As professionals, it can be difficult to keep track of what's going on in the world we live in. From the vast social networks that we must keep track of to the niche sites where our businesses might be talked about without our knowledge, how can you keep your eyes on what's being said—and how can you use that information to make your business better?
One popular way of monitoring your image is to use Google Alerts to ensure that you're always on top of what Google sees—and we all know that Google sees just about everything. Put your name into the box, set your email to receive the alerts, and you'll be on your way. If there's something new that Google finds, you'll hear about it as often as you like. That way, if something happens in one of the remote corners of the web, you'll know about it.
You can track your image on social media channels mostly by making sure you maintain a solid presence online. The internet is not shy about telling you exactly what it thinks, good or bad. If you give people an outlet to pour out their experiences, good or bad, you'll hear about it. In fact, some companies have taken to proactively diagnosing and fixing the problems while engaging entirely through social media channels. Listening to social media for your name or business name can be as simple as searching through Twitter, Facebook, or your preferred network's search function, but you might consider using a solution like Hootsuite to set up search terms on each network that it will monitor and create a dashboard for. It might make it simpler for you to be listening for what people are saying about you.
A big one that people don't generally think of is to be monitoring sites like Yelp, Google+ Local, and other map-based sites where people might be tempted to leave bad reviews or say bad things. Make sure that in your search of the internet that you keep sites like these in mind. It'll help you in the long run because not only is it good to claim your locations and keep the info up-to-date, you'll be able to head off customers who didn't use the proper support channels to let you know about the problem.
Overall, monitoring your online image is easy once you get the hang of it. In fact, most of it is automated thanks to tools like Alerts and Hootsuite. Don't let it distract you from the goal of providing the best client service that you can.
We're sure that you're all familiar with data caps as members of the RE industry. After all, with cell phones becoming increasingly common (91% of adults have one), usage is at an all time high—which might explain why companies such as AT&T and Verizon put data caps in place, to make more money and to reduce network congestion. And you, as professionals, use apps like Maps and services like Evernote to keep everything up to date with your services. When your data cap is looming large over you, free WiFi might seem like a godsend. Use your services without adding to your data cap—the perfect combination!
But, before you connect to just any network, we have a warning for you: while WiFi from businesses and private providers like Brighthouse or AT&T is everywhere, it's also dangerous.
Free WiFi feels great, but certain providers of free WiFi prefer to use managed systems rather than password-secured hotspots like businesses use—usually to ensure that the public can connect and increase their awareness. But the problem here is that on an unsecured network like this—even if there's a login screen for your personal credentials—none of your data is properly encrypted, meaning that anyone can get on the network and, with a little bit of knowledge and work, can get your personal information from what you're broadcasting over the air.
While some apps and websites do use encrpytion to connect (such as Facebook and most banks), care should be taken because other sites and apps have not adopted the standard. Responsible use of WiFi can and will make your life better but it only takes one irresponsible person to ruin your accounts or your work. Be safe when connecting!
We've also been receiving reports of thieves using fake hotspots to lure you into trusting them. They follow the same system as phishing attempts through your email: recreating websites to look official to get you to give up your credentials. It's worse when you realize that most cell phones (regardless of operating system) are set up to automatically connect to their provider's hotspots automatically—but they put no controls in place to prevent fakes from replacing them.
Here's a scenario: let's say your WiFi is toggled on your iPhone and you're walking to a showing. If someone in the area has named their WiFi "attwifi," the normal name for AT&T's hotspots, you'll automatically connect whether the hotspot's legitimate or not. Then the thief can go to work sniffing out your data. If you're not expecting a free WiFi hotspot, you might not notice and then you'll be compromised.
There are steps you can take to help prevent this problem. For one thing, every modern smartphone has an indicator showing that a website is secured and encrypted (meaning it's far harder to read what you're sending). On iPhone, there will be a grey lock next to the name of the site you're on. This means that the connection is secured and the identity of the site is verified by a third party. On Android, it depends on browser, but the Chrome browser displays a green lock. Look for these symbols when doing any transaction with your data! Without them, you are at risk.
Secondly, you should turn off auto-login to any and all WiFi hotspots that they're currently enabled for. While it's a bit more work to do, it's not all that difficult to do. On iPhone, it's in Settings > WiFi > (Network Name — click the circled "i" symbol) > Auto-Join.
