press release site to publish favorable information about your and your reputation. This form of reputation management is easy and costs nothing. Be sure to use your name throughout the release and in the release title.7. Author articles in your field. Publish article relative to a particular topic or area in which you've done some work or have experience. Use article distribution services to build online references to your content. Make sure your articles contain an about the author section that links back to your main website.There are a variety of strategies you can use to manage online references about you, your family, or others that need to manage their reputation online. Other online sites like Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube, and Squidoo, offer ample opportunity to deliver favorable search results that can push unfavorable results down in search engine rankings. The key is to start today - proactively manage your reputation and put yourself in a favorable light.
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Please Join The Chris Treece Show on January 13, 2010 at 11 am CST as my guest will be “The Social Media Scientist” Dan Zarrella. He will be discussing his new book, “The Social Media Marketing Book”. Call in number is 347-633-9495. www.blogtalkradio.com/Chris-TreeceDan Zarrella is an award winning social, search, and viral marketing scientist and author of the upcoming O’Reilly media book “The Social Media Marketing Book”. He has a background in web development and combines his programming capabilities with a passion for social marketing to create applications like the social URL shortener Votrs.com, Link Attraction Factors keyword tools, as well as TweetPsych, TwitterBrandSponsors, TweetBacks and TweetSuite.His Link Attraction Factors report helped readers determine which topics, days, times, and keywords attract links in social media stories for semantic content optimization, while his Viral Content report details the motivations, preferences and habits involved in online content sharing.Dan has written extensively about the science of viral marketing, memetics and social communications on his own blog and for a variety of popular industry blogs, including Mashable, CopyBlogger, ReadWriteWeb, Plagiarism Today, ProBlogger, Social Desire, CenterNetworks, Nowsourcing, and SEOScoop.He has been featured in The Twitter Book, Fast Company, The Financial Times, NYPost, The Boston Globe, Forbes, Wired, The Wall Street Journal, Mashable and TechCrunch. He was recently awarded Shorty and Semmy awards for social media & viral marketing.He has spoken at PubCon, Search Engine Strategies, Iowatasmic, Convergence ’09, 140 The Twitter Conference, The Cool Twitter Conference, WordCamp Mid Atlantic, Social Media Camp, Inbound Marketing Bootcamp, and The Texas Domains and Developers Conference, and he currently works as an inbound marketing manager at HubSpot.
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Social Media Marketing: Friends With Benefits

Nowadays, social media marketing is very much akin to a friends with benefits type of situation.Always bear in mind when thinking about and planning social media marketing campaigns and strategy that you have to focus more on making friends than selling your products and promoting your business!Social media is just that, social. In order to utilize social media marketing effectively, it is important for you to understand and realize that fact.Be friendly. Be sociable. Be somebody that other people want to get to know better instead of only trying to be somebody people will buy things from.Actually, one of the basic tenets of salesmanship is that people will buy from those people they like. So, if you are likeable and friendly on social sites, you will certainly be much more likely to make sales to the friends and followers you acquire along the way!One word of caution: If you are not yet active in social media marketing but plan to be in the near future, you had better go ahead and reserve the user name you want to have on the social sites you plan to frequent.All of the major social media communities such as Facebook and Twitter are growing at astounding rates and adding new members daily.So, this might well be a situation of he who hesitates is lost, because if you wait long, someone else will probably grab the user name you want.When using SEO with social media, though, keep in mind that you are writing for real people, not a search engine. Remember that you are addressing friends, not Google.Make your Twitter tweets and Facebook Wall posts, etc. accordingly!If you go at social media marketing expecting to run it solely in a business-like way with lots of sales hype, you’ll be doomed before you even get started.Think of social media marketing more along the lines of friends with benefits that can help you grow your online business!
