RE/MAX Design Center Integrates with Dropbox

May 21, 2013 by · Comments

dropbox-iphone-mjRE/MAX North Central has been offering the RE/MAX Design Center, powered by Imprev, as part of it’s value proposition to agents in Minnesota and Wisconsin for nearly 10 years.  We have seen many enhancements come from Imprev, especially since RE/MAX Headquarters invested in the system on behalf of all US agents a couple of years back.  The choice to integrate Imprev with Dropbox is the most recent enhancement which I think you will find very useful. As an example, professional photographers can now upload files to a shared marketing folder with an agent, which then can be accessed directly in the Design Center. It’s all about saving time…which is the number one reason agents say they don’t use the Design Center….”I don’t have time.”  Well, this should help!

For those of you who are not familiar with Dropbox, it is cloud storage and sharing solution. Tim Nichols, e-Biz trainer for the region, has been singing Dropbox’s praises in tech trainings for the past 2 years.  Dropbox offers us the ease of accessing and sharing files from anywhere via a simple internet connection. I have the Dropbox app on my iPhone, iPad, and of course use in on my laptop as well…it has quickly become an integral part of my daily work life.

Click here for the entire story on the integration of the REMAX Design Center and Dropbox. Click here for the FAQs on how to do it!

Filed Under: Marketing Tips, RE/MAX Articles, RE/MAX In The News, RE/MAX News, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Tech Trends – Social Search

January 16, 2013 by · Comments

One of the big tech trends this week is social search – specifically the release of Facebook’s Graph Search. Facebook has partnered with Microsoft’s Bing team to put together a search engine that mines all of the data available to you in your Facebook feed and what your friends have shared with you.

If you are curious what that means to real estate agents – Want to know which of your friends are talking about real estate? Ask Facebook Graph. Want to know which of your Facebook friends, and their friends for that matter, live in your service area? Ask Facebook Graph. Want to know which real estate agent your friends recommend the most?
I think you get the picture, but if you need a little more perspective, check out the video below.

Curaytor

Facebook isn’t the only one that is releasing social search this week. Jimmy Mackin and Chris Smith are releasing Curaytor this week targeted at helping you sift through your social data. They’ll be talking it up at Real Estate Connect, but if you couldn’t get away to NYC this week, check out the cool video they released.

I just got my beta invite for Curaytor today so I’ll probably add it to the Tech Tour curriculum for next week. If you’re in Wisconsin, show up if you want to find out. For those of you in Minnesota, I’ll post something in our RE/MAX Tech Talk group on Facebook, so search for us and join the club of tech-savvy agents/staff (those who are trying to become more tech-savvy welcome too).

Filed Under: RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: ,

Tech Trends – Content is King Edition

November 20, 2012 by · Comments

Tech TrendsLast week we looked at paths to success for search engine optimization (SEO) that didn’t involve content, but I want to come back to that as it is the cornerstone of what Google values. When people are searching online, they want content they can use whether it’s a how-to video or a property listing in their area.

Beyond Keywords

Google maintains its relevance by linking people to the content they are looking for rather than the content with the most keywords stuffed into a page. One way they have figured out to get around people who are gaming the system is to reference what other people say about the site in question. In this video, SEOMoz will discuss how that affects search engine ranking.

How to Get More Business From the Web

Realtor.com reveals how to convert more leads on the web (hint: it involves content):
“Your online efforts should all point toward a single aim: generating leads. Here are four ways to get more business from your Web presence, recommended by user-experience experts at the Real Estate Connect conference hosted by ­Inman News in San Francisco in August.”

12 Most Awesome Content Strategies for Your Blog

If you’re looking to bolster the content of your agent website or you’re working on your own blog, you need great content. 12Most has some great content strategies you can adopt to increase your success.

Creating a WOW Customer Experience Every Time

Differentiating yourself and humanizing yourself are keys to developing that WOW customer experience. RISMedia looks at some strategies to achieve that.

BONUS LINK – Taking Your Video Viral

In this Social Media Examiner podcast, they interview a guy who visited all 171 Starbucks in Manhattan in one day and actually got people to carry him across the length of Manhattan. Pretty interesting stuff and some good insights if you’re looking for creative ways to increase your video viewership.

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , ,

Tech Trends – 11/6/2012 Edition

November 6, 2012 by · Comments

Tech TrendsRE/MAX Launches a New Tool: rem.ax

[Uniform Resource Locator (URL) = online address like www.remax.com or www.remax.net]
Beginning today, a new URL shortening tool (similar to bit.ly and goo.gl) is available to RE/MAX Associates through RE/MAX Mainstreet. This new tool creates shortened URLs that are unique to the users and allows Associates to track clicks and view reports on Mainstreet.

