Notorious R.O.B.

So I ask an innocent question recently on Twitter: “What’s the difference between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0?”

And I got a number of interesting responses.  So of course I have to blog about it, heh.

Heather Elias (@heatherflynn) wrote: @robhahn interruption marketing versus permission marketing.  Actually, I take that back. More like broadcasting versus engagement.

Stacey Harmon (@staceyharmon): @robhahn I think Realtors should have 1.0 websites, but participate in web 2.0 communities. I don’t advise agents to create web 2.0 site …although there is an element of “dynamicism” that Realtors should use on their 1.0 websites which make them more 2.0 like…

Derek Massey (@derekmassey): @robhahn 1.0 is push, 2.0 is push and pull. 1.0 is presentation, 2.0 is discussion. 1.0 is looking big, 2.0 is acting small

And of course, @matman had the best observation: If my math serves me correctly, Web 2.0 is Web 1.0 x 2!

The profound simplicity of Matman’s formulation aside, all of these quotes suggest something without going so far as defining anything.  What is an observer — and more importantly, a practitioner — to do?

[Now, to be fair, let's be clear that the above people were responding via Twitter with its 140-character limits.  So by necessity they had to be general; therefore, none of what is below should be seen as criticism.  In fact, I rather hope they'd come and participate and expand on these thoughts.]

Imprecision Indecision

Let’s put ourselves in the shoes of the typical real estate agent who is discovering the wild and woolly world of online real estate.  She goes to a conference, like RE Tech South or Inman Connect or perhaps a RE Barcamp.  She hears everyone talking about Web 2.0, about social media, about leveraging the most powerful form of marketing ever invented.

She’s got herself a website from one o’ dem website vendor fellas, and she figures she needs to get with the program.  She desperately desires to join the Web 2.0 world and the rest of it.

What is she to do?

Her current site is ‘broadcast’ whereas she wants to go to ‘engagement’.  Rather than presenting stuff, she wants to discuss them.

In practical terms, what does this mean for our newbie realestista?

The picture gets cloudier still when she realizes that the sites usually brought up as exemplars of the Web 2.0 movement are sites like Flickr, YouTube, and Wikipedia.  YouTube is literally broadcast for our newbie — she goes there to watch videos.  Flickr isn’t much different — she goes there to check out photos from other people.

Blogs are said to be the quintessence of “Web 2.0″, but she visits most blogs to read stuff other people have written.  Sure she can see that some folks comment and such, but hasn’t ever done it herself.  How is this different from people coming to her site to read her market reports page?

Her site allows users to search for listings, then returns results to them.  It’s all rather one-to-one in her view.  So what’s so Web 1.0 about her basic search site, and what would she have to change to make it a Web 2.0 site?  Just add a blog, or let users comment on the listing?

What does “dynamicism” mean anyhow for her?

The Disservice of Vagueness

Every time I go to a real estate conference where newcomers are introduced to the heady concepts and la revolucion sweeping their industry, I come away thinking that they all have the somewhat happy-but-dazed look of people who sat under a waterfall for a few hours.

They all go away feeling that they have to do something, and that they have heard the key to future success, but with precious few concrete action items.

The problem, I think, is the very imprecision of the terminology we throw around.  The vagueness performs a disservice to newbies.  Unfortunately, the imprecision and vagueness is built-in to the whole “Web 2.0″ meme/movement.

This seems a good place for a digression of sorts: What is Web 2.0?

In our initial brainstorming, we formulated our sense of Web 2.0 by example:

Web 1.0		Web 2.0
DoubleClick	–>	Google AdSense
Ofoto	–>	Flickr
Akamai	–>	BitTorrent
mp3.com	–>	Napster
Britannica Online	–>	Wikipedia
personal websites	–>	blogging
evite	–>	upcoming.org and EVDB
domain name speculation	–>	search engine optimization
page views	–>	cost per click
screen scraping	–>	web services
publishing	–>	participation
content management systems	–>	wikis
directories (taxonomy)	–>	tagging (“folksonomy”)
stickiness	–>	syndication

The list went on and on. But what was it that made us identify one application or approach as “Web 1.0″ and another as “Web 2.0″? (The question is particularly urgent because the Web 2.0 meme has become so widespread that companies are now pasting it on as a marketing buzzword, with no real understanding of just what it means. The question is particularly difficult because many of those buzzword-addicted startups are definitely not Web 2.0, while some of the applications we identified as Web 2.0, like Napster and BitTorrent, are not even properly web applications!)

The post by Tim O’Reilly — I suppose the father of the term “Web 2.0″ — goes on to make claims like “Web 2.0 doesn’t have a hard boundary, but rather, a gravitational core.”  And then O’Reilly supplies us with a helpful “meme map”:

If the “gravitational core” of Web 2.0 is “The Web as Platform” then every single real estate website in existence today — including the original Realtor.com circa 1996 — is Web 2.0.  If the key to Web 2.0 is “You control your own data” then not one real estate website today is Web 2.0.  Because not one real estate website controls its own data — nor does any user of any real estate website.