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Join me Monday, January 11th on The Chris Treece Show as my guest will be "The Networking Queen" Denai Vaughn. Show Time is 11AM CST. Call in number is 347-633-9495 www.blogtalkradio.com/Chris-TreeceDo more. Be more. Achieve more. YOU ARE WORTH IT! There are simple tools, tips and techniques for increasing our networking success both online and offline. The difference is knowing WHEN you are ready to go to the next level and WHO to have help you shoot for the moon! Denai's skills and talents are capitalized upon each and every day by men & women around the world who seek to grow their business and minimize their bottom line. She is a woman who prides herself in connecting others with WHO they need to know WHEN they need to know them. Through strategic alliances and synergistic partnerships she continues to network with some of America's most loved and most amazing people, companies, and organizations. Many are impacting the nations!Denai has been blessed by having amazing coaches and mentors in her life, to include the renowned Master of influence, Jason Sisneros, ever-knowledgeable Patrick Dougher of Doer Success Systems, and an incredible life coach, Darlene Stark. She continues her quest for knowledge by surrounding herself by the amazing instructors, to include the infamous Niurka, astonishing Michael Bernoff, Three-Time Olympian Rueben Gonzalez, comical Jerry Clark, sensational Chris Widener, and Erik "Mr. Brightside" Swanson. All have provided invaluable training, insight, motivation, and accountability. Another "feather in her cap" is being selected out of THOUSANDS to share the stage with many of these celebrities during their seminars and events throughout the United States!
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Social bookmarking has become a powerful tool for many online business people, and you are losing a lot if you do not know how to use social bookmarking for your website's advantage. Take note that almost everybody has been using this traffic generating tool, so you have to make the most out of social bookmarking.Social bookmarking is one of the top techniques that you can use to promote your website and build more traffic. If you're not involved, it's time to get with the program!Social bookmarking started for me when I joined a few of the top social bookmarking sites. You may think this is all you need to do to get involved, but trust me – there is more to social bookmarking than simply joining the social bookmarking circles!The first thing to do is visit a few of the top social bookmarking sites: Digg, del.ici.ous, Furl, and Yahoo, just for example. You can do a Google search for these to find them if you've never been there before.Then, sign up for a free account with each of these. When signing up for an account, you will have the opportunity to select buttons that you can add to the end of each of your blog posts. This will allow readers of your blog to "Digg" your post over at the Digg social bookmarking site.When someone clicks on your Digg button, it will bring them to the Digg site, where they would login with their account username and password. The blog post or article would then appear as a URL, and the person who clicked "Digg" will have the opportunity to post a comment about your post.This can do nothing but good things for your website. If everyone gives your post a Digg, think of all the links in Digg you will have pointing back to your site. This will certainly increase your traffic when someone goes onto Digg looking for a post on a topic that interests them.This is where I initially went wrong in my social bookmarking efforts. You don't want to stop after just joining these social bookmarking sites and leaving a button on your blog posts for everyone else to find and click. You want to get actively involved in the social bookmarking process by becoming an active member of these sites.What I mean by being "active" is that you want to visit these sites, and find topics of interest to you, or topics that relate to your online business. Once you find other posts on your topic of interest, then you have the opportunity to bookmark, or "favorite" those posts, and add a comment.Doing this can really increase your traffic, as evidenced by my own increasing website stats just by doing this one thing alone. If you "favorite" other people's sites and they "favorite" your site and you each comment on other's posts, then you will soon have a network of links pointing back to your site.This important piece of the social bookmarking puzzle is something I didn't even realize myself until I got involved with my latest social bookmarking site called "Squidoo". Apparently, Google just loves Squidoo at the moment, so I jumped on the bandwagon along with others I know joining the site.The great thing about Squidoo and sites like MySpace is that you can create a "lens" which is just like a mini web page, or landing page that gives visitors to that lens a quick overview of what you have to offer. This will hopefully entice them to click your links and bring you more traffic.I've made darn sure this time that after creating my lens I did not just leave it at that. I have visited other lenses on my topic of interest, added those lenses to my "favorites" list, and sent comments to others in hopes that others will visit my links as well. So far, this has increased my traffic very quickly and I may even reach a personal goal thanks to this technique alone!Next, I am going to try creating more than one lens and link one to the other, which will hopefully entice visitors to read one of my lenses, and then click on to the other, increasing my traffic even more!The thing to watch out for when using social bookmarking sites is that you don't want to be a spammer who is out there just to get your links seen and clicked. As with anything in internet marketing, like forum posts, no one likes someone who is just there to advertise themselves. You want to offer valuable information, and make a valuable contribution by offering good advice, and great content.
