The AgentMapIt Blog

More and more real estate agents are using social networking as a way of driving people to their websites or blogs, introducing themselves to new people, and generating actual leads. One of the hottest social networks right now is Twitter.

If you’re thinking of using Twitter to promote your real estate business, one of the first things you should be doing is finding local Twitter users. After all, if you primarily deal with local people, then there’s not much point in using Twitter to communicate with people on the other side of the continent.

(Actually, Twitter is also a good tool for getting to know other real estate agents across the country and continent, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment.)

One place to start looking for local Twitter users is to use Twitter’s advanced search tool and specify a “place”. Frankly I find this method a bit rough around the edges.

A more useful website is Twellowhood which shows the location of registered users by state or province and city. This is actually the place I would start if I was looking for local users.

Another interesting application for monitoring location-specific tweets is called Twitter Local. This is an application you can download that runs on your desktop. You can enter a location and it will monitor tweets as they are made by people within a designated distance of the specified location. This shows you active tweeple in your area, and gives you an easy way to follow them or communicate with them.

There are other ways to find local Twitter users – here is a good overview provided by Mashable.

As a Real Estate Agent, when a seller lists with you one of the things they are most interested in is Feedback from people who have gone through their property.

Agents tell us over and over again that feedback is one of the things that sellers most want from their agents.

But you know… many agents simply do not like giving feedback, and unless you make it as easy as possible, they usually won’t bother. That’s not a good way to impress your client is it? They want information and you can’t give it to them. They want to know what people think of their property, and all you can give them are vague answers based on your own hunches.

Even if you take the job of gathering feedback very seriously it can be a major nuisance. Tracking agents down is often difficult. Getting honest answers can be equally difficult. And and then once you have the information, putting into a useful format to show your clients takes valuable time.

AgentMapIt Feedback solves these problems. It tracks your showings, automatically collects feedback from showing agents, and enters it into a feedback log that sellers can access and see at any time.

What that means is that AgentMapIt Feedback is not just a powerful tool to help organize your business. It is also an important addition to your marketing strategy, and gives you an edge on other agents who can’t provide the same level of service.

Accessing AgentMapIt Feedback is surprisingly inexpensive. There is no long term contract. Go ahead and sign up for a month, and if it doesn’t do everything we claim it will, just cancel your subscription. To learn more about AgentMapIt Feedback, or to give it a try, visit Feedback.

If you are an AgentMapIt Gold member, as of July 15 you will have access to a new program called AgentMapIt Feedback. If you are already a Gold Member you can get started using Feedback by going to the Feedback Members Area and creating your listing agent profile. You’ll find a step-by-step description of how the program works.

How Feedback Works
Getting Feedback from people who have visited and toured your listing properties is often difficult and frustrating. Yet this is valuable information that can help you do your job more effectively and show your vendors how their property is being received.

AgentMapIt Feedback is an automated Showing Manager and Feedback System that solves the feedback problem. It helps you book and record showing dates, automatically collects feedback from prospective buyers, and enters that feedback into a feedback log attached to each listing. This gives you a summary of all showings for each of your listings as well as a convenient feedback summary accessible only by you and your vendor.

How Feedback can help you…
You need AgentMapIt Feedback because it makes collecting feedback so much easier. Here is what this system can do for you…

* Books and verifies showings of all your listings
* Keeps track of individual showings
* Gives you a record of showing agent contact information
* Automatically collects feedback from showing agents
* Keeps a convenient log of feedback for each listing
* Lets your sellers see the feedback summary

If you are already a Gold Member you can get started using Feedback by going to the Feedback Members Area and creating your listing agent profile. You’ll find a step-by-step description of how the program works.

Getting traffic from the search engines has always been the rationale for spending time, energy and money on search engine optimization.

But if you have a website promoting local services (such as a local real estate site) it is difficult to compete with search engine optimization experts who have built sites targeting your most important keywords. These “experts” have no interest in serving your market with useful information. What they want is to gain local ranking so Google will send searchers to click on their pay per click ads.

It’s a free world, so people can do whatever they want with their websites. But it’s too bad Google has to reward website owners who play the game this way.

Is Google really changing things?

Recently, Google has indicated they intend to change the rules. For instance, according to this post about changes in Google rankings, we will soon see more emphasis placed on the quality of a site’s traffic, and the use of rich content such as video. We will also begin to see the gradual introduction of personalized search results based on user patterns and interests.

This is good because it could potentially reduce the influence of bogus SEO tactics, and give local websites a better chance at higher rankings based on the quality of their content and their efforts at generating legitimate traffic from sources other than the search engines themselves.

In other words, if a local site owner can tap into the local market and drum up more “natural” traffic from sources other than the search engines, that will actually enhance that site’s rankings in the SEs.

So, for example, if you own a limousine service in New Jersey, Google will give your site more credit (and better rankings) if it contains content that actually attracts traffic. Google will know where your traffic comes from because if you are serious about impressing Google you will have enrolled in a tracking service such as Google Analytics.

That means relying less on the search engines as a primary means of attracting traffic, and more on things like email marketing, social networking, blogging, videos, article writing, and whatever else you can think of as a way of getting attention from your primary target market.

Incidentally, that is exactly why we have developed the Blog and Mail program: to go directly after the people who have the most obvious interest in what you have to offer: your contacts, prospects, former customers – the people looking for the kind of information and services you provide.