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Using one-time passwords to login to Facebook more securely

Facebook has just launched a great new feature for those of us who routinely login from computers away from home (ie. from public computers like hotels, airports, cafes, etc...). If you have any concerns about the security of the computer (or the wireless network) your using, you can now receive a one-time password to login to your account if you have an SMS capable phone (which most of us have).

To receive your one-time password:

--ensure you have your mobile phone number entered in your Facebook account

--text "otp" to 32665 on your mobile phone (U.S. only) and you'll receive a password that you can use only once and that expires in the next 20 min.

Facebook will be rolling this out over the coming weeks. Its a great new feature I'll be taking advantage of away from home!

How to change the Name of your Facebook Business/Fan Page

Facebook is now letting you rename your Facebook Business/Fan pages that have fewer than 100 fans. If you need to rename your page, now's the time to do it as you never know how long this "feature" will last.

To change the name of your Facebook page:
--login to Facebook
--Under the "Account" tab at the far right (on top), click on "Manage Pages"
--Select the page you wish to rename
--Below the logo of the page, click on "Edit Page"
--Change the name of the page
--Finally, save your changes

It's as easy as that!

New ReachFactor Features - October 27

We just added a couple more great features for all our users.

Email Styling

All emails sent on your behalf through ReachFactor will now have some HTML styling.  This includes survey requests, invitations, listing broadcasts and more.  We know looking professional is important to you and we want to do everything we can to help.

Invitation Reminders

We want to make it even easier for you to get free marketing credits.  You can already resend an invitation whenever you want but now we'll even do it for you automatically.  Anyone you send an invitation out to will automatically be reminded after 3 and 7 days if they don't accept your invite.

ActiveRain Link

Let potential clients see all your profiles.  Lots of agents are on the ActiveRain blogging system and we want to make it easy for potential clients to see all your public faces.  You can add the link to your profile in the "Account" tab when you're logged into ReachFactor.

Send us your Endorsements

We know a lot of you have paper endorsements from past clients.  Dust off those old boxes and send them to us!  If you're a ReachFactor user you can send us a scanned copy of that endorsement and the transaction details for the sale that client was involved in and we'll take care of the rest.  Soon you'll be able to put all those old endorsements to work for you on the web!

Bug Fixes

Everyone makes mistakes.  We fixed the bug that required Land listings to have a number of bedrooms and bathrooms.  Those fields can be left blank now.

We also improved the click and drag reordering of images in the listing gallery.  You should now have no trouble clicking anywhere on a the image to change the order.

Three-time tech entrepreneur launches Web service to help real estate professionals strengthen their reputation

For Immediate Release

San Francisco (October 21, 2010)

ReachFactor (www.reachfactor.com) is a unique new Web application that helps real estate professionals strengthen their reputation and close more business by automatically collecting, verifying and promoting reviews from past clients.

Most marketing services for real estate professionals are time consuming, complicated, and require uncommon expertise; however, ReachFactor doesn’t require an Agent to write a sales pitch or produce any content. Instead, ReachFactor leverages an Agent’s listings and past clients to help them save time, money, and sell more.

ReachFactor’s core feature allows Agents to effortlessly connect with clients to collect feedback. Endorsements are verified by ReachFactor and then, at the Agent’s option, promoted across major Web services, the Agent’s website, and social media to encourage more and better consumer interactions.

“Your reputation is absolutely critical to generate a high conversion rate” says Suresh Srinivasan, founder and CEO of ReachFactor. “Consumers have always sought the opinion of others before selecting an Agent but the Web has taken the place of the neighbor.”

Unlike anonymous reviews posted on Yelp and the Surveys that national brands and offices send on behalf of Agents, ReachFactor collects and verifies the authenticity of reviews and provides badges and widgets that make it extremely easy to market endorsements online and off. Best of all the Agent remains 100% in control at all times and can get started absolutely free.

“Agents are already strapped for time and sapped of energy. The last thing they need is something else to do,” continued Srinivasan. “ReachFactor is a ‘set it and leave it’ marketing service that we’ve seen paying for itself in the first month.”

“ReachFactor is invaluable!” exclaims Robert Diamond, Broker with Century 21 Affiliated. “It‘s an excellent tool for networking with present and future clients and offers unlimited potential for new opportunities. I’ve received terrific feedback from past clients and ReachFactor helps me get the word out.”

Real estate professionals can get started for free at www.reachfactor.com.

