Monday, December 27, 2010

Social Media and Real Estate Sales


In today’s market you simply MUST be harnessing the power of the social web. Did you know that the average person spends over 20 minutes a day on facebook?

Using social media you can reach out to hundreds, even thousands, niche specific consumers with a targeted message for FREE in just a few minute. No other platform provides this kind of power.

Old school real estate like politics had always been ‘shaking hands and kissing babies.’ But, the issue with shaking hands is that it takes a long time to shake a lot of hands (not to mention the germs.) After you shake hands you may or may not connect later. Social media gives you a chance to shake virtually with higher odds of connection.

Think about this simply….You can pay to sponsor the local softball team and go to a few games to mingle with the masses. Or, you can mingle with every softball team in the region in five minutes by posting or tweeting.

These are the sites you should, at the least, be taking advantage of: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, and Active Rain

A few basic rules: First, always follow basic social media etiquette rules when posting. Friends that don’t appreciate your overly sales approach will simply ghost or block your posts and tweets. When this happens, your effectiveness will wane.

Secondly, remember that social media posts are easy to post but don’t last long. In fact, a tweet is only “alive” for a minute. New posts are being added every minute and yours will be lost in the stream. So, you need to create a daily routine for posting so that you stay in the minds of your ‘friends’ while not overwhelming.

Thirdly, always follow the 90% content rule. When posting, you should provide tons of useable, entertaining, or helpful content. Your ‘friends’ will follow, re-tweet, and share solid information. This will draw even more people to you. Not overwhelming people with sales will also encourage them to keep your posts live on their walls and in their feed.

Finally – don’t forget that you want to lead people to interact and opt-in. The lead capture cycle should always be a part of your social media strategy.

We use social media to generate motivated seller leads, cash-buyers, rental leads, students, new recruits, etc….

Follow us for an upcoming lead generation sales cycle free webinar series starting in November.

To your short sale success!

Source: Short Sale Daily News

Contact Business Aesthetic today so we can get your businesses social media campaign up and running businessaesthetic@gmail.com

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Oregon BCS Uniform too much?

Oregon has always been known for it's avant-garde uniform design. For their BCS Championship game versus Auburn at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz., on Jan. 10 they will bring a similar uni they wore for the "Civil War" game versus instate rivals Oregon State. The one subtle noticeable difference is the addition of the safety yellow trim. I like the clean white and gray uni, but the tennis ball socks and shoes gotta go. I feel that Oregon has had too many uniform changes and now they are just running out of ideas.
Even their Carbon fiber helmets are getting too busy for me, but I guess if the objective is to distract your opponent, then kudos to you Ducks.

I'll take flat black any day over safety yellow. Let me know what you think.

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Establishing Yourself As An Expert Via Social Media


5 Guaranteed Ways to Establish Your Reputation as an Expert in Your Field via Social Media

By Susan Gunelius

Social media presents an incredible opportunity for professionals to establish their online reputations as experts in their fields. Using the free (or inexpensive) tools of the social Web, you can easily develop your online reputation as the go-to person in your field.

Following are five guaranteed ways to help you establish your own reputation as an expert in your field by leveraging the opportunities and tools available to you through social media and the social Web:

1. Publish shareworthy content.

The term I use to describe amazing online content that people find useful and share with their own social Web audiences via their blogs, Twitter, social networks, and so on is shareworthy. When you create and publish shareworthy content online, people find value in it and want to share it with their own online connections thereby increasing your online exposure to broad audiences and raising awareness of who you are and the knowledge you bring to the online conversation.

With that in mind, find the tools and media that you enjoy using to express yourself and start creating shareworthy content. For example, start a Google blog, use Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and so on to publish your shareworthy content. Don’t limit publishing to your own blog and profiles though. You can also write guest blog posts for other influential blogs and Web sites in your niche.

2. Go multimedia.

Shareworthy content isn’t limited to written words. You can also create shareworthy content and share your knowledge and expertise via audio and video. For example, start an online talk show on Blog Talk Radio or a podcast on Blubrry (both tools enable you to upload your content to iTunes for further exposure and sharing). You can also create online video content and upload it to your own YouTube channel and other video publishing sites such as Tube Mogul, which enables you to automatically share your video content with a variety of other popular video sites.

3. Leverage the features of social media tools.

You can do more than publish shareworthy content on the social Web, and each social Web tool offers different features that can help you further establish your reputation as an expert in your field and build your online audience. For example, you can answer questions related to your field of expertise using LinkedIn Answers. You should also request recommendations from your LinkedIn connections to boost your credibility.

