It’s Time for Timeline to Hit Brand Pages
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Social Media on March 20th, 2012
Rolling out in small waves since September, Facebook’s Timeline profile format is finally available for brand pages.
While many of the features are the same as the consumer version, Timeline for business pages also adds features not previously available to brands.
Instead of posted content having a chronologically short shelf life, companies can now star posts to expand their appearance to widescreen or pin posts to appear in the top-left area for seven days. There is even a “milestone” feature, which is comprised of widescreen content boxes with photos and text that can detail specific points in a brand’s history.
Of course if your company posts frequent, engaging content, Timeline will benefit you greatly. However, keep in mind that it will show all the historical activity – both positive and negative. If you have any type of damaging conversation or content you may be forced to rehash it over and over.
We love the new friend activity feature that shows Facebook friends’ interactions with the page, such as when a friend links to a page in Facebook post.
Even the stats are enhanced. In addition to the standard number of likes and people talking about the page, you can now also see a detailed demographic breakdown with vital information such as age ranges, weekly popularity for the page, and top cities driving the most traffic.
Like it or not, Facebook will automatically update pages to the new format on March 30. We suggest you do it early and start familiarizing yourself with the new format. Kudos if your personal profile has already been converted; this should be an easy transition for your business page. But if it you’re not sure how to best format Timeline or are confused by its functionality, let Idea Associates help you make the best of Facebook’s ever evolving marketing strategies so your brand is successful on the social web.
Will the Echo Boomers Save the Housing Market?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Demographics on March 15th, 2012
The housing market has a huge impact on the health of the economy. With the seemingly upturn of the market, the catalyst will most likely be demographics.
Generation X (thirty-somethings) is small relative to the one that came before it — the baby boomers — and the one that came after it — the echo boomers. Their impact on the market has really already been made.
It is the echo boomers that should have property developers excited. These children of the baby boomers, born in the 1980s and 1990s, make up a generation even larger than that of their parents. And they are quickly entering their peak marriage and family years.
The settling down of the largest generation to date will create unprecedented demand for starter homes and rentals. Hard to imagine, could this meant that in a few short years we may actually have a housing shortage?
This seems to be turning into a very exciting time in real estate! What’s your opinion? Share your thoughts on echo boomers by commenting below or posting on our Facebook page.
Using QR Codes to Engage
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on March 8th, 2012
QR codes seem quick and easy – they’re all about convenience. But when you think about it, in order to take advantage of them, they require people to own a smart phone, have a QR reader downloaded and installed, and have their phone handy with the app open and ready to scan at any given time.
Whew! It’s a lot more complicated than it appears.
Worse yet, many companies are using them to convey data that could be just as easily delivered in another (more convenient) format. They are popularly replacing URLs in common advertising.
Are people really ready to replace URLs? When done correctly, all they require is your memory, not a smart phone, data plan, or special app.
What should they be used for?
QR codes are most effective when they unlock information, not lead users to a final destination. Especially one they can call up on their mobile browser! Is there an immediate payoff for your users’ efforts to take out their phone, open the app, point, scan, wait for the code to register, and find out what’s next?
Do you have a special list of products or services that continually get updated? Do you run promotions that change frequently? How about location-based campaigns? These are perfect candidates for your QR adventures!
Make sure your information is formatted for mobile, and again, that it’s relevant for your user immediately. If you’re trying to get people to your website, or to opt in to your list with no timely reward, a QR code is not the best solution. Just like when Twitter first hit the scene, don’t do it to be with the “in” social networking crowd – you have to have a solid plan to engage your audience.
How Well Do You Know LinkedIn?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Social Media on March 7th, 2012
LinkedIn has been proven more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter, especially for B2B companies. It boasts over 100 million users and affords brands and individuals the opportunity to build valuable industry connections that can lead to new business, co-marketing and affiliate agreements. You can even find your next new hire.