These tips will make your life more secure and protect your contacts, leads, and business from being spied upon—or worse!
Troubleshooting: Everyone's had a bad experience with a computer at some point: either a program crashing, a slowdown, a virus, or even just computer age. Well, while manufacturers would like you to upgrade often, there's a better way to keep your computer running for a while longer—especially if you don't want to move to new equipment or if you're waiting on a certain feature to come to market. We've got the tips you need to do some troubleshooting to your computer!
Every computer system has its fair share of problems but there are always ways to fix those or improve how they work—and slowdowns are no different. Here are a few things we think are useful to help you keep your system running the way it should:
While we're sure you've heard more than your fair share about viruses, it bears repeating: viruses are dangerous to your security and can cause your system to run slow, incorrectly, or even destructively. Somewhere around 32% of computers have some sort of infection on them. Keep your virus scanners up to date and keep malware and adware protection on your computer. That will help solve most of the problems resulting from viruses.
Don't buy into the idea that you need a whole new system if you're experiencing slowdowns. The above tips can help you avoid replacement, but there's something else you should consider: if your PC is more than 5 years old, slowdowns are not only common, they're inevitable. The rate that hardware is improving means that 5 years is the difference between bleeding-edge and dinosaur. This doesn't mean your PC is useless, just that it might take a little longer to run the new versions of software or to boot up. This is normal and expected, and shouldn't cut into your workflow too much.
Either way, using these tips, you should be able to milk a little more life out of your computer, regardless of operating system. Troubleshooting can save you a lot of time and money, and it doesn't have to be difficult.
Blogging is the thing to be doing in online marketing. The trends in marketing are all heading towards online marketing. While hand shaking and grinning at events is always effective (and word of mouth is still king), an online presence is becoming more and more important. While mobile technology is 7 years old, it's still in its infancy—meaning that now is the time to get in on the game.
Blogging is the key to getting into this space. Blogs are well-equipped to do three things for your agency:
It's not just a hobbyist thing anymore, nor is it just for revolutionary ideas. You'll never know the reaction you'll get from your ideas if you don't put them out there.
Blogging is for ideas. You have ideas. Big ones. Whether it's about how the market is flawed (and your great solution to that flaw) or how someone can make the market work for them rather than working the market, you've got something to say about the market somehow. Start saying something big, develop those ideas.
Some of the biggest internet successes all started by seeing a great idea and developing those ideas into bigger things. Their sense of entrepreneurship and intelligence moved them from people with ideas into people with products. Elon Musk moved from having a simple web company into helping found SpaceX and Tesla Motor Company. Larry Page started Google on an idea and some knowledge. So can you!
While you might not quite make that level, there's room in the market for your ideas on real estate. Blog about them, talk about them, get them on paper and into the public. The thing all of these folks have in common is that they made websites that primarily assist others in achieving their goals. Do the same yourself, and see the results grow.
When it comes to the internet, you need to understand that it's a primarily social medium. Blogs don't exist just to detail ideas, they're made to discuss them and make them better. Every big, successful blog has methods of creating conversations around them. WordPress has implemented a system where you can find content on their site and engage using your account. Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr all have their own conventions on how to share and respond to content.
The key here is that no matter the medium, the form exists to talk to others. Comment sections and conversations on Twitter are important. Invent a hashtag, get people talking, ask for responses. People talking about your idea, especially if you can get your name or your hashtag attached to the conversation, means that you're getting free press and association with your idea.
Even if people don't want to be part of your conversation—say, people are already impressed or just want others opinions for their consideration—at least make it easy and simple for people to share those ideas and articles with others. Promote the ideas on Facebook, Twitter, Quora, wherever you have a social media presence.
Remember when we said earlier that word-of-mouth was the best form of advertising? As the world moves more and more to mobile technology and consumption of media, social sharing and commentary is the new word-of-mouth. In fact, search engines like Google are starting to use social shares through sites like Google+ and other social media to help rank sites in their results—a big factor in getting found online.
