Yes, It's True.  ActiveBrad is Hosting a "Talk Show" on BlogTalkRadio.  Get Read, Get Seen, Be Heard!  Great content gets read, Viral Video gets seen, and Quality Radio gets heard. The media has done it this way for years. 
Well, we're finally there!

ActiveRain now has our own little corner of the Internet Radio World, and we're looking forward to sharing it with all of you.  We will have special guests, trainers and instructors, coaches, guest speakers, along with members and ActiveRain Staff.  We'll be sharing ideas, challenges, solutions, and success stories from all over the Country.  My first guest will be Rich Jacobson, this Thursday at 11:00am PDT for a 15 minute show.  The topic this week is "How to Get Featured on ActiveRain."  Rich is one of ActiveRain's Community Builders, and moderators, who has years of experience in Real Estate and Social Networking.

Our shows will be a lot of fun.  We welcome you to listen in.  Our special upcoming "Open Mic Night" will be a blast!  You can also check out our "Audio Library" if you miss a show, (which is currently under construction.)  Come join us for the kick-off debut with Rich on BlogTalkRadio.  You can register by CLICKING HERE, it's FREE.  Or just call the number below, it's that easy, we'd love to have you "On The Air" with us.  The phone number is (347) 677-1643.  "Making a Difference, One Voice at a Time!"

"BlogTalkRadio is an award winning media platform that gives us the ability to broadcast live. They host millions of conversations and connect like-minded individuals and their content with diverse communities. Since their launch nearly two years ago, BlogTalkRadio has hosted over 115,000 shows and they generate a monthly audience of about three and a half million listeners."

All Rights Reserved!  Copyright Protected by those who love going after individuals breaking these laws!

Did you know Apple sold 1,000,000 iPhones the first weekend they came out?  This is the $64,000 question. "Do I need an iPhone for Real Estate?" Now I could be bias and say yes just because I own one, but I'll be neutral and just explain why I think you should investigate. There are many of us in the industry who have been looking for and waiting for a phone that does it all.  Is the iPhone it?  I had written this post over a year ago when the iPhone was announced.

So how do you pick the right tool, with the right carrier, and at the right price with minimal amounts of stress and anxiety? You Don't, it's not possible, but this information might shed some light on how specifically the iPhone might be helpful in your Real Estate Business and the Industry.

  These are some of the features I really like about iPhone:

         

Don't buy one just "BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE HAS ONE!" but of course if you did, you'd be able to talk to everyone else for FREE. Hmmm....

You can even create your own iPhone Web Applications.

Social networking:  I like and use these apps and tools for connecting with others remotely:

                      

Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Google Talk. WordPress, Typepad, LinkedIN, Google, Instant Messenger, Skype and Ebay.  All FREE applications you can download, then access on the iPhone when you travel.

Entertainment and Pleasure:  These "NEW" tech tools for iPhone are simply incredible  awesome:

                      

Pandora, Jott, Simplify, PayPal, AOL Radio, YellAir, Showtimes, Remote, Shazam, YouNote, Labyrinth, Puluwai.  All of these can be found at the iTunes store or on-line at the Apple iPhone Store.

Trulia just announced their new application for iPhone, a tool that can "Search For Homes" and look-up "Open Houses".  There are literally thousands of FREE applications coming out daily for the iPhone.  Is this the 21st Century, WEB 2.0 tool we've all been looking and waiting for?

If you own an iPhone already, you can call me FREE - 24/7/365, and any other iPhone users that you may know.  This could be one of the greatest social media and networking tools in the industry in that it allows us to connect with others across the country on multiple platforms.  Phone, email, text, audio, video etc.  It could also save us thousands in phone bills.  A National Share Plan, of course this will only last as long as AT&T has the iPhone Service Plan exclusively. 

  I phone, do you?

TOP PHONES for Real Estate, What's Your Vote?

This was the topic of discussion on a Webinar I attended last night with Mary McNight.  Known also as "REBlogGirl."  She shared some of the following information and tidbits.  If you missed this, I took some notes to "pay it forward."  Here's some interesting concepts and tools that were presented.

 

Titled: The On-line Shock & Awe Campaign For Google

How do you get to #1 on Google?  This is relating to "Organic" position and not "Paid" position.  Organic meaning it shows up #1 on Google underneath the "Paid" sponsorships.  FREE is GOOD.  Nobody clicks on those top links anyway, or at least very few.  It was noted that 42% ofclicks go to the #1 Organic page.  Here's the shocker, only 11% go to the #2 Link or page.  I think showing in both positions would be best.  :-)

Google searches sites and content for indexing by the following criteria and typically in this order:

Domain Names:
Be sure to include key tag words in the name.

Your Titles:
Same thing here, include relevant keywords and catchy search-able titles. 
*Most Important: Include Keywords for Google and Keywords for people.