Look at some of the other “core competencies” like “Harnessing the collective intelligence”.  Whatever this might mean in Web 2.0, I think it’s safe to say that few real estate websites today are Web 2.0 under this scenario.  And the ones that might be able to make that claim are all portals aggregating the “wisdom of the crowds” of thousands of individuals — Trulia Voices, Zillow Advice, ActiveRain, and the like.

In other words, NOT an individual broker or agent website.

Then look at the peripheral concepts, such as “Trust your users” and “Hackability”.  In some ways, real estate web is almost defined by not trusting your users and not being hackable.

You can (and if you’re really interested, you probably should) read the whole article by Tim O’Reilly.  But for those who want to get to the meat, the conclusion brings the juice:

Core Competencies of Web 2.0 Companies

In exploring the seven principles above, we’ve highlighted some of the principal features of Web 2.0. Each of the examples we’ve explored demonstrates one or more of those key principles, but may miss others. Let’s close, therefore, by summarizing what we believe to be the core competencies of Web 2.0 companies:

• Services, not packaged software, with cost-effective scalability
• Control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer as more people use them
• Trusting users as co-developers
• Harnessing collective intelligence
• Leveraging the long tail through customer self-service
• Software above the level of a single device
• Lightweight user interfaces, development models, AND business models

The next time a company claims that it’s “Web 2.0,” test their features against the list above. The more points they score, the more they are worthy of the name. Remember, though, that excellence in one area may be more telling than some small steps in all seven.

While Tim O’Reilly is speaking of “Web 2.0 companies” rather than “Web 2.0 websites”, if we apply the same checklist to websites especially in real estate, confusion reigns.

Based on the above list, for a savvy agent to transform her website from “Web 1.0″ to “Web 2.0″, the following would have to occur:

1. Leave the MLS and institute a proprietary listings database, with direct input from users of the website.  How else to get ‘control over unique, hard-to-recreate data sources that get richer with usage”?
2. Listings without pricing — fully auctionize (is that even a word?) the real estate process.  Let buyers simply bid what they would pay for a particular house, rather than list a price for a home.  How else to “harness collective intelligence” or to “trust your users”?
3. No more “contact me” forms, but a “here’s the password to the lockbox” forms.  How else to enable “customer self-service”?

I am, of course, being just a wee bit facetious.  It would be impossible — or nearly impossible — to do any of the above, nevermind all of them.

It may be that Web 2.0 simply cannot apply to real estate sites that are of interest to the newbie realestista.  They’re not interested in starting a wholly new business model premised upon consumer self-service, wisdom of crowds, and control over proprietary data.  They’re simply interested in marketing themselves and their services (and the listings they are marketing) better.

So how do we do that?

Dispelling the Shadows: Getting Specific

First step, I think, is to get away from vague exhortations and move towards specific action items.

Rather than “engage the consumer”, perhaps the recommendation should be “Have a blog”.

Rather than “push and pull”, perhaps the recommendation should be “Put a RSS feed on your listings”.

Whatever it is, ye legions of web designers, social media experts, and Web 2.0 evangelists need to get much more specific than you have been to date.  There needs to be concrete differences between a “Real Estate 1.0″ site and a “Real Estate 2.0″ site of the sort that can be put into an actionable format.

And those concrete differences have to be meaningful and measurable in some way.  There has to be a reason to put in a blog on a website, or to incorporate user comments onto listings.  The expert who is recommending a course of action should be prepared to deliver performance metrics.

Newbie Academy

What might be a great step forward is for conference organizers to consider creating a whole separate track for newcomers to the modern real estate web.  This “Newbie Academy” track would eschew broad statements and grand gestures and focus on action items with specific things they can do.

For example, rather than telling real estate agents that they need to make their websites more engaging, the expert instructor might step through different modes of engagement:

• Professional Resume: Since the consumer is seeking a professional to provide services, you will want to engage the consumer with a clear statement of your professional qualifications, track record, and accomplishments.
  • Action Item: About Me section on the website, with a detailed professional resume, including education.
  • Action Item: A link to your LinkedIn profile which duplicates your detailed professional resume.  Do not assume that users will click over, but make it an option.
• Personality: Because real estate is an intensely personal affair, consumers will want to feel comfortable with their agent.  And you will want to feel good about working with a consumer.  Showcase your personality in various ways.
  • Action Item: Make sure that the overall design of your website, from the homepage to the font selection, matches your personality.  Do not settle for a template site you haven’t even looked over much.  Work with a designer if you must to express yourself through the design of your site.
  • Action Item: Put a list of your favorite books, or books you are reading, in the sidebar of your website.  You can use websites like WeRead or Shelfari.
  • Action Item: Put your favorite movies on your site with Flixter.
  • Action Item: Put your favorite musicians and songs on your site with iLike, or create a streaming radio station with blip.fm.
  • Action Item: Create some movies of yourself talking about yourself, your family, your hobbies, or your interests with a webcam or similar and post them on the site.
• Expertise: Consumers expect real estate agents to be experts on the whole home buying and selling process, as well as the local market.
  • Action Item: Put together a detailed market report for your market including inventory, last sold, median listed price, median sold price, price trends, and days on market.  If you can’t put it together yourself, at least get a pre-packaged tool from sites like Altos Research or Zillow.
  • Action Item: Offer consumers a detailed look into your market with both statistical data about population, median income, employment, etc.
  • Action Item: Provide consumers with information about the schools, both public and private, in your market.  [Of course, if it were me doing this Newbie Academy, I would have to mention my employer....]
  • Action item: Etc. and so on, and so forth.
• Whatever Else: Yadda, yadda, and yadda.