There may be some hidden LinkedIn gems that you’re overlooking when navigating your social message. Some examples are:
LinkedIn Answers
LinkedIn Answers is a forum for people to ask and answer questions about virtually any topic. By answering questions in your industry, you build credibility and show your expertise and value. But that’s not all – it’s also a great opportunity to identify industry influencers with whom to network. In fact you can even search through experts in the Top Experts section.
If you’re looking for guest writers for your Blog, the top experts on LinkedIn Answers are the people to reach out to. Ask them to take some of the most common questions they answer, and write a post for your blog on that topic. Then whenever the question comes up again, they can refer people to the blog post they wrote for you on the subject. They get to build their reputation, and you get the SEO benefits.
Subgroups
You may belong to several LinkedIn groups, but did you know there were also subgroups of those groups? Click ‘More’ on the tab of your LinkedIn group, and you’ll find them.
Subgroups help maintain relevancy; as groups grow there are naturally some topics, industries, or side projects that develop that don’t pertain to everyone. Subgroups offer a chance to filter out any content that isn’t relevant for the entire group and keep your members engaged.
LinkedIn Apps
Enhance your profile and better collaborate with your network with the many available apps, like SlideShare Presentations, WordPress and Company Buzz.
News Module
Everyone with a LinkedIn Company Page should be using this feature. The News Module feeds mentions of your business to your LinkedIn company page, and also shows news to those who have your name listed in their profile. This helps your information be seen in multiple places. Go to your page’s ‘Overview’ tab while in edit mode, and check ‘Share news about my company’ to enable it.
LinkedIn Polls
Within your group you can now offer polls. Polling not only lets you perform your own market research and collect interesting data for content creation, but doing it on LinkedIn also means it can be extremely targeted based on group demographics.
Export Contacts
You can export all your LinkedIn connections to a .CSV or .VCF file. You even have the ability to filter out certain people — like friends and family — that aren’t relevant to your business. The only rule of thumb here is to make sure you do NOT include them in your email campaign list – being a LinkedIn connection is not synonymous with opting in to receive emails from you.
Are you using these to your advantage? What works better for your business? What tools did we leave out?
The Dangers of a Laissez-faire Attitude with Your Social Media
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Social Media on March 6th, 2012
If you’ve been on Twitter for any length of time you’ve noticed that everyone and their uncle seems to be a “Social Media Expert”. We agree with social media guru Gary Vaynerchuk when he stated that 99.5% of self-proclaimed social media experts are clowns. Setting up a Facebook page with a bunch of links to your website does not make you an expert. Sorry.
If you want your social media efforts to create an actual return on your time and money investment, it starts with the same solid strategy you would apply to traditional marketing, coupled with consistent, targeted implementation. Otherwise there are more consequences to bad social media than just the absence of “likers” and followers.
Why Google Hates Too Much Even More than Too Little
One of your goals for your social media campaign is of course getting your website or business noticed, chiefly through obtaining a higher search engine results ranking on Google.
But laissez-faire doesn’t mean tweeting too little; it is more comparable to doing too much. Google actually hates it when a site engages in an excess of aggressive, blatant self-promotion. So much, in fact, that such a practice can lead directly to your site being blacklisted by Google, resulting in a severe down ranking of your site and annihilating your traffic numbers.
Google wants to create the best possible experience for their users, which means helping them find the most authoritative, relevant sites as quickly as possible. If your social media campaign is solely broadcasting self-serving messages without offering valuable, relevant content to back it up Google will punish you via your search engine position.
What is the Right Balance?
This of course depends on the goals of your campaign, but here are some definite no-nos right up front:
- Creating multiple profiles and linking all of them to your site
- Having a severely out-of-balance ratio of following to followers
- Exclusively bookmarking pages that link to your site
- Using a software program to automate and steal followers
- Only talking about your company over social media
If you see your actions as clear self-promotion, odds are good that Google will too.
Second Biggest Mistake
The more common pitfall we see in a failed social media campaign watching a company dive into social networking with great enthusiasm, only to fizzle out shortly after. Whether they find they lack the resources, desire or motivation necessary to maintain the momentum, this is actually worse than not starting at all.
