Notorious R.O.B.

Joel Burslem over at 1000watt has proclaimed July 9, 2010 as the day that the real estate blog died, and given the thoughtfulness and intelligence of the author, it’s difficult to disagree with his conclusion.  Given how Joel defines “real estate blog”, the conclusions he draws are somewhat difficult to escape:

For every Phoenix Real Estate Guy, there are likely umpteen dozen soulless me-too real estate blogs in any given metro these days. Many are filled with meaningless “market reports,” meandering “community updates” – and most were last updated many moons ago.

These blogs float like drift nets on the web, hoping to snare the clueless web visitor who stumbles in through some long tail Google search.

I, however, don’t necessarily agree with his premise.  In order for something to die, it had to have been alive at some point.  Since I don’t believe that the “real estate blog” as defined above was ever graced with the spark of life, I don’t know that I would mourn its death.

Instead, I would like to recommend some tools that are critical to the aspiring real estate blogger in the hopes that we might change the definition of a ‘real estate blog’ from “soulless me-too” Google-farming wanna-be blogs to an actual blog: a weblog, a series of thoughts.

These are not free tools, unfortunately, but for someone interested in blogging — whether in real estate or hyperlocal or something else — these tools are absolutely essential.

Read the rest of this entry »

I believe in zeitgeist.  Things seem to happen in groups, where one conversation is followed by another on a similar vein.

Last night, I have a great conversation with Stacey Harmon about a presentation she’s giving to realtors on the value of social media for real estate.  We explore the difference between branding and lead generation, based on this post of mine on branding and social media that Stacey found interesting.

Then today, I see this epic video blog by David Gibbons of Zillow — a response to this post by Courtney Cooper — on the topic of whether “Blogging is Dead”.  The video itself is below:

The gist of David’s video — which, sadly has no transcript and no bite-sized snippets I can post — is as follows:

• It isn’t enough to have a blog in 2009; you need to have a remarkable blog.
• Blogs require customers come to you in order for it to be useful as a marketing vehicle.
• Are home buyers and home sellers spending their online time on your blog?  If not, rethink.
• Most realtors aren’t great writers.
• The status-sphere, specifically twitter, is more important for conversation.  Photos, videos, and status updates on Facebook are becoming more effective.
• David’s noticed that starting around February of 2009, conversations on Twitter and Facebook started to exceed conversations via blog.
• Think way beyond blogs; look to other channels elsewhere on the Internet for people with real estate problems to solve.

There’s actually a lot more so I urge you to watch the whole thing.

David is a smart guy and he knows the Internet and social media marketing, so when he declares blogs to be 2008, and the “statussphere” to be more important to online marketing and conversation, it’s something to take seriously.  I happen to think he’s right in many respects, but due to a critical confusion, taking David’s advice at face value could be a bad thing.  The key is to understand the difference between branding and lead generation in your marketing efforts.

Read the rest of this entry »

I had a roommate in college who was an architecture major as an undergrad.  He was such an insufferable snob — for example, in the entire year we lived together, he never watched any movie that wasn’t by Fellini — that my view of architecture and architects may have been unfairly colored.

Thankfully, I recently learned just how fascinating architects are, especially in the post-Green era.  So I started to dig around just a bit.

And I must ask… why aren’t architects blogging more?

I asked this question on Twitter and LinkedIn and got some interesting responses, but thought to expand on them here.

Seriously Compelling Content

Blogs are, of course, for those who work with the written word.  At the same time, there’s no denying that pictures and graphics liven up what would otherwise be a wall of text.  Architecture is inherently a visual medium, but one that requires quite a bit of explanation (via words) to appreciate it fully.

For example, look at The Visionaire, a new building by the Albanese Organization, designed by Rafael Pelli.

The Visionaire, by Rafael Pelli

That’s a beautiful building.  And a beautiful image.  There are more stunning images of gorgeous buildings in the world of architects.  Look at this image from Centerbrook:

Discovery Research Center, Dekalb Plant Genetics Corp.

Unlike artists, however, architects have to create buildings that people work in, shop in, play in, and live in.  There are layers upon layers of things going on that I had no idea even existed.