And so on.  In this manner, the newbie walks away with a specific action plan to improve her website from its current sad state to a modern Real Estate 2.0 website.  She doesn’t need to get confused with all the vagueries of theory about what principles constitute Web 2.0 vs. Web 1.0, or whether social media encompasses video or not, or what-have-you.

Those topics are for the illuminati who already know the basics.  And typically, we just argue about them and debate them in an effort to boil down the misty wilds of imprecision to a more coherent set of understanding.

For the Illuminati

And those of us who are the Web illuminati… I think we have to get better at our craft.  We have to get better at understanding what the hell we are talking about, so that we  can put things into the sort of precise language and specific courses of action that a newbie can follow.  If we can’t speak of things in precise and specific ways, then we probably don’t understand it well enough to advise anyone else on it.

This is partially why I like to say that I have no answers, only questions.  Because Web 2.0, social media, and the like are so seriously ill-defined at times that I have nothing specific to recommend.  Categories seem arbitrary — e.g., what makes Flickr “Web 2.0″ and Ebay not?  Metrics seem invisible at times.  Evidence is always thin.

Under those circumstances, I suppose being circumspect, hedging bets and statements, and freely admitting ignorance are strategic advantages.  Something for the illuminati to consider…

-rsh

Ben Martin at Agent Genius(an excellent site that I have now added to my RSS reader) has posted a trenchant response to my earlier post on proof in Web 2.0 type of activities.

He takes issue, it seems, with a few things, confessing himself further and further befuddled by the dialogue.

First, measuring ROI from blogging or social networking activities — Ben seems to believe — is inherently bunk:

How do measure “investment” in social media? A wordpress.com, blogger.com or ActiveRain blog costs exactly $0. Let’s say you get one deal per year by blogging. A facebook profile costs you exactly $0. Let’s say you convert one lead from your facebook network into a deal per year. Let’s see, anything divided by zero is… Infinity, I guess. That’s one hell of an ROI!

He then claims that time really isn’t a factor when it comes to blogging:

Okay, so there’s the time factor. Sure it takes time to write a blog or do the social networking thing. You can do this during unproductive times of the day. Nobody at the open house? Type. Waiting for a client to show up for a meeting. Type. Kids gone to bed and the spousal unit is watching a boring TV show? Type.

He then concludes that there is no cost to blogging:

Now, consider the opportunity costs of not sharing your expertise. If you don’t write about what you know, the only people who benefit from your knowledge are you and your current clients. Knowledge is a Realtor’s greatest asset and to not share it is to squander it. Basically, to not share your expertise widely is like holding your expertise in inventory, and everyone knows that holding inventory costs money.

I’m going to go out on a limb and say that the net cost of blogging is effectively zero dollars. Some will quibble with this, but remember to consider the opportunity costs of holding your knowledge closely.

There’s a lot of confusion here. Ben seems like a very smart guy, and very observant, but in this particular instance, I’m afraid he’s out of his depth — just as, I suspect, I would be if I started talking about how best to show a house.

First of all, measuring ROI in marketing is not a difficult concept. You measure “lift over control”. If you have a baseline established already, then measuring lift isn’t particularly difficult. For example, if my website gets an average of 300 visits a day, then I add a blog and see 3,000 visits a day, that’s a pretty clear lift over control (historical data).

If you have no historical data, then you try to find someone who is doing the exact same thing you are, then do your activity, and measure lift. So find an agent, or a brokerage, who is doing exactly the same things you are, except for blogging, and compare your two businesses. If you’re getting 20% more transaction sides, or your transactions are worth 15% more than his, then that’s pretty solid lift over control.

Yes, it gets tricky when you’ve got two heterogeneous companies, and the control group is hard to establish, and you have to start assigning weighted averages and such, but that’s the principle.

The “This cost $XX, and I made $YY from it, so ROI is $YY/$XX” is far too simplistic and often misleading — as is the case here. That a WordPress.com blog costs nothing, therefore getting one sale would make the ROI infinite is a ridiculous result. I suspect that Ben knows that, and was merely using it as a rhetorical device. No, the real question is, would you have gotten $YY without that zero-cost WordPress blog?