We know a customized social media campaign is very labor-intensive. Going for quantity instead of quality is how the big fizzle usually occurs.
Social networking site users expect interaction, and lots of it. If your company cannot answer comments and questions on all sites that you are engaging, users will not stick around. One-directional conversations are not tolerated.
If you are overwhelmed with your social media, let us help you create the right balance of content and keep the conversation going.
How to Break Into Mobile Without Breaking the Bank
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on March 2nd, 2012
How do you, as a small business owner cut through all the noise and reach today’s “always connected” customer?
You don’t have to pay top dollar for the latest and greatest bells and whistles to go mobile. Here are a few ways to get started:
Make sure you’re findable. It’s a bit labor-intensive, but well worth it to “claim” your business and its location on sites such as Yelp, Yahoo Local, Facebook, Google Places, and even Foursquare. This costs no more than your time.
Optimize your website for mobile viewing. Mobile searches have grown 400 percent since 2010, according to Google. Once they find you on their phone, consumers visit (59 percent) or call (61 percent).
If your website was created more than a few years ago, or was built with Flash or other outdated plugins, your site is at risk for being invisible to mobile searches.
If you’re confused by all the options available, Idea can help your site go mobile!
Take your social “pulse”. Sites like Kudzu, Angie’s List, Google, and dozens more are letting your customers review you (often without your knowledge). In fact over 80 percent of consumers say they read reviews before making a purchase? Any negative reviews or poor feedback about you can affect your customers’ purchasing decision. You can use Google Alerts to see what’s being said about you on a regular basis. Like GI Joe said, “Knowing is half the battle”!
Customers aren’t just browsing the mobile web anymore. They’re researching products, sharing opinions, and completing transactions. Don’t let your fear of breaking the bank stop you from getting your business on the mobile web.
Improve Your Email Campaign
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing on February 29th, 2012
Getting customers to engage with your email campaign is a big factor in its effectiveness. How do you create a campaign that your customers will read regularly? Content is king, but design is the magic key to the kingdom.
If you’ve been sending plain text emails to your subscribers, you might want to rethink your strategy. HTML emails might sound complicated, but they have advantages that plain text just can’t offer. A recent study shows that HTML transactional emails got a 50% higher click through rate than plain text.
Brand Your Campaign
HTML gives you style control over your email messages so you can design them to reflect your brand’s online identity. You can add images – like your company logo – and use background colors and fonts to match your site design.
Using the same fonts and a layout that’s similar to your website will carry your brand’s online personality through to your email campaign.
Keep ‘Em Reading
You can use HTML design opportunities to your advantage by creating an eye path teasing your customers to read through your entire message. One way to do this is to implement a big leading image and text that’s half on the “fold” – the area of the message that displays before the reader has to scroll down to read more.
Laying out your message around the fold like this engages your readers’ curiosity, enticing them to scroll down through the rest of your message. You can even put an incomplete, suspenseful sentence around that area, making the user click through a link to get the rest of the story or offer.
How do you use custom designs in your campaigns? Have you noticed a difference in engagement and response when switching to HTML?
Has Print Media Fallen Behind for Good?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Real Estate Trends on February 28th, 2012
Though the death of print media was declared in late 2006 it actually made a bit of a comeback in 2010. Next it became well known that the Internet is the place that consumers increasingly spend their media time. Today we know that people are actually spending more time on their mobile phones than they are spending interacting with print media.
According to eMarketer, time spent on mobile devices is now an average of 65 minutes a day, compared to 44 minutes a day for magazines and newspapers. Although both were tied last year, mobile actually grew by 30%.
Are media dollars spent online surpassing those spent on print?
Mashable.com recently proclaimed they would for the first time in 2012. What does this mean for REALTORS®?
The return-on-investment of real estate ads in newspapers and other print media have been second-guessed for quite some time, as multiple studies have shown that the majority of homeowners begin their search online. You can see this trend illustrated in eMarketer’s chart below:
Why exactly does online surpass print media? Today’s consumer is accustomed to the instant gratification of the Internet – information is free and mobile. Now, even those who enjoy newspapers and periodicals can read them on their tablets. But what about real estate? Consumers still seem to be attached to local newspapers.
