It is the hottest thing out there...but am I over it?

Hi, I'm Chris....and I am commitment-phobic.

I thought I was in this terrific relationship with facebook, but now that I have introduced it to all my family and friends I don't know if I can go on seeing it like I used to. After all, there is this hot number called twitter that is competing for my attention...and more and more I find myself taking the bait.

Don't get me wrong - I am not ending my facebook relationship. I can't. Facebook is like the electric company now - it is a utility - we have to have it if we want to be in the "real world" of business. There are more than 400 Million people using it now, including almost everyone I need to communicate with on a regular basis. I think I am just cutting back on how often we see each other.

So why the discontent? I think a lot of it has to do with just how much content streams through my news feed anymore. Yes, I know I can filter that down (and trust me, I do) but seeing my friends drone on about the flyers game or their kids isn't as as exciting as it used to be. Maybe I just need better friends...or maybe I need a medium where droning on is not encouraged.

Being honest, however, there is one more cause of my discontent - and it has to do with your fan pages. Yes, I am thrilled that you are all setting them up and working to brand yourself online, but if I am going to have to see all of your stuff in my news feed then please, please, please give me something more than your listings (apparently I am not the only one who feels this way). Fan pages are like newspapers - if the only thing you have in them is advertisements, eventually nobody wants to use them for anything other than bird cages.

So with all that in mind enter twitter - my new flame - sashaying in with all sorts of pizazz and hype. While I have had this fantastic 140-character microblogging tool for close to three years (actually if you include the ones for CBH I have close to 100 accounts) only recently has my tweet-stream picked up the sort of critical mass that makes it fun to read. Because I receive all sorts of fun (and useful) info there - real estate news, CNN, Phillies beat writers, tech geeks and just some plain ol' witty people - I get the kind of value I want from my social media, even if I do wish once in a while more of my local friends were on there. When I have a moment these days it is my tweet-stream I am reading on my phone, not my news feed.

So where do I go with all this relationship angst? Nowhere I guess. Facebook is my faithful old friend - twitter is my ever-present muse. Now that we have added the twitter icons & links to the intranet, I invite you to follow along.

Video tips as you get ready for Spring

I know we continue to talk about video and how it is becoming an important tool in your business.

I just found this great piece from Hubspot - and one of their partners Bettina Hein of Pixability. It says what Stefanie and I have been saying about video - only far better than we could say it.

Be sure to check it out before you take any more steps with your video plan, and definitely review it before you sign any video contracts.

Read the Article Here - Don't Be a Chicken: 6 Simple Steps to Creating Online Marketing Videos

Snow day...

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OK, so everyone in my life knows that I am super-infatuated with Cecily Tynan. It's a healthy crush, not one of those freaky-stalker things. We can talk about that later...maybe when she stops by Doylestown someday soon.

Anyway, my crush may have led me to know about the snow before you did...maybe not. Nevertheless, I have been thinking for days now what my snow day work plans would be. After all this storm is about to knock out the third or fourth work day this year (depending on where you live) so it only makes sense for you to use it productively.

What are you going to do? Are you going to sit in your jammies and watch the newscasters stick yard sticks into the snow, or are you going to fire up your computer and help out your business?

Here are a few suggestions for things you could easily do between your runs for hot chocolate:

1) Update your CBH agent site - I am still bummed that most of you have very plain-jane sites and that you have not taken advantage of the freebies offered to you. Heck, I am bummed some of you haven't even changed your welcome message away from the boilerplate one I wrote 18 months ago. Please, Please, Please do it now! Here are the instructions - just download this file and follow along.

2) Update your LinkedIn profile - I just spent 15 minutes reviewing the profiles of the CBH agents who have connected with me. Overall impression, not good. Many of you started out strong, but didn't make it to the end zone. That's OK though, because you knew it was going to snow a lot this winter and you would have time to finish the job. Here are some instructions on how to do it. I would just add to this that snow days are also great days to ask for recommendations from contacts you already have. Don't go to other agents...they are not the right people to vouch for your ability in the eyes of your friends and prospects.

3) Review how you are using Facebook - So when you first signed up for Facebook did you think it would be cool to add a bunch of dumb applications (like Farmville or Mafia Wars?) Did you friend a bunch of other agents without setting your privacy controls so they could see you talk about the listing presentation you have? Or worst of all, did you fan a page for another Philly meteorologist when you knew there was only one super-awesome fan page out there? Use this time to do some "spring cleaning" on your Facebook account. If you are not using it, delete it. If you are using it just to post your listings, build a fan page instead and at least let your friends decide if they want to see your business. If you fanned a bunch of junk, go remove yourself - and think about which of those games/apps you want the world to know you have.

Still have time? Start reading! Check out the latest real estate & technology news from Inman, read up on some statistics from NAR, or learn some new tips & tricks from leading experts Amy Chorew and Matthew Ferrara. I guarantee you it won't be time wasted.

Whatever you do, be safe...as Cecily and her weather colleagues would say, "if you don't need to be out there today stay inside" Good advice, especially with all these super-cool things to do!

New web site enhancements

So I mentioned it in my email, and maybe some of you are coming here to see what I was talking about.

Here are some quick examples for you to view

1) The Print-Friendly Page. Click here to view this property from Bob Mathers' agent site. See the "printer friendly page" link right above the MLS number? If you click it you will see a page that looks like this. Now if a customer prints the page, they get all Bob's contact information along with it! There is no setup required, although you may want to use this as a reminder to update your personal site information (and send Stef or me a new photo if yours is not so good).