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Social Blogging Will Attract The Masses

If you watch teenagers these days they are forever texting each other. I dare not ask what about – but they do spend all day with their fingers on that keypad. Of course I am talking about cell phones and some reports suggest that teens spend more on text messages than on actual calls.Social blogging seems to be the ‘grown up’ form of texting. It certainly has a big following with many of the top web identities having a ‘twitter’ or ‘plurk’ accounts. The difference between texting through a cell phone and social bookmarking is the audience.Cell phone texting is generally one to one. Social blogging is one to many – thousands perhaps for some. Where social blogging is making its mark is in it’s ability to deliver visitors. Twitter allows the ‘twittering’ of posts from blogs via RSS feeds.This becomes an instant message to the world that you have a new post and what the topic is. Those interested can immediately access that post. Is it important? In one way – very!With respect to bloggers, particularly the big namers, getting an early advice on a new post means you can jump in, read the post and leave a comment – at the top of comments. Believe it or not this is important. If your comment is in the first five, every other commenter will most likely read what you have had to say.If your comments are valid there is a good chance they will visit your site. Furthermore, comments near the top are more likely to get a response from the blogger than those lost in the 15 or 20 comments that come afterwards.Social blogging is definitely here to stay. If you can learn to use is effectively you can benefit your site and your reputation.
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Be Seen in Social Media to Get Noticed

According to recent data collected by comScore, GroupM and M80, display ad exposure on social media networking sites lifts consumer response to your ads in paid search.Consumers are more likely to recognize and respond to your paid Google ad if they have also seen your display ads on a site such as Facebook or Linkedin. Research showed a 19 percentage point increase in searches on the study group brand among users who saw social media ads relevant to the brand. In other words---if someone sees your business in an ad on Facebook or another social media site…..and then sees you’re paid in a Google search…they are much more likely to recognize you.“Every day consumers express their intent via search. Now, we better understand how that intent is established via social media and the interplay between the channels,” says Chris Copeland, the CEO of GroupM Search—The Americas. Better yet, shoppers who have been exposed to influenced social media along with a paid search ad had a 50% higher click through rate!Now, that’s something to get excited about!“This finding provides strong evidence that investing in social media marketing can both increase initial brand consideration and drive higher conversion rates once the consumer has decided to purchase,” says Graham Mudd, the VP of comScore.If you are still dragging your heels and not utilizing the amazing opportunities for social media marketing---get with the program! You can build your business tremendously with social media marketing. It’s HOT and it’s getting hotter every day! Catch the wave and get in on the action! Facebook and Linkedin are great social media communities to join, but there are quite a few others. In fact, if you have a more specialized niche, it would be a good idea for you to do a Google search for online communities with users who have interests relevant to your products. For example, if you are selling auto accessories, join a social community of auto enthusiasts.The word is out about how being seen on social media sites can boost your click-throughs in paid search, so get busy making your business visible!
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Can You Track Success in Using Social Media?

Well....the plain, unvarnished truth is this: You can’t. Lots of very smart people on working on ways to track and measure social media marketing success, but to date there ain’t no such animal. All you can do if you’re going to be active in social media marketing, which you definitely should be, is to try and evaluate your goals in using social media and whether or not you are achieving those goals, or at least making progress.Here are some things to take into consideration when attempting to determine the success of your efforts in social media marketing and which approach you should take:• Remember what social media really is! It isn’t just about you trying to sell your stuff or promote your business. Social means just that---so socialize and don’t ram your products down the throats of all and sundry. Otherwise, your results will be much different than what you hoped for! It’s okay to promote your business some, naturally. But don’t overdo it and do make a point of giving other members something of value such as information or even entertainment. If you don’t think you can do this, then social media will not be successful for you.• Whatever you do in social media, try to assess a value. In other words, try to take stock of whether or not a particular tweet or comment produced the desired results for you. Obviously, you want keep doing the things that get the best results. If a certain photo or comment netted new followers or fans, then try to ascertain what it was about that particular thing that people liked, so that you can duplicate it.• Remember that having tons of followers or fans is not necessarily your ultimate goal in using social media marketing. In fact, quality is preferred over quantity. If you have 20,000 fans or followers and 75% of those people are spam accounts or auto followers, then what have you really got?In using social media marketing, since it’s basically impossible to track analytics of success, you should have a very clear goal for what you hope to accomplish by using this marketing technique. Then, simply do what needs to be done to try and achieve that goal!