About ReachFactor

ReachFactor helps real estate Agents, Brokers, and Offices strengthen their reputation and increase conversion rates by collecting and promoting 3^rd party verified reviews from past clients. ReachFactor was started by three-time tech entrepreneur Suresh Srinivasan who previously ran a successful Internet marketing company that had tens of thousands of small business clients.

Contact:
Alan Meadows
ReachFactor
ameadows@reachfactor.com
888-262-6161 ext. 301

1 tip to enhance your reputation using Facebook

We get a lot of questions about how to start promoting yourself in Facebook. A quick way to start is to chime in to Facebook questions to demonstrate your expertise. 


There are lots of people asking questions like "what's an affordable place to live in Los Angeles?" "Which areas of Seattle have the best schools" and more. Real people looking for help.  Can you provide answers?


It takes just a few seconds to respond and in the meantime you'll build an impressive reputation. 


(you may want to get your Facebook business page up  & get your listings in there prior as a tacit sales tool). If you need help, please ask!


Suresh

The one activity every Agent should steal from top producers

There's an old adage that to become a top performer you must think and behave like one. Here's one simple activity any Broker/Agent can steal from top performers. You be the judge, check out the data below.

Until ReachFactor came along (hehe) I know it was a very manual and tedious process for Brokers & Agents to collect feedback from past clients. But I was quite surprised to learn how few real estate professionals actually collect feedback and use them in marketing. In fact, the numbers are quite startling.

We sent a survey to 1,550 Brokers and Agents and asked whether they collected their own feedback from past customers, and if so, how they used it. We got nearly 600 replies.

1. 75% of the people who replied said "NO", they do not collect their own feedback. Of these people, 88% said they relied on the fact that their Office or their Brand was already sending surveys to clients on their behalf, so they felt they didn't need to. WOW! (If you've ever seen those surveys you'll know why I'm surprised)
2. Getting past this, of the 25% who said they do collect endorsements more than half said they collect them on paper and said it was hard to reuse them. They said they rarely used the endorsements in their marketing aside from having copies when they met clients in person.
3. Finally, it appears that only ~10% actively collect endorsements and actively promote them in their marketing (retyping into their website & using them in direct mailers were the #1 and #2 response respectively).

Here it is visually...

You'll notice that the green bar is around 10% of the respondent universe.

Indicative of the 90/10 rule?  We haven't correlated the data to sales transactions so I can't say for sure, but I have a strong sense this 10% may very well outperform the other 90. I poked around their websites and could see a definite difference in professionalism and presentation styles.

Active marketers naturally look for more content to use in marketing and the best sales material is always what others say about you, not what you say about yourself (see post on comScore study about the business benefit of reviews).

What do you think? Is the 90/10 rule rearing its head in our survey results? Is this a surprise to anyone?  Please share your thoughts and comments.

Shameless plug -- If you've never collected your own endorsements from past customers and don't use them actively in your marketing I think you're missing a prime opportunity to grow your business. ReachFactor now automates collecting endorsements and makes it super simple to get them on your website, Facebook, and more. You can even start for free at www.reachfactor.com. No excuse to not try..

New ReachFactor Features - October 20

Endorsements Marketing

ReachFactor has already made it easy for you to send Surveys to your clients so you can collect feedback from them.  So far this has just been for your own knowledge.  We've already heard some great stories from some of the folks using ReachFactor that this has been really useful by itself but we wanted to provide you with more.

Share your Endorsements with the world

Now, you can choose to share this feedback across the web.  When you choose to market an endorsement you can choose where to share it.  It will always show up on your ReachFactor Profile and you can add Facebook and Twitter to the mix.  We also make it easy for you to add a Endorsement Widget to any website you may be on.

ReachFactor Profile

Endorsements that you choose to syndicate will show up on your ReachFactor Profile.  They'll show in a tab right on the main page for potential clients viewing your profile to peruse.

Facebook

You may have already started using our Listings tab on Facebook - well now there's an Endorsements tab as well. You can choose to share Endorsements with all the browsers to your Facebook Business Page.

Twitter

Hopefully, you're already using Twitter to advertise yourself and your listings.  If you don't we can help!  We already make it easy to advertise your listing on Twitter and keep your audience up to date when the price changes.  We'll help you market your endorsements to your Twitter followers, too.

Widget

We make it easy to pull the Endorsements from ReachFactor into any website you want.  Just check a couple settings and copy and paste a little code into your website.  That's all.