For example, solar path.  It makes perfect sense once it’s explained, but until it is, it’s one of those things that a normal person rarely (if ever) thinks about.

Solar path diagram

Architects routinely think about stuff like this, as well as all of the engineering that goes into a project.  I heard Stephan Kieran of KieranTimberlake spend a good 5 minutes talking about a wall.  With cross-section diagrams, showing heatmaps.  I rather think he could have gone on for a good half-hour just about a wall.  Maybe more.

And all of it is fascinating, because so much of it is simply a brilliant exercise of human ingenuity.  Intelligence, applied.

Plus, architects write.  Centerbrook has published a freakin’ book.  And here’s the whole list of their publications.

And last, but not least, non-architects are genuinely interested in architecture.  It is an art form, after all, and one that impacts the average person’s life in subtle and not-so-subtle ways.  Every New Yorker knows that a part of his identity is tied up with the skyline, the buidings, the iconic ones like Empire State, and the forgettable brownstones lining 11th street.  Every homeowner lives every day with the result of decisions made by some architect or three.  People are interested in architecture.

The whole heady mixture says to me, “Blog!”

Thankfully, some architects are starting to get into the blogosphere.

KieranTimberlake has a blog.  Unfortunately, KT seems to use it mostly as a repository for press releases, which makes it basically useless.  I learned through LinkedIn that Modative has a blog, and it’s quite good.  (I’ve linked to it in a new blogroll category.)  Most of the other architecture blogs appear to be written by critics, academics, journalists, and so on, rather than by practicing architects.  If you know of blogs by architects, please send along the link, or post it in the comments.

Effective Marketing?

Turning to the topic as a marketer, rather than a new kid-in-candy-store enthusiast, I confess that I am puzzled why more architects wouldn’t blog.  It strikes me as almost the ideal marketing vehicle for the profession.

Perhaps the bigtime developers who hire architects for the most part grow up in the industry and know all the architects they’ll ever want to know.  Maybe the plethora of design and architecture magazines makes it unnecessary for architects to market themselves.

If you’re Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, maybe blogging just isn’t something you need to do.

But what about all those who aren’t already world-famous architects?  How would a potential client know to hire you?  What does he judge you on?

I ask because I genuinely do not know, never having hired an architect, nor having been one.  But since architecture is still a services-based profession, where one’s intelligence, wisdom, judgement, aesthetics, philosophy, and temperament all come into play, it seems to me that letting people know who you are, how you think, what interests you, and what your design philosophies are would be an excellent way to let like-minded clients find you.

Sharing knowledge, sharing insight, and being a genuine, authentic person are proving to be the most important method of marketing in the post-Cluetrain world.  Architects have knowledge, have insight, and are human beings — get on the cluetrain!  Let the world know your views on things.  Talk about projects as an insider.  Let us see that you’ve put in hours of thought into just how sunlight should strike the window at a precise angle at 3PM on a Friday in April.

Let us behind the curtain.  We may have no idea what you’re talking about, but we will recognize that you do.

So architects of the world, unite in blogging and social media!  You have nothing to lose but your aura of mystery.

-rsh

Blogging Is Storytelling...

Sometimes I’ll get a really nice comment or praise from various folks who read this little blog of mine.  Like this twitter I got recently:

@robhahn haha, you always have some of the best reads. Will spend the necessary time. Keep up the forward thinking.

In those moments, because I am human and subject to the Seven Deadly Sins, I can almost feel my head swell.  And that’s when I have to go read Mark Steyn.  Or Bill Simmons.  Or Gregg Easterbrook and learn me some humility.

Here’s a passage from Mark Steyn, simply the best writer of the English language of this young century:

If you’re feeling a sudden urge to “invest” in a gallon of tequila and a couple of hookers and wake up with an almighty hangover and no pants in a rusting dumpster on a bit of abandoned scrub round the back of the freight yards, it may be because you’re one of that dwindling band of Americans foolish enough to pursue his living in what we used to call “the private sector.” You were never exactly Giant-Man, more like Average-Sized Man. But you have a vague sense that you’re gonna be a lot closer to Ant-Man by the time all this is through.

I could write for a solid week without rest and never come up with that passage.  I’m a fair writer, but not in the same class as these gents.