To further confuse the issue, Ben believes that the cost of operating a blog is the time it takes to type up some words. You can do this, as he puts it, during your unproductive dead time.

This is confusion because it implies that were you not blogging, you’d be sitting around twiddling your thumbs. That isn’t the case. Time spent notblogging could be spent doing more of the same old activities — writing Thank You cards to clients, or making a phone call, or reading up on the latest market studies. There are a nearly infinite number of things one can do during dead time that isn’t blogging or social networking.

How do we know that those activities are in fact not more valuablein terms of growing your business than typing, typing away on a blog?

The logic behind his claim that there is no cost to blogging is… well, bizarre.

First, it assumes that Knowledge is a Realtor’s greatest asset, not his personality, Rolodex, experience, attitude, or physical beauty. That may or may not be true. But even if it were true, the claim that not sharing that Knowledge is squandering it, because “holding inventory costs money” simply makes no sense.

Holding inventory costs money because storage costs money. This is a purely physical concept, based on the physical space that inventory takes up in physical space that you as a company must lease or own in order to store those items. In fact, for most e-commerce operations, “inventory cost” asymptotically approaches zero — particularly if they sell digital goods such as music or photos. That insight, after all, is the whole premise behind Long Tail. How much does it cost to store knowledge in your brain? If it isn’t zero, you need to contact your lawyer and sue yourself.

Further, Knowledge is not subject to spoilage. Knowledge isn’t fish that has to get sold within a couple of days, or it goes bad. You do not automatically forget things you didn’t blog about, or share with the widest possible public audience. Sure, it could get outdated as new facts emerge, as new knowledge is gained — but in that event, even the shared Knowledge gets outdated and “goes bad”.

So contrary to Ben’s thoughts, actually, there is zero cost to not sharing Knowledge, no inventory cost, and not sharing does not mean you squander it.

There is a significant cost to sharing such knowledge. I’m incurring that cost right now, by typing out this blogpost. I don’t see it as a cost, because I happen to enjoy blogging; this is partially entertainment expense for me, if you will. But that isn’t the case for an agent trying to drive more business via blogging or social networking. That is a real cost. And as such, it requires some proof of a return on that cost.

Applying the above, we can ask some questions about Ben’s personal experience:

Based on my personal experience, I’m also fond of saying that I can’t draw a straight line between my blogging efforts and any success I’ve had in business. But I can draw a squiggly line. 2007 was the most remarkable year of my career, and I attribute it in large part to social media. Did I get a new job just by blogging? Nope! I networked in real life. Did I get the freelancing and public speaking gigs just by blogging? Nope! I got papers published and spoke for free. Did I just blog my way into a photo shoot and get my picture taken for the cover of my professional society’s national magazine? Nope! I volunteered for committees, showed up for events, and followed through on commitments.

Could I have done all of the above without blogging? Maybe one, but definitely not all three.

Could someone else who isn’t Ben, who also networked in real life, also got papers published and spoke for free, also volunteered for committees, also showed up for events, and followed through on commitments but did not blog have gotten a new job, gotten freelancing and public speaking gigs, and gotten his picture taken for the cover of the national magazine?

If the answer is Yes, then I can go out on a limb and say that all of Ben’s blogging activities were worth precisely zip. He might have done better by spending a lot more time on the golf course.

What’s funny to me is that Ben and I are kindred spirits in terms of what we want to see out of real estate, and out of the agent population:

So I offer a different equation: Return on Engagement. Instead of thinking about return on investment, consider how you can engage your social media farm. The extent to which they’re engaged with you is the extent to which they’re likely to think of you when they need to move. And because referrals will come when there’s trust and engagement, even though you may NEVER convert someone in your social media farm into a client, they will be more likely to think of you to the extent you’ve engaged them through social media.

This concept won’t resonate with everyone, but I know many genius agents understand this intuitively.

Ever since I started this blog, I’ve been talking about the need for agents to become more professional, more honest, more authentic, more engaging, more human, more Cluetrained. So I’m 100% on board with what Ben is advocating here. And I’m glad to hear that many genius agents understand this intuitively. So do I. I’m really glad that there are agents trying the new methodology, even in the absence of objective metrics, based on what seems to work for them. God Bless ‘em.

But as a marketer, I want data and backup and proof. I’m not asking for scientifically valid proof here. I just want to see enough evidence, enough data, enough proof for a reasonable person to conclude that yeah, in fact there does appear to be a causal relationship between blogging and increased sales. Or increased productivity. Or something. I want to see lift over control.

Because without that data, we’re not engaging in marketing, but in hype. We’re not thinking about Web 2.0, but fantasizing about Dreamland 1.0, fueled by so much over-the-top rhetoric: OMGASM! DA BLOGS RULE!!!