Meta-tag Keywords:
Make sure that keywords are relevant, practical, and search-able.

Page Content:
This is what was referred to as Google Food, and that's exactly what it is.  So Feed it.
Keywords through-out.  Adding Personality is important. Vary your keywords, use longer terms and mix them up. note: 500 words on the splash-page of a website is good.

Linking out to others:
Select power sites to link to.  Don't always link to yourself and your own pages or posts.
Use an internal and external linking structure.

The Internal and External Link Structure
Use Links to 1 of your pages for every 2 links to other popular websites or Blogs. 
(I like to link to Google, Yahoo, and the other Big Dogs when I can...hint hint )

Registering Domain Names:
Tip: Be sure to register domain names for at least 5-10 years, if you do it one year
at a time, Google might not think you're serious or going to be around very long.

Update 5 old Pages or Posts once a month:
Go into your older pages on your site or your Blog posts, and update with new
keywords and link structure updates. Don't erase, just add.

 

 

What is a reciprocal link?
You link to me, I link to you. This is a great thing.  If you use Blogrolls, you can create an orphan page to link out to those sites. These "orphan" pages cannot be found or indexed by Google. You can also use "no follow" tags if you're familiar how. To find out more, Click Here.

Duplicate Content:
If you're going to duplicate content, be sure to create it first in the location you want to get the Google juice.  Wait 2-3 days and then you can duplicate it on other sites.  The first page gets the google worm bots.  Link back to your original from all the secondary pages, they should all point back to your original source. Learn more here.

 

Some Valuable Tips and Resource Sites

Get SEO for Firefox, Here's the video on How and Why

Use Websitegrader.com

Get into as many directories as you can.  DMOZ.org and Joeant.com

SEODigger.com - Search Rankings

SEOBook.com - The Best Keywords Available

Know Your Site & What's Going On

Use Google Tools to help you be #1 in their search engine.  Go to google.com, use the search box and type (Site:YourURL) and (Link:YourURL) to find out more about your own Webpage or Blog.  Be sure to try it with the (www) and without.  You'll Get Different results.  Here's other stuff Google offers as well.

These were my notes:  The overall message I came away with is that Being #1 in Google is everything, that is if you want to get the kind of new traffic and hits that generate leads and business.  The people who know you can find you, but can those who don't? 

Thank you Mary for sharing this information and your time. See Mary's Blog for details on any of these topics.

(Edit) A special thanks to Cyberstars, and to whoever sent me the invitation to join this event.  :-)

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to speak on a Blogging panel in Monterey, CA for CRS members. Specifically, I was asked to discuss ActiveRain and Localism. This all came about thanks to Pam Winterbauer who connected me with Mike Kelly, one of the panel moderators.

The guest speaker was Pat Kitano, from Domus consulting, also a fellow ActiveRain member. I've been following Pats Blog at Transparent Real Estate for quite some time now, and finally had the privilege of meeting him in person at the Inman Real Estate Connect in San Francisco.

During our break at CRS, I had the chance to talk to Pat in detail about what he's doing with Domus and what I've been doing at ActiveRain. Ironically, our conversation led to something that I have wanted to do here since I joined AR, Training and Coaching via Web-conferences and Webinars.

Well, before the CRS meeting and lunch were over, Pat and I had come up with a plan that could benefit many new members here that are just getting into Social Media Marketing and WEB 2.0. Here's what we have come up with for the upcoming Webinar Series.

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Weekly Topics and Outline:

Preview	Social Media Marketing - Why an Online Presence is Critical to your Future Career in Real Estate
Week 1	Defining your Online Presence Strategy - Benchmarking
Week 2	First Practical Steps - Five Steps to Setting up your Social Network
Week 3	Understanding the Strict Protocols of Social Media and the Content You Deliver - Don’t Blow it!
Week 4	Defining the Social Media Space - What is Necessary and What is Fluff
Week 5	Setting up the Tools to Monitor the Social Media - FeedReaders, Social Bookmarking, Social News, Twitter
Week 6	First Steps in Participating in the Social Media - Your Network is Set Up and it’s Time to Leverage It
Week 7	Explaining Active Rain and Blogging - You’ll Soon Figure Out that the Blog will be your Central Marketing Tool
Week 8	The Online Land Grab - Get Your Name Out There - Five Online Services You Must Be On Before Your Competition
Week 9	How to Attract Online Traffic - How Search Engines Work and Why the Social Media is Quantum Leaps more Powerful than a Static Website
Week 10	The New Society - Changing your Sales and Marketing Strategies to Fit with your Online Presence - Retooling your Spammy Email Marketing to be Effective
Week 11	The Secret Nobody Knows - Mass Media is Converging with the Social Media - How to Position Yourself to Access Mass Media Traffic
Week 12	Your Newest Online Resume - Twitter and Friendfeed Strategies
Week 13	Putting it All Together - Integrating Your Offline Real Estate Practice with your Online Presence

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

I get a huge amount of emails and calls from members with these questions everyday, this is what motivated and inspired me to help provide a program like this. Since Pat has all the tools and pieces in place, he's allowing me to join forces with him, and put this on at a minimal price for ActiveRain members ONLY. It will average out to about $12.00 per webinar which will run for 1 hour on Friday mornings at 9:00am pst. We have setup a registration page just for AR members.