An Artist of the English language.

There is a craft to writing.  There is a different craft to blogging, I think, but that there is artistry and skill involved in putting one word next to another is indisputable.

When folks are kind to me, and tell me what a great writer I am, I go and read the really great writers and get back down to earth.

A while back, I read On Writing by Stephen King, who is a truly underappreciated talent by the East Coast Intellectual Illuminati.  I maintain that when my grandkids learn about American Literature in High School, they will be studying the works of Stephen King.  Anyhow, I found this blog with some excerpts that are worth considering.  Check them out.  For example:

Talent renders the whole idea of rehearsal meaningless; when you find something at which you are talented, you do it (whatever it is) until your fingers bleed or your eyes are ready to fall out of your head. Even when no one is listening (or reading, or watching), every outing is a bravura performance, because you as the creator are happy. Perhaps even ecstatic.

Writing for Blogs

At the same time, I also believe that the craft of blogging is different from the craft of writing.  As I am trying to get more people around me to blog, I’ve found myself repeating some things.  This is not a “how to blog” type of thing here; more of a, “just some things to think about” type of thing.  And do keep in mind that your scribe may actually know nothing about writing, or blogging.  You have been warned.

Read, Read, and Read Some More

James Kilpatrick, the longtime columnist who penned The Writer’s Art, once wrote that to learn how to write, one should “read everything. Read matchbox covers, read labels on cans of cleaner; read the graffiti on lavatory walls. Read for information, read for style, read for instruction, read for the sheer love of reading.”

More and more, I believe this to be true.  Reading naturally leads to an improvement in writing.  We somehow absorb cadence, style, phrasings, imagery, and language itself from others.  While it’s best to read as many great writers as possible, it is also instructive to read not-so-great writers.  At least you learn what you don’t like, and what to avoid.

I believe any serious blogger should read books, columnists, and other bloggers — in that order.

Read books, because these are the finely honed examples of the writer’s craft.  They’ve also gone through the most rigorous editing for content, pace, and style.  For what it’s worth, I average about a book a week.  (Don’t be impressed — most of them are trashy paperback novels I read on the train.)

Read opinion columnists, because blogs by their very nature lend themselves to editorializing.  The best editorial columnists are tight with language, and know how to construct a narrative that drives their point home.  That these have been edited for clarity, content, and style also helps to keep the writing tight.

And read other bloggers, especially the stronger writers.  I’m a big fan of reading Kris Berg because of her natural voice and general narrative flow.  But there are others — particularly not in real estate space — whose writings are always a pleasure to read.  Read them, and often.  The blogs are usually unedited, but that gives you a sense of how blog writing differs from other types of writing.

Don’t Censor Yourself

The most important lesson for blog writing, I think, is to avoid the temptation to censor oneself.  The biggest obstacle I see new bloggers struggle with is how long it takes for them to write something.  I have to constantly remind them, “You’re not writing for the Economist; just get it out there.”

The best feature of blog writing is the spontaneous openness of the voice.  Mistakes will be made; some sentences won’t be as elegant as possible.  Grammar mistakes may abound.  But done well, there’s a freshness to the voice and an openness that conveys authenticity.  The art is, if you will, to be artless.

Plus, the nature of the medium is that corrections are always possible, and retractions and clarifications are not only possible, but perhaps desirable.  If you write something stupid, then hopefully the audience will point that out in the comments.  Which lets you respond in the comments, clarifying things, or admitting you got it wrong.  Then you can go back and edit the original post, appending the correction right there on the original post.

Again, blogging is part of conversation — not an oratorical holding forth.  Don’t censor yourself too much; don’t edit yourself while writing.  You’ll find it easier to write, and eventually settle into a routine and a voice you are comfortable with.  Just shut up that little editorial voice inside your head.

Write A Story

While there are certainly exceptions in blogging — for example, if your post is simply a compilation of interesting posts you’ve read that week — I do believe that if you are creating original content, you need to be telling a story.

Tell a story! It’s fun!

There needs to be a beginning, a middle, and an end.  There needs to be a plot of some sort that moves the narrative along.  Character exposes are fine, but I think the best blogposts have a narrative flow that is naturalistic and effective at exposing the ideas and the voice of the blogger.