Endorsement Verification

Make your Endorsements have more impact.  Let us verify them for you.  Many review sites have had problems with customers thinking the reviews were not legitimate.  If you provide us with some extra information we'll do the homework and verify that an Endorsement came from an actual client so that potential clients will feel confident that your reviews are legitimate.  If we ever suspect an endorsement is not valid we'll send you an email letting you know.  You can still share the review but it won't be on the verified list until we're comfortable putting our stamp of approval on it.

Share your listings by email

You've got a few email addresses of interested buyers or huge email lists you want to broadcast your listings to?  Great!  We can help.  When you choose to Email a listing we'll help you by sending a beautiful property flyer with a link to the listing on your ReachFactor profile and a customized message from you.

10 ways Agents can be more "Liked" on Facebook

1) Get your Facebook business page up. If you don't have the business page you're only building a friend network, which is not the same. A Facebook business page is the right way to market a business and there is currently no limit to the # fans you can have.


2) Expect to put up several (10) posts on there before you start marketing it. No one wants to see or Like a blank Facebook page.


3) Start close to home. Get other Agents in your office to like your page and vice versa. No one wants to be the first person to Like a page.


4) Get your Listings inside Facebook. Include pictures and make sure the listings look great. Let your homeowners know you went through the expense of getting their property into Facebook. Ask them to visit your Facebook page and 'Like' their listing. This promotes the listings through their network.


5) Ask them to get their friends/family to like the listing as well.

(The average person has 130 friends on Facebook. Each 'like' promotes the property and your page to another 130 people).

6) Add frequent Status Updates that might appeal to the people you want to attract, but don't over think it. Just post updates. Maybe there's a local bar that just added a new beer on tap. Maybe there's a halloween event coming up? Maybe you were invited to list a house in a bad part of town and had a funny (scary) experience? Post an update.


7) Post pictures if you can along with your status update. Keep the post short and at the end ask provoking questions.. "Hit "like" if there's a better than 50% chance I'll see you at this Halloween fest this weekend."


8) Not everything has to be "liked" - use your business page as a platform to promote business. Definitely post the date and time of open houses. Link to the Listing you created in Facebook.



9) If you are more advanced you can create a custom Landing Page (static FBML) and make it the default page non-fans arrive at. This should pitch people on the benefit of becoming a "Fan" immediately. Tell them why it's to their benefit to be a Fan. 


10) On your static FBML Landing Page you can hide content that becomes visible when someone likes you. Do this if there's compelling, immediate gratification someone can get from becoming a Fan immediately. This works well if there's non-public information or insider information you can share. Pocket sales opportunities? Investor auction tips? Anything that might not be generally available to the public.

West coast sales rally - and a Winner!

Our very own Karl Jebsen recently attended the Century 21 West Coast Sales Rally. I heard that we had a lot of people visit our booth and were enthused by our goal to help Agents and Brokers collect great endorsements and use them to increase their conversion rates. 

While he was there Karl gave away a ReachFactor Max account ($1800 value). Congratulations to Rosemary Skillman with Century 21 Earll for winning the grand prize! Hope to see you at the next event.

Here are some pics we took at the event:

5 steps to a Facebook business page for real estate agents

Facebook has announced that they will no longer support Tabs on personal profiles, so everyone needs to migrate their tabs over to a Facebook business page (or lose them forever).

The first step is to get a business page created in the first place. This pdf shows you how.

One thing to keep in mind - once you name your page you cannot edit it (you can only start over). So pick something that you'll like for a while.

Let us know if you run into any problems.

Need help with Yelp?

I recently got this letter from a concerned business owner asking for help with a review of his business on Yelp.

He felt strongly that the negative review about him was fraud, but Yelp was filtering the positive reviews and left the negative one front & center. He felt helpless and was pleading for assistance because it was harming his reputation and business.

This brings up a good point about reviews & review sites in general. You (real estate Brokers, Agents & Offices) should be vigilantly monitoring sites like Yelp for reviews about your business (especially negative ones) because left unchecked they can cause a lot of harm to your business.

Review sites have become wildly popular because they make it to compare businesses or service providers before deciding which to choose. The problem is that anonymous review sites like Yelp are easily abused. Someone's competitor can easily post crank reviews of them or post extremely flattering reviews of themselves. Yelp works hard to filter bogus reviews but they don't catch them all.