Furthermore, may I point out that even Ben’s new, less objective metric, can and should be measured? It’s easy to do. I hope some marketing firm or ActiveRain or whoever does it soon.

It’s a classic brand recall study.

Get one group of 15 consumers who have used an agent for their last home purchase. Ask them who they would use for their next home purchase when they need to move. See if they recall the name of the agent they used.

Get another group of 15 consumers who used an agent who blogs and social networks for their last home purchase. Ask them the same question. See if they recall the name of the agent they used.

Get a group of 15 consumers who read real estate blogs. Ask them the same question. See if they name the agent blogger.

Measure the difference in the response. Voila! Return on Engagement metrics.

And may I say once again, if there is absolutely NO statistically significant difference between the three groups… then I will go out on a limb and say, blogging is absolutely worthless as a Return on Engagement tool.

-rsh

UPDATE:  I have been asked to take this post down by my colleagues at OnBoard, as they feel there is a conflict of interest inherent in a senior member of the executive team writing critically about a current client.  While I have my thoughts on that, in this case, I will defer to their judgment.  The original post has been removed, for now.  I apologize to anyone who has linked over to it.

And yes, I know this is my personal blog.  I am choosing to do this at this time, out of respect for my friends and colleagues at OnBoard whose opinions I respect enormously.  Not out of agreement, necessarily, but out of understanding their point of view.

I further stress that I have not, nor has anyone at OnBoard to the best of my knowledge, heard anything about this from Coldwell Banker.  This is merely something that needs to be resolved between myself and my colleagues.  I may repost it at a later date, if that is the decision I come to after discussion with them, and others.

Thanks,

-rsh

(Image from Flickr.com, by MarkyBon)

There must be some sort of a zeitgeist (literally, “time spirit”) going around the RE.net, like some sort of a benign virus, on the topic of “Web 2.0″ — what it is, what it is not. I just posted on Web 2.0, only to see Louis Cammarosano from HomeGain, and then Ardell from RCG post some very interesting thoughts on Web 2.0. That we are all thinking similar types of thoughts must mean some sort of a collective subconscious about Web 2.0 and what it means in the real estate context.

In my previous post, I mentioned the Cluetrain Manifesto, and my belief that Web 2.0 is really nothing more than a vulgate expression of that document and its insights. The authors actually wrote a book based on the ideas of the Manifesto itself, and the 95 theses. Since the entire thing is available online, I can easily recommend that you read it. Or if you like dead tree versions, you can find a copy here.

Now, considering the Manifesto was written in 1999, and eight years on the Internet is basically a new geological epoch, each reader must update it from his or her own viewpoint. And apply the insights to his or her own situation.

This is just my own personal take on the Cluetrain, and what it means for the real estate industry, both residential and commercial. It isn’t the complete take, of course, as that would take many posts, but just one particular aspect of the Cluetrain and what it might mean for the real estate industry.

Read the rest of this entry »

I hate Web 2.0.

I mean I hate the term. People throw it around all the time, and it even comes up in conversation at parties:

“So, what’s your cute friend Sarah doing?”

“Oh she’s doing publicity for this fabulous Web 2.0 company in the dress-swapping community.”

“That’s so cool — can you give me her phone number?”

Etc.

It turns out Web 2.0 is like “freedom of speech” — something that a lot of people think they understand, but do not. I think I understand it better than most, but when you have such honest disagreement about what the term means, it’s difficult to come to consensus.

Now, even as I hate the term, I like most of the websites designated as “Web 2.0″ despite there being no consensus on what that actually means. Digg is a cool little site; I use Pandora.com pretty often to find new music; Wikipedia is indispensable; and many blogs are very educational and some are top-notch entertainment. The reason is that Web 2.0 (in my not so humble opinion) is really a set of principles, like Agile is in software development, that guide business practices. Those business practices in turn drive features and rules for websites for those particular businesses. And I like those business practices, principles, and what they imply for our world.

I happen to believe that the roots of “Web 2.0″ lay in the Cluetrain Manifesto, first published in 1999 — at the height of the first dotcom bubble. If you’re in marketing, and you don’t know what cluetrain is, you seriously owe it to yourself and to your employer and to your customers to go read at least the 95 theses and the first chapter.

In the first chapter, while discussing how the Web as we knew it (in 1999) came to be, the authors of Cluetrain Manifesto explained it as succintly as anyone ever has:

Well, OK, a few things did happen in between. One of those things was that the Internet attracted millions. Many millions. The interesting question to ask is why. In the early 1990s, there was nothing like the Internet we take for granted today. Back then, the Net was primitive, daunting, uninviting. So what did we come for? And the answer is: each other.

The Internet became a place where people could talk to other people without constraint. Without filters or censorship or official sanction — and perhaps most significantly, without advertising. Another, noncommercial culture began forming across this out-of-the-way collection of computer networks. Long before graphical user interfaces made the scene, the scene was populated by plain old boring ASCII: green phosphor text scrolling up screens at the glacial pace afforded by early modems. So where was the attraction in that?

