Today I participated on a Technology Panel with Working the Magic & eXp Realty. It was a fun panel featuring Joey Sampaga (VideoN5), Nick Taylor (Zillow), Jesse Romero (Digital Real Estate Marketing), myself (Diverse Solutions) and moderated by Brad Andersohn (Zillow).
It was excellent and the eXp Virtual offices are impressive to say the least.
In a future panel however, I would love to see some more attendee Q&A going on. Maybe poll questions as a part of the registration process?
Something like: one’s your single BIGGEST question/challenge with internet marketing?
Key Takeaways from the Technology Panel:
What is the future of marketing for mobile?
I think this infographic sums things up pretty well. The biggest statistic for me is that by 2014, mobile internet usage will take over desktop internet usage.
Why is CRM important?
Personally, I think having a good CRM is important for two reasons:
- Time Management – a good CRM system is going to allow you to put your marketing on auto-pilot and have easy access to your contacts,
- Follow Up – again, I think that a good CRM system is going to allow you to put certain aspects of your marketing, like follow up, on auto-pilot. Here’s a great interview I did with DJ Waldow last week talking about email marketing best practices (what people are doing well and what they’re doing not so well).
How do you strike a balance between teaching an Agent how to do things and actually doing it for them?
At Diverse Solutions, we offer high quality lead generation IDX tools powered by stellar support that includes a Help Desk (full with product tutorials), a Community Forum (so you can network with other users) and daily webinars so you can learn how to use technology better. At the end of the day we want to empower you to use technology for your business more efficiently but we can’t do it for you. If we did it for you, you wouldn’t learn and you would grow.
That’s my belief anyway. In order to master technology, you need to get your hands dirty with it.
How do you recommend people balance time between discovering new tools and having a life in real estate?
Learn to manage your time better and learn to filter through the noise better as well. If I were a Real Estate Agent, here’s where I’d start:
- Get a Feedreader account and create a folder for your “Go To” tech blogs. Alternatively, you can subscribe to those blogs via email (I do both – do what works for you).
- Set 30 – 45 minutes every day to just sit and write new content (whether you publish it or not). I write one post per day on the Diverse Solutions Blog and 2-3 posts per week here.
- Learn to create lists on networks like Twitter & Facebook to filter through the noise and really hone in on the conversations from people in your network that you care about.
- Pick one or two networks and master them. For example, my primary marketing avenues are: 1.) my blog, 2.) Twitter (to spread my content). Everything else is “as time permits.”
What are some good tips for getting started with video?
From @JoeySampaga (also @VideoN5):
Remember, your first video will suck!
My first video that was 5 minutes long took me 8 hours to shoot and edit. But I kept at it. Now a video from beginning to end will take me about 30 minutes. Just like anything, the more you do it, the better you get.
The video you shoot today, is better than the one you didn’t shoot yesterday.
Now in regards to “Best Practices,” people assume that videos are infomercials. People tend to talk way too much about their business and themselves. Remember, it’s NOT about you, it’s about the people you are serving. Here are types of videos you can create (keep them less than 2 minutes in length):
- Introduction Video
- Status Videos
- Educational Videos
- Holiday Greeting Videos
- Funny & Emotional Videos
- Screencasts
So, what kind of video content are you creating right now?
Over to you…
If you were in our presentation today, what questions did you have that we may not have answered? Drop it in the comments below and I’ll do my best to answer each and every one of them individually!