2 tips immediately come to mind to combat negative reviews:

1) Always be collecting your own reviews, get them verified & share them everywhere. This is probably the one that will give your business the highest payback over time. Make it a habit to collect real feedback from your customers and share that feedback (your endorsements) everywhere. These endorsements can also be 'verified legitimate' by a 3rd party service like ReachFactor.

Once you have them, promote endorsements on your website, make sure they're announced on Facebook and Twitter, and make sure the endorsements are easily indexed by Google (Google shows endorsements in Pages and map results). You want as many positive statements about you appearing in as many places as possible online.

Sound hard? It's not -- ReachFactor was specifically created to automate the endorsement-gathering-and-disseminating process for real estate professionals. You can use it to collect endorsements for free, forever.

2) Don't be quiet. Be sure to comment on negative reviews in a thoughtful, professional manner. If you suspect the review may have been posted by a competitor ask the reviewer to post proof they've used you before. People reading review sites want to hear the entire story, so be transparent and ask the reviewer to be transparent also. If they're perpetrating a fraud, chances are good they'll go silent and it'll become apparent to anyone reading your reviews who was telling the truth.  A negative review is a chance to show future customers how you handle customer service - it's another opportunity to shine.

Can you think of other ways to handle negative reviews (real or not)?  Let us know!

If your business is slowing.. check this first!

Many business owners who've experienced success in the past tend to fall into a trap. They stop thinking about whether their client's behavior has changed.  This is especially true in highly dynamic markets like real estate where technology's played a huge role.

Though the service you offer may still be the same it always has, you have to stop and think about where your potential customers get their information, how they make the decision to 'buy' or not, and what traits they value most.

There was a great blog post by Les McKeown over at Predictable Success about this very topic and he sums it up nicely:

Does your business growth seem sluggish? Not sure why? Then chances are, you're seeing your target customer / client through a distorted, out-of-date lens. 

The answer? No matter how much you love them, don't allow your current customers to act as an echo chamber for your misperceptions. Instead, go talk with very recent prospects - especially those you didn't land as customers or clients. They'll tell you what they were looking for that you didn't see or 'get'. Re-calibrate accordingly.

Hope you can make this kind of reflection a standard practice in your business..

Are you a ReachFactor promoter? We'd like to reward you!

Thanks everyone for your referrals. We wanted to do something great to reward you for helping us spread the word. We just released a new feature called Invites that rewards people who refer us business as well as those people who sign up because of a referral.

Using Invites is easy. While you're logged into ReachFactor click the Invites tab. You can import your address book or enter the email address of colleagues you'd like to refer to ReachFactor. Both you and they will earn free marketing credits when they register for a ReachFactor account.

You can visit the Invites tab at any time to see how many Invitations you've sent, how many have accepted, and how many marketing credits you've earned.

Tip: for those of you with large networks -- sign up for a Free ReachFactor account and invite all your friends/colleagues. You'll basically end up earning a high-volume ReachFactor account for free, and you and the people you've referred will save hundreds of dollars per month. Pretty sweet? We think so!

Happy marketing.
Suresh

ReachFactor feedback from a Broker in Wisconsin

Here's a recent comment received from a ReachFactor user. Please keep sending us your feedback - we love hearing from you.


"I have had a great experience in partnering with ReachFactor. It is an excellent tool for networking with present and future clients, real estate agents and the unlimited potential for new opportunities! I have received some terrific feedback from past clients who were pleased and wanted to share their real estate experience working with me. ReachFactor is an invaluable tool that promotes and certainly validates my career, knowing that my time and energy is not only recognized, but appreciated and shared with everyone! 

Robert Diamond, Broker-agent 
Wisconsin lakefront and farmland homes
Century 21 Affiliated
Wauwatosa, Wisconsin

Don't lower your commission - fight back with reviews!

There was an interesting piece written in Forbes this year about how merchants who collect reviews and endorsements land more business and make more money on average than those that don't. It makes intuitive sense of course, but how many real estate agents make it a habit to collect reviews & promote them?

We've all heard the phrase.. "would you ever go to the cheapest lasik surgeon?' The same is true of selecting any service professional. Do you want the cheapest one? This could potentially be the largest purchase or sale in your life. But real estate professionals on the whole are just too busy to make a coordinated effort to ask for an endorsement and continue following up until they've received one.

I believe all agents should be collecting endorsements all the time. Positive endorsements can help swing conversations away from lowering your commissions to the tactics to getting a home sold - which is where the conversation should be anyway.

