As a team of Real Estate Virtual Assistants, we enjoy being your eyes and ears for the latest in marketing and technology. Our goal is to help make your life easier.  Below are a few new gadgets that may spark your interest.  Take a look!

Cutting Edge Video

Product:  Dot

Company: Kogeto

Description:  A 360 degree camera for the iPhone 4 and 4s

Imagine taking panoramic, high resolution videos of your latest listing and sharing them instantaneously on Facebook and Twitter… Dot makes this a reality!  This attachment easily snaps on to your iPhone 4 or 4s and, with brilliant quality imaging and two microphones to capture audio, you’ll create stunning videos with ease.

As real estate agents, you can seamlessly amp up your marketing with quality videos of your listings, your community or any up to the minute real estate advice you want to share.  Dot comes with Kogeto’s free Looker app as well as Dotspots web service which allows you to share videos in real time on Facebook, Twitter and even over email.

Dot will be making its way to Apple stores soon, or you can order yours now and learn more on the Kogeto website.

Cutting Edge Presentation

Product: (Still in the works)

Company: Mezmerize Inc.

Description:  A projector that’s small enough to embed in a mobile phone

Although this product is still in the works, we thought we’d let you in on this innovative commodity that should be hitting the market sometime this year.  The goal is that this product will allow you to project images and videos from your mobile phone onto any surface!

Think of those times you’ve bumped into a past client who’s looking for a new home and you don’t have your laptop with you or you awkwardly try to scroll through pictures of your latest listing on your phone.  With this tool, you can easily show off the photos or even video of your new listing right from your phone by projecting them onto a table, wall or even the ground!

This is an impressive, fun and convenient tool that’s sure to wow clients.  Be sure to check out more information on Mezmerize Inc.’s website.

We hope this sneak peek at some of the latest technological tools has sparked some interest in how you can more effectively reach your past, current and potential clients this year!

If you’re looking for more ideas and ways to build your business in 2012, your real estate virtual assistant can help!

Have a great day!

Contact Carrie 
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Measuring Your Visitor Behavior

Website analytics (e.g. Google Analytics) provides extensive statistical data about where your visitors came from, how long they stayed, links they clicked on etc.  While a powerful and necessary tool for any Web marketer, it’s not enough.  Since most Websites are not static, it’s crucial that you also see how visitors react to and interact with your Website.  This is called behavioral metrics and there are now a number of easy to use (and inexpensive) tools that provide detailed insights on how visitors behave on your site.

In one of my previous articles I mentioned an online service called CrazyEgg which provides “heat maps” of what your visitors view and click on in aggregate, on your site (see example heat map below —the brighter the spot, the more people clicked).

While very useful, another recent startup company, LuckyOrange, has taken behavioral metrics to a whole new level.  In addition to heat maps, LuckyOrange also gives you the ability to record (like a video) what visitors do on your Website, including how they move their mouse, where they scroll, what they click on, etc.  This innovative service even lets you “spy” on visitors as they are on your Website in real time!

Now before your brain starts screaming “That’s an invasion of privacy!”, it’s really not, well… in most cases anyway.  The reason is that you don’t know who they are, just that they are an anonymous visitor.  There is one exception however, and that’s if they start filling out a form on your Website and then decide not to hit the “Submit” button.  LuckyOrange will record what they typed into the fields, whether or not they decided to follow through.

The only way to really get a feel for the full scope of what is possible with LuckyOrange is to visit their site and click the “Watch the Live Demo” button near the top.  Be ready to have your mind blown as you watch recordings of actual Website visitors move their mouse, scroll, click, fill out forms and so on.