The attraction was in speech, however mediated. In people talking, however slowly. And mostly, the attraction lay in the kinds of things they were saying. Never in history had so many had the chance to know what so many others were thinking on such a wide range of subjects. Slowly at first, a new kind of conversation was beginning to emerge, but it would achieve global reach with astonishing speed.

So if you read the 95 theses, then you know that cluetrain believes markets are conversations. From the above you read that the basis of the Internet, from back in the green phosphor UNIX days of yore, is the ability for people to talk to each other.

Look at most of the top so-called Web 2.0 companies today. What they do, essentially, is provide a space for conversation — then they more or less get out of the way. Facebook is actually empty, if you think about it — Facebook itself produces nothing but the infrastructure. They’re like the hotelier who builds a hotel and waits for conventions and tradeshows to come make it interesting. It’s the members who produce all of the things that make Facebook interesting. Same thing with Wikipedia, Digg, Techmeme, Flickr, del.icio.us, and even supposedly “Old Web” companies like Ebay and Amazon (in its reviews).

So, with the above agreed on (for the sake of discussion if nothing else), where does the Blog fit into this?

I think it’s fairly obvious that the Blog is just a voice in the conversation. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Thing is, what we do isn’t “web 2.0″ — it isn’t even particularly innovative in any way. Since Gutenberg’s time, people have been “blogging” — except they were using dead trees and ink to do it. Newspapers and magazines have been putting forth a voice in the conversation for hundreds of years. They still do, no matter the rise of the digiterati.

Some bloggers, when they get big enough and attract enough of an audience, make a lot of money from advertising. Some folks have called such blogs “web magazines” clarifying that in fact what we do is really no different than some poor schmuck at Pinch’s operation in Times Square does day in and day out.

Well, that is… what we do is no different from a technique standpoint (stringing words together). It is, however, dramatically different if we adopt the cluetrain mindset.

This is just an enormously long winded way of talking about competition in the real estate blogosphere. The Real Estate Tomato recently published a post called “7 Reasons Why Your Local Real Estate Blogging Peers Are Not Your Competition“. It’s interesting and worth checking out in full.

I just noticed one section that really got me thinking about competition in the blogosphere, and by extension, in the Web 2.0 world. The Tomato wrote:

2. Build Win-Win Relationships

Show an interest in your neighbors real estate blog, and they and their audience will show an interest in yours.

This is such a foreign concept for many agents that have been fighting for client loyalty for so many years. But the truth of the matter is that it is precisely this reciprocating effort that will be the difference between a good blogger and a great blogger.

Initiating conversations in emails and in the comments of your peers’ blogs will both establish the recognition of your name and your blog as well as help you earn their trust and their visit.

Bringing local Realtors and their audience to your site to contribute to the discussions on your platform is the reward. But, you’ll need to make the first (or many) effort(s) by playing nice on theirs.

This is certainly another instance of:
Keep your friends close, and your enemies competition even closer.

Now… keep in mind that I’m operating in very much of a cluetrain mindset when I do blogging at all. I’ve got enough positioning and marketing and such to do in my day job that I will not do it on my personal space. I don’t use Notorious R.O.B. to market something, or promote my services, or whatever. So there’s probably a pretty big disconnect between me and those agents who are blogging to generate leads or promote themselves to the local market. Lots and lots of caveats today.

Having said that, doesn’t the above advice strike you as being a little bit… like unto a sleazebag?

I mean, imagine if you went to a party and struck up a conversation with some attractive young woman/man. You’re having a great time talking about Rob Reiner movies or whatever. Then you find out that the only reason why s/he was talking to you was to get a job in your company or sell you something.

Ewwww.

Maybe that’s why I tend to dislike trade shows and industry networking events. They feel like those huge tanks they have in aquariums where sharks circle endlessly, while the chum dart hither and thither to avoid catching their notice.

Why would it be any different simply because you’re doing it online instead of in person?

I comment on other people’s blog; I often use my own blog to comment on stuff I read elsewhere. I don’t do it to earn their trust and their visit. I appreciate it when people do notice, when people do visit, but that isn’t why I wrote the damn post. I have a blogroll, like everyone else, and I add sites I like to it. But I have never asked for a reciprocal link back. Because it isn’t about that. If someone finds my blog worthy of linking to, then he’ll link to it. If he doesn’t, then he won’t. Either way, if I think his blog is saying interesting things, then I’ll link to it. Because what he says is interesting, period.  If it’s not interesting, then I won’t link to it no matter how many emails he sends me, or comments he puts on my site.

Markets are conversations.  The Internet is the last remaining frontier of authentic communication (and confrontation as well) where people aren’t censored, aren’t told what you can and can’t say by some PC thought police.  If you’re anonymous, no one cares what you look like, or where you went to school, or how much money you’ve got: you are judged purely on the substance and style of what you contribute to the conversation.