Advice blogs (like this one) usually suck because they lack that flow of narrative and often read like a bullet list of rules.  Since realtors are writing a lot of advice blogs — “How to stage a home!” or “What to look for in a REO sale” or some such — I think it’s particularly important to realestistas that they give a thought to the narrative they are presenting.

Link, Link, and Link

The advantage of the Interwebs is in its reference-ability.  If I say “unemployment is X”, you don’t have to take my word for it — you can go check the source yourself.  But only if I provide the link.

This is, in a sense, the counter-balance to the open and freewheeling nature of the Web and blogs.  We don’t have editors and factcheckers; what we have, instead, is the ability for our readers to check the source for themselves.

As a general rule of thumb, if you think it’s something you reader might want to check for himself, then provide a link.  Every single time you quote someone else, you should be providing a link.  The goal is to provide the context, the framework, around your blogpost’s own narrative.

Hit “Publish”

The final piece of advice, and perhaps the most important, is to actually publish the damn thing.  I know I have had dozens of nascent blogposts just sitting in my queue waiting to see the light of day.  Some of them never will.

All of the narrating, the writing, the linking, and all of that won’t mean a thing if you don’t actually publish it.

Keeping in mind that all blogposts can be revised, and any mistakes corrected via the comments or by editing the post, go ahead and publish that post no matter how nervous you are about it.

Chances are, you are your worst critic, and your audience will love it.  (And when they don’t, they’ll let you know, and that’s how conversations start.)

Happy blogging!

-rsh

This one time, at an open house...

After a recent Lucky Strike Social Media Club dinner — the very first one, as a matter of fact, in which the club was formed — I had the pleasure of riding in a car with two realestistas.  Sarah Bandy (@sarahbandy) and Perri Feldman (@perrifeldman) are two NJ-based realtors who are just a joy to be around.

As we were rolling down the NJ Turnpike, Sarah and Perri started telling tales from showings that went akimbo and other war stories.

After I got done getting off the floor from laughing too hard, I said to them, “You know, forget about blogging market data and whatever else you’re doing.  Blog those war stories instead.”

Five reasons why realtors should focus their blogging on war stories.

Entertainment

First, war stories are fun.  Sarah’s story about the homeowner whose cat was on the toilet doing what humans typically do on toilets during a showing drew howls of laughter from me.  Perri’s tale of the one showing she did where the sellers forgot about the appointment and decided to… ah… take a mutual lunch break… and were discovered in flagrante delicto — that’s a classic story.

And I’m certain every realtor has horror stories, has funny stories, touching human stories — in short, entertaining stories.  Blog those.

Information

Second, war stories are educational.  I mentioned HeyAmaretto — a realtor named Diane Guercio — in this blog earlier.  I find her stories to be filled with information and things I didn’t know, as a consumer.  For example, here’s a war story of sorts from one of her posts:

The one which I will share was about a listing I have- a bank-owned property that had suffered from neglect and freeze damage. Some of the damage was repaired, but I wasn’t certain the extent of it. An interested buyer called me and requested placing an offer, and of course I disclosed this information. I had his mortgage person run me a preap, and it came back contingent on several items that I had told the buyer may be problems, among them being the heating system.

I told the mortgage officer this, and told him that this property was being sold as is. Apparently, this buyer had an issue with reserved funds. The mortgage officer asked me to “Please advice” (sic).

Fair enough. I have issues of my own with reserved funds from time to time. But selling this buyer the home would be plain irresponsible, to my way of thinking. Possibly everything would work out, but more likely I would get the listing back as another bank-owned property a year or two down the road.

Now, this may seem completely routine to professional realtors.  But to a consumer who is in the market every seven years on average, finding out some of this back-and-forth between a broker and a mortgage officer is fascinating.

Plus, now I know enough to ask how the mortgage could be contingent on the heating system.  And what the heck is a reserve fund?

I think war stories are a fantastic way for consumers to get really useful bits of information without being bored to tears with some earnest “10 Things To Do When Selling A Home” type of article.  Don’t talk about how you should stage a house properly; instead, tell us the story of the time when you showed a house that wasn’t staged properly and the hilarity that ensued therewith when the buyers saw the dominatrix-themed basement…

Do these people have any idea what it takes to make honey?