There are many forms of blogging. Twitter, technically, is a micro-blogging app, which amounts to a series of small posts of ideas you could put up during a lunch break or between appointments. If you find your ideas don't fit, WordPress.com has a longer form that you can flesh out your ideas on. If answering questions is your thing, Quora is the place to go.
The one thing you shouldn't do, however, is let your ideas live in your head alone. We live in a big, beautiful world with people who could use them—and who could amplify your idea to your next client.
We've recently discussed the "Internet of Things" and smart homes, but now there's some big news from Apple that might shake some things up.
If you need a quick refresher as to what the internet of things are, it's a series of gadgets that have been given the ability to connect to the internet for your convenience.
This means that your fridge might have a screen where you log your food levels so you know when to go to the store—and how much to buy. Or, your thermostat could detect if you were home and adjust itself accordingly to save you energy. These features are gaining ground and making sure homes are equipped (or at least ready) for these appliances is a big deal.
Apple announced yesterday during their WWDC keynote presentation that they're working with some of the biggest names in home technology to get most (if not all) devices onto a single standard of communication. This is a welcome change as the current market is filled with apps for each device, making managing a smart home a little complex.
The list of companies on-screen at the keynote are:
Now, with the addition of these standards, Siri can control the home with certain commands. The keynote itself used the example of telling Siri "I'm going to bed" to initiate the doors locking, lights going out, and other actions.
There will also be an app (most likely) that will allow you to control all of your devices at once—smoke alarms, thermostats, door locks, and others to start.
If you're a real estate agent of any kind advising your clients or assessing market value of a home, home automation systems are still valuable, but stay tuned to find out which systems will follow these new standards—and to see how Apple's new developments will help push the smart home into more common acceptance. This could be big news for the real estate market as well as the consumer market.
All of the social media outlets are recommended for your business. They’ve become a force that’s not just for sharing your personal life with your friends but for sharing your professional life with your clients.
Images, too, have become key to interacting on the social web. As our devices have grown more powerful and visually stunning, the use of images has risen too—to the point of being a necessity.
We don’t need to convince you that you need images, we’re sure—the numbers bear that out. Engagement on photo posts is far, far higher than on text posts. The Internet is a visual medium. But how do you use the images in a way that promotes your business and shows that you know your tools?
Part of it is knowing the image size you’ll need. Below we have a list of image sizes (in pixels) that show the optimal size for images to be seen, clicked, and responded to. All dimensions are listed Width X Height.
Using these guidelines can and will help you to promote your business because you’ll quickly improve your social media prowess and make your business look more beautiful and appealing to the average social user.
Feel free to bookmark this guide to the social media recommended image sizes in case you need the numbers again. Happy marketing!
When deciding whether to update or not, users often don’t take major factors into consideration—which could end up costing them a lot of time, money, and their personal data in a worst case scenario, all to dodge the inconvenience of learning a new piece of software. Updating is, in fact, essential to good business practice and good system security.
It’s not just older folk that tend to get this wrong, either. While the stereotype of grandma not running her updates on her device because the tools she uses “just work” are justified, you’d be surprised at how far down the chain that goes or just how many holdouts are out there. For instance, you might be surprised to know that as of April 2014, 26.29% of computers are still on Windows XP—a computer system that is officially not receiving any more major updates or security patches. Still more are running Windows 7—almost half of all computers in operation—an older system that is, thankfully, still receiving support. But, why update from something that works? Why change the tool?
The furor over Windows 8 (and 8.1) are some of the design choices that it’s made. In response to criticism and market pressure from rival Apple, Windows undertook a massive redesign project that was meant to make it more attractive, more useful, and better adapted to work on touch-based devices like smartphones and tablets. And, when used in that environment, it’s a pretty good system. (Even on a standard desktop, it’s not so bad—we here at Hillsborough Title run the equivalent of Windows 8.1 and we’ve not encountered too many problems.) But, the massively changed interface is confusing people and turning them away from these new systems because they don’t like how it looks.
But, if the computer was only how it looked, then there would be more artists and designers and fewer programmers. The computer is a tool, and the paint is only so important. Would you want to be tasked with selling a home that’s beautiful and luxurious on the exterior, fresh paint, beautiful view, the right location, but had no way to put locks on the doors and windows and had damage from previous burglaries? No—and that’s exactly what older systems represent.
