Posts Tagged ‘Idea Associates’
Breyer Goes Home at Last
Posted by Sibet B Freides in General on April 25th, 2012
Sibet Freides, President of Idea Associates, leads a highly specialized, results-driven marketing team well-versed in comprehensive consulting and evaluation services, creative branding campaigns, website development, and interactive and social media. Her passion for real estate is seen by her service on the Urban Land Institute Board of Directors.
But there is another side of her that deserves to be in the spotlight. Sibet’s passion outside of real estate is homeless animal rescue. She works daily to get animals pulled from shelters in Georgia and sent to animal rescues all over the East Coast where they can be saved. Hundreds of animals are euthanized weekly in Georgia due to our lack of spay/neuter laws. There are many great rescues working to save animals, including Angels Among Us, Paws Atlanta, Atlanta Humane Society, Furkids, and Atlanta Pet Rescue. Shelter Angels is a group in Georgia that helps pitbulls and is desperate for help. Noah’s Ark takes in injured animals. All of these groups can use financial support.
Here is one of the many success stories that help keep her on the path that she forges daily.
When she saw the picture of Breyer at the shelter she didn’t think anyone would take her. But Chris, with her very big heart, likes the tough challenges, and this certainly was one. This is an incredible transformation. Chris has done a remarkable job with her, nurturing this girl to her fullest potential… and now she will have a chance at a very happy life.
Breyer went home last night with a young newlywed couple. They are doctors who are active and energetic and love to jog. She was so happy.
Here are her before and after photos. When she came into the shelter she was emaciated, mangy, had pneumonia, and her eyelids were red and swollen. Her coat was thin and dull and her legs were in horrible condition.
The after picture says it all.
To learn more about how you can help any of these non-profit organizations, visit their websites, adopt a rescue animal, or ask Sibet.
Saving one dog will not change the world…
but it will surely change the world for that one dog….
author unknown
Social Media Dollars Increase
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Social Media on March 27th, 2012
In an Advertiser Perceptions semiannual survey of nearly 1,200 people involved in deciding how ad dollars are spent digitally, 59% of respondents said they would increase social media ad spending in the next 12 months.
The survey also found that social media marketing will make up about 27% of digital budgets, compared with 22% in the previous 12 months. No other digital category will see this kind of growth.
Does this growth come at the expense of other ad dollars? We’re not seeing that currently.
The one true element that will make or break this new media for clients is essentially the “why”. If clients are allocating dollars to be on Facebook because everyone else is on Facebook they will not see the results to support the new distribution. Social Media must be analyzed on a client-by-client basis, creating a unique campaign on the networks that best reach their relevant audience.
This is a very labor-intensive and time consuming task, but when implemented correctly will yield a great “ROV” (Return of Voice). Idea Associates knows the balance needed and will manage the laborious task of keeping a constant presence on the social web, leaving you to do what you do best: run your business.
How is your social media budget divided? Do you foresee an increase in ad dollars spent on social campaigns?
5 Surprising Demographic Trends for 2012
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Real Estate Trends on January 25th, 2012
The National Association of Realtors’ latest Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers has some unexpected statistics about who is buying and selling in today’s market. Now that the first-time homebuyer tax credits have ended, baby boomers have replaced Gen Y and Gen X as the dominant players in the real estate market.
This year’s profile revealed these surprising statistics:
1. Bottomed out at last. Prices appear to be stabilizing in some areas. This is the first step in climbing out of the rocky bottom we have been in for the last several years.
2. Boomers are the key players. In 2010, due to the first-time homebuyer tax credit, the median age of first-time buyers dropped to 31. In many markets, the number of first-time buyers hovered at the 50 percent level. The smart move in 2011 was to market to Generation Y.
Over the last 12 months, however, there has been a substantial change that can have important ramifications for your business in 2012. In 2011, baby boomer purchases substantially surpassed the number of Generation Y buyer.
Why is this surprising? There are more Gen Yers than there are boomers. Generation Y is also at its peak buying age – marrying, establishing new households, and having children.