What Tomato is suggesting is tantamount to turning conversations into markets.  I know that may be what salespeople do, and real estate agents do amongst their friends and family, but honestly, guys, that’s a little bit of a turnoff.

So I have a different suggestion than Tomato’s:

Build actual relationships, not Win-Win relationships.

Stop giving a shit about “who’s winning” and “who’s losing” (in the real world, that is, not in the rhetorics of cyberspace) and give a crap about how the conversation is going.  Just write, just blog, just comment, just email, without expecting a thing in return, and trust that as the conversation spreads, as your contribution is noted, people will notice.  And somewhere down the line, that may result in a fee or two for you.  But please do not go into it like some networking fiend working a party at Inman or something, wanting to schmooze this guy or kiss ass to that blogger or whatever.

Reciprocation is not the hallmark of a great blogger (vs. a good blogger).  Writing is.  If you can write with wit, style, and knowledge about any particular topic, then guess what?  You’re a great blogger on that topic.

Reciprocation is just the hallmark of a nice guy, and while that can be helpful, how many blogs have you seen that is basically just a link farm with totally asinine press-releases-as-articles?  Likely, such a “blog” was astroturfed by some big company’s interactive marketing agency just to raise organic SEO profiles or some crap.

So… let me conclude this… rant?  advice?  thoughts? with this:

Get on the cluetrain.  Recognize that Web 2.0 means authentic conversations.  Then ask, what is the meaning of “competition” in that world of real, genuine, authentic engagement?

-rsh

I know I take contrarian views to much of the received wisdom on the RE.net, but… well, I can’t help it.  Since I’m not flogging any product, or trying to get leads from this blog, or any such thing, but just write on topics that interest me, I suppose I find it more fun to disagree or to take a different angle on a story.

Which might explain why I am mystified about this story:

Does the NAR “get” blogging and other aspects of social media? I believe the answer is clearly no.

So why should the NAR hire a “Social Media Director”? (Director, Guru, Advocate, Manager – pick a title, any title.)

To help bring them into the 21^st century.
To improve their brand recognition.
To improve their brand reputation.
To accelerate their learning curve on the implementation of all aspects of social media.
To take advantage of all social media has to offer.
To engage the “RE.net” to help turn some into advocates for the NAR.
To develop and provide training and systems for the NAR membership to take advantage of social media.
To provide an active conduit between the membership and leadership.

You tell me, what else could a NAR Social Media director do? I’ve been racking my brains trying to come up with a disadvantage. No can do.

The Internet and social media can be incredibly powerful tools if they are used properly. With a good Social Media Director, the NAR could trim hundreds of labor hours from the learning curve and use the power of social media marketing and networking to reach out to not just its membership, but the general public as well.

Basically, the author (Jay T.) of NARWisdom blog, made a public appeal for a Social Media director position at NAR.  That sounds like a good idea, except… well, let me get to the exceptions in a bit.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dan Green over at Bloodhound Blog understands marketing.  Well, I’m sure I’ll find some place and time to be a pain in the ass to him to, but he’s absolutely on the money with this post:

Click-throughs from a search engines are not “leads” and that’s why the NAR statistic is misleading.  Until a reader engages the author personally, the click-through is only that.

A Web site visitor that registers for free search, free reports, or free seminars is not your client.  He is a window-shopper taking home free samples.  He’s a client when he signs, and never before.

He goes on to vouch for the power of database marketing, good old fashioned email, that the Web 2.0 gurus have been telling us is dead as the proverbial doornail.  I think he’s exactly right.  Read the whole thing — it’ll be worth it.

Okay, maybe not exactly right.

I suppose if I had to pick a bone with him, it is that while he’s absolutely correct that a click is not a lead, and that a random visitor is not a client, he doesn’t soften the blow by pointing out that one should still care a great deal about generating that random traffic.  There is value in clicks, value in the random visitor.  Just not as much as some people think when they go on and on about “user experience” and “customer interaction” when they’re really talking about the random visitor.

After all, the random visitor could turn into a customer; the non-visitor never will.

Of course, you have to make the site enticing and provide value to the random visitor in the hopes that he will turn into a frequent visitor, then a regular visitor, then finally take that step and become a customer.  But first, you do have to get them to your site somehow.

I don’t think he’d disagree with me.

The real lesson from Dan’s post, I think, is to avoid getting caught up in the hype of the latest tech gimmickry.  Just because something is “old-school” doesn’t mean it’s ineffective.  Pursuing innovation for the sake of innovation is a pretty good way to lose a lot of time and money.  Connecting the marketing effort as directly as possible to the business model is a far better way.

If I were responsible for marketing for a local brokerage, I would take my entire paid search budget and spend it on doing live, in-person weekly seminars on the local real estate market instead.  The people most likely to list with me are those who already live in town.  Why not make a concerted effort to educate them on the topic they care about deeply: the value of their homes?