Education

Third, war stories make obvious what a realtor actually does.

It’s actually amazing how few consumers know what you realtors do for a living.  I know I didn’t know until I started to meet and talk with many of you.

None of us see the behind-the-scenes phone calls, negotiations with the other side, the wrangling with the mortgage officer, the calls to appraisers, to attorneys, etc. and so forth.  We have no idea.

All we know is what we can see.  And what we see is not very much.  You show up, get the listing, then stick a sign on our lawn.  Then maybe you hold an open house or two.  Miraculously, some weeks later, the house sells, and you take $45,000.  No wonder consumers think you’re all overpaid.

We don’t know about the eighteen hours you may have spent with the buyer’s agent, only to discover that the buyer’s husband absconded to another country at the last minute with the family funds.  We don’t know about the dozens of phone calls you may have made to other realtors in the area.  We don’t know about the arguments you had over the CMA report you thought was inaccurate because it didn’t reflect the unique value of the house having great sightlines out the back porch.  We just don’t see the work you do.  (Assuming, of course, that you’re a pro and you do in fact do some work.)

Again, if you do a self-righteous, whiny blogpost about how customers just don’t appreciate all the work you’ve put in… well, that’s a big turnoff.  But if you do war stories that happen to show all the work you do… why now that’s fun!  The message still gets across.

Unique

Fourth, war stories are unique.  Market reports are a baseline — you have to do them, I suppose, if you’re a realtor.  But know that every other blogging realtor — and pretty soon, that will mean every other realtor — will do them.  There are companies that will supply you with canned reports, and many MLS’s also supply them.

But war stories are uniquely yours.  It isn’t likely that anyone else had to walk a client through the second-floor cat… bathroom.  Is isn’t likely that another realtor had the exact same client with the exact same counterparty with the exact same set of circumstances.  All stories can be unique.

Boy, have I got a story for you!

Personal

Fifth, war stories reveal the personality of the storyteller.

Different people have different ways of telling stories.  Some are animated and fun; others have a dry sense of humor; still others are earnest, but honest and authentic.

What makes so many realtor blogs unreadable to me is that the real voice of the person behind the keyboard is often stifled.  It’s as if many of you are looking at the blog as just another giant listings ad, or a professional resume, and are determined to use the most “professional” voice you’ve got.  Most of the time, that makes for dry reading.

War stories are inherently personal, inherently unique, and inherently reflect your storytelling voice.

The Value of Storytelling

It is said that literature began as a bunch of cavemen sitting around a fire telling each other stories of hunting trips, birth of their babies, and the like.  Storytelling is baked into our collective consciousness in a way few things are.  Some people, like Seth Godin, believe that all marketing is just telling a story.

So start telling stories.  It’s the most human of activities.

-rsh

While I managed to escape the fate of practicing law (except for a summer experience, which is to actual legal practice as Barbados is to Mogadishu), I still have a great deal of affection for, and interest in, the business of law practice. In fact, I wrote an entire series musing on whether real estate firms should become more like law firms.

And one of the blogs I find most interesting is Real Lawyers Have Blogs (which is shortly getting added to my blogroll). The author, Kevin O’Keefe, is a recovering attorney who writes on social media, interactive marketing, technology, and overall observations on lawyers and law firms. His blog is really worth a read.

His most recent post was on lawyers and social media, and given how much we’ve been talking about social media in RE.net, I found his observations fascinating.

For starters, Kevin believes that for lawyers, social media boils down to three tools: Blog, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Now, the blog thing, I get — completely. Especially for a lawyer. Realtors deal in houses and human beings; lawyers deal in words. If you can’t blog as a lawyer, you probably should be thinking about finding a different profession, simply because churning out 1,500 words or so for an informal blog post should be just about the easiest thing in the world. (ED: Yeah, look at your inability to use fewer than forty-eight words to say, Hello. ME: Shut it!)

As Kevin so wisely points out, the blog is the cornerstone of any social media effort:

Blogs? Got to have one. How else can you develop a central place where clients, prospective clients, and the influencers (bloggers, media, and social media hounds) pick up on your passion, philosophy, reasoning, and skill? How do you get seen when people search for info? You think I’m picking a pig in the poke by reading a lawyer profile on a website or Martindale? That’s nuts.