Of course, knowing your local market is very important, but keeping up with national trends is as well. Agents should take a good look at the tools and new strategies available to them and reevaluate. The same old formula no longer works in this market.
That being said, we believe some print media remains very effective in real estate. The most successful advertising programs we have found offer a customized solution including print, online, and eFlyers in a competitively priced package.
Water Efficiency – Should It Be on the Standard Features List?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Green on February 23rd, 2012
Many stars are publicly supporting the water crisis, which has reached dire proportions in Africa. But few Americans realize that there is a water crisis here in the United States.
According to the EPA, 36 states will experience water shortages by 2013, even under non-drought conditions. No state will be completely unaffected.
Part of the reason we are running out of water is due to the country’s growth—our population doubled between 1950 and 2000. Our demand for water has also more than tripled, though!
Lifestyle changes, such as dishwashers and washing machines, are to blame. The average person in the U.K. uses 40 gallons of water a day. An average person in China uses 22 gallons.
How much does the average American family use? 400 gallons. In fact, by the time we leave the house in the morning for work we’ve each already used more than 30 gallons by showering, brushing our teeth, making coffee, etc.
How does it affect homebuilders?
They’re in a position to do much more than conserve a little water. Already having made tremendous strides in homes’ energy efficiency, it stands to reason that water efficiency is the next step.
Smart use and conservation of graywater includes shorter plumbing that runs from water heaters to points of use, hands-free fixtures that keep water from continuing to run when it’s not needed, and sprinkler controllers and rain sensors that will keep overwatering to a minimum.
If anything was learned during the move to energy-efficient homes, it’s the fact that change was easier to accomplish if new products offer something better than the minimum requirement. New Watersense labeling requires that products must offer equal or superior performance while using 20 percent less water.
Where do you think water efficiency stands in consumers’ reasons to buy a green home?
The 15 Best Housing Markets For The Next Five Years
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Real Estate Economics, Real Estate Trends on February 22nd, 2012
According to the Business Insider, the double-dip in home prices that began in 2010 continued to drive down 
home prices in the third quarter.
The average price of a U.S. single-family home fell 3.9 percent; however, national home prices are expected to grow at a yearly rate of 3.5 percent between 2011 and 2016.
The article shows how Fiserv’s data helped pick the best housing markets for the next five years. Here’s a partial list:
Ocala, Florida
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.2 percent
- Home prices in Ocala have tanked 49.1 percent since they peaked in Q3 2006.
- Median home price is $93,000.
Eugene-Springfield, Oregon
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.2 percent
- Home prices in the Eugene-Springfield metro area have slipped 20.5 percent since their Q2 2007 peak. They have a significantly low median household income.
Panama City-Lynn Haven-Panama City Beach, Florida
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.2 percent
- Median home price is $138,000, and its home prices are 42.2 percent off their Q1 2006 peak.
Bakersfield-Delano, California
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.3 percent
- Bakersfield’s home prices have fallen 58.5 percent since they peaked in Q2 2006. The median home price is $125,000.
Mountain Vernon-Anacortes, Washington
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.3 percent
- Home prices have fallen 23.6 percent in the Mt. Vernon-Anacortes metro area since their peak in Q4 2007.
Sebastian-Vero Beach, Florida
- Expected annual growth from 2011 – 2016: 8.7 percent
- The Sebastian-Vero Beach metro area has a median home price of $137,000, and home prices have declined 53.1 percent since their Q4 2005 peak.
Tucson, Arizona
- Expected growth from 2011 – 2016: 9 percent
- Tucson’s home prices have plummeted 45.1 percent since their peak in Q1 2006. The median price of a Tucson home is $139,000.
To read the rest of the list and find out all the details, go here.
Did you predict the markets mentioned in the article? Do you think they left any out?
