All the literature you’ve read and all the experts you’ve heard lately have told you that you need to jump on this Facebook wagon. It’s the way of the future, they say. With over 100 million users, at least a chunk of which would be interested in your service, these so-called experts have a point.

There’s something intimidating, however, about jumping into a social whirlwind of what seems like only college students, sarcastic yuppie status updates and prom photos. Things, they’re a’ changing, though, out there in the social media world. More and more, ehem, older users are getting in on the action. You might be surprised who all is on Facebook – probably including plenty of potential clients. Facebook is a uniquely great way to target those potentials and reach them in a friendly yet effective manner.

To avoid an avalanche of information about the social giant, here are just a few tips for getting started and dipping your marketing toes into the deep:

• If you’re getting onto Facebook as an independent agent or business owner, it’s fine to register as a profile (where it says anyone can join). If you’re setting this up for your business, you must register as a page (where it says to create a page for a celebrity, band or business). FB RULE: Never use a business name for a profile. Pages are for businesses and organizations; profiles are for people.

• When you have a page, users become your fan. When you have a profile, users become your friends. Again, if you’re here to promote your business specifically, use the page format; if you want to network as a professional, use the profile format. (Note: pages are fantastic for Google placement!)

• Once your page (or profile) is set up, you can add information to your page. This can be basic information about your organization, but more importantly, this is a great chance for you to distribute marketing material to the masses in an easy, non-aggressive way. You can upload photos albums, promotional videos, links to websites, even guerilla press releases in “note” form.

• Another great strategy to cultivate your growing little base is to send out the occasional update from your page, alerting fans to promotions, sales, specials or changes from your business.

• Now that you’ve got your page, focus on growing its content and fans. The temptation is there now to join every social networking site you’ve heard of. Build what you’ve got now and twitter later (and for the record, MySpace is dead; don’t bother).

More to come….

Online video tours of your property are a sure-fire way to generate more leads, so it’s important to find effective ways to quickly distribute those videos via as many avenues as possible. Getting those videos in front of buyers doesn’t require much time or a CS degree.

Here’s one tried-and-true method:

1. Upload your edited video file to YouTube.com. You can use a program, such as PicasaWeb (a free google download), which can automatically send your file to YouTube. You can also simply visit YouTube and use their upload tool, located in the upper right of the window. YouTube will allow most major video file types, including but not limited to .wav, .avi and .mov.

2. Once the file is uploaded, you can make it more searchable within YouTube’s site by editing the Title, Description and Tags, using keywords and phrases that you feel will bring more visitors to your video. Thanks to YouTube’s new partnership with Google, these search tools are bound to grow more and more powerful in coming months.

3. Now that the video has been uploaded to YouTube, the HTML embed code is available to you. Located to the right of the video under “Video URL”, you can copy/paste this code to add your video to any site you wish.



4. Personal blogs are a great place to feature your real estate masterpiece. For instance, to add your video to a WordPress blog, simply start a New Post. Then click the second icon across the top, “Add Video,” and go to the “From URL” tab. Copy/Paste your embed code into the field allowed. You could also Copy/Paste the embed code into your blog posting’s HTML editor. Other blogging services may have different commands, but the concept is the same.

5. Also, services like CondoVideoTours.com or Realtor.com will allow you to place your video on a site designed and targeted to sell property. For instance, with CondoVideoTours, click “Add Video” to set up a profile for your video. The profile will ask for the embed code, which you can again simply Copy/Paste from your YouTube listing.

The numbers are in: video sharing giant Youtube has reached 100 million viewers. In the month of January 2009 alone, 14.8 billion videos were viewed on the site. Billion. With that kind of exposure, there’s no reason real estate agents – or anyone with a business to promote – should not be tapping into this invaluable resource to get products in front of exponentially more buyers than they could enjoy otherwise, generating that many more leads.

Online video tours lead a new and evolving approach to marketing real estate and properties. All it takes is a video, homemade or professional, of your property, and you’re ready to host thousands of virtual showings instantly. Free video uploads to sites like Youtube not only give you immediate exposure to ready and willing buyers, they also allow you to take the embed code from those videos and use them wherever else you wish on the web, from Facebook and MySpace to your own website and blog, to real estate specific services like CondoVideoTours.com or Realtor.com.

Welcome to our blogs and news for CondoVideoTours.com and HousingVideo Tours.com.

Post your condo or house videos for FREE.     Contact us if you would like us to build a video tour for you.

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