4. Join organizations and groups that actively seek experts for media opportunities.

Sites like Profnet from PR Newswire and Help a Reporter Out (HARO) offer journalists, authors, and so on the ability to connect with experts in a wide variety of disciplines. Join both sites and respond to queries that enable you to offer your expertise and gain some publicity. You can also search LinkedIn groups and Facebook groups to find people interested in your area of expertise. When you find those groups, join them and actively participate in the conversations to demonstrate your expertise and add value.

5. Integrate and cross-promote your efforts.

Your social media efforts are more powerful if they’re connected. Use tools like Facebook social plugins to integrate your Web site and blog with Facebook activities, and use tools like Twitterfeed to feed your blog to Twitter. You should take the time to feed your blog posts automatically to your Facebook profile and page as well as your LinkedIn profile and groups.

You can also use widgets and tools to promote your Facebook and Twitter content on your blog or website (Facebook widgets, Twitter widgets and buttons), and so on. Furthermore, add social media icons and links to your blog, Web site, online profiles, email signature, forum signature, and anywhere else you can think of to boost your visitors and connections.

The social Web offers a place where you can not only establish yourself as an expert in your field, but you can do so across a global audience. What are you waiting for?

http://blogs.forbes.com/work-in-progress/2010/04/28/5-guaranteed-ways-to-establish-your-reputation-as-an-expert-in-your-field-via-social-media/

From forbes.com


For more information and help on starting your companies Social Media Presence contact us @ businessaesthetic@gmail.com

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Tuesday, November 30, 2010

The Block at Orange Outlets?

According to the OC Register The Block will be changing it name and branding in the near future to become more appealing to tourists visiting Disneyland.

"We’re not prepared to announce that name yet, but rest assured it will have the word outlet in it. I’m not sure if ‘Block’ means anything." The new name will also have Orange in it.


My guess is the branding will look something like this.
It would keep the streak of terrible branding for anything "Orange". I took 5 minutes out of my day to come up with this logo.



Let me know what you think, and post links of your ideas. Here is the article from the OC Register:

November 30th, 2010, 1:31 pm posted by HANG NGUYEN, Retail Reporter

The Block at Orange, which has been under new ownership for about three and a half years, will soon get a new name.

Simon Property Group, which also owns Brea Mall, Laguna Hills Mall, Westminster Mall and The Shops at Mission Viejo, bought The Block a few years ago from the Mills Corp. The Block is one of Orange County’s largest shopping centers at more than 700,000 square feet.

“This has been a center high on our radar since acquisition,” said Gregg Goodman, president of The Mills, a Simon subsidiary that owns The Block.

He likes that the center is less than four miles from Disneyland and wants to capitalize on its tourists. “We know how much tourists like the outlet experience,” he said. The Block has recently announced new outlet tenants such as Carter’s, Tommy Hilfiger Company Store, Original Penguin Company Store, Perry Ellis Company Store and Levi’s Outlet Store.

“We will rebrand the property,” Goodman added. ”We’re not prepared to announce that name yet, but rest assured it will have the word outlet in it. I’m not sure if ‘Block’ means anything.” The new name will also have Orange in it.

Also, this past June, the city approved a 105,000-square-foot expansion at The Block behind Hollister. About 35,000 square feet of that will be occupied by Nordstrom Rack, which is slated to open in spring 2012. Shoppers should expect several more outlet stores in the expanded area, Goodman said.

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Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Who's Reading Your Tweets? - The World...




Here is an interesting article I just found on yahoo. The article features two cautionary tales of tweets gone bad. Odds are if it's been on yahoo, you've read it. But if you have yet to see it, here it is:


LAWLESS, Associated Press Jill Lawless, Associated Press – Tue Nov 23, 9:11 am ET
LONDON – What's a tweet, between friends? The law says sometimes it's a threat.

One man thought he was just bantering with his pals when he joked about blowing an airport sky-high. Another was reacting to a radio phone-in when he mused about stoning a journalist to death.

Because they made their throwaway comments on Twitter, both are in legal trouble.

Their cases have outraged civil libertarians and inflamed the debate about the limits of free speech in a Web 2.0 world. The Internet increasingly makes private jokes, tastes and opinions available for public consumption, blurring the line between public and private in a way that has left the law struggling to keep up.

"I think people don't have any idea of the potential legal ramifications of things they post on the Internet," said Gregor Pryor, a digital media lawyer at Reed Smith in London. "Anything you post on Twitter can come back and haunt you."

Paul Chambers found that out with a vengeance. The 27-year-old trainee accountant was convicted and fined after tweeting in January that he'd blow up Robin Hood Airport in northern England if his flight was delayed.