For example, I can now point you to http://www.soldsignblog.com/category/technology/ with just  http://rem.ax/RRSzV3

The reporting feature allows you to differentiate traffic from multiple sources. If you send out a mass mail to clients, you can shorten the URL and then definitively check how many times people clicked through from that email. It can even generate a QR code for you!

Show Passion in Your Next Video

I’ve brought this up a lot over the last few months – video is becoming more standard in real estate so you should embrace it. Geek Estate Blog has some solid tips in this article about how to produce a killer video that encapsulates your passion for real estate.

NAR Launches Realtors Property Resource

Here’s what NAR has to say about the launch:
“The Realtors Property Resource® (RPR) is now officially open to all of the 1 million members of the National Association of REALTORS®. If you’re a REALTOR®, that means you can now access extensive data on nearly 150 million properties across the country — including comprehensive records of past sales, property taxes, school districts, and even local voting patterns — all for free.”

REignite your business in 2013

InmanNext is running a new series to help you re-invigorate yourself for 2013.  Here’s what they have to say about the project:

“From online marketing ideas, social media, new technology to implement, and some fresh perspective, sometimes all it takes are some actionable STEPS, and some resources to read…a library of sorts.”

LinkedIn Marketing: New Features to Enhance Your LinkedIn Results

When I chatted with Verl Workman between Fall Forum appearances a couple weeks back, he told me all about his love for LinkedIn and how he views it as more important than Facebook and Twitter. If you’ve jumped into LinkedIn and are looking for some thing to push you a little further, considering listening to this podcast.

mbiebusch via Compfight

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , , , ,

Tech Trends – Big News Edition

October 31, 2012 by · Comments

News You Can Use - DailyI’m calling this the Big News Edition of Tech Trends because we’re rolling out a new version of our SoldSignBlog to email communication and I’m also going to review the new product launches from Apple, Microsoft, and Google that all happened within the last week.

News You Can Use – Daily

In the past, if you subscribed to SoldSignBlog, you would get a bland e-mail each time we posted. As of today, we’re switching that up to a daily digest of our posts which will come out at 3pm, 6 days a week (unless there are no posts that day). In addition, we’ll clue you in on changes to the Facebook page and any tweets for the day. Our goal is to reduce the clutter in your inbox and give you one product that keeps you up to date.

As a result of this, we plan to phase out the Weekly Update and switch to a monthly format. If you don’t receive today’s issue, visit our subscription form.

Announcement: Apple

Everyone knew it was coming – the iPad Mini launched last week to fanfare and mixed reviews. It’s smaller than the iPad yet wider than the 7″ tablets like the Kindle Fire and Google Nexus 7 that it’s trying to compete with, but it’s more expensive than its competitors with a lower definition screen. I was disappointed with the specs compared to the price. My Suggestion: If you love your Apple products/App Store and are looking for a tablet, get the 4th generation iPad instead (yes, they only waited 6 months to release an incremental update to the iPad, but it’s likely they are making room in their Spring launch gala for an iTV).

Announcement: Microsoft

Microsoft launched their Windows 8 product, the new Surface tablet, and a number of laptops that feature touch screens and double as a tablet. Windows 8 is Microsoft’s foray into a combined operating system for tablets and PCs and borrows heavily from their revised XBox 360 user interface. It’s flashy and it offers you more data at your finger tips with push notifications on your screen and a move to a more app-based interface. You can still access the old interface, but with a more limited ability. To tempt you into upgrading, they’ve lowered the price. My Suggestion: Cruise past Best Buy and play around with Windows 8 on one of their display systems for at least 15 minutes so you can see what functionality you are gaining versus what you are losing.

Announcement: Google

Preempted by Hurricane Sandy, Google launched 3 products yesterday (and an incremental upgrade to the Android OS) – Nexus 4, enhanced Nexus 7, and Nexus 10. The Nexus 4 is a T-Mobile cell phone (without 4G LTE compatibility) with two options – 8GB version without a subscription for $299 (which is quite cheap) or $199 16GB version with 2 year subscription. The first generation Nexus 7 was released just a few months ago, but afterwards Amazon released an upgrade to the Kindle Fire so Google has countered with a higher resolution display to match (33% higher resolution than the iPad Mini). The Nexus 10 was perhaps the biggest news as it offers slightly higher resolution than the 4th generation iPad for $100 less. My Suggestion: Nexus 4 – If you love T-Mobile, this is a solid phone to consider. Nexus 7 & 10 – If you are looking for a tablet that can compete with the iPad products on tech specs, are budget conscious, and aren’t tied to the iOS App Store, you should take a look at the new offerings from Google. (The Math – Three 7-inch, 16GB tablets for the kids for Christmas:  iPad Mini = $987; Nexus 7 = $597 )

Filed Under: RE/MAX News, RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , , , , , ,

News You Can Use – 09/18/2012

September 18, 2012 by · Comments

Microsoft Urges Internet Explorer Users to Protect Against Targeted Attacks

Tablets“On Monday night, Microsoft urged users of Internet Explorer 9 and earlier versions to deploy a toolkit that could help protect against a series of attacks hitting its system.”