Furthermore, boomers are actively driving the second-home market. As a result, it may be smart to revisit your business plan for 2012 and to place more emphasis on working with boomers who are currently the dominant players in terms of purchasing.
3. More buyers are using agents. 89 percent of buyers purchased their home through a real estate agent or broker – that’s up from 69 percent in 2001. What are some ossible reasons?
Realtors shorten the search process when there are huge amounts of inventory on the market and people are pressed for time. Most likely, though, it’s the difficulty of the loan process both on the buyer’s side in terms of qualifying for a loan, and on the seller’s side based upon the appraisal process that marks the need for realtors.
4. Married couples or single female buyers? The trend since 2001 has been a substantial decline in the share of buyers who were married. From 2001-2008, the number of married couples purchasing homes dropped from 68 percent to 58 percent.
A historically high percentage of Gen Xers are actually unmarried. As a result, the market saw a huge proportion of single female buyers – the smart market niche for 2011.
In 2012, it’s an entirely different story. The number of single female buyers is still relatively high at 18 percent, but that’s the lowest number since 2004 and represents a reversal of a major trend. It’s time to focus on marketing that reaches couples and families in 2012.
5. Life changes drive real estate sales. The primary reason to purchase a home among repeat buyers is often because of life changes: the desire for a larger home, a job relocation or move, desire to be closer to family and friends, or a change in a family situation.
How will you focus on these 5 new developments for 2012 to reach more sales?
iPhone Apps that Help Real Estate Agents
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Real Estate Trends, Social Media on January 24th, 2012
Being a real estate agent can sometimes get hectic – you may feel disorganized. Have you also ever felt you didn’t have enough information handy to help your clients make the best decision possible? Here are some new and convenient ways to remedy your situation with apps and place you above your competitors:
Sketches
Sometimes pictures don’t support the message you’re trying to convey with your clients. With Sketches, you can take a photo and then draw on it. For example, you might use arrows to point out certain features or write down the distance between two properties.
Around Me
Being able to give your clients instant information is essential. With this app you can quickly tell clients about the restaurants, banks, grocery stores and other shops in the area, making it much easier for a client to make a decision.
Walk Score
People in busy cities want to be able to walk to everything. This app will give you the ability to tell customers exactly how far the nearest restaurants, grocery stores, shopping and more are from their new home. It even has a built-in GPS so users will never have to type in an address to get results.
Real Estate by Smarter Agent
One of the biggest factors for an agent is knowing what comparables are selling for or what sellers are currently asking. Being able to access this information immediately is necessary in today’s instant gratification society. You’ll never believe how fast the contract can be drawn up once you download this app.
What apps help you in your real estate career?
Mobile-Friendly or Say Goodbye
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on January 11th, 2012
Is your website mobile-friendly? Do you still think that technology is not worth the 
extra effort? Not necessary?
With the increase in smartphone owners, iPads, Tablets, Nooks and so on, companies will have to make sure their website can be accessed through these devices. If your company has an outdated website that depends of flash technology, complicated fonts, or long loading times you can expect people to abandon it quicker than you can say www.
People often access their favorite websites from their smartphone or tablet while at work, in the airport, waiting at the doctor’s office, the bank, or just about anywhere else they find themselves having a moment of downtime. If they can’t access your business information, your company loses out.
What’s Important in a Mobile Site?
Creating a mobile version of your site doesn’t have to be painful or expensive. In fact it’s typically a smaller version of your existing website with a more simplistic design. The important thing is to identify the key actions you want your customers to take when accessing your mobile site.
Here are some basic tips:
Screens are smaller, which means the fonts are smaller. Eliminate non-essential copy.
People are not going to fill out long contact forms using their phone, especially with coffee in one hand or while driving. If you must have a form, keep it simple: name and email only.
Phones will never be as fast as laptops. Try to limit the size of files and images on your mobile site to minimize loading time.