Best Practices

Like any kind of tool, LuckyOrange has no value unless used and used properly.  With this in mind here are some best practices to help you get the most out of this one:

• Don’t Initiate Chat – while in real-time “spy” mode you have the ability to initiate a chat session with your visitor, ostensibly for the purpose of helping them find what they are looking for.  Avoid that temptation unless you want to scare them away from your site.
• Watch what they click on (and don’t) – use the heat map feature to determine what most visitors find attractive as they vote with their mouse clicks.  If they are not clicking on various parts of your site consider changing them to something more compelling.
• Watch their mouse movements – by viewing the recordings of individual visitors you will gain insight as to how engaged (or not) they are with your Website.  You will find that most people move their mouse as they read, almost like using a finger to underline text as a book is read.  Do they appear to be focused and engaged, or distracted?  You may need to change some of your site copy to keep them on the edge of their seat.
• Watch for any hesitancy in when completing forms – you may consider redesigning your forms, adding privacy language etc. if your LuckyOrange recordings indicate visitor hesitancy to completing your all-important Website forms.  Abandoned forms cost you immediate business.

As of this writing you can try LuckyOrange for two weeks free and after that it is $7/mo per Website.  To get started, you (or your Web master) simply put a bit of code on each page you want to record.  After that, it’s just a matter of visiting your own site and pressing CTRL + SHIFT + 1 on your keyboard to bring up your site’s LuckyOrange dashboard (after entering your email and password one time).

The more you understand your Website visitors’ behavior, the better you will be able to tweak your site to help convert them into closed transactions.  And I know of no other behavioral metrics tool that does a better job of this than LuckyOrange.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.OnlineDominance.com and Facebook page at Facebook.com/OnlineDominance

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the August 2011 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2011. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.

Screenr – the Ultimate Free Screen Cast Tool

Screen casting (i.e. recording anything on your computer and sharing it) couldn’t be easier than with Screenr.  All you literally do is go to http://www.screenr.com and click the “Record” button on the top of the page.  A recording boundary box appears which you can resize (including your full screen) and move around.  Once you place it where you want it click the red record button to start recording.  Screenr gives you up to 5 minutes for each recording and then stores it for you on their servers. Just click the video below to see a very cool 1-minute demo.

Now here’s the best part.  You can instantly share any of your Screenr screen casts with anyone including those using iPads, iPhones or other smart phones.  Check it out.  Now sharing the best of what’s on your screen simply could not be easier —especially when it’s so free!

A/B Testing on Steroids

A/B testing is the process of creating two or more versions of your Website that are delivered at random to your site visitors and then measures the click-through rate for each version.  This is a proven way to have your visitors vote with their mouse as to which version engages them more.  The traditional tool for this is Google Website Optimizer which is free. However, it requires that you (or your Webmaster) create the different versions of your Website that need testing which is time consuming, requires a fair amount of technical skill and therefor is definitely not free.

That has all changed now with a new online service called Optimizely.  With Optimizely you can create different versions of any part of your Website instantly right from their Website.  Its online WYSIWYG editor allows you to make create alternative versions of your site’s copy, images and even move whole sections around in just a few minutes.  And the astounding thing is that this can be all done without creating different versions of your Website’s code.

After you have created the alternative versions of your site, you simply add a bit of Javascript code provided by Optimizely to the pages being tested. Once your A/B test is active, Optimizely will automatically and randomly send the different versions of your site to visitors and measure the click-through rate of each one.  You just let it run until you’ve had sufficient numbers of visitors to give you a reasonably certain statistical answer to which version more effectively causes visitors to click or convert.  And don’t worry about trying to remember your Statistics 101 class because Optimizely automatically calculates the statistical significance for you.

Since videos are worth a thousand screenshots, the following will demonstrate just how easy and powerful this new service is to use:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Your first 30 day’s use of Optimizely costs nothing, after that it is a very reasonable $19/month.  Now here’s the thing, you can turn this service on and off at any time which means that for about $19 you can determine what kinds of changes to your site will produce greater conversion of visitors to new transactions.  Not a bad ROI.

Of course all of this begs the question as to just what you should consider testing on your site…

Offers, Offers, Offers

Ideally your site has one or more “Irresistible Offers” that are designed to attract your visitors’ attention and compel them to take action.  If you are a little fuzzy about what irresistible offers are just check out my earlier REALTOR Magazine article “Make An Offer They Can’t Refuse”.

