So I’m here at Inman Connect in NYC, and I have to say, I’m blown away by the speakers and content at this years event. Last year was good, but this year has been focused towards industry change, and that can only happen through leadership like Inman provides through education, events, and influence.

With that being said, I want to rethink an announcement that was made the other day. I’m talking about Facebook’s new Graph Search. At first I thought ok, great, another feature that I’m probably not going to utilize, but contains some merit. However, after today’s session, I want to go back and examine how this will (or could) impact the real estate industry.

First I want you to better grasp the concept. In my mind, this is an improved version of Siri. You ask, “What music do my friends like?” and it populates results based on your social stream. This is cool, but let’s take it a step further…

What if you asked, “What homes do my friends like?” Immediately you could see homes that your friends thought were cool. While homes are obviously quite different than a music preference, you still might find features of some homes that were “liked” or that you, yourself may discover are important to you. On the opposite end of the spectrum, this could become a feedback system for sellers and agents.

Going even deeper, what if you asked, “What Realtors have my friends used?” This is an instant testimonial and rating system that so many have tried to get right, but so many have failed to accomplish (correctly). What if it a service like Chris Smith & Jimmy Mackin’s new Curaytor (which is brilliant by the way) existed to aggregate data from Trulia & Zillow reviews,  Google +1′s, Facebook Likes, Angie’s List, and more?

The possibilities of social search and reviews are going to greatly change how we search, and how consumers decide to choose an agent.

My prediction is a rating and review system will emerge as a clear cut, trustworthy service, and the agents that skate by on a “one and done” mentality will slowly weed themselves out through poor reviews.

This leads me to my closing thoughts from Day 1 of Inman Connect. I believe it was Rich Barton (founder of Expedia & Zillow) today, who said, “Salesperson doesn’t have to give off a negative persona. My grandmother said if you tell the truth, you don’t have to worry about the story you told yesterday.” -This couldn’t be more true, and I hope this only encourages agents to Raise The Bar (RTB)!

Looking forward to another day of innovative thinking tomorrow!

-Tyler

In marketing branding is everything. Think of industry leaders like Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart. Everything that they do has their recognizable trademarks.

Somehow this principle has been lost in translation to the real estate industry. While their are certainly exceptions to the rule (read Goodlife Team), most real estate agents and brokerages run rogue and market inconsistently. With the emergence of social media over the last few years, there couldn’t be a more important time, or easier way to stay consistent in your branding.

For instance, your branding should stay uniform across facebook, twitter, your blog, website, instagram, etc., but with ease of updating these sites, we sometimes forget to take the extra minture to make sure that it is relevant. Would you continue to advertise listings without your contact information on the yard sign?

Meet Overgram.

Overgram allows you to easily/quickly add text captions and branding to your photos. So the next time you’re going to post a local market update, place of interest, or new listing to your social media platforms, make sure that your branding is consistent.

PS. Spend the extra $1.99 to get the upgraded version that will “surprise”, remove the Overgram branding found in the free version.

Around 6 months ago I did a demo of Roost for real estate social marketing, and while it had some very cool features, I wasn’t in love with it. For me, it primarily did the same thing as Hootsuite, but for Facebook only…

Well that was 6 months ago!

Roost is better than ever after being acquired by Vertical Response (a pretty cool email marketing company from what I hear).

Roost has differentiated itself from the competition by allowing social media campaigns with auto-generated content! This means you do less work!

While I’m not advocating that this be your only source for content, I would certainly recommend incorporating some of their content into your social streams. It’s kind of like an autopilot, with GOOD content, and my favorite feature…it posts during the times in which you are most likely to have consumer engagement.

Check out the video below:

1) Found this link on Mashable the other day…thought it was well worth the read/watch:. 5 Best Practices for Creating Viral Branded Videos.

2) Using this post to test out sharing articles from some of my favorite sites…not sure how I feel about this. Almost feels like plagiarism, but I guess they wouldn’t have the option on their sites if they didn’t want me to share them? Thoughts?

I’m just looking for a good way to share articles to the real estate community that I have hand picked. Sure you can read these sites too, but I bet I read more of them, more often

You’ve seen photo apps and comparisons in the past, but I am fully convinced that I can take better photos with my iPhone than just about anyone with a DSLR. I know that’s a bold statement, but I just got a new toy/attachment for my iPhone that is absolutely amazing for photography and video.

I’m talking about the OWLE Bubo by ALM.

This thing takes amazing wide angle photos, which is especially important for the small rooms we have to work with in real estate. See the difference between non-wide angle and wide angle here:

While the wide angle is cool, what most people don’t realize, is the wide angle lens lets in a significantly greater amount of light.

Here’s where it gets interesting…While the above photo is “ok”, using a simple app called Camera+ for only $.99, we’re able to easily edit our photos right on the iPhone and give them a much need enhancement!

Check out the difference here:

So agents, there is no excuse for terrible pictures! You’re only hurting yourself! I’m sure if you’re a professional photographer, you can pick apart my photos and why they suck, but take a look at my original photo above, to the end result…huge difference!

Spend some money and get an OWLE Bubo here: http://www.cameta.com/ALM-OWLE-Bubo-Stabilizer-Mount-with-Video-Lens-Mic-for-iPhone-4-4S-Black-62911.cfm

I actually spent an extra $20 for the LED light kit (included in the above link), which is great for Video!

If that’s not in your budget, at least get the Camera+ app above for $.99!

I would also strongly encourage you to get a tripod mount (ONLY if you’re not getting the OWLE) like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Studio-Neat-Glif-iPhone-4S/dp/B0052G679K

As well as a monopod or tripod…I use this one: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/755445-REG/Manfrotto_MMC3_02_MMC3_02_Compact_Monopod_Gray_.html

Here we learn to use the FREE Realtor.com app on our Facebook Fanpage and use SocialBios to create a great looking “about” page.

The key here is the “Like” gating process, in which you’ll gain a greater number of likes on your page, because people are required to like your page before they have access to your page!

Final Thoughts: If you’re a real estate agent looking for a cheap tablet to browse through listings on the go and answer a few emails, this is the tablet for you. If you’re looking to use a tablet for your listing presentations, save up for an iPad.