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Social media marketing is hotter than a firecracker, and growing hotter every day as online entrepreneurs realize just how effective this particular marketing technique can be.If you aren’t using social media marketing---you should be.However, a word of caution: Use social media wisely or you can end up doing more harm to your business than good. There are certain, basic, unwritten rules of etiquette that apply to social media. Before diving into the deep end of the social media scene, familiarize yourself with these rules of etiquette so that you don’t jump in there and start putting your foot in it.There is a lot more to social media marketing than joining Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin and trying to get friends or followers. First of all, don’t rush in and start requesting friends like somebody that’s been stranded on a desert island alone for the past 10 years and is desperate now for companionship of any sort.Take your time. Go slowly. You’re impatient, that’s understandable. You have probably looked around and seen some of your competitors with 3000 friends and/or followers and you want to catch up. But, quality is actually much more important than quantity, anyway.Think of your social community friends sort of like traffic to your online store. You want traffic, of course. But you want the right kind of traffic, not just a torrent of visitors who are not ever going to become buyers. This applies to your social media friends, too. Be a bit selective about who your friends and followers are and aim for quality.A big No-No is to go through your online address book and send friend requests to everybody on it. You will not win friends this way. In fact, you will antagonize many of those people to the point where it will damage any existing relationship you have with them.The correct way to go about letting folks know you now have a page on Facebook or whatever is to announce it on your website, or in an email newsletter, or in your email signature. This way, your contacts who want to participate will, and the others who don’t want to---won’t. You don’t want them, anyway.Although you don’t want to bombard anyone you’ve ever emailed with friend requests, you do want to connect with net workers who approach you. If it seems like a real, live person and not a spammer, then friend them. Not to do so would be offensive and against the social media etiquette rules.Be professional at all times. Don’t tweet messages from Twitter that would offend some of your followers, for example. Remember that you never know who will read a message you post online or send out in a tweet!Don’t be too sales-y with your new friends, especially at first. People don’t like to feel used and it’s bad social manners to give someone the impression that you only want them as a friend to try and sell them something. You do want to build your business, naturally. But be tactful about it!Mind your manners in social media marketing and watch your business grow!
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I hear the debate all the time, and no I'm not talking about the Presidential debate - I'm referring to Twitter.Should we consider Twitter to be a marketing tool or is it just for people who have a lot of time on their hands and the need to jibber-jabber all day long?I will be honest, I was an early adopter of Twitter and then I walked away from it I couldn't see the value, recently my viewpoint has changed.Think of Twitter as a means to get instant public messages out to your audience, whether it is an audience of colleagues or potential customers.Twitter is becoming an increasingly important platform for online communication and, yes, conversation. TechCrunch reported that Twitter has more than 1 million users and approximately 3 million messages are posted daily.How can we use Twitter as a marketing tool?Good question. Let me see if I can help.Twitter As A Learning ToolAs I mentioned over 3 million messages are posted everyday. Are you mentioned in any of them? What about your company? This might be a good time to find out. Twitter provides a search engine that allows you plug-in company names, brand names, topics and even personal names. How is your buzz level? Are there any negative comments out there? If I were you I'd use the search engine to check in a regular basis.Today I found out that BMW made a customer unhappy and he Twittered about it. I learned that Weather Underground has some really cool iPhone application and that the chocolate cake at Macaroni Grill is deadly.All that was posted today! So, whether you are a Twitter or not someone may just be twitting about you.Use Twitter as a Media OutletYou can use Twitter to post news or updates about your company or products. However, please don't do this before you become familiar with the format and etiquette of Twitter. The best way to do this is to post a link to the full content of the news or update. Think of what's valuable to your consumers and let them here about it first on Twitter. You'll be amazed how your following will grow.A Promotional PalaceIt's not uncommon for companies to post promotions, sales, or specials on Twitter. An example would be Dell, they do it well. It's important to remember that Twitter is about conversation and breaking news, so be sure if you are posting promotional information that you make it conversational and personal. If I want an ad, I'll turn on TV.Create Character in Your BrandTwitter is a fantastic tool in giving your brand a voice and a personality. Being successful in Twittering you will have to put forth your personality and a unique style. That's what makes the difference and can increase your Twitter following and make it a successful marketing tool for you.Customer Service and Chit ChatAs you begin to use Twitter you will notice that it's all about conversation. It's about talking to your prospects and consumers; interacting with them. If you are not going to do this don't use Twitter as a marketing tool, it simply won't work. Make friends, be a friend and reply. Show your followers that you want to engage and be involved with them - this provides optimal customer service and that you are in fact personable.