Often what we think is irresistible is anything but from the consumer’s perspective. So creating different variations of your offers is the first thing you would want to test for conversion effectiveness.  Here are some other things you might consider testing as well:

• Copy – create alternatives to copy that compels visitors to take action.  For example, one Pennsylvania REALTOR found that he received a far greater click-through by changing “Featured Listings” to “Best Buys”.
• Images – perhaps a different kind of image in the body of your home page will cause more people to click on getting your special report or check out your IDX listings.
• Action Buttons – this is a subtle yet potentially very powerful test.  Consider changing the shape, color and/or copy of your clickable buttons and see which version receives the most clicks.
• Reassurance Language – test different variations of the copy above your important forms that reassure your visitors that their privacy will be protected and see which ones cause the form to be filled out more often.

Avoid Build and Forget

The most profitable Websites are under a constant state of refinement.  Far too many people just have their Website built and then do nothing to improve its ability to convert visitors into new business.  The main reason for this is that it was just too time consuming and expensive to do it the old way.  Now with Optimizely you have no excuse for having a site that “doesn’t work”.  It’s just a matter of testing different variations until it does.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Mr. Internet is the alter-ego of Michael J. Russer, an internationally recognized Internet speaker, trainer, author, and strategic consultant to the real estate industry. He’s dedicated to helping real estate professionals leverage their people skills into profit on the Internet. Send your Internet questions to help@askmrinternet.com or you can visit his Website at http://www.OnlineDominance.com and Facebook page at Facebook.com/OnlineDominance

This article is reprinted in its entirety from the June 2011 issue of REALTOR® Magazine by permission of the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. Copyright © 2011. All Rights Reserved other than mentioned above. Mr. Internet® is a registered trademark of RUSSER Communications.

Static HTML is a free Facebook app that let’s you create these custom tabs very easily.  It also gives you the ability to create “fan” and “non-fan” versions of each tab with any kind of Web content you can imagine.  And, just as importantly, these tabs are still visible to those visitors who have logged into Facebook via the secure method.

Using this app to create custom tabs is very straightforward.  However, if you would like to see a brief step-by-step tutorial on how to use this app to create your custom tabs just go to www.Facebook.com/OnlineDominance and click the Free “How To” Videos! tab (yes, I created it with Static HTML) and watch the first video.

Your ability to stand out and generate new business via Facebook is changing almost daily.  I will continue to do my best to help you discover and implement the best of these.  The key word here is “implement”.  The only useful tool is the one you implement.

Assessing Your Strengths and Weaknesses

The first step on the path to improvement is to become objectively clear about your current strengths and weaknesses. This comes about by asking the right questions, typically through what is known as an “assessment”. There are currently a huge array of assessments used throughout business. You may be familiar with and in fact have used the DISC profile which is a highly effective personality assessment used to help people communicate and work more effectively together.

An effective business assessment, however, is one that asks you questions about your current business that you may never have considered before. The value of this is that it causes you to think about your business in different ways and become open to possibilities you didn’t know were available. It is in this spirit that I created the free Confidential Business Assessment (CBA) specifically for real estate sales professionals who want to have a business that serves them rather than just a job selling real estate.  Here are the five areas that it specifically assesses:

• Your Experience – including what kinds of business you do, where it comes from and your strengths and weaknesses;
• Your Business Strategy – including specializations (if any), ways you promote your business, written business plan (if any) and your “Exit Strategy” for when you retire;
• Your Goals & Aspirations – covers both financial and lifestyle goals and reasons you feel held back from reaching them;
• Your Business Operations - including how you currently get things done and how your current operational approach may be holding you back;
• Your Personality Profile – including your current DISC profile (if you had one done) and other factors that may impact your ability to achieve long-term business success.

