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	<title>MLS Listings for CT Real Estate with the CTMLS &#187; Facebook</title>
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	<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com</link>
	<description>CT REALTORS search helpful tools and learn about CTMLS</description>
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		<title>The 7 Musts of Internet Marketing</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2013/02/27/the-7-musts-of-internet-marketing/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2013/02/27/the-7-musts-of-internet-marketing/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:11:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[blogging]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Podcasting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SEO]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2913</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Every day when you fire up the Interwebs and read about the latest trend in social media or web marketing you may become overwhelmed with how much it really takes to get your website noticed and in turn get more clients. It&#8217;s a stressful thing for me and that is my ONE job, Internet Marketing, I can only imagine how much stress it adds to your day. Then I got to thinking about it and realized that there are really only seven things that every good internet marketer does to get noticed and drive business online. They are not seven small things and they take a considerable amount of time to accomplish, but when done right they can be the key driving more traffic and ultimately more leads to your business. So put down that Instagram app. Stop tweeting. Start doing the things that will actually get you noticed online and turn into business for your company. 1.) Search Engine Optimization: If you forget everything else you read in this blog post&#8230;DON&#8217;T FORGET #1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the critical piece to your Internet Marketing efforts. It takes time, it is not easy, but when done right it can drive traffic like you wouldn&#8217;t believe. How important is it? Consider that the #1 search result on Google gets 70% of all clicks. That means if you are #1 you will get 70% of all people who are searching for your expertise coming to your website. Now THAT&#8217;S important. If you don&#8217;t have time to learn about SEO or you just plain don&#8217;t want to, don&#8217;t ignore it, hire someone. It&#8217;s that important. Consider this your advertising budget. 2.) Blogging: This goes hand in hand with SEO. Blogging is a great way to create optimized content for your website which will in turn help with getting your website seen and displayed in the top of the search results pages. This is a critical piece to your internet marketing efforts as well. In fact, you&#8217;re reading our blog right now&#8230;how did you find us? Were we #1 on Google? Again, a blog takes time, so if you can&#8217;t dedicate yourself to it, hire someone. It&#8217;s that important. 3.) E-mail marketing: Ok ok, before you get all web 2.0 on me and say that e-mail marketing is dead, let&#8217;s think about this for a second. What was the first or second thing you did this morning when you woke up? If you said, checked my e-mail, you just proved my point. E-mail marketing is not dead, it is a very valuable tool to use to reach out to potential/past clients. 4.) Facebook: The dreaded FACEBOOK. Everybody is concerned about privacy with Facebook. Everyone is bemoaning all the nonsense they read on Facebook. Yet, everyone is using Facebook. In fact, 1 BILLION people and counting are using Facebook. If you&#8217;re business is not on Facebook you are missing out in a big way. 5.) YouTube: Have you ever once viewed one of our CTMLS videos on YouTube? It&#8217;s been a valuable tool for us to help train you on our systems. However, it goes WAY beyond that. YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web. If you&#8217;re not using it, you&#8217;re missing out on a tremendous opportunity to reach potential clients and bring them in to your business. 6.) Podcasting: You won&#8217;t find many Internet Marketing &#8220;gurus&#8221; telling you to spend any amount of time telling you to produce audio podcasts, but my background is in radio and I am a true believer in the fact that you can create great content for potential clients to find and listen to while driving around your community. Maybe you could create a walking tour of your town. Get creative and this could really work for you. 7.) You: You are a major part of your company&#8217;s Internet Marketing efforts. Even if you pay someone to help you with it you must have major input and be the driving force behind it. Remember you are the local expert and that needs to translate 100% online. If it doesn&#8217;t or your efforts come off disingenuous then you&#8217;re wasting your time/money. How do you handle the Internet Marketing for your CT real estate business? Do you do it? Your assistant? Do you pay an outside company? Share your thoughts in the comments below. More Reading:Why Analytics For Your Listings Matter 5 Ways To Instantly Improve Your Blog 5 Domain Names You Should Own Now 5 Things [...]]]></description>
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		<title>Video Games: Not Just Fun and Games Anymore</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/12/31/video-games-not-just-fun-and-games-anymore/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/12/31/video-games-not-just-fun-and-games-anymore/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 31 Dec 2012 14:23:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SimCity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social gaming]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Video games]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2792</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Remember when you playing video games meant an 8-bit character running in one dimension across your screen in an attempt to collect coins? Video games have advanced well past that today to be a virtual reality world that immerses the player in the game. Today&#8217;s games are not only realistic, they are also BIG BUSINESS. Video games are also not just reserved for the home theater system anymore. Increasingly larger swaths of the population on participating in online gaming across a wide-variety of platforms, most notably Facebook. Facebook games are an exploding business that are drawing in all kinds of businesses to not only develop and maintain these virtual worlds, but also to sell advertising in them. That&#8217;s right, it&#8217;s a unique way to gain eyeballs for your brand. Consider the recent example of Century 21 who touched their toes into the warm waters of Facebook gaming. After their recent advertising campaign the company saw a 225% increase in their Facebook likes. In this one case study, there is overwhelming evidence that advertising in video game platforms is not just a niche, fun, new advertising vehicle, it is proof positive that it works. Should you start advertising your Connecticut real estate business on Facebook social gaming platforms? If you want to reach a wide, engaged demographic, it wouldn&#8217;t be a bad place to start. Just don&#8217;t think that when you save the Princess the game is over. Have you tested the waters of video game advertising? What has been your experience? Share it in the comments below. More Reading:Why You Shouldn&#8217;t Include QR Codes In Your Internet Marketing What&#8217;s That? Print On The Go You Say? Tell Me More&#8230; Interesting New Tech: Would You Use It For Connecticut Real Estate? 5 Apps To Start Thinking About Now Where You Should Start With Technology]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Why Your Social Media Efforts Aren&#8217;t Working</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/09/18/why-your-social-media-efforts-arent-working/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/09/18/why-your-social-media-efforts-arent-working/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:25:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[LinkedIn]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[passion]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pinterest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sharing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Videos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2542</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I hear it all the time from Connecticut REALTORS®, &#8220;I would do social media, but I don&#8217;t think it works.&#8221; Truth be told, it probably doesn&#8217;t work. You probably post to Facebook a million times a day and no one ever responