That's one reason we base the rankings more on transaction history rather than reviews at homethinking.com.

Best.

Niki Scevak

CEO, Homethinking.com

Here's what I say:
- Solve. Don't sell. | Write your content in a way that addresses your target audiences' questions/concerns. It's ok to invoke a "Call to Action" at the end of your posts, but seriously, remember: "Solve. Don't sell."

So what is the solution? Don't look to NAR for zip. Ain't gonna happen. Some Brokers might have some small measure of influence, but how many are leading the Blogging charge? It's a rarity.

Personally, I think that perhaps the best tool we currently have going is the RE-BarCamp experiences. If more of us would get behind these kind of events, the message of effective blogging would reach a much greater audience.

Additionally, more us who actually 'get it' need to reach out more and mentor others. This is happening now, organically/virally, but it needs to occur more. Start coffee groups and meet weekly. The mantra of the Web 2.0 Open Source philosophy compels us to freely share that which we have learned with others. Go and do likewise!

Realy it is very useful post , Accept my sincere thanks and appreciation

John Bill

————–
http://www.dirking.net

Jobs , companies , real estate , engineers , petroleum company

Jippidy.com – Video Yellow Pages

Thank you for sharing that vision. You are closer than most to making it a reality.

It is so tough when you are working closing to closing, payroll to payroll, to step back and think about better ways. But it must be done.

So thanks again for sharing this.

Brian

And Tim, you are absolutely right that to succeed going forward, brokers need to understand that they are, indeed, in the new media business.

What better way to attract clients online than to provide relevant, fresh, high-quality, local, microcosmic community information? I run a very successful local blog that provides just that. But more importantly it creates conversation with consumers in the marketplace, bringing business to myself and my colleagues who contribute.

I'm just an agent blogging in my local little city, and the blog brings me all the business I need. But it could be so much more.

If I were a broker with financial resources, I would revamp the blog to include more video, community tours and neighborhood stats. And I would start producing a weekly video report that included on-the-street interviews with my expert agents.

I would also recruit a handful of agents with writing talent and have them cover their areas of expertise on the blog: foreclosures, luxury properties, starter homes, neighborhoods, and whatever else the consumer shows interest in. These agents would be would be accountable for minimum quality/quantity content standards, but they would also be rewarded with business. And when my agents became too busy to handle everything on their own, I'd help them hire assistants and build teams.

I would also hire a talented people-person to immediately answer inquiries for my blogger/agents while they're out in the field with clients… by responding to email, returning phone calls and providing helpful information. This person would need to be licensed and true team player.

In a perfect world, my broker-blog team would be accountable. We would measure the number of inquiries received via phone, email and web. We would measure traffic to the blog and correlate unique visitors to initiated contacts to appointments to closed transactions and level of resulting revenue. My blogger/agents would be a highly collaborative and cohesive team. And we'd have some sort of on-call arrangement like doctors do so that we could truly have two uninterrupted days off per week to get away from this 24/7 nonsense!

I would develop my broker-blog into more of a social media community where consumers gather to talk about local real estate. I would lead the efforts of my agent/bloggers to ensure that we cover whatever our consumer audience cares about in the local real estate space.

In time, we'd be the number one search result in Google due to the sheer volume of quality local real estate content. Now we'd have a major local online asset with organic SEO, page rank, link love, industry recognition, and most importantly, a community of highly engaged consumers talking about real estate… My brokerage would own a huge percentage of online viewer market share, so the internet consumers would come to us. In fact, they'd be tripping all over us thanks to an omniscient internet presence!

If we structure our brokerage well, provide quality content, respond quickly, give consumers what they want, including possible alternate payment options in addition to standard commission arrangements… then we'd lead our local market, have all the business we ever wanted, and attract only the best, top-quality, most talented agents.

So that's my perfect world. Maybe it's a bit much, but brokers need to understand…. they truly need to be in the new media business, or they will be left behind.

@ JL I disagree with you about video, blogging and IDX, but admire the work you've done to get so many agents using your virtual tour solution.