You'll learn some great information and come away with the tools and knowledge to be a WEB 2.0 Social Media Marketing expert. This will be a great road map to managing your time more effectively on the WEB. Reasons you should consider this opportunity:

• It's half price to all ActiveRain members
  

• You get recorded copies of ALL the webinars, even if you can't make it to some

• It's only one hour per week at an average of 12.00 per webinar
  

• You'll receive online support, manuals, instructions etc.

• I'll be one of your follow-up trainers and support consultants
  
  
• 90+ tutorials providing step-by-step instructions on the techniques of blogging and social media

I'm excited about joining Pat to provide these webinars to our members. They will become more popular as Industry Professionals try to gain the edge and obtain more knowledge about Social Media and Social Networking. With the cost of travel expenses, gas, hotel accommodations all going up, this only makes sense. Twelve bucks will barely get you three gallons of gas these days. This IS a great deal!

You can register below and join us this Friday for an online orientation. The Webinar series will start {EDIT} Friday - SEP. 5th @ 9:00am (see Pat's Comment below) We're not trying to sell you anything here, honestly, it's just an awesome opportunity to bring education and value to the community and to our industry. This WEB 2.0 stuff and Social Media Marketing is not going away.

Come join us, you won't regret it. :-))

Member Discount and Registration

What is the most important thing you need to know about the basics of shooting video? Is it content, style, length, quality, or just a free-for-all?  Tara Jones is on a roll as she shares the basics of shooting video.  This Video Post is a ReBlog of her article and Video on ActiveRain. 

As a video enthusiast myself, I follow Tara's Blog closely and recommend you do the same. Video is the hottest thing in Real Estate right now. It's viral, it's growing, and it's more powerful than just text or audio.  It is the "New Wave" of Internet marketing and Social Media Networking.

THIS IS A REBLOG TEST:

 

The Flip Video is quickly becoming one of the most popular popular Video Cameras in Real Estate today.  Tara Jones provides this great video that talks about the Flip video, the features, and why you might want to consider one if you're in the Real Estate Industry. 

THIS IS A REBLOG TEST:

We've all heard those wonderful/annoying sounds that come from our computers. We have for many years now. You know the ones I'm talking about, and I think just like advertising ads on our screens, we become immune to them both. The clicks, dings, twits, starts, shutdowns, arriving emails, lockups, crashes etc. Are we really listening or seeing for that matter?

I see and hear things much differently after watching this.

You'll never look at your screen or listen to the sounds from your computer the same way ever again. haha! It's genius. I wasn't surprised when I found out this was created by someone named, "SomethingUnreal" on Youtube.

Funny Flash - Here's the most common and unspoken computer tip in the world:

Be careful of the sounds your computer makes when you have your volume FULL BLAST from watching a pourly recorded video just moments earlier. haha!! You've all heard some of these sounds come out of your computers at FULL BLAST, I laugh out loud when I get the visual of that happening to us.

I just had to share this...

1. The first way: Under every post, there is a Bookmark Icon By simply clicking on the icon it will add that particular post to your ActiveRain Bookmarks which can then be accessed by going to "My Home" and then "My Bookmarks" the link is located down on the lower left side of your My Home Page. This is very limited as you can't sort, group, or manage posts as you might like to. The more you add, the harder they are to find and utilize. They also get re-sorted as comments are made, making it even more challenging to find and use them effectively in the future.

How often do you check your Bookmarks?

2. The second way: Create a folder on your Desktop by right clicking your mouse on a blank space of your desktop, then select create a "New Folder" give it a name, then add your favorites to that folder. To add a page or post to the folder, just drag and drop the URL for that post or website into the Folder. Now you'll have them all in one easy to access location on your desktop. The only thing is, you'd still have to create sub groups or folders to manage all your saved posts and stay organized. It's still limited, but it works well.

3. The third and best way: Is to use Diigo.com. You all know me, I'm always searching for a "Better Way!" Diigo is a FREE Social Bookmarking tool, designed to do more of what you originally intended to do when you bookmarked things in the first place. It's what bookmarking posts is all about. I have hundreds so here's why I'm suggesting it.