Busyness Is Not the Same As Business

Sometimes sales professionals don’t want to assess their current situation, rationalizing that they are already so “busy”.  The irony here is that this “busyness” is actually holding them back from having a viable business.  A true business is one that serves you 24/7 whether or not you are in the office or on vacation.  In case you hadn’t noticed they are not particularly easy to create (just ask the 3% of the industry who have successfully done so).  However, this possibility is available to anyone who is willing (and courageous enough) to objectively assess their current situation.

You have to know where you are now before you can plot a path to where you want to go.  If you would like to confidentially assess your own business, just  CLICK HERE.  It’s free, takes only 5 minutes and the process of just completing it could change your entire career.

NOTE: you can attend my upcoming April 26, 2011 Live Group Coaching webinar that is dedicated to the topic of creating killer Facebook Welcome Tabs. There is no cost for attending, just CLICK HERE to register.)

Facebook Opens Up

Just recently Facebook announced that it is now allowing any kind of Web content within any of your Facebook page tabs. This means anything that could be put in an HTML webpage including Flash, JavaScript, Web apps, etc. can now be part of your Facebook page content. This opens up whole new worlds of possibilities in terms of creating value for your Facebook fans. This also means that you now have the ability to create a “Welcome Tab” that can knock the socks off of visitors who are non-fans in such a way that they can’t resist clicking the “Like” button.

To see an example of a dynamic Welcome Tab in action just CLICK HERE to go to the Online Dominance Facebook page. If you are already a fan, you’ll simply land on the Wall. And if you click the Welcome Tab you’ll see different content than non-fans. If you’re a non-fan and go to the Online Dominance Facebook page, you are automatically taken to the Welcome Tab that has very powerful and compelling multimedia content designed to visitors to click the Like button.

Not as Easy as 123 — Until Now…

Unfortunately, Facebook makes this process anything but easy. In addition to some required coding, you would also have to have the webpage that you use for the Welcome Tab content to be put through a secure server. Otherwise, anytime someone views your Welcome Tab after logging into Facebook using the secure method, they will see an error screen.

Fortunately, there is now a service that handles all of these issues for you so that literally within 60 seconds you can have your custom Facebook Welcome Tab. You can view a live demonstration showing how easy it is to create a custom, compelling Welcome Tab for your Facebook page during my free April 26, 2011 Live Group Coaching  webinar. This session will also include “Best Practices” of Welcome Tab creation (to help maximize fan conversion). Actual examples of how other real estate professionals have used these methods to create their own custom Facebook welcome tab will be shown as well. Just CLICK HERE to register for this free webinar.

A Facebook business page is useless without lots of highly targeted fans. This new capability is one of the best methods I’ve seen yet for turning visitors into raving fans.

Let’s Get Right to the Good Stuff

This video was originally shot in a full 720 x 480 resolution for the purpose of promoting a 3-day advanced workshop (it was played to a Las Vegas conference audience in my absence).  However, it was so long ago (49 in Internet years) that the only thing I had left was this little 320 x 240 example –so bear that in mind…

Now before you start giving me the two-thumbs down remember this was not only my first promotional video, it was the first time I was in front of a video camera for business purposes.  Without a doubt, way too much gesticulation going on (I was very excited :0).  In case you are wondering how all this video magic was pulled off, here are the details.

Hardware and Staging:

• Canon XL2 Semi-pro Camcorder
• High-quality wireless lav mic
• Laptop  #1 – used to record the video scenes direct from camera to disk
• Laptop #2 – used to run the teleprompter software
• Vacant neighbor’s home  – turned their living room into a green screen sound stage using high-intensity construction lighting
• Yards and yards of green fabric – used for the back drop and floor (actually ironed that sucker myself –much easier ways to pull this off now using green paper)

Software:

• ScriptQ – to turn one of my laptops into a sometimes balky teleprompter
• Adobe Premier Pro – for video editing (learned quite a bit about this during this whole process)
• Adobe OnLocation – used to set the camera up and record takes directly to computer
• Serious Magic ULTRA – this was the software that made it possible for me to create all those virtual scenes and fly-throughs.  Unfortunately Adobe bought this company up and stopped supporting this marvelous software (I still have a working copy)

Wetware:

• Yours truly – I learned a lot about speaking in front of a video camera, trying to act like I was having a conversation with the viewer while not showing I was reading every word from a teleprompter.
• My son Max – who ran the camera at the tender age of 12 wishing he were doing anything but helping dad with this dumb project.