All numbers should use this simple code that will initiate a call when your customer clicks (or touches) on the phone number on your mobile site. No one will make the extra step of writing down or memorizing your number and then dialing it manually. It’s 2012!
Most smart phones are equipped with GPS technology. Make sure your location is “findable” to mobile searchers.
All in all remember: when creating your mobile presence, simpler is better. Reduce the content and file size, limit the amount of typing your customer is required to perform, and take advantage of smart phone capabilities by adding click to talk numbers and location finders.
Is your site mobile-friendly? Has it affected your business in a positive way?
What’s Effective in 2012 for Real Estate Marketing?
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Real Estate Trends on January 10th, 2012
So, it’s 2012 and there are a multitude of options for marketing real estate. What should you spend your advertising dollars on? What funds allocated in your budget will offer the biggest reach, influence and return in the new media world?
ActiveRain, the largest blogging platform and professional social network in real estate, conducted a survey of 1,910 real estate professionals asking the simple question of “what is the most effective real estate marketing or advertising that you do?”
Here are some highlights from the survey results and how you can make it work for your community:
- Referrals and word of mouth were the most preferred, making up an overwhelming 26% of the responses.
- Second place was tied with 13% of responses: Blogging and traditional Direct Mail. This includes postcards, mailers, and printed newsletters.
- Next 12% of responders listed Internet Marketing as a general category. It can be assumed that this category is comprised mostly of pay-per-click ads, such as Google AdWords.
- Finally, networking received 8% of the responses. This includes partner referrals and face-to-face meetings.
Most Effective Real Estate Marketing Plans
Even in this digital age, real estate professionals continue to favor more traditional offline, hand-to-hand marketing techniques: referrals, direct mail, networking, and open houses. Blogging is viewed as an effective medium as well, but it must provide value in order to stay in that 13%.
Most Effective Real Estate Websites
Real Estate professionals polled consistently listed ActiveRain, Craigslist, Facebook, Zillow and Google as the most effective sites for their business. There were very few mentions of WordPress, though as an agency we find it to be at the top of the list for delivering valuable information and gaining a targeted audience. Noticeably absent were Trulia and Realtor.com.
What do you think? Do you agree with the poll? Is there something that works for you that the survey left off?
If you need help with your 2012 marketing plan, let us create a balanced, effective mix of traditional and new media customized for your community’s needs.
5 Ways to Derail Your Twitter Campaign
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Social Media on October 26th, 2011
Make it obvious that you’re not tweeting your own content. If you’ve hired a company to coordinate and manage your Social Media, remember that they are writing and tweeting in your company’s voice. The “tone” should be consistent with your business. The absolute WORST thing to do is to make it obvious that you are just a ghost writer and tweet in third party responses. People will not engage and connect with someone that’s not even with the company they’re following!
Don’t follow anyone back, or auto-follow with a canned message. We can’t say this enough: social media is supposed to be social. If you are attracting or mining mass followers but don’t have the courtesy to follow back you are missing the point. Worse yet, do you send an autoresponder to new followers and never even check to see who they are or reply to their questions? Tsk, tsk!
Tweet only about your accomplishments and what products/services you are selling. This is the fastest way to lose your audience. A well-rounded campaign should follow the 70/10/10 rule: 70% free, helpful content about your industry; 10% products or services you are offering; 10% personal comments and opinions so people know you’re not a tweet-bot!
Update your tweets sporadically. Twitter is fast moving! Sending out a tweet once a week, or a few times a month will not make a dent in your social media strategies. We know it’s extremely time consuming, but there are ways to schedule your main content ahead of time while still checking in and engaging with your audience.
Only broadcast, don’t engage. So many businesses have told us, “I don’t care about all the noise people are putting out there. I just send out my latest blog posts and promotions, but I don’t understand why I haven’t made any sales yet.” Again, if you’re not contributing to the conversation, offering helpful tips, and using good ‘twitterquette’ with your followers, Twitter really is a waste of time and resources for you.
