Tag archive for "blog" | Blog.PropertiesOnline.com

How to Get Shared, Liked and Go Viral

Ever wonder why some videos, photos or blog posts go viral and others don’t? It’s not like only the funniest, craziest or best things get shared over and over. Some really amazing things are happening online, but no one is seeing them outside small, private circles. You can’t control the end game 100%, but there are some things I can tell you about how to get shared, liked and go viral online.

People share things that trigger an emotion. That emotion can be light-hearted or heartbreaking, hilarious or serious, but it has to be felt and felt deeply on some level. Whether a post, video or photo elicited a chuckle or a tear, it’s that emotional connection that prompts social sharing.

There are things that tug at our collective heartstrings. Have you ever worked with a military veteran, and helped the vet and his/her family into their first home? Ask to use them as a case study. Film them moving in or signing their contract, ask them some questions about the significance of the home purchase on their lives and their family, get the video edited and post it on social media. Write a blog about them, take some photos, follow up in a year. These are ideas that spring to mind quickly, but the general idea is to follow things that tug at your own heart, and when possible, make those stories available to others. Share good fortune when you can.

What else can you do? Write. On your blog or website, take the time to create insightful, researched, long-form content (2,000 – 10,000) words. Not as many people do it, which means less competition, and research by the NY Times and BuzzSumo agree that long-form content is shared more often.

Remember that images, videos and infographics are all shared more readily than text alone. Images on Twitter get twice as many shares as text alone, and the same goes for Facebook. Lists and quizzes are also popular, the latter because they appeal to many people’s inherent self-involvement.

There are some great tools available online that you can use to create your own infographics, quizzes and more, without spending any money or needing graphic design skills. Have a look at Creative Bloq’s 10 Free Tools for Creating Infographics and Top 10 Social Media’s Ten Free Infographic Maker Tools for Social Media to get started.

Lastly, try not to focus your attention on going viral or the numbers of shares your posts will receive. Thinking too much about results can make your social media efforts stilted and forced. If something feels important to you, share it! You might find you’re not the only one.

Get More Traffic to Your Blog

Blogging. Do you do it? As a real estate professional on the Internet, you’d probably have to be living under a rock to not have heard of some of its many benefits. It takes time, yes, but once you get into the habit it really isn’t so hard. What can be difficult is getting people to actually find and read your blog. That’s why I was so excited to see Josh Coffy’s FlightMedia Blog post “25 Bite Sized Action Steps to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog.” In his fantastic article, he outlines 25 relatively simple things you can do to get more traffic to your blog.

Blogging. Do you do it? As a real estate professional on the Internet, you’d probably have to be living under a rock to not have heard of some of its many benefits. It takes time, yes, but once you get into the habit it really isn’t so hard. What can be difficult is getting people to actually find, read and share your blog. That’s why I was so excited to see Josh Coffy’s FlightMedia Blog post “25 Bite Sized Action Steps to Drive More Traffic to Your Blog.” In his fantastic article, he outlines 25 relatively simple things you can do to get more traffic to your blog.

1. Coffy starts with a blogging MUST: Write killer content. He calls it “epic” content. Same-same. Call it whatever you want, but it has to be good. It has to be error-free, interesting and it needs to serve a purpose.

2-3. Next, he wants you to increase your tweeting and set up Twitter cards. Now, you might not be using Twitter yet. Maybe you think it’s not for you. But it really is a great tool for conversations and relationships. And Twitter can help you build you brand recognition.

The rest of Coffy’s list includes:

4. Email your list.
5. Practice good web design.
6. Thank everyone who shares your content.
7. Take the 30-Day Content Challenge. [What Coffy means here is challenging yourself to write a blog post every day for 30 days. It’s been shown to get results. In fact, he says that the first time he challenged himself, he went from 814 monthly visitors to 9,575 visitors by the 30th day.] 8. Create a social posting schedule and schedule your posts out. [Hootsuite is one of my favorites for this.] 9. Pin all your articles to a “Blog Posts” board on Pinterest.
10. Write an “Authority Roundup” post.
11. Ask a question in a Twitter auto-direct message and then respond.
12. Guest blog and accept others guest blogs.
13. Leave 100 comments on other blogs.
14. Host a giveaway.
15. Run some Facebook ads.
16. @Mention social influencers in your social posts.
17. Set email follow ups.
18. Cover relevant, trending topics.
19. Write headlines that get shared.
20. Practice good SEO.
21. Start a podcast.
22. Use Click-to-Tweet.
23. Keep your posts short.
24. Follow other people.
25. Interview influencers.

I love, love, LOVE this article!!! Read the entire thing—complete with all Coffy’s explanations for each tip—right HERE. That’s the best part, really. His explanations and reasoning behind each recommendation are pulled right from his own personal experience of what has worked.

Free Twitter Tools Not to Miss

Twitter can be tough to get into, and it can be confusing. But it’s amazing tool for fostering relationships, building your foundation as an expert in the field of real estate (or wherever you happen to be an expert), and listening to what others are saying.

Buffer blogger Kevan Lee is one of my favorite social media bloggers, and he impressed me again a couple of weeks ago with his post about 59 Free Twitter Tools to meet every need. Twitter can be tough to get into, and it can be confusing. But it’s amazing tool for fostering relationships, building your foundation as an expert in the field of real estate (or wherever you happen to be an expert), and listening to what others are saying.

People complain on Twitter. A lot. If you use the platform as a mode to listen to those complaints, you’ll be well placed to become a reliable solution, and a sought-after expert. Twitter can be a total time suck, and an easy place to get lost. But that’s where Lee’s list comes in handy. He’s compiled an awesome list of tools to help you navigate the world of Twitter, making just about anything you need to do—research, efficiency, productivity, analytics, discovery, timing, etc.—easier and more achievable.