The key to collecting and promoting endorsements is that they must be believable. How many times have you read a Yelp review only to wonder if it was bogus or not? Yelp allows anonymous reviews which I believe are on their way out. If someone is going to trust the word of someone else, it should be verified legit. At ReachFactor we verify reviews that come in based on transaction information and other audit mechanisms.

If you're not convinced that collecting reviews could mean the difference between a 2% and 3% commission, check out these stats: According to comScore and the Kelsey Group, nearly 25% of Internet users reported reading online reviews prior to paying for an offline service. 80% of them claimed the reviews had a significant influence on their purchasing habits. Depending on what is needed, consumers were willing to pay a mark-up of 20% to 100% for services and products with excellent peer ratings on review sites.

Would love your thoughts. Please comment.

To read the full Forbes article, please go here:
http://www.forbes.com/2010/07/14/internet-yelp-digg-technology-recommendations.html

The costliest mistake a real estate agent can make

In my previous business we helped over 50,000 small businesses launch websites, from restaurants and plumbers to landscapers, real estate agents, retailers, and travel operators. We've been offering technology to real estate pros for many years now (we power the official Website builder for some of the largest brands in real estate). I've also bought and sold several homes using agents. I've always asked friends/family for a recommendation choosing an agent mostly because I didn't know what else to trust (some of those recommendations were good, some turned out very bad).

I spend a lot of time now thinking about how agents could become more successful. By success I mean how they could save time and sell more.

I believe the costliest mistake most agents make is that they don't collect enough feedback from past clients and they don't properly promote these endorsements. I grew that last business on the back of word of mouth referrals and by promoting the testimonials we’d received. I think Agents can do the same. 

By collecting feedback you can discover your own behavior that customers did not like and change them. More importantly, if you're a great agent the feedback will likely come in the form of a great endorsement. This endorsement is the strongest marketing material you can create because it will sell for you.

An endorsement speaks directly to your best prospects - those who are actively looking for an agent. As long as you are doing marketing that reaches them, and you can get (credible) endorsements in front of them, you can increase your lead volume and your lead-to-close rates. Your cost to acquire a new customer can fall dramatically.

I was talking to an agent who helped me sell my last home. He said that he spends $200,000 per year marketing. He said that in the good old days he used to list and close 150-200 properties per year. Today his marketing budget is the same, yet he’ll close just 60-70. His minimum cost to acquire a customer has gone from $1,300 to $3,333. I asked him if he was planning to pull back on the marketing to bring his costs down and he said no. He feared that if he did he'd lose market share and his flow would drop considerably lower than 60/year. He does not currently collect feedback and hence can't use them in his marketing -- but I bet if he did he'd lower his acquisition costs and he’d be much more profitable.

I asked him why he doesn’t use endorsements in his business. He said:

• It's time consuming. Once he’s completed a sale, he focuses very hard on getting the next one – he can’t afford to lose time. Chasing past clients down for an endorsement can consume a lot of time and he doesn’t want his marketing assistant spending all her time doing this.
• He thought that it might reduce his reputation if it looked like he was begging for a good testimonial.
• He thought endorsements look too 'canned' - they're not credible enough because prospects have no way to verify that they're real.
• He also didn’t know where he’d promote them once he got them.
• He didn’t say this directly, but I also think he feared receiving negative feedback. He talked a little about how things can slip when handling 10-15 escrows at a time – so he didn’t want to take his eye off the ball.

All good thoughts, but I believe real testimonials from real people can help agents and consumers. Honest reviews can help consumers know more about an agent before reaching out to them and it can dramatically reduce the amount of ‘salesmanship’ agents must do to close business.

Have any of you used endorsements to fuel your business? Please share.

Our new application, ReachFactor.com, aims to help great agents enhance their reputation and credibility and make them more discoverable by prospects. We do this a number of ways, but our automated Survey tool is a big part of it. In its current form the Survey tool puts the process of collecting verified endorsements on auto-pilot. We'll add much more around promoting endorsements for you in the coming weeks. If you'd like a little help, our Survey tool for real estate agents is 100% free right now and you don't need to give us a credit card to sign up.

In the meantime, I’m going to give my old agent a call and see if we can help him get more profitable. I'll share results when we get them.

What does your "About Me" page say about You?

Many agent websites have an "About Me" link on it. I think it's a good idea to have one especially because you sell a very personal service. You probably don't need it to be very elaborate if you have an up to date blog on Active Rain, a Facebook or a Twitter profile that gives users a really good idea about your personal motivations. Just be sure to link to those other services where people can read more about you.