I think that entire paragraph applies directly to realtors as well.

At the same time, I know that I’ve been known to urge realtors to stop blogging altogether. But as I explained in that original post, my point is that a bad blog is worse, far worse, than having no blog. Yes, every realtor should have a blog, but it should be a good one. And if a realtor isn’t a good writer, then he should do video blogging or podcasting or some other way of showcasing his passion, philosophy, reasoning, and skill.

A lawyer, who trades in words, has no such excuse. If you can’t write, and you’re an attorney, you need to get out of the business.

LinkedIn makes sense for an attorney as well. As Kevin observes:

LinkedIn? LinkedIn has won the professional social networking/directory space. The race is over. I get invites from professionals inviting me to join their network elsewhere. Other than LinkedIn and Facebook I ignore them.

For attorneys who tend to focus far more on businesses and professionals, I can see how LinkedIn is the ideal network.

In contrast, I’m thinking that for realtors, who want to connect with consumers, Facebook is probably the superior platform. There are other platforms out there, of course, such as Trulia Voices and now Zillow Advice but neither have (as yet) the reach of Facebook. And frankly, neither is likely to ever achieve the reach of Facebook.

The big one is Twitter. This is a tool that some folks in the RE.net have more or less given up on, while others are extremely skeptical of its value. In contrast, Kevin could not be a bigger fan:

Twitter? Single biggest learning, brand building, network expanding, and reputation enhancing tool for me this year. Twitter’s influence is what took me off this blog so much in the last couple months. Twitter is no longer an experiment for me. Like Guy Kawasaki and Robert Scoble, I’d rather go without my cell phone for a week than Twitter.

Some people will tell you Twitter is a waste of time. Ignore them. Twitter, like everything I’ve discovered on the Internet in this crazy last 13 years, was confusing as all get out when I first tried it. You get less confused by playing with something. Playing for a lot of people is called a waste of time. But you don’t grow by not goofing around. Ask Google.

If you haven’t watched the brief Scoble video interviewing Kawasaki, do so. Guy talks about other things, but Twitter is what amazes him. ‘I think Twitter is, arguably, the most powerful branding mechanism since television.’ Guy says that Alltop would be nothing without Twitter. [Emphasis added.]

Those are… some extraordinary words. The most powerful branding mechanism since TV? Okay, those are Guy Kawasaki’s words, but still. The single biggest learning, brand building, network expanding, reputation enhancing tool?

Wow.

And Kevin’s commenters — lawyers all of them — also express skepticism.  A commenter named Max Kennerly (a litigator, it appears) writes:

I just don’t know about Twitter. I’m sure it works wonders for Guy and Scoble — the primary business for both of them is to exert influence over the most wired 0.1% of the country, all of whom are on twitter. The perception that they are always on top, always on the bleeding edge, is very important to their business.

Not so important to my business nor, I believe, to most lawyers. They need (1) a good reputation among clients and lawyers and (2) to be noticed by potential clients.

I don’t see how Twitter provides any paradigm-shifting benefits to either. It helps you connect in a near-real-time, highly personable manner to maybe a couple dozen people. For most people, it’s microblogging, which is like blogging except without the benefit of showing any sort of expertise or ability, just endlessly links and pithy comments.

What’s interesting about this exchange for me is how different this observation is from the observation that Marc Davison and the commenters made about Twitter in real estate.  Here’s Davison:

But that great promise has yet to pan out. Instead of using this tool as a means to leverage valuable insights, real estate has turned Twitter into restroom wall where anyone with their fly down and a Magic Marker in hand can leave behind whatever childish brain fart comes to mind.

And here are some of the comments:

However, I’m going to respectfully disagree about Twitter. If you want to post market data, and give tips etc, that’s appropriate in a blog or other similar forum, even facebook etc.

Twitter is a medium that people don’t want to see fact, market update, real estate info, etc. It’s a medium to connect with people on a more personal level. Lots of people can post market data on their website, but what person shares similar life experiences?