Preparation:

• Storyboard – each scene, including both direction and dialog was written a head of time.  This was actually the first crucial step without which would have resulted in a totally failed project.  To this day every video I shoot is story boarded first.
• Makeup – plenty of it

This project took a solid 80 hours of work from start (concept) to finish (final editing and burning the DVD).  I did it because it was a huge project from which I could learn immensely.  And yes, there were more than a few moments of wondering what I got myself into, hoping what was bit off could be chewed.

Learning by doing is the way that works best for me.  I’m very grateful for the opportunity to pull something like that off.  However, my future projects will most likely be quite a bit more, well… tame.

The take away for you on this is that there is much more that can be done with video than you can imagine –especially when shooting in front of a green screen (or blue screen, which is how many if not most Hollywood films are at least partially shot these days.)

As I develop additional unique ways to tell your story via video, I’ll look forward to sharing them with you.

The super compact size that makes these cameras so popular, means it is pretty much impossible to shoot a smooth video by just holding them steady.  While you could always put them on a tripod, that precludes the really interesting panning and walk-through shots.  Now thanks to a company called Tiffen you can say goodbye to the jitters.  Their new Smoothee accessory for iPhone, iPod, Flip HD, etc. camcorders is essentially a balanced steadycam (like the ones used in Hollywood, only smaller, lighter and much, much less expensive).

The way a steadcam platform works is that it allows you to mount your camera to freely moving gimbal that keeps its position due to a counterbalance.  Once you mount your small camera on the device, you hold it like a pistol and walk around, up and down stairs, around objects, through rooms, etc. all while the Smoothee eliminates the jitters.  The video below demonstrates just how smooth your videos can be.

Inexpensive is a relative term, however.  At about $200 it’s dirt cheap from a professional videographer’s perspective but it is about the same price as a top of the line Flip HD.  Here’s the thing.  The videos you create (or have created for you) like it or not, reflect your professionalism (or lack of it).  Since most of your competitors are way too parsimonious to consider using this kind of video enhancement tool, imagine how yours will stand out from the crowd (especially during a listing presentation).   And let’s face it, it’s just plain cool walking around like your are a mini James Cameron :0)

This is one of these very cool tools that I would not want to be without if I were shooting my own listing and neighborhood videos.  You decide if turning viewers “ugh!”s into “ahhhh!”s is worth the money.

NOTE: Mr. Internet®, RUSSER Communications, its staff and officers receive no compensation whatsoever from any third party vendors (unless he/they are directly involved with the creation and/or improvement of a vendor service or product), and make no recommendations as to the suitability of the products or services mentioned in this article. Always thoroughly investigate any product or service before trying or purchasing.

Corning Glass is the company responsible for most of the fiber-optic cable that powers the Internet worldwide.  Apparently it also see itself as powering the revolution in embedded computer screen technology coming soon to a refrigerator, mirror, table top, etc. near you.  Check out this video for a five-minute glimpse into your new world:

What makes this vision of the very near future so compelling and important is that most of the technology to make it happen is already in place.  And Corning is a huge company that has the resources and vision to help usher it in.  I’ve said many times that the human / machine interface is the main reason why most people are intimidated by computers.  Their real power to empower us in ways we can only begin to imagine will come about when they are both ubiquitous and seamlessly blended into our daily lives.

Keep in mind that there is an incredible amount of computing power under the hood and throughout today’s new cars.  These computing devices don’t cause us bother or frustration because they are largely invisible and just do their job.  When the rest of our computing lives catches up with this model, frustration with “technology” will largely evaporate.