From experience I know that most agents leave the About Me page filled with 'canned' text that came preloaded with their website builder software. No one likes to read that boring, monotonous pre-made text that's duplicated on thousands of other websites. Is it really about you if 50,000 other agent sites say the exact same thing? Are you just a drone in an army of robots? Of course not.

If you're guilty of this (and you know who you are!) jump straight into your website right now and re-do your About Me page. A well-written About Me page is a great sales pitch. It's your chance to relate to your website visitor using a very personal tone & point of view. 

There are two kinds of people likely to read your About Me page, a prospective customer or an employer. You need to give them what they're looking for:

• Who am I? (use your name, highlight credentials, education experience)
• Why am I an agent? (personal motivation)
• What do I do? (service types)
• When did I start?
• How do I do it? (your method of delivering great service & marketing)

Before people do business with you they want to know who you are and what motivates you. They also want to know why they should choose you. If you're a listing agent with an MBA and solid marketing background, make sure those facts are screaming off the page. If you are a professionally ranked tennis player and represent professional athletes looking to buy homes - make it known! Your About Me page relates directly to your reputation.

A great About Me page will shorten your sales cycle. Quick, get your new About Me page up and leave everyone else in the dust. Happy selling.

Why real estate agents should love negative feedback

There are at least 2 important values you get from negative feedback.

1. Complaints can help improve your business. How to communicate better, how to set expectations, how to provide better service, etc. You can tailor your service to what people really expect. 
2. Negative feedback is often a hand raised for help. It is an opportunity to turn people around, make them happy, or right a wrong. Only if you ask for feedback will you receive it and be able to act on it.

I've met a lot of business owners who turn sour at the thought of receiving negative feedback or complaints. Many real estate agents go to great lengths to ignore complainers or cringe at the thought of asking for feedback. I often hear the excuse that "the best real estate agents are not necessarily the most liked." I have a very tough time accepting that argument. We're living in the world of Yelp. Reviews propagate with amazing speed.

You've gotta think about your customers in either of 2 camps, Promoters or Detractors.

• Promoters = will recommend you to others
• Detractors = will tell others to not use you

There's one important lesson I learned in the last 15 years running businesses. Customers who complain care. If a customer who complains doesn't get an adequate reply and you notice the complaining stops, you can be sure you've lost at least one customer for good.

The problem in the real estate business is that transactions rarely happen with the same person more than once every few years so it's very easy to overlook the value of collecting real honest feedback. What we need to remember is that past customers are likely to be asked by friends whether they'd recommend you. You've gotta make sure the answer is always "YES."

If you're like me and you'd love to get a steady stream of new business at low cost (where new customers come to you) you need to grow your Promoter population. To do this:

1. Always ask for feedback from your clients. You may get really great endorsements too.
2. Make sure the way you ask for feedback is non-threatening and does not bias the answer. If you ask for feedback in person or on the phone - people will tell you what you want to hear, not the truth.
3. If someone complains and would like a response be sure to promptly give them a response. If you're wrong, admit you're wrong and make it right. If you're not wrong, explain why. Be professional and courteous always.

The more Promoters you have the easier it will be to grow your business. Start collecting feedback today!

If you'd like an effortless way to collect feedback and reviews from past clients just email (suresh@reachfactor.com) or leave a comment. I'd be happy to get you access to our survey tool for free.

One tip to get that house sold using Facebook

Lots of real estate agents post a new property listing on Facebook only to watch those posts sit idle. They get nowhere beyond the agent’s own Facebook wall and in no time, poof- they become history! 

It’s estimated (by Facebook) that the average person has 120 friends in their network. Now let’s see if we can make those numbers work for us..

The way to get your property sold is to get the listing known & promoted well beyond your own network. It's not extremely difficult.