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Social Media Marketing via Video

Social Media Marketing via Video When we talk about social media we immediately think of Facebook, Twitter and even Myspace, but often overlook the video option of YouTube.To help you understand the value of YouTube consider the following statistics:In March 2008 there were 78.3 million videos uploaded and growing at approximately 20 percent every month. In one day there is often more than 150,000 videos uploaded. In July of 2008 there were over 5 billion videos viewed on YouTube.Over 75% of the U.S. Internet audience views online videos. This accounts for 558 million hours of online video watching on a monthly basis. YouTube alone has over 258 million registered users, 50% of them visit weekly if not more.Are you seeing value yet? Of course you are. We all know that we must be innovative and creative with our marketing techniques and initiatives, so if we are not using YouTube, are we missing out? The short answer is yes.How can you use YouTube to market your products or services?YouTube has several categories that you can upload videos to. They include:• Autos and Vehicles• Comedy• Education• Entertainment• Film and Animation• Gaming• How-to and Style• Nonprofit and Activism• People and Blogs• Pets and Animals• Science and Technology• Sports• Travel and EventsYour next step is to make the determination of what category your products or services fit into. Keep in mind that when it comes to social media marketing it's not just about uploading a commercial for your product, but it's interacting with potential customers.What type of video could you post that consumers would find valuable and interactive?Could you put together a how-to video? What about an entertaining video showcasing your products? How about sharing a podcast that is entertaining and informative? Remember value and interaction are key when it comes to using social media to market effectively. There is a fine line, don't cross over it or you will do more harm than good and possibly detour potential customers rather than attract new customers.YouTube also introduced brand channels for companies to set up their own page that is branded by you and houses your videos. This is the YouTube concept of advertising and marketing, so while I would consider it more advertising than social media I do want you to be aware that it is an option. The problem with this option is YouTube is not very upfront about the cost, so you'll need to do some digging and make some phone calls to find out if this is a viable option for you.The fact is that YouTube is another effective way to utilize social media marketing and the cost are minimal if any at all. If you can create videos that share value and interaction with consumers you can post those videos to an audience of 78.3 million users. What you must remember is that your video will be one of 150,000 that are uploaded daily, so make it worth the time for users to view it. You also want to keep in mind that users 18 to 34 years of age frequently share videos with their family and friends, so there is a viral effect to be had here as well.As with any social media marketing strategies be creative, have fun but most of all do it - because your competitors probably are.
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Why I Like comments!

No Brainer if you ask me. What is the point of writing a blog if no one comments? I guess there is something to be said for getting a bother off your chest....venting so to speak. However, I feel it rather nice to be more interactive. I like to make a post that others have an interest in reading. I more than like to hear what they thought about it. The interactive aspect is a learning tool and a networking tool for me. So please, if you read my blogs......leave me a comment about your thoughts. I wanna hear ya! Your comments will help get to know you better. It is called 'branding' ;~)Linda Landry, REALTOR ® Exit Realty 1st Choice Tucson, Arizona
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