Popularity: 76% [?]

We are moving this blog to www.realivent.com/blog
We should have done this a while ago, but it’s never too late.
Join us for updates at our new home…

Popularity: 75% [?]

Shari Chase recently launched ChaseNation , a local social network focusing on conversations in the Tahoe/Reno area of Nevada. This was built on Ning’s social networking platform and is a great way to quick start a “social network for anything”.. Membership has risen from 239 members on April 7th to 340 members today.

This is absolutely a good way to get members of a local community to discuss the local market and it is already proving to be a thriving community. There is currently a trend and definitely a lot of talk about mashing up blogging functionality and social networking. Matt at Automattic recently hired the developer of BuddyPress to take Wordpress in this direction. That is awesome Matt! This will make Wordpress a powerhouse publishing/social platform and we can’t wait to use it for business applications.

Fred Wilson has a lively discussion on his blog talking about “Facebook vs Wordpress” and how “blogging is the social network for adults”. Pat at TransparentRE sees adding Ning functionality as the next natural step for blog networks. Current growing real estate blog networks such as Homescopes and WCRBlogs could benefit from these new tools.

For business blog networks , a hybrid approach definitely makes sense. Business blogging is about engaging prospective clients for new business by providing useful and timely information. Writing blog posts, successfully achieves the goal of providing useful and timely content, but posting great content alone does not maximize potential for engagement. You may have lots of readers and subscribers to your blog, but only a small percentage of your readers ever comment. This makes blogsites a natural place to extend these conversation opportunities. As a result of some of these trends, we’ve also been asked to develop a few real estate specific social components for upcoming blog networks and development is underway…we’re excited about these trends and can’t wait to see publishing and social networking come together to deliver a richer blogsite experience….

Popularity: 89% [?]

Have you ever wanted quick feedback on your listing or product ? For example, what do people like most about the property ? How did they find the listing ? Would they recommend it to a friend ? What about pricing feedback ? Realivent’s new listing polls can help you answer those questions. For example, you can see a listing poll example on our right sidebar here. “I want to upgrade my home, what upgrade will give me the best ROI ?”

Here are the results so far:

Of the 74 votes, 54% of the people thought that the kitchen was the best ROI compared to 28% for bathrooms followed by 9% for the master bedroom. Sure, you already knew that but it makes a difference when you can see the results changing in real time on your own site instead of reading it online elsewhere. If you have a loyal following and good readership, the numbers should provide better insight into your question. The key to getting good results is asking the right questions and framing the right answers. You have total control over your poll. Ask very specific questions and provide answers that will invoke feedback that will validate your questions. We have two types of polls:

1)Listing polls - to get feedback on specific listings , some examples are:
a. Pricing
b. Feedback after showing c. How did someone find the listing
d. Best feature

2)Standard polls - to get feedback on any question
a. General opinion
b. Trends
c. Market feedback

After you’ve created your polls and have a good representative number of votes, you can log back into your Realivent account to see your poll summaries.
You can keep track of all your polls and refine your questions to continue to refine your research.

We hope to see lots of polls created and will share new poll ideas as we see them. In the meantime, let’s get the polls started, here’s how:

1. Login to your Realivent account
2. Go to the new “My Polls” tab
3. Create your new poll
4. Get embed code
5. Paste into your blog or website, embed it everwhere
(A note on embedding - the height may have to be adjusted if you have more answers. In this case , change the height parameter to 600px. 650px, or any other value that will make the poll height fit your page)

That’s it! Sit back and watch your poll results fly in.

Popularity: 92% [?]

The concept of Webmagazines is not a new concept right ? No, not at all…but what about applying web magazine style blogs and even better yet, web magazine blog networks directly to real estate ? How about the whole real estate services sector such as mortgage brokers, loan agents, home inspectors, stagers, and any other real estate affiliate. We have been talking about these for a while now at Realivent and we’re finally seeing the opportunities to deploy them. The end goal is to drive lots of traffic to these local area web magazine powered community sites to benefit both the publisher/agent by generating new leads as well as provide the most relevant information to buyers and sellers visiting the sites. Pat Kitano at Transparent Real Estate on several occasions has discussed many types of blog networks including financial networks and media networks.

So what does web magazine style sites entail ?

- Fully featured blogging , by using Wordpress as the base of the community sites, the sites will have no limitations as to the power of blogging here
- Listings - a real estate community site wouldn’t be complete wtihout listings, either IDX solutions or native listings applications, widgets or a combination of the two can be used with property specific resources
- Advertising mechanism , there’s lots of new targeted advertising platforms out there including Tumri, Google, and many others
More novel ways of advertising can also be applied such as ads that are determined by the market value. For example, an ad space can show market values upon hover and new advertisers can bid on what how much and when the ads are displayed. These ads would be based on what the public will pay to advertise on your site and will be determined by the market.
- Media - effortlessly showcasing/sharing your latest videos, personal marketing as well as local area videos
- Mapping - local area reviews, amenities, shopping
- Lead generation plugins and widgets
-Social network - an agent’s network can follow the agent with information about past business dealings, testimonials, and essential business references, and sites will be networked with one another
-Powerful backbend management - manage listings and listing syndication, blog syndication, flyers, virtual tours, print media, and Eblogletters all in one location

This is a powerful turn key system that will allow any individual agent to quickly establish a compelling online presence. The media site owner will only need to claim the sites and personalize them with their own branding.

Our first web magazine style blog network sites are being developed for the Bay Area real estate market . If you are interested in participating and becoming members or want to start a community other markets, please contact us.

Popularity: 97% [?]

Realivent and Domus today launched the first Women’s Council of Realtor network blogs in California. WCR Blogs is a network of WCR blogger agents throughout California, spanning as far north as the state’s capital, winding through the "Wine Country" all the way down to beautiful San Diego. The intial group of WCR bloggers include:

Kim DiBenedetto, Carmel
Marian Bennett, Peninsula and Coastside
Elaine Murphy Carlson , Palos Verdes
Melanie Narducci , San Francisco
Chris Molnar , San Mateo
Mary Moloney, San Luis Obispo
Kathleen Hendricks, Carmel
Grace Keng, Cupertino
John Juarez, Fremont
Carol Shields, Wine Country
Roberta Murphy, San Diego
Marion Duffy, Aliso Viego
Gena Reide, Sacramento

The idea of a blog network allows for individual agents to share in the rewards of team publishing. Inman News says , "While individual members of the blog network may go two or three days before placing a new post on their own blog sites, the network site is updated more regularly because of the collective participation."

We have been working closely with Kevin Boer and Pat Kitano at Domus Consulting to put together these multiple blog networks. Previously , we launched Homescopes which was a group of Coldwell Banker agent blogs which has done incredibly well with growing readership and traffic. More blog networks are coming including brokerage networks in northern California, the Northwest, another Bay Area network and a Southern California network.

Get the network blog widgets here.

Popularity: 98% [?]

We’ve been working on a few new community blogsites with lots of moving parts. Using Wordpress to build real estate sites is a growing trend and we’re seeing demand for more and more functionality to make them full fledged marketing and business management systems.