Here's how:

• Take any one of your new listings.
• Create a new Facebook post of that listing - include a brief description and include pictures if you can. (If you don’t know how to post listings into Facebook, we will help you do this.. contact us info @reachfactor.com for free assistance).
• Now, inside of Facebook “Like” your own post. This will promote the listing to your network.
• Next, contact the homeowner and let them know you’ve posted their listing on Facebook. Ask them to “Like” that listing. When they “Like” the listing, they are promoting the listing to their network of friends inside Facebook. So you’ve got another 120 people potentially viewing your listing information.
• Ask them to ask their friends and family to “Like” the listing too. Each time someone “Likes” the listing they are promoting the property to their own network. Suppose they have 10 family members on Facebook and each “Likes” the listing. You’re pushing the listing information now to over 1,000 people’s news feeds, most of them are probably people you don’t know.
• Finally, you should post news about this listing on Facebook. Be sure this is information that people will find newsworthy or interesting such as a price change, an open house, a virtual tour, or maybe a special event in town. Keeping your Facebook listing up-to-date with important information increases the awareness for that listing. Please don’t overdo it and don’t repeat the same things over and over - we all hate spam. The best commercial uses of Facebook promote personal, interesting, and timely events or things.

So give it a shot and see what happens. It’s easy, it’s free. 

Let us know how it goes.

8 Web page tips to increase leads

Here are some handy guidelines to make sure that all the traffic you receive at your website does not go to waste.

Think about these items as they relate to each of your Web pages. In my last business we thought through each of these items, modified, and then kept testing. We boosted our inbound lead rate from 3% to over 15% of website visitor traffic. Trust me, you can boost your rate too.

1. Is there a visible call to action, such as "For more information, call me now!" Seems silly, but most people don't actually ask a user to take any action from a Web page.

• Think through what specific action you ultimately want the visitor to take. Do you want them to call you, or email you, or fill out a form?
• Are there any barriers to them taking this action? Maybe your contact information is not present on the page. Do they need to fish around to find your contact form? Or maybe you have a second call to action, like "Click here to view more" which prevents them from taking the main call to action?

2. Is contact information readily available (and functional) such as phone, email, chat or a form? If not, can it be moved to a more prominent position or emphasized with more active colors or animation?

3. Is the layout and design consistent from one page to the next? Should a user navigate deeper into your site, are key elements such as contact points, primary navigation, etc, presented in identical areas?

4. Is your information presented clearly? Is it clear why YOU are the expert?

5. Are the images you use appealing?

6. Does your content emphasize quality and trust? People will not give you their email address if they think you're going to spam them or sell their email address to someone else. Contact info (email) is personal and valuable. Make sure they know you can be trusted with this information, and make sure they get something valuable in return for giving you their personal information.

7. Do you feature past customer reviews or testimonials? Can the information be presented in a more prominent position? Can your page be shared on social networks and RSS feeds?

8. On the whole, is your page free of clutter? Are there elements that can be (tested) and potentially removed?

Give it a whirl and let us know how it goes. Please comment and let us know what's worked for you.

3 SEO tips for mattreeser.com you can implement too

I sent this note to a top producing client of ours in Los Angeles. I’ll reproduce the email ‘as is’ - hope you can apply some tips to your own site. - Suresh

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Hi Matt,

Was just looking at your site. I had some suggestions to help you improve your search engine rank.

On your home page you have several cities with underlines.

1) Create one page devoted to each city within your site. when you’ve created those pages of content, link to them from your home page. This will help you boost your site’s relevance for the different cities you serve. Check out the screen shot I attached to give you a better idea what I mean.

2) Make sure to embed a Title Tag for each one of those cities that’s very specific to that city and the content you’re writing. For example, for the Granada Hills page, write about the market conditions in Granada Hills, maybe there are some streets there that are particularly good values, or hot spots, etc. For the title tag write something like “15 Secrets to Granada Hills Real Estate No One Will Tell You | Mattreeser.com.” If this is your title, be sure that the page delivers on this promise. This will help you drive visitors to each city page directly.

3) Be sure to drop some call-to-action on that page too. Like, let’s say that on the page you give 10 tips instead of 15. Your call to action might say: “Ok, the last 5 tips I’ll share with you in person. Send me an email or call me right now and I’ll fill you in.” The kinds of people that will find this page are not likely to go through your site. They will email you and move on to Google search again.

So be sure you link to your contact form, email address or give your phone # right there so it’s easy for them to reach out to you (so they don’t have to scroll up or down to find the contact info).

I hope this helps. If you implement this tip, please keep me posted on how this works out.

C21 Website builder new release

Today we released a new feature and some clarification for our C21 WebBuilder.

If you use one of themes that has subpages you’ll notice that you can now order these subpages.  Phew, no more need to create pages in the right order!

We also took out references to IDX in the WebBuilder because they were misleading.  And clarified some of the text during the initial signup process.

Thanks for your support and please let us know how we can continue to improve the product for you on our forums.