2010 July | Cheryl Waller

Social Networking for Mortgage Professionals

July 13, 2010 By Cheryl Waller Leave a Comment

Recently we kicked off the first week of Social Networking for Real Estate agents and I have been approached to create a similar Boot Camp for mortgage professionals. This blog post explains a little about how this 8 week boot camp can increase your online exposure and bring you more leads!

I am currently also putting together an FAQ for both of these Boot Camps, however the question that I receive most is “Can I get this on recording?”

The answer is no. Simply, because this is not a typical ‘webinar’ based training session. You will be teamed up with other mortgage professionals for 8 weeks to help each other learn the information, motivate each other and increase your online exposure through the use of powerful SEO, SEM, SMM and Social Networking techniques.

What will I learn during the Boot Camp?

At the end of the Social MAX Boot Camp for Mortgage Professionals you will have created an entire targeted social marketing strategy for your mortgage business. I give you my personal guarantee that this will be the single most important thing you EVER do for your business.

In Fact if you disagree at the end of the Social MAX boot camp, you will have the chance to publicly announce so in your testimonial on MY public profiles and you will receive a full refund for doing so.

To give you a better idea of what is entailed, this is what you and I will be doing TOGETHER during the 8 week program. (or have your mortgage assistant do this for you)

INITIAL WEBSITE REVIEW

We will go over your site, site content, titles descriptions, anchor text linking and see what needs to be improved. The search engine optimization of your website is not part of my Social MAX program, but I feel it’s important that you know where your site stands before we begin.

PROFILES

We will update and optimize all of your social profiles and will set them up for your mortgage business. Your personal profiles MUST have a picture of you and be personalized to you. Your business profiles must be customized to your business. We will not proceed with business profiles in violation of the social networks. Each social network is different and it is my job to help you get your profiles setup correctly the first time.

We will create uniform branding across all of your social networks. If you do not have branding yet, then my graphics team can work with you to design an image that is right for your business. This is optional and you will have to email me to ask my graphics team to work with you. I’m not going to try to sell this to you. If you need it, let me know.

FOCUS ON WHAT WORKS

We will be focusing on the top social networks. (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn)

In this 8 week Boot Camp you will be working closely with other mortgage professionals on your team to… (read more at Social Networking for Mortgage Professionals)

-Cheryl

Cheryl Waller
Marketing Consultant SEO, SEM, SMM
www.CherylWaller.com

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Social MAX Boot Camp for Real Estate Agents

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Filed Under: Blogging, Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Anchor Text, Blogging, Boot Camp, Boot Camps, Facebook, Marketing Strategy, Max Boot, Max Program, Mortgage Business, Mortgage Professionals, Networking Techniques, Personal Guarantee, Personal Profiles, Pictu, Public Profiles, Real Estate Agents, search engine optimization, SEO, Single Most Important Thing, Social Marketing, Social Networking, Social Profiles, Testimonial, Training Session

Last Call for Facebook Gifts

July 8, 2010 By Jared Morgenstern Leave a Comment

The Facebook Gift Shop is closing on Aug. 1 as we focus instead on improving other products. As of that date, you will no longer be able to give new gifts from the Gift Shop.

The gifts you've already received on your Wall will remain visible, and you still will be able to view your sent and received gifts on your gifts page. People also can continue to use the many third-party applications on Facebook for giving and receiving gifts, such as Birthday Cards, Hallmark Social Calendar, Pieces of Flair and someecards.

Closing the Gift Shop may disappoint many of the people who have given millions of gifts, but we made the decision after careful thought about where we need to focus our product development efforts. We'll be able to focus more on improving and enhancing products and features that people use every day, such as Photos, News Feed, Inbox, games, comments, the "Like" button and the Wall.

The end of the Gift Shop is a bittersweet moment for me personally. Back in early 2007, Will Chen and I launched virtual gifts on Facebook following a Hackathon project where we conceptualized gifts in an evening and worked on it in our spare time until we had a prototype that was ready to become our day job. Along the way toward launching it on Valentine's Day, we suffered from exhausting all-night sessions, but used the very act of giving each other the beautiful gifts designed by Susan Kare to get us through it.

While the ability to give gifts will be gone, I am proud of the impact gifts have had on Facebook. Out of the Gift Shop's "gift credits" came the virtual currency, Facebook Credits, that now makes it easier for people to buy premium items across the many games and applications on Facebook.

So while we're returning one gift, we're replacing it with another, one that will be used to improve the experience of even more people on Facebook.

Jared Morgenstern, Facebook's product manager for games and credits, encourages you to take a stroll down memory lane reliving all the sentiment shared in your received gifts.

Filed Under: Facebook, search engine optimization, Social Networking Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking

With Interest At A Frenzy, Bing Attaches Itself To LeBron’s Hip

July 7, 2010 By MG Siegler Leave a Comment

Sure, D-Wade and Chris Bosh may be teaming up to play together in Miami. But LeBron James has a new partner of his own: Bing.