Are you still confused about how to create an effective and seamless Social Media campaign? Let Idea Associates help so you can focus on what you do best – run your business!
Top 7 Social Networking Sites for Real Estate
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Marketing, Real Estate Trends, Social Media on October 6th, 2011
Here are the top seven social networking sites that benefit anyone in the Real Estate industry.
1. Facebook
Now reaching 800 million active users, Facebook is one of the easiest ways of finding prospective customers within any given area. For real estate you can target very specific groups according to your business needs and reach your prospective customers where they already are.
572 members in the Atlanta area are using Merchant Circle’s free marketing tools to find new local customers. You can link up with other local businesses, create special deals, and fill your profile with influential reviews.
3. Trulia
Trulia is an all-in-one real estate site that’s jam-packed with the most useful and timely information on homes for sale, apartments for rent, neighborhoods, markets and trends to help you figure out exactly what, where and when to buy. You can also follow popular real estate blogs and get advice and opinions from local experts on Trulia Voices.
4. ActiveRain
ActiveRain is one of the few networking sites that are exclusively meant for real estate professionals. Join 214,063 professionals on the world’s largest real estate network — it is still free.
RealTown is a resource for a wide variety of real estate related articles from industry experts, syndicated columnists, Real Estate magazines, vendors and members. It is an internet portal that features everything real estate. Developed back in 1995, RealTown is one of the oldest and most respected communities in the real estate industry.
Realtors are beginning to leverage the power of Linkedin.com for their business. The growth of the site’s traffic and user base coupled with opportunities to join Groups, engage in Q&A’s, and broadcast information makes Linkedin an absolute necessity to any Realtor.
Zillow is a free online real estate site where you can search for homes for sale, find home prices, see home values, view recently sold homes, and check mortgage rates.
Bonus: Google +
Not quite in the top tools list yet, Google+ offers a steady concentration of traffic from affluent demographics that could create the perfect conditions for luxury marketers.
How about you? What are your favorite real estate social networks?
Using Technorati to Find Blogs About You
Posted by Sibet B Freides in Social Media on January 26th, 2012
Today, bloggers are a main source of news for millions of readers. Their articles are typically better researched, more detailed, and more honest than newspaper or magazine articles. They may also be completely false, as bloggers do not fall under the same editorial scrutiny that media must comply with.
When something negative is said about your company through a blog, you may not find out about it until it has spread virally, doing extensive damage to your image, even if the information is not true. To combat this, you can use technology to keep an eye on what is being written about you and your company.
Technorati is a search engine designed specifically to search for blogs on the Internet using three types of searches: 1) keywords, 2) tags, and 3) blog directory.
Technorati also provides tools that allow you to keep on top of blog posts for specific subjects.
Here’s a small guide to keeping an eye on your business:
Search for your company on Technorati
Finding blogs that already contain some reference to your company can give you a rare look into your customers’ minds. People used to pay top dollar for market research that would take weeks to access this priceless information. Now you can see firsthand what your customers are saying, in real time.
Stay on top of your “social footprint”
Technorati allows you to save your searches as “watchlists.” Watchlists may be viewed in RSS format, which means they may be imported into an RSS reader to make it very easy to consistently keep track of who is writing about your company.
What do you do when you locate something?
When you find a blog that mentions your company, leave a comment on their blog. This lets them know that you respect them writing about you. If the post was negative, it also shows that real people from your company are reading what they’ve written, and are savvy enough to respond to it. Bloggers are almost always more cordial and less likely to be critical if they know they are being read by the person they are criticizing.
When someone writes something negative about you, it’s important to read all the comments before responding. You may find that a fan of your company has already defended you nicely and an “official” response may not be necessary. This happens more often than not, which is one of the biggest perks of today’s social media.
Have you ever had negative comments or reviews on your company’s social profiles? How did you handle it?
Tags: bloggers, blogs, comments, Idea Associates, IdeaViews, keywords, negative feedback, Real estate, social footprint, Social Voice, Technorati
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