Notorious R.O.B.

In my little prognostication about the upcoming Trulia Blog Platform vs. ActiveRain, I neglected to include HomeGain in the mix. Louis Cammarosano of HomeGain pointed out over on the followup OnBlog thread that HomeGain had launched an Agent Blogging Network earlier this year, and that they were even conducting blogging schools for agents on HomeGain. It’s an excellent idea all around.

Very interestingly, Louis wrote this in the comments:

HomeGain continues to be one of the top visited sites on the interenet-with a difference-listings are not the main attraction-realtors are.

So now we have three distinct models to compare in a way: Trulia as the listings-centric consumer site, ActiveRain as the content-centric consumer site, and HomeGain as the realtor-centric site. As the industry continues to evolve, I think we’ll see how the different approaches play out. But where are they now?

Naturally, I got curious and started digging around a bit more.

I don’t know that using third-party traffic analyzers, such as Compete.com, is necessarily proof of anything. At the same time, I do think comparing different sites on the same analytics platform could lead to interesting insights and things to talk about. So I ran a quick and dirty analysis comparing the three abovementioned sites. This is the tale of the tape. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve decided to post the followup to the Trulia Blogs & Active Rain post over at OnBlog.  The main reason was that what I ended up writing was exactly the kind of marketing advice I would offer to our clients.  The other reason is that I’m too tired to copy and paste it into this here blog.

You can check it out here.

-rsh

Breaking news from Inman Blogger Connect: Trulia has announced that it is launching a blog platform. I don’t have a link, because this was on a piece of paper, but there will be an official announcement later.

I actually had a chance to speak with Vicky Gkiza, Sr. Product Manager for Community, at Trulia and… well… she’s a lovely, lovely person. In more than one way, actually — take a look:

She was really nice, very kind with her time, and extraordinarily smart — as is sort of par for the course for the boys and girls at Trulia.  But the point is not to talk about Vicky.

The point is this: Trulia may not intend to put ActiveRain (and others of its ilk) out of business, but the impact of this blog product is to do precisely that. As a matter of fact, I have a bet with Vicky now that I plan to collect at Inman in 2010.

Here’s the thing: Trulia has 5 million unique users each month, by their own count. If you’re a real estate agent doing a consumer-oriented blog, then what you’re after are consumer readers. ActiveRain, Agentgenius, and any of those guys may have a great platform, but until and unless they can provide consumer traffic to the tune of 5 million uniques per month… I’m afraid the value simply ceases the exist.

I have to take pains to point out again that Trulia probably doesn’t intend malice upon ActiveRain or other similar consumer-oriented agent blog networks.  As they see it, they just want to help their agent members connect with their consumer visitors.  Once you have listings, then have Trulia Voices, then Trulia Q&A, the agent blog is the obvious next step.

I’m just pointing out the obvious: if you’re an agent, and you want to have a blog somewhere, why would you do it anywhere other than at Trulia Blogs?  ActiveRain, as it is, has a tendency to be realtors talking to other realtors.  Which is fine, and might be great for an industry-focused blog like this one, or the Onboard Informatics corporate blog, but… for an agent who wants to blog to drive leads and grow business, I just don’t see the value anymore.

What this product does is divide the RE.net in half: those who are focused on consumers, and those who are focused on industry.  The agent blogs have to find a reason NOT to blog on Trulia.  (Presumably, a good one might be Zillow‘s answer, if they have one.)  The industry blogs may want to continue at places like ActiveRain or independently.

Perhaps after Inman is over, I’ll have to do some thinking about what this means in the even bigger picture: now that Trulia is creating a compelling platform for agent blogging, together with listings, together with Q&A, together with consumer traffic… what is the next evolution for the Big Brokerages like Century 21 and so on?

-rsh

I think Pat Kitano at TransparentRE is one of those guys who has brilliant and useful insights to anyone interested in exploring what Real Estate 2.0 might look like.  And despite disagreeing with him on a specific thing here or there in the past, I continue to think his blog is valuable and his insights invaluable.  His latest is no exception:

Blogging is currently touted as real estate marketing’s magic bullet, but many new real estate bloggers don’t realize that the impact of blogging lies in its ability to build a social and informative relationship with its readers. Simply put, the consumer wants a social relationship with no tit-for-tat, not a business relationship in which the agent shares their expertise in exchange for the implicit obligation that the consumer owes them. This is one major difference between soft sell and hard sell… the hard sell obligation seeds the “call for action”, and  consumers cringe from this arm-twisting implication.

The brand new real estate blogger, knowing nothing about blogging culture, often uses the blog construct as a kind of daily loudspeaker trumpeting their business prowess. Every article is another opportunity to present various aspects of their business (see these two example blogs ) – foreclosure help, requesting referrals from other agents, their property listings, success stories – and are peppered with links to call and email them at the end of every single article. Almost all of the blogs I see that do this only last a few months if that long, and then these bloggers complain that blogging doesn’t work. Of course not, their blogs reinforce everything the consumer doesn’t want to see – a self aggrandizing sales person intent on bugging them as a component of their “contact database”.

That sound you hear is me standing up yelling, “Hear hear!”  And “preach it brotha!”  And so forth.

Here’s the thing, though, for both Pat and myself and other cheerleaders of the new Real Estate 2.0 paradigm.  Pat writes:

And best of all, the enlightened blogging agent doesn’t need to rely upon all those resource intensive, intrusive consumer reach out tactics to win business, he/she becomes the recipient of the “out of the blue” phone call when one of their blog readers decides to explore becoming a client.

Any proof to this claim?

In other words, what evidence is there that this “new marketing” works better for agents than the “old marketing”?  And I include myself in this challenge.  I advocate a Cluetrain method of marketing, but can’t show you any ROI comparing the non-Cluetrain companies to Cluetrained companies.  In fact, there is some evidence that suggests that the Old Way is very much alive and well, even in an industry as “clued-in” as computer hardware and software.  Apple is the furthest thing from Cluetrain or New Marketing, but their success speaks for itself.

Anecdote is not the plural of evidence.  That one agent here or there claims that blogging has completedly changed her business around is not evidence that the new non-intrusive marketing approach yields a better return on investment than the old-school hard-sell method.

What data, what metrics are available to show that in fact those agents who practice the non-intrustive New Marketing are more successful in dollars and cents terms than those who do not?  Is there any data from ActiveRain or one of the blog-focused realty companies or blogging coaches to show that the social-network marketing, soft-sell method is more effective?  I’m looking for classic lift-over-control metrics here.

If such data does not exist, then we need a marketing firm or a smart market researcher to do a comprehensive, statistically valid study on this topic.  If we’re going to advocate a New Marketing for real estate, and advocate a Real Estate 2.0, then we have to be able to prove that our method in fact works to make more money for its practitioners than the Old School hard-sell method.

Of course… as a blogger just opining away, I reserve the right not to undertake such an expensive, time-consuming study before opening my virtual yap.  But we have to have proof that what we advocate works.

-rsh