The takeaway: a machine is a tool, and a tool is always more than what it looks like. Don’t let your computer be a beautiful but non-functioning device
So, if you’re serious about security and having the best system that you can, click the update button, both for security updates (like Mac OS X’s 10.9.x updates and Windows’ 8.1 and other security packs) and for major operating system upgrades (like going from Windows 7 to Windows 8; OS X 10.8 to 10.9). If you don’t do these upgrades, you might be left with security holes in the system that allow others to get into your machine, find your personal data (including those things that are private and confidential by nature), and possibly use it for illicit purposes.
If the design is holding you back, be sure to understand: by not clicking the button you assume the risk of those security flaws and holes being used against you. Worst case scenario is data loss and theft, but viruses and malware sneak in through those holes and slow down your computer, as well. Don’t let the paint sway your purchase; the paint can change but the strength of the structure is what you should be concerned with.
The takeaway: Updates are almost always worth it, whether you like the design or not—if you’re concerned about security.
There are a few instances where updating is not practical—usually if you’re in the IT field and you’re managing a network of computers that must work together. Updates change code and your programs might rely on the old code to work properly (or at all). If your business relies on a tool, be sure that tool is also updated to use the new code or else you might find yourself in a bind regarding your business. If your tools all operate offline and do not require any connection to the internet, you should be safe and won’t need an update (for now, anyway—there are viruses that can communicate through sound these days and infect computers not connected to a network).
Be careful about how you use your computer and make sure to apply all the updates necessary to keep your computer running at top shape and as securely as you possibly can. Maintaining good updates is a great way to defeat bugs and problems like Heartbleed—as the big companies running outdated software quickly found out.
The takeaway: You can ignore updates safely only if you know your computer well enough to not update or if you’re completely disconnected from the internet.
These days, cell phones and revolutions in how we all communicate and interact mean that older methods of communication with leads and clients are not as effective as they used to be. This can be dangerous for those of us who don’t have a strong background in using these devices or who are heavily accustomed to the tried and true methods employed by professionals for many years.
This isn’t just a long-distance telecommunications phenomenon, either. The evolution of communication has bled into standard communication and has changed not only how we send messages to each other but how we speak, as well—and not knowing the differences can make all the difference.
We’ve noticed that people don’t pay attention to others if they’re rambling. The internet is an enormous source of knowledge, but the overload of knowledge works against it: people don’t have the time to read everything.
NPR recently took advantage of this principle for an April Fools prank, using the photo and metadata of an article to suggest that people don’t read. Many people protested, commenting about how they do read and how it was offensive for NPR to think that way. However, if you click and read the article, it lets the reader in on the joke. The offended people commenting didn’t read the article. And there were many people offended, too.
The same is true for your clients. They don’t have the time to waste on you if you’re not providing solid information, whether that information is a blog post on your website or a listing. Say what needs said and stop.
The takeaway: speak clearly and quickly; don’t waste time.
The expectations of communication have changed, as well. Not even 20 years ago, answering machines were common because unless we were very well off, instant replies and instant communication were not expected.
This has changed. The internet and the ubiquitous nature of cell phones mean that your reply is expected extremely promptly—often within minutes. If you’re waiting longer than an hour to reply, even if just to let them know you’re busy, you’re most likely losing business. To the modern professional of any age, time is money and waiting for excessively long periods of time is detrimental to business.
While this might seem like it’s an invasion of your life, consider how many things you get instantly these days and how you expect quick replies from those companies who have your business. You’re no different.
The takeaway: respond quickly with solid information—even if only to say that you’ve received the message.
The differences that the market faces can seem insurmountable, especially when it deals with changing the way that you do business and how those social expectations have shifted with little warning. But, learning to speak “digitally” in what used to be an analog world isn’t too terribly difficult—just keep your clients in mind, how they operate, and how they define the relationship. If you work to define it your way, you’ll get clients who think like you do—and that number is on the decrease.
Don’t just assume that one way of doing business is best because that’s the way it always worked. Remember, 20 years ago print ads and billboards were more effective than this thing called the internet. Now, computer monitors and phones are the billboards. Things change—and so must we if we want to keep getting business.
The takeaway: pay attention and adapt.
Please fill out form below