I highly recommend checking out Lee’s article for the complete list, but here are some of my favorites from his collection:

SocialBro: A nearly all-in-one platform for all things Twitter. The free plan comes with analytics, best time to tweet, follow/unfollow tools, and community segmentation.

Twitonomy: A dashboard of analytics for whichever Twitter user you choose (even yours). Analyzes profiles, tweets, engagement, and more.

Bluenod: Type in a user or hashtag and see a detailed map or visualization about the community around the user or the people using the hashtag. Great for hashtags about communities, neighborhoods and locales!

TweetChat: Log in to follow a specific hashtag, hang out in a room that collects the hashtagged tweets for you, and reply as you like (with the hashtag added automatically to your tweet).

Nuzzel: As described by Twitter’s Joanna Geary, “find out what’s trending among the people the people you follow follow.” Make sense? Translation: Content discovery from friends and friend of friends.

Swayy: See the content that your followers recommend plus the topics they most enjoy. View it all via the dashboard or from a daily email digest.

Unfollowers: Get a complete breakdown of those you follow, and unfollow with ease.

Hashtagify.me: Enter a hashtag to discover related tags, recent conversations, usage patterns, and influencers.
Keyhole: Ask Keyhole to notify you whenever a particular keyword, hashtag, or URL is mentioned. Helpful to track mentions of your own name or your company’s blog or campaign.

Twilert: Track keywords on Twitter and receive an email notification every time they’re mentioned. Great for keeping an eye on company names, new products, and branded hashtags.

Be Present: Real-time reports on your response time, response rate, and performance based on industry benchmarks. Also, really pretty to look at. Great for real estate professionals, when response time in EVERYTHING.

So, as usual, awesome work from Kevan Lee and Buffer. Make sure you check it out!

Could You Be Stealing Stock Photos?

Lawyers and artists are on the lookout for stock photos users who don’t pay for the photos on their blogs and websites. Could you be stealing stock photos?

I’m part of a couple of different business groups, and in the last two months, a serious but surprising topic has come up among the group members three times: My professional peers were contacted by lawyers telling them that they’d used an image on their blog without paying for it or citing its source. If this is something you’ve ever done, say, scrolled through Google images to find what looks like a great pic to include with your latest blog article, you could be the next facing legal action. So, I have to ask – who took the photo in your blog post? And did you pay for it? Could you be stealing stock photos?

“Come on,” I can practically hear you saying, “I don’t want to/can’t afford to buy a new image every single time I post a new article to my blog.”

Well, I have two responses to that. 1) It’s a lot more affordable than you might think (and a LOT more affordable than legal fines), and you can rest easy knowing you’re covered, if you do purchase all your images; but, 2) There actually are many free resources for images that you can use safely.

Designmodo recently published a Carrie Cousins’ article on great places to source free stock photography. Titled 16 Places to Find the Best Free Stock Photos, it’s just that – a comprehensive and fabulous list of 16 separate sources of free stock imagery.

Cousins’ selections include:

1. Raumrot
2. Unsplash
3. Little Visuals
4. Gratisography
5. Free Refe
6. Jay Mantri
7. Magdeleine
8. Foodies Feed
9. Picography
10. Im Free
11. Death to the Stock Photo
12. New Old Stock
13. SuperFamous
14. Public Domain Archive
15. Picjumbo
16. The Pattern Library

I’ve personally used Death to the Stock Photo ever since I heard about the photo sharing site months ago. I look forward to trying some of these other options, too. Tell me, where are your favorite stock photography sources?

Why Blogging is Good for Your Business

Twenty years ago, a solid marketing strategy for real estate involved putting ads in the newspaper and leaving signature FOR SALE posts on properties. Now, with the digital age among us, this type of marketing is just simply not enough. In order to stay on top, real estate businesses, as well as all types of businesses, have to learn how to get noticed online. One of the greatest tools for receiving online attention is blogging. And I’m going to spend the next few paragraphs telling you exactly why blogging is good for your business.

What is a Blog?

A blog is like an online, interactive journal. While they can be used for personal or public use, their function can often vary. Blogs are similar to articles, and can be found on designated websites to inform or entertain readers, who are often allowed to rate or comment on the material. For businesses, blogging is a great way to share knowledge, attract readers (or potential clients), gain credibility, advertise, and improve search engine page rank through better search engine optimization (SEO).

Making the Most Out of Blogs

In terms of improving business, blogs are an easy way to improve online popularity. When someone is searching for real estate agents online, you want your service to be the first to pop up on Google. Blogs have the power to make this happen and here’s how:

Search engines, like Google or Bing, rely on an intense algorithm to find websites when you search using a series of words. Websites that are frequently updated, well respected, contain large amounts of data, and are linked to other sites are typically the first websites to show up in a search. By posting blogs on your own site and by publishing more information, you are expanding the website and increasing its chance of hitting a lucky component in the search engine’s algorithm. When posting blogs on other sites, known as off-site optimization, it is important to include inbound links to your site and to write quality blogs. These components of blogging are targeted ingredients that a search engine look for and will make your site stand out from the rest.

Blog and Get Noticed

For real estate blogging, businesses tend to inform audiences on the housing market, quarterly reports, and events going on locally. This is an easy way to outreach readers (potential clients) and keep content current, all while improving your marketing strategy. When it comes down to it, a solid use of blogging not only makes your website look better, it can also improve your business’s SEO performance and land your website among the first pages in a search engine’s results.

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