Chambers — who lost his job and faces several thousand pounds (dollars) in legal costs — said Monday that he has instructed his lawyers to take his case to the High Court, setting the stage for a major test of free speech online.

"Probably to the detriment of my mental well-being, I am appealing the decision as best I can," Chambers tweeted Monday.

Chambers is already an online cause celebre. After he lost an appeal earlier this month, thousands of Twitter users repeated his offending message — "Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week ... otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" They added the tag "I Am Spartacus" — a reference to the 1960 movie epic in which the titular hero's fellow rebels all assume his identity in a gesture of solidarity.

To many Twittizens, the outrage is obvious — Chambers was no threat to anyone, just a frustrated traveler blowing off steam.

"It's worrying," said Evan Harris, a former British lawmaker and free-speech campaigner. "The judgment seemed to misunderstand that something said across Twitter was not a serious threat. This is not the mode of choice for any suicidal jihadist."

Twitter, he said, "is like chat in a pub."

"There is sarcasm in the pub," he said. "There is sarcasm on Twitter, which is understood by everyone on Twitter — but not by that judge."

But others argue that it's not so simple.

The judge who rejected Chambers' appeal, Jacqueline Davies, said that "in the context of the times in which we live," with an ever-present threat from terrorism, Chambers' message was "obviously menacing."

Another ill-fated tweeter has received less sympathy than Chambers. Gareth Compton, a Conservative councilor in the English city of Birmingham, was arrested this month on suspicion of sending an "offensive or indecent message" after tweeting an invitation for a journalist to be stoned to death — a comment he insists was a joke.

The subject of his tweet, newspaper columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, reported him to police. He was arrested and questioned, but has not been charged. He later released an apology for his "ill-conceived attempt at humor."

Sympathy for Compton was relatively muted. Liberal Twitterites may have felt less comfortable supporting a Tory politician who'd attacked a Muslim woman.

But Harris said Compton's arrest is equally unfair. He said Compton's message — "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't" — was "obviously not a serious menace."

Legal experts agree that the law is not keeping up with technology and the ways it is changing communication. Chambers was convicted of sending menacing electronic communication, under legislation originally introduced to protect telephone operators from indecent calls.

Many people have learned that unguarded online comments can be embarrassing. Just ask Peter Broadbent, the Church of England Bishop of Willesden, who apologized Monday for greeting news of the engagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton with a tweet about taking a "republican day trip to France."

Broadbent apologized and said he'd been unwise to get into a debate "on a semi-public Internet forum," but his boss, the Bishop of London, said Tuesday that he was being suspended from public duties "until further notice."

Around the world similar cases, though in different contexts, are testing the limits of what can be said online.

In China, where the Internet is restricted and Twitter is blocked, a woman was recently sentenced to a year in a labor camp for "disrupting social order" by retweeting a satirical message urging Chinese protesters to smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Her supporters said the retweet was meant as satire.

In the United States — where the First Amendment right to freedom of speech is seen as a beacon by British civil libertarians — the National Labor Relations Board is challenging a case in which it claims an ambulance worker was fired for criticizing her boss on Facebook. The board's lawyer said such comments are "the same as talking at the water cooler," and so protected by law.

Pryor said such cases show that the legal balance between freedom and responsibility is still being worked out.

Julian Glover, an editorial writer with the Guardian newspaper, thinks it will be a while before things settle down.

The Internet, he wrote recently, is a "life-changing invention that will take time to develop civilized rules of its own" — just as automobiles were followed by highways and then, after time and pileups, by speed limits.

"The Internet is nearing its speed-limit stage," Glover wrote. "We can't guess where this will end, only that the skirmishes have only just begun."
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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Anaheim Ducks Third Jersey, Love it or Hate it?

The Anaheim Mighty Ducks will be revealing their third jersey design on black Friday {November 26th} for their home game against the Chicago Blackhawks {In my opinion the Blackhawks have the best third jersey in the league} When the Ducks {my favorite team} announced that they would reveal a third jersey this season I was stoked! You can imagine my disappointment when I found that icethetics had leaked the design last week because it took away the extra excitement from the reveal at the game {that I have tickets for, if you need two let me know} It was especially disappointing to see what the designers {with player input} came up with. I do think it could be a lot worse, {see Nashville's Gold Jersey, too ugly to post!} but I don't think it measures up to the Kings Queens, Sharks, or Flyers to name a few. I have taken the liberty of designing a couple of options myself...
Let me know how you feel about the new jerseysweater.
MFW4GAYBN5FE
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