“It was revealed earlier in the day by security forum Rapid7 that Internet Explorer was hit with a new zero-day exploit, which takes advantage of a security hole within websites to carry out attacks. This means that anyone using IE to visit a website that has malicious links could have their computer compromised.”

Buying A Home Is 45% Cheaper than Renting

If you know someone who is renting and considering buying or are looking to build an add campaign around the benefits of home ownership – consider the powerful statement that Trulia makes below.

“Based on asking prices and rents during the summer of 2012, buying is now 45% cheaper than renting in the 100 largest U.S. metros, on average – that’s a savings of $771 a month. If you plan to stay in a home for 7 years, which is the average time that Americans traditionally live in a home before moving again, it is more affordable to buy than to rent in ALL of the 100 largest metros in the U.S.”

Unlock the Conversion-Boosting Power of Video

I’ve said it before and I’ll continue to be a broken record on this point: if you want to convert more listings and increase your search engine ranking, start using video. It may seem intimidating, but there are some great articles out there like this one to help you over the hurdle. In fact, Tech Savvy Agent recently posted another story about “Getting Over the Early Hurdles.”

Why Your Listings Don’t Rank

In addition to adopting video to boost your rank, there are certain things you can do to make your listings and pages more Google-friendly. If this is something you are concerned about, bookmark this page and learn how the pros do it.

Best Social Media Practices: Facebook, Twitter, G+ and Pinterest [Webinar Recording]

Yet another Inman resource today. For those of you looking to develop your social media skills and looking for some best practices to adopt, there is a recorded webinar or a slide presentation you can click through, depending upon your time availability.

mbiebusch via Compfight

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , ,

News You Can Use – The Mobile Edition

August 14, 2012 by · Comments

Mobile friendlyThe RE/MAX iPad App is out! In honor of this big release, we’re going to focus on what’s hot in mobile this week.

RE/MAX iPad App

You’ve probably already checked out the RE/MAX iPhone/Android app which brings our wealth of listings to your phone, but this week you can also download the iPad version of that app with even more features for the larger screen.

Inman’s iPad Webinar for Real Estate Agents

During my trainings, I sometimes get asked by agents where they should turn for just a basic “I just bought an iPad – now what?” tutorial on the device.  Wait no longer because Inman has launched their own webinar on just this question. You can watch it online at their site through the link above.

Facebook Mobile for Business: What You Need to Know

If 543 million people are checking Facebook via mobile, do you have a strategy to capture their attention? Social Media Examiner has launched a new podcast series about social media marketing and they brought in an expert to discuss how you can reach your audience on Facebook, specifically in the mobile environment. Their suggestions include:

  • Post succinct content of 160 characters or fewer
  • Make use of photos
  • Ask short-and-sweet questions
  • Be humorous and entertaining if appropriate
  • Add calls to action

Making Your Digital Camera Mobile-friendly with Eye-Fi

Tech Savvy Agent recently got their hands on a new toy – a memory card for digital cameras which allows them to stream pictures to their mobile devices. They rave: “This little SD memory card can save you a ton of time transferring photos and is a blast to use!” If you’re shooting your own listing photos and hate the transfer process, you might want to watch the video.

Andy Ihnatko via Compfight

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, Technology · Tagged: , , ,

News You Can Use – O8/07/2012

August 7, 2012 by · Comments

News You Can UseInman News held their annual summer Connect conference in San Francisco last week so there’s plenty of buzz  in the real estate tech industry. We’ve got a few of those stories and more for this week’s News You Can Use.

Listing Syndication is Here to Stay

Inman’s hip to what we’ve been saying for the last few months – listing syndication has a permanent place in the real estate market so you’d better embrace it. They even held a panel discussion with a number of the key players in that arena, and then posted this article to summarize the key points.

Best Practices: Mobile Websites, Social Media, & Video

What are the new guidelines for the web in 2012? Check out what one Inman reporter took away from the Connect general sessions.

Seven Hot New Tools for Real Estate

Along with new guidelines come new apps/services, and there were plenty to be found at this year’s event. One of the standouts was Videolicious, a smart phone app that lets you quickly and easily create composite videos on the fly. Check it out below!

Seven Ways to Prospect with Linkedin

LinkedIn is a great tool for generating business leads, as we learned back in February from Chris Westfall. This article gives you some best practices for using the social network to further your business goals rather than a simple online resume.

Pinterest for Real Estate

Learn the top 5 techniques one brokerage’s social media manager uses to drive traffic and develop leads.