2) The Eproperties.com sites. I love Epropertysites.com! I think it is a great tool that we need to utilize more, and I think it is great that MM provides it to you at no cost. Now you can link the sites to your CBH listings. Want an example? Check out this listing on Allen Moffitt's personal CBH web page. Note below the zoning where it says "View Property Site". If you click it - wallah - you are at the EPropertysites.com page he created!


3) The twitter thing. I am a big twitter user, and anyone who sees me in the real world knows I am constantly looking at my twitter updates on my phone. Now I can sign up for updates based on the school district (or districts) I want to search and have the listings fed to me by tweet...pretty cool. Check out the page we built that directs people to all the updates - it also has links to the district web sites.

More later - supposed to be paying attention in CE right now!

Open House Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Since the Super Bowl is behind us (Congrats Saints!) I found myself with little to do today. Sure, I did the obligatory lovey-dovey stuff and spent some time with my favorite 3 year-old valentine, but after that it was all business.

So I got in the car and went to visit a few open houses. Not because I wanted to check up on anyone, rather, because I wanted to see the preparations agents are making, the way they are received by the public and the way the market is reacting to the weather, the tax advantages and everything else.


Let me tell you how pleased I am with what I saw. The first place I went was just listed this week. Even with a blizzard and a bevy of other issues this house was ready to rock! Check out how the agent even made sure the sign got dug out of the snow and the open house rider was there for all to see! I was so impressed. When I went inside, the agent (who was covering for the listing agent) told me how great things were going and showed me a list a page-and-a-half long of people who had stopped by in the first hour. Just then a new couple walked in; they had already been there once but wanted to look around again. Right in front of us they looked out the window, talked to each other, and then asked a question about the property line. This agent, who had probably never even stepped in the house before today, rattled off the lot dimensions, looked out the window with them and in his best "With all that snow it's not the perfect guess, but...." sounded like he had lived there forever.

The second house I went to was equally well prepared - the signs were out, the balloons were flying and the driveway was nice and clear. Unfortunately, the results were not quite as spectacular (I was the second guest) even though the price of the house was almost $100K less than the one I had just come from.

Just because the traffic was slower doesn't mean I was disappointed. When I was there the agent was talking with the other visitor, explaining in great details the nuances of the tax credit and making sure this prospect felt comfortable with the buying process. She also had her laptop set up (with the cellular wireless card plugged in) and was ready to ride out the time even if the buyers weren't coming.

All-in-all, I am thrilled with my afternoon but also saw areas where we can improve. I hope to continue making these visits during the spring and summer, so don't be surprised if I wander in some Sunday!

You have a chance to be an industry leader!

Total generalization here, but I bet by the time you joined Facebook there were already more than 100 Million members; if you became a twitter-er there were already millions of people tweeting in front of you, and if you put your toe into YouTube waters there were billions of videos in the queue the day you started.

You were not an industry leader, sorry. Even in our field there were thousands of people jumping on the social media bandwagon before you.

Don't be discouraged....you're still light years ahead of most of the people in this business.

The good news, is that now you have a chance to be "one of the first" to do something; something that could end up being big....Google Buzz

What is it? Watch the video:


So Buzz is a little bit like twitter (mainly because of the updates) and a little bit like facebook (or friendfeed if you knew that) because it threads the conversations. Where it is so much different, however, is that it is built right into your Gmail inbox - hypothetically creating fewer sites you need to check (and of course building up your dependance on Gmail - which for the record I LOVE GMail).

Some other big differences between Buzz and the rest are that in Buzz you can create status updates just for small sub-sets of your friends on the fly (which means no complicated privacy management like facebook) and that updates are not character-specific (like twitter). Who knows, maybe we'll all get back to using the English language as we were taught (instd of 2 mak it fit in ur tweet).

Since Buzz just launched last week I am still learning all that it can do (and keepign up with the new features the team at Google wants to add). You can do the same. If you have a Gmail account already, you will get the Buzz invite when you log in - or you can go create a Gmail account right now and add the buzz functionality right from the start.

If you join, be sure to buzz me - CBeadling (at) Gmail dot com

The Saturday Break Up

It's a snowy Saturday and I'm sad.

Unfortunately a relationship I had ended today.

What happened to cause the breakup? In a nutshell, too much info.

You see, this was one of my facebook friends. I accepted him into my world months ago because we serve on the board of a non-profit entity together. He and I see each other about five times a year; nevertheless I thought it was worthwhile to have him on board.

As soon as I accepted him I started to notice the daily bible verses flowing into my news feed; they're obvious because they are longer than most status updates (well, and because they are a bit more pious). I didn't really feel I needed the update each day, but because we were friends I accepted it.

Then, right after New Years Day, things changed again. This friend decided to go on a new diet and workout plan. Hooray...we should all do that, right? Well he made the decision to update us every day on the workout he did (using every character facebook would allow) AND post a separate update each day on every single thing he ate (measurements and all). Sorry...way too much data.

So tonight, after careful thought we broke up.

The reason I tell you this isn't because I want you to cry for me about my loss. Instead, I tell you this because I don't want you to become that friend to someone else.

What does that mean? Well, if your only reason for Facebook is to share your new listings (complete with photos and 1,000 words embedded into the update) or to constantly tell your friends about your real estate career perhaps you should reconsider. Chances are good they are spending this snowy Saturday thinking about calling it quits with you too.

At this point I like to cite the "Five Rules of Social Media" promulgated by our fav Education Director:

1. Be social, every post cannot be about business.
2. Reach out – go out of your comfort zone and introduce yourself.
3. Always write a little note when connecting to a new person in your social networking space.
4. Offer assistance and ask questions.
5. Find and follow locals – be the local rock star.

So before you get dumped...start thinking about what you bring to the relationship. Make sure the people who see your updates are thankful for them - especially if you are dropping them on your people everyday.