Twitter has helped make friends within the industry as well as find people from my area that now subscribe to my market info. They didn’t find me on Twitter from my market data posts, they found me because they searched for words like Mac, iPhone, St. Louis, Football info, etc. (I will agree there is a lot of drivel on Twitter)

- Eric Stegemann

As the owner of one of the mentioned “taboos” (maybe 2 or 3?) I stand by all of my tweets. Twitter is a social gathering place and I have met wonderful local people that have become friends who at some point in life will need real estate service. I’ve been told by several that when that need arises I’ll be called on. Some of them I’ve met initially due to similar musical styles (thank you blip), some due to similar love of great television (thank you Denny Crane). All of this to say, we tend to be attracted to people who relate to us on our most common levels. Some of these levels aren’t a constant barrage of real estate facts and figures. It is the real life relationships that sometimes start in the most innocuous ways.

- Dale Chumbley

Twitter is a way to connect with people on a very basic level. It’s amazing just how much you can learn about someone — good and bad — in a medium like this.

Flood the Twitterverse with real estate updates, listings, and self-promotion and you’ll swiftly find yourself talking in a vacuum.

- Jay Thompson

So, naturally, the question is: why such a difference in approach between Lawyer Twitter and Realtor Twitter?  See for yourself by looking at these two legal twitterati: Kevin O’Keefe, and Doug Cornelius.

Is it that lawyers are naturally more reserved, naturally more concerned about ‘gravitas’ and ‘brand enhancement’ via Twitter, while realtors are more concerned about making ‘real connections’ and not flooding the Twitterverse with real estate updates, as Jay Thompson says?

Is it the difference between the two professions?  Is it the difference in the audience?

I have no answers, just questions.  But then… that isn’t unusual, right?

-rsh

The immortal F. R. David… my god, this brings me back to junior high school.

Okay, maybe “immortal” is too strong a term… but that isn’t the point.  The point is that a subtext woven throughout Jeff Turner’s amazing presentation on tools for real estate web is that audio and video content is easier to create than written content.

I just have to wonder if that’s true.  Of course, I’m biased since I like to write, and I do it for fun.  Maybe realtors hate to write, and they do it for work.  Maybe they’re just better at talking than they are at writing.

Could that be the truth?

All of the truly horrible agent blogs out there, where there is zero evidence of any thought, any coherence, any logic, or any taste… would they be transformed into great local citizen media sites through the power of audio and video?

I’m just not sure.  I guess I’m an old-school guy — if I can blog using pen and paper, I just might….

-rsh

I added a new blog to my RSS reader today, as it is one of the better ones I’ve found that is precisely on topic for me and my interests. Real Lawyers Have Blogs is really, really good — it deals with topics of marketing, web 2.0, firm marketing, etc. but in the law. I cover the same topics, but it in real estate. And as some of you know, I believe there are many things that the real estate profession could learn by watching the legal profession.

Kevin, the proprietor of Real Lawyers Have Blogs, has an excellent and timely post on comment spamming. As I have to go in and clean out dozens of blog comment spam from random desperate realtors on this blog, I thought to share the key paragraphs with you. But really, seriously, read the whole thing.

There’s lawyers who don’t care how they get the next client or case. Whether it comes via an ad above a urinal, a two page spread in the yellow pages, or a referral from someone who thought the lawyer was pretty good, they just don’t care.

In fact some lawyers would rather see their name at the top of search results or on the back of a phone book than have a reputation as a trusted and reliable authority in a niche area of the law. Wonderful that these cads are in the same profession as you and I who went to law school to right a few wrongs and to take pride in what we do.

Replace the word “lawyers” in the above paragraph with the word “realtors” and the words would still ring completely true.

Over the past several months, as I have gotten deeper into the residential side of real estate, I have come to understand that there are many incredible realtors who take their profession very seriously. They know their stuff, they can truly advise both buyers and sellers, and they do their very best to provide valuable service to people on the most important financial transaction of their lives. And then, you have cads and morons who couldn’t care less. Simply put, those people need to be driven out of the industry in the same way that some lawyers need to be driven out of that industry.