But Rob… that’s not even Web 1.0.  That’s like… Cro-Magnon marketing.

So?  Establishing your company, and your agents, as experts in the market conditions of your local market is a bad thing how?  Getting people to come to your office one evening to hear an objective lecture (free from all sales-pitches and smarmy sales tactics) on what’s going on nationally, regionally, and locally and meeting potential customers face to face is bad how?

It might be different for a large regional brokerage, or a national network, but the local broker will probably get more ROI on those evening lectures (cookies and soda aren’t that expensive, yo) than on any amount of money spent buying keywords on Google.

-rsh

InmanTV has a 46 minute video of a panel discussion at RealEstateConnect ’08 from New York of a group of industry luminaries called “25 Things You Must Do to Web 2.0 Your Company”.

It’s… moderately interesting, and I do recommend checking it out.

But what I don’t get personally is why the real estate brokerage industry is so damn obsessed with becoming “Web 2.0″. Do they even know what that means?

Because I’m pretty sure that the technology/web industry has no freakin idea what Web 2.0 means, except a magic phrase that seems to shake VC dollars loose.

The panelists all spent valuable minutes talking about “new ways to connect with consumers” and blogging, and… well, blogging. Sherry Chris talked about Twitter, and Facebook, and relayed stories of the COO of Better Homes and Gardens wanting to be his friend on Facebook.

Okay… that’s… neat and all, and as a blogger and a fan of blogging and a believer in the concepts behind Web 2.0, I’m highly encouraged by all this attention. Thing is, there is a serious defect in the understanding of the real estate people about what Web 2.0 is, and therefore, they can’t possibly implement anything whatsoever.

Let me suggest something here.

The Wikipedia definition of Web 2.0 (as good as any other we’re likely to get) is:

In studying and/or promoting web-technology, the phrase Web 2.0 is a trend in web design, development and can refer to a perceived second generation of web-based communities and hosted services — such as social-networking sites, wikis, and folksonomies — which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, and sharing between users.

Two observations I will make here.

First, why the obsession with using the web for creativity, collaboration, and sharing? What is wrong with using people for creativity, collaboration, and sharing?

Second, until and unless the real estate brokerage industry completely changes its entire approach to service, no amount of fancy web technology will “web 2.0″ any real estate company.

What the real estate people don’t seem to understand is that Web 2.0 is an attempt to bridge an immense flaw of the Internet: anonymity and impersonality. I’ve been on the Internet before the advent of Netscape and the WorldWide Web. When you’re using UNIX workstations, using gopher and newsreaders to access the web, you realize that the Web — as great as it is — is extremely impersonal and extremely anonymous.

That’s great for some things. If you’re looking for porn, that anonymity is fantastic. If you’re looking for just plain old data, the impersonality is wonderful — you can very quickly go find some piece of information you want on some website somewhere.

But that whole anonymity and impersonality is really bad for some things.

For example, it’s really bad for dating. Consider the first-gen dating websites, like Match.com. You see someone’s photo, get a download of their data, then decide whether (a) you believe what you see, and (b) you want to take the next step. It’s basically a computerized online catalog of possible mates — no different, really, than any e-commerce site.

You have no idea whether that picture of the beautiful beach volleyball champion corporate lawyer chick is real or not. Hence, Brad Paisley’s hit song, “So Much Cooler Online“. You don’t know if she’s got an annoying habit, or if you’d get along, or anything. Even if you went to a “filtered” service like eHarmony, it’s all very one-to-many, with the website providing a rich catalog of choices, and you as the chooser.

The so-called web 2.0 services like Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook are much better for dating. Because now, you can leverage your known, existing, real-life networks to get to meet new people. The anonymity goes away to a large extent (although you could carry on a pretty involved deception, I suppose), but you gain a personalization, a humanization in the process. Mystery Woman ABC isn’t just a photo on Match.com, but actually is a friend of a friend of yours. You could track her down in real life. You know that someone you know actually has seen, interacted with, and knows that person.

It’s no longer one-to-many, but many-to-many. This whole notion of consumer generated content — that has been around since the early days of Amazon.com and CNET.com, both supposedly web 1.0 companies — is simply the effort to evade anonymity and impersonality of the web.

What they resolutely refuse to recognize is that if Web 2.0 means anything at all, it means humanizing the inhuman.

The thing I don’t get is that the traditional real estate companies have the one thing that the Web 2.0 folks really really want and can’t have: actual human beings. Instead of all this chasing after the Web 2.0 rainbow, why aren’t these companies going back to basics, of hiring better agents, training them better, and implementing actual customer service?

Forget consumer-generated content — that’s the current rage. How about having agents that aren’t idiots? That has some actual lasting value, and is the single biggest competitive advantage that real estate companies have as compared to the dotcoms trying to muscle in.

-rsh