Social Juice: Week 11
May 13, 2011
Social Juice, Week 11 is in full effect. Read on to learn about a cool, free texting app, why vanity can help your marketing and about a free photo editor that can help you jazz up your listing presentations.
Whats App?
So for those of you who may not have already picked it up, the above phrase is supposed to be a play on the colloquial greeting Whats up? Get it? app instead of up? Pretty cute, huh? Ok, Ill stop. Anyway, the twist on this popular greeting is by no means my own creation, but the name of a brilliant app that is a texting addicts dream.
WhatsApp (with no space between Whats and App, no Whats contraction and no question mark) is a cross-platform mobile app that lets you text for free. According to the apps site WhatsApp Messenger is available for iPhone, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia and yes, those phones can all message each other!
You know what else is cool? You can also send unlimited images, video and audio messages. The only caveat is in order for this app to take full effect, you and the people you are texting need to have it downloaded. But, a little gentle persuasion and proof of the extra dollar bills in your wallet should happily convert them!
There are obvious implications for real estate here if you are in the habit of texting clients, let them know that now they can do so for free! Also, though this needs more investigation, if you have a mobile marketing plan (which all agents should be looking into!) that includes texting, those receiving your information will not incur typical SMS charges. I encourage you to download the app asap and spread the good word! Heres the WhatsApps site for more information http://www.whatsapp.com/.
Vanity Is a Good Thing
Vanity is good. Sooo good. Especially when it comes in the form of vanity urls for facebook. I have spoken to several agents about the value of using facebook vanity urls-which, if you are not familiar with them, are simply shortened facebook urls, such as ours, facebook.com/WilliamRaveis, that point to a Like page. When you have 25 fans (or Likes, to use proper terminology), you are eligible to scoop up a username by visiting http://www.facebook.com/username/. Then, you put this username everywhere. On your email signature, business card (this one is big), website, blog, twitter page or even the bumper of your car. This drives traffic to your facebook page where you are already marketing listings and demonstrating your knowledge of the local area.
Heres an update, though . Now, instead of using facebook.com/WilliamRaveis, facebook has allowed you to just use fb.com/WilliamRaveis. Shortens things up a bit, right? In a world where brevity is an asset, particularly when it comes to words, this is a solid piece of news. Now, all you need to do is put fb.com/SusanSmith or fb.com/realestateguru on your marketing materials and youre good to go. Spread the word on this one, too, folks.
FireShot
Ever wish you could markup and annotate some of the photos you include in your listing presentation or CMA without having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for a photo editor? Well, let me introduce you to FireShot. FireShot, meet your soon-to-be fans.
FireShot is an add-on that is compatible with Firefox (another reason to use firefox!). A quick definition here: add-ons are miniature programs that work within firefox to enhance the browsing experience. Developers are able to create these add-ons because firefox is open-source, meaning, its code is available to the public to be played with!
Enough terminology. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/fireshot/ . Click on that link to be taken to the FireShot download page. Click on Add to Firefox. Once downloaded, you will need to restart your browser. Then, go to an image that you would like to edit and annotate for a listing presentation. Right-click, and you will see a FireShot option towards the bottom of the menu bar. You have the option to edit the visible area, selected area or entire page. Once you decide which youd like, hover over it and youll see another options bar. Select Edit. Then, once youve selected your image, you open up an external editor where you can crop, annotate and markup to your hearts content! Take a look at the pictures below to see an annotation example as well as a shot of the editor bar. This add-on will really help you snazz up some of your photos to give the best impression to clients. Have some fun with it!
Posted by Supriya Anand, Public Relations/Social Media in Market Trends, Mobile Application, Raveis.com, Social Media, Technology
Tags: bill raveis, facebook page username, firefox download, Raveis, raveis blog, send free text message, social media marketing, social media real estate, whats app, william Raveis Real Estate
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Article source: http://blog.raveis.com/2011/05/13/social-juice-week-11/
