Most real estate agents view marketing in terms of what they do to sell a listing. Some of the better and more successful agents view marketing in terms of what they do to promote their brand. The latter is more like social media than the former.

The number one reason for social media is to interact with the community. It’s the “social” part of social media. Selling is for traditional media platforms like print, radio, and TV. I was at the Social Media Club of New Orleans meeting a few months ago and Christine Marciante, of The Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, made it clear they understood that when they created blogs and Twitter accounts for some of the restaurants.

Rather than just pushing out specials they wanted to give readers a look at what goes into making a new dish. They talked to the chefs, they went with the chefs to the farmers market to get ingredients, and they took pictures during these excursions and uploaded them to Flickr and Facebook. They told people a story about the restaurant and used visual aids to enhance it.

Just like good pictures enhance a listing they help tell your story better. Social media is about telling a story that your followers want to read and stay updated on. I’m not saying that you can’t have a call to action in your social media message but if you have a call to action in every message you will quickly find that you no longer have any followers.

Are you using Google Analytics on your website? If not, why not? Google just added a new feature to Analytics that will alert you when something out of the ordinary happens. If you get an increase in traffic, people are staying on page longer, looking at more pages, etc. you will know about it. They can even email you so you don’t have to remember to check your analytics. You still need to know how to evaluate it but now you will know.

I have a role model in this social media real estate craziness. Her name is Nicole Nicolay. Now I certainly won’t be dancing on camera and I’m not nearly as attractive but she showed me that there was a market for this information and that is was possible to make it fun and interesting. So here is a video from Nicole, @nik_nik on Twitter, about social media. If you follow me you definetly need to follow her. Add us both to your RSS feed.

To Nicole: Thank you for helping me find my purpose in all this. I’m not sure I can ever thank you enough.

This is exactly what more companies should be doing. The same way you drive traffic to your website you should be driving them to your social media sites. In fact you should probably drive people to your social media sites instead of your website. Why? Because it is where they are. People are on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and they are NOT on your website. You will never be Google, Yahoo, or CNN and you shouldn’t want to be. Your website is a valuable tool and people will go there when they need you. Your social media sites are for engaging with the community, the people who buy your product or use your service.

Twitpic courtesy: ijustine

I have often wondered why kids take to new experiences and technology easier than adults. I think it is because they are not yet afraid of failing. They are not worried about data loss, late assignments, having to redo work, etc. To them it is just playing, and messing up is all part of the process.
I was in college the first time I used a computer, besides the Atari 2600 and a friends Commodore 64, and I had access to a lab full of them. It was pretty hard to mess them up so bad that they wouldn’t work but if I did, I just moved on to the next one in the lab.
Computers and software today are much more stable, but unfortunately human nature has not advanced as far. When you are learning a new piece of software or technology don’t be afraid to mess up. It is all just part of the learning process.

If you have been wanting to expand from the web interface in Twitter to a dedicated application you need to try Tweetdeck. There are several that are good but I think that this one is appropriate for a beginner that wants to get a lot of useful info out of Twitter. If you find this video helpful or would like to offer some constructive criticism please leave a comment below.
You really need to watch this in full-screen to see everything clearly.

How To Setup Tweetdeck from Chris Johnston on Vimeo.

I recently put this up over on Facebook. Login to Facebook Connect to the right if you can’t see it.

I’m explaining a little bit about how custom Twitter searches will help you find more clients.

*I apologize for the loud ding noise. My iPhone was getting text messages and it was next to the mic on my MacBook Pro.

If you love technology like I do you try to avoid using paper whenever possible. I take notes in Evernote with my laptop or iPhone. I sometimes snap photos of things I want to remember or even take audio notes if I’m in a position where I can’t type or it would be unsafe to do so (like while driving a car). Sometimes though you need to write. The act of physically writing stimulates your brain in a way that typing keys simply cannot. I’m not sure why this is or if it is true for everyone but this has been my personal experience. I carry around a moleskin and a larger notebook with graph pages for jotting down ideas that I get throughout the day. The problem is that I then want to record that written info to my computer. I have a couple of options here.

I can scan it. This is time consuming and since I don’t own a scanner won’t work for me. Even if I did own one, I would have to remember to do this. If this is in my moleskin I would need a flatbed scanner.

I can take a photo of it. Evernote has the ability to search for text in an image of text but it is not too successful at deciphering my handwriting and think others may have the same problem.

I can retype it. This is the least popular option but for most the simplest and easiest solution. If you drew something like a diagram though you can necessarily recreate it this way unless you are an ASCII text artist.

There have never been a really good solution to this problem until now. Below Chris Brogan is giving his review of the new Livescribe Smartpen. This thing is amazing and solve this problem beautifully.

Jeff Turner makes a very compelling argument about why you need to do what is right for you not what is right for the speaker. Many people don’t want to use social media because they are confused and don’t know what to do. They have seen so many different strategies and tools and different approaches and they have said I can’t figure this out and threw their hands up in despair. Watch this video and think about why you aren’t using these tools.

If you do venture out and use them and mess up, and you will mess up its all part of the learning process, you may go look for help. When you look for that help please tell those that are trying to help you exactly what you did. Don’t hide the stuff you think was stupid. That little thing you hide may be a major part of the problem that they need to know to help you fix the problem.