• Group and categorize all your favorite posts
• Share your Bookmarked Post with others
• Highlight portions of posts and Blog about them
• Automatically Tweet or Twit them with a single click
• Email and share your Bookmarks easily with others
• Bookmarks now become Social Bookmarking
• Add the Diigo toolbar to your browser for One Click Saves
• Create a widget, make it easy for others to bookmark you
  

I just started using Diigo, Check out my Dashboard, Profile, Groups, Lists, Tags, Tools and Bookmarks

Here's a video that will give you a better understanding of Diigo.com and how "Social Bookmarking" can be used, and why it may be the best way for bookmarking ANY page or post on the Internet in the future.

Screenshot of the Toolbar you can add to your Browser. It's taking Bookmarks to the next 2.0 level.




Here's a sample of my Diigo Categories and Bookmarks:

There are many other great features and options you'll have with Diigo, there's just too many to list here, but you really should check it out. I don't see any reason why every Web-surfer and Blogger wouldn't use this tool if they knew it was available.

This in my opinion is the best way to keep track and manage all of your favorite posts, Websites, Blogs etc. It's Bookmarking 2.0 and will give you more value and benefits than just using your current Browser to "Add To Favorites." I'm not sure if people even use that browser bookmarking tool anymore, which by the way, would be the 4th way to save your favorite Bookmarks. Hope you Diigo this post! :-)

When I returned home from Inman's Real Estate Connect in San Francisco last week, I searched through my notes, videos, photos and handouts looking for something to post about that might be unique. There were so many things that I learned this year, some really great topics and technologies, wonderful panels with experienced speakers, it was fantastic. I was a bit challenged on what to post and share today.

Looking back, the one thing I came away with more than anything else this year, was the impact of the people and all the friendships I have made. Socializing, Networking and Connecting with People.

There are so many reasons why people in the Real Estate Industry join and stay on ActiveRain. You'll find many here that have written about their personal rewards, benefits, and successes on their Blogs. There is a common thread and purpose behind each and every reason people love ActiveRain. As I walked the halls and meeting rooms in San Francisco, I had one question for other ActiveRain members...

To see the full length 5 min video on youtube, CLICK HERE.

"What is the Biggest Benefit or Value you get out of the ActiveRain Community?" I was very fortunate to catch these members friends comments on video. They shared their voices, and their experiences publically and I am so grateful to be able to share that. It's an honor and privilege to be a part of this video, the three day event, and most of all, a part of their lives.

Thank you to: Rich, Desiree, Cindy, Kristal, Richard, Jeff, Missy, Gena, Kim, Tracy, Ginger, AJ, Brian, Jeff, Mara, Tom, Nick, Tisza, Mary, Teresa and Mike, each one of you for sharing your thoughts and for helping make this idea and video possible. Your voices will be heard and I hope viewers will come away with a greater understanding and idea of what Social Networking and ActiveRain is really all about.

What is a Wiki?  Many of you have probably heard of WikiPedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Currently there are 2,457,781 articles in English on their site.  Many Bloggers link to Wikipedia for explanations and definitions of odd and peculiar terms, words or phrases.  What's it for?

You'll find numerous links to overviews, editing, questions, help, contents, searchable categories, featured content, browse their A–Z index and more.  Now, how would you like your own?  Trust me, You'll love it!!

I think everyone should have "their own" Wiki-Custom Pedia, let me show you how to get yours for FREE, it'll be a quicky!  But first, before I do, you are probably asking yourself this, "Self?  What is it, and why would I want my own Wiki?"  Glad you asked. :-) It's not a WikiPedia, it's a Wiki!


"The PBwiki is the world's largest provider of hosted business and educational wikis. They host over 400,000 wikis, serve millions of users per month, and 96% of their business users would recommend PBwiki to a friend or associate. Leading companies from AT&T to Wal-Mart, including 1/3 of the Fortune 500 companies, choose PBwiki to help them with knowledge management, collaboration, project management, and a host of other business processes and workflows." Quoted by PBwiki

        

Collaboration for over 30,000 businesses now including ActiveRain

Now use your imagination.  If you're a Broker, a REALTOR® in a community, A National Lender, it doesn't matter, I guarantee you will find a way to put a Wiki to good use in your business.  Today I created the ActiveRain Wiki, a sample to share with you that will allow you to see some of the endless possibilities.  Jon asked me to push the today with these types of technology tools, so I am! 
To start your own, you know what to do next! (Hint...it's RED)  lol~

                                                            

Create totally secured wiki's, they do have plans available, but I chose the ones that come for FREE!

                   

Important:  You might want to put some time, thought, and effort into how you want to use a wiki for your business.  If you're like me, you're going to get very excited when you see all the cool stuff you can do with this, but my suggestion is to take your time, evaluate it, do some research, and then make this a powerful tool in your business. This one goes on my top 10 list, IT'S A REALLY HOT TOOL! 

Now that's a quicky wiki!  :-)                                                         My Outside Blog: REnetBlog.com