Tomorrow night, millions of people around this country (and likely the world) are going to be tuning into ESPN to watch the NBA star announce his decision about where he’ll be playing basketball for the next several years. ESPN has created a special program for the event which they’re calling “The Decision” and they’re promoting the hell out of it. Microsoft Bing will be sponsoring that show and more importantly, likely donating millions to the Boys and Girls club charity — a stipulation James’ camp wanted for the event.

And that’s not all Bing is doing with LeBron. As you can clearly see on lebronjames.com right now, Bing is prominently displayed as the search engine on the site. That couldn’t have come cheap for Microsoft as millions of fans are hitting the site daily trying to get the latest word about where James will go.

Bing is obviously touting both deals today. “We are excited to be a part of LeBron’s important day and to be the official decision engine of the site LebronJames.com and one of the presenting sponsors of ‘The Decision’ program,” Lisa Gurry, Bing’s Director, writes on the Bing community blog today. She goes on to note Microsoft’s long-standing relationship with James — yadda, yadda.

The bottom line is that this is a smart move by Microsoft to get some key prime time exposure for their search engine among a key demographic.

CrunchBase Information

Bing

Information provided by CrunchBase

Filed Under: Bing, Search Engine Marketing Tagged With: Blogging, Facebook, featured, Microsoft, search engine optimization, SEO, Social Networking, TC

7 Reasons Your Facebook Page Needs an IMMEDIATE Face-Lift!

July 3, 2010 By Cheryl Waller Leave a Comment

Facebook business pages are different from your personal profile. Your profile should have a picture of you and information about you. Your real estate business cannot have a personal profile. In order to be on Facebook your business must have an ‘Official Page’ and can list and present everything that relates to your real estate business.

Also Read: Facebook: Profiles, Fan Pages, and Groups… Oh My!

On your Real Estate Business page, you should include (at minimum) the following information:

- Overview of your real estate business
- Website address and contact info
- Videos (listings and or/rentals)
- Blog RSS and your Blog URL
- Updated news and status

You can use up to 6 tabs (you can use more, but they won’t be readily displayed without clicking on the ‘>>’ tab). Your six tabs should consist of:

Wall Tab:
This is where you interact with your ‘fans’ and keep them up to days with current news and information.

Info Tab:
Fill this in with as much information as you can about you, your business, and what makes you different from other agents.

Welcome Tab:
A customized page that is very similar to your website, but within Facebook. This can be a single static page, a page with information and videos, or a fully customized mini-website. You should have at least one video embedded on this tab. If you don’t know HTML or FBML you can get a free real estate welcome page by ‘liking’ Social Networking for Real Estate Agents on Facebook. (Just click on the tab that says ‘FREE’.)

Real Estate Tab:
I recommend using Roost for this tab. It is very simple to configure and has a lot of features built-in.

Offer Tab:
Whether you use Market Snapshot, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp or any other form of keeping in touch with potential clients, this tab helps you collect information from potential clients so that you can keep in touch.

RSS/Blog Tab:
I recommend using Social RSS. You should keep you blog updated at least 2-3 times a week. Using the Socail RSS application, your blog will automatically update your Facebook business page.
So, what are the 7 reasons your Facebook real estate page needs an IMMEDIATE face-lift?

Reason # 1. Traffic

The Facebook statistics speak for themselves. Facebook now has over 2.6 billion monthly visitors and growing… with your real estate business page you can leverage the power of Facebook and drive more traffic to you site.

Reason # 2. There is NO COST

If you setup your business page yourself, you don’t have to spend a dime for this POWERFUL lead generator. If you don’t know HTML or FBML, you can get a free custom page just by ‘liking’ Social Networking for Real Estate Agents on Facebook.

Reason # 3. Viral Marketing

There are many ways you can use a Facebook business page as a viral marketing tool! Suggest your business page to all of your friends. Grow both your friend and ‘fan’ base and then give your ‘fans’ something to share. They will!

Reason # 4. SEO Power

Unlike a personal profile, business pages ARE completely public (there are some exceptions but that is beyond the scope of this post) and indexed by search engines. You will want to name your page something SEO friendly, keeping in mind that once you name your page you cannot change the name. Once you have 25 ‘fans’ you will want to customize your Facebook URL to something SEO friendly and you can also use anchor text linking (this is a huge secret, but I am revealing it anyway) to drive not only TRAFFIC but also relevant backlinks.

Reason # 5. Updates

You can update your ‘fans’ in multiple ways! You can post to your wall, share on your personal profile to attract new fans or send a mass update to all of your ‘fans’ through your administrator controls on ‘edit page’ (lower right hand side). You can also TARGET your updates to specific fans based on demographics.

Reason # 6. Unlimited ‘Fans’

Unlike a personal profile which restricts you to 5,000 connections (business pages and friends combined), your business page can have an unlimiteded amount of ‘fans’.

Reason # 7. Connects with Nearly EVERYTHING

Facebook business pages can be connected with twitter, linkedin, youtube and countless other social networking sites. You can also use the ‘like’ feature on your self-hosted WordPress blog using Simple Facebook Connect. (Simple Twitter Connect is another powerful plugin for your self-hosted WordPress blog)