How to Capitalize on Web-Generated Sales Leads

So you’re getting leads off the web – are you converting them? There’s an infographic for that. ResponseAudit crunched the numbers so you don’t have to.

mbiebusch via Compfight

Filed Under: Technology · Tagged: , ,

News You Can Use – 08/02/2012

August 2, 2012 by · Comments

Apple iPad TabletReal Estate Agents Move to Video

“Consumer consumption of online video continues to skyrocket and that’s providing an advantage to real estate agents who use video to market homes as they benefit from the growing popularity of video, the ability to better reach new generations of mobile technology-centric homebuyers, and increased page rank through superior Search Engine Optimization (SEO).”

“The advantage of better SEO from video is stunning…Google pushes video to the top of its search results, videos are indexed by Google faster and getting video to appear on a page one result is a lot easier than getting a web page to show up on the first page of a Google search.”

Article on RE/MAX Results in Above Magazine

In case you missed it this week, RE/MAX’s magazine Above ran a very nice feature on RE/MAX Results. Check it out!

How One Geeky Agent Made $35,977 While On Vacation

The Geek Estate Blogger recently went on vacation to London and if all the deals he made while there courtesy of DocuSign pan out, he’s going to be almost $36K richer. Have you adopted a digital signature yet, or is paperwork waiting for you when you get back to the office?

22 Blogging Tools to Consider

Normally I’m all about the top 5 to 12 most awesome things, but when there are so many marvelous tools out there, some times you just need to open up your mind and give more a try. I’ve personally started using Trelloas a project management tool and it’s great – I can share it with people in the office so they have visibility to where I am at with tasks and can add notes/tasks to the list.

10 Gadgets You Shouldn’t Buy …Right Now

The last half of 2012 promises to have a bumper crop of tech toys and software like the iPhone 5 and Windows 8, so if you don’t have to buy right now, there are a number of cool gizmos that you will be tempted by but should avoid until the next evolutionary step occurs.

Your Phone as a Key

Some listing services are already using apps to replace lockbox keys, but in the not too distant future, you’ll be able to just hold your smart phone up to the door on a listing and check yourself and your buyers in. Some hotels are already jumping on the Near Field Communications (NFC) bandwagon.

Why You Should be Jealous of Kansas City…

Can you imagine having the bandwidth for 100 times your current broadband speed? Google is bringing fiber optic networking to Kansas City with speeds 100 times the current broadband standard. Check out this video that puts that into perspective to a great old The Cars tune.

Photo Giddy via Compfight

Filed Under: RE/MAX In The News, Technology · Tagged: , , ,

Tech News – 07/03/2012

July 3, 2012 by · Comments

Android Phone

Photo Editing Series for Real Estate [VIDEO]

Tech Savvy Agent is offering a free set of training for you to make sure that you’re bringing your A Game when choosing to shoot photos of client homes rather than hiring a professional. This is the first of a series they plan to release.

Should You Build a Mobile App or Mobile Website?

I occasionally get asked whether realtors need a mobile app to be competitive. If you’re not doing something that requires app level tools like the RE/MAX Results Radar system, you can probably get away with a solid mobile site. Check out this infographic to learn more about the differences and how each technology is being used.

Creating the “Best Case Scenario Buyer”

Inman News reviews a new elegant checklist system for the home buying process to help your clients make sure they aren’t missing any steps.

Android Shines In 4.1 Jelly Bean Update [REVIEW]

The big news in tech last week coming out of Google’s I/O event was the update to the Android operating system and the Nexus 7 tablet that will be coming out in July. Mashable takes a peek under the hood to look at how the revised system compares to iOS and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). They also announced that we will have to wait until 2013 for Google Glasses.

Microsoft Announces Windows 8 Pro Upgrade Promotion for $39.99 Online

Latest figures suggest that tablets will overtake notebook/laptop computers by 2016. Microsoft has decided to not take this lying down. They’ve lowered the upgrade price significantly for people wanting to move to Windows 8 from older systems in hopes of encouraging everyone to upgrade to their newest OS. If you want to buy it in stores, it will be $69.99 (still a steal comparative to previous versions).

Office 2013 Icon Leak Reveals Microsoft’s Continued Metro Push

Microsoft has also leaked screenshots of the Office 2013 product to tempt buyers. Public beta on this product line kicks off this month.

Real Life Hot Wheels Double Loop [VIDEO]

Ok, so this is kind of tech, but mainly it’s just so much awesomeness for those of us who grew up with Hot Wheels. If you loved the orange loops and jumps as a kid, this may help you get through your day before Independence Day.

Creative Commons License Johan Larsson via Compfight

Filed Under: RE/MAX North Central's Tuesday Tips, Technology · Tagged: , , ,
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