Near the top of my personal list are the blog comment spammers. As Kevin puts it (quoting Scott Greenfield of Simple Justice) :

In the course of a day, I get one individual posting a dozen comments to miscellaneous old posts without any apparent nexus to each other or the geographical or subject matter area of the lawyer. Each will link back to this ‘Miami Lawyer’s’ website. But here’s the rub: The comment is written in broken English and fails to demonstrate any knowledge of the content of the post.

Example: Greet to the webmaster for this wonderful site.Keep up good work.

This is the actual comment left yesterday. To the Miami Lawyer who paid someone to leave this comment and link to his website, this word of advice. It makes you look like a blithering idiot. Is that what you are trying to accomplish?

Yeah, what he said. Thank goodness for Akismet, which has caught over 700 spam comments. And of course, you get the automated “Notorious ROB wrote about XXX topic” followed by a wholesale scrape-job of one of my posts on some site with a name like MakeMoneyInFloridaRealEstateToday.com.

Seriously, that makes you look like a blithering idiot. Stop it. Cut it out. And please, go away.

The culprit is often some “social marketing services firm” that promises you better Google search rankings, more traffic, etc. by linkfarming and comment spamming and other unsavory tactics. Again, here’s Kevin (quoting Scott):

And for lawyers buying SEO from guys that sound and behave like crack cocaine dealers, follow Scott’s advice.

…[A]s a public service to anyone foolish enough to pay good money to some advertising ‘solutions’ company that outsources its work to people who will make you look far more pathetic than you are, let me say this. Don’t do it.

You are wasting your money. You are not going to get any cases from comments that make you look stupid. You are going to have your comments deleted, and then I’m going to ban you from here.

If you’re really trying to market yourself by establishing yourself as an authority in the legal blogsophere, do it the old fashioned way. By working at it.

Could not have said it better myself.

-rsh

Marc Grayson has a post up on Real Estate Tomato asking whether bloggers should focus on the IN audience (industry peers) or the OUT audience (consumers).

You know what I realized after reading that?

If you have to think about IN or OUT, then this might be a good time get way out.  As in, out of the blogosphere completely.

Seriously, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re just contaminating the blogosphere with that blogs-as-marketing crap.

More I think about it, more I believe blogging is a horrible, horrible marketing device.  I know there are plenty of people who think that blogging is driving all kinds of traffic to their paying jobs and such.  Maybe from a professional day-job standpoint, I should be a huge cheerleader for blogging-as-marketing, since each of those blogs is a potential customer of my company’s products & services.  But this is my blog, not my company’s blog.

I’m a blogger — not as rabid or as clever as some, but I do it because I enjoy writing.  I would do this even if I had no readers.  (And believe me, looking at my traffic, I may as well have no readers. )  I suspect that all great bloggers are the same way.  Manolo probably would be writing about shoes and going “Ayyyy” even if five people in the world read his stuff.

In fact, that’s what makes blogs good: the personal passion, the personal voice, the uninhibited opinionating.

Marketing, in contrast, requires discipline, focus, and of course, ROI.  And Marketing — even if you’re a disciple of Cluetrain like I am — does require thinking carefully about framing, positioning, and persuasive power, all towards a given business goal.

I have to say, even as a huge proponent of blogging (yes, I do believe all companies in real estate should blog, and allow their employees to blog more or less without restriction), I would rather see far fewer “blogs” that are just thinly disguised pitches for business.  I keep seeing some site called tugboat.realestatesomethingoranother pop up in my Akismet spam filter.  Turns out, it’s some bot-crawl operation that takes snippets of posts and puts it on their site with a link to mine.  How lame.  How silly.

Anyhow, if you’re blogging because you want to make more money selling real estate… I have to advise you to stop.  Spend that time doing something else.  Database marketing maybe.  Join a civic organization or something.  Work at a charity.  Because there’s no way that you can be a genuine, authentic, personal voice when your goal is simply to drive more business your way.

If you’re blogging because you’re just… born that way, or something is a bit off-kilter in your head that you’d rather spend time in front of a computer than watching TV or whatever else it is that normal Americans do… then yeah, keep going.  Keep blogging.  Your opinions are probably interesting to read.

So if you’ve got to think about IN or OUT or target audience or whatever… please, just get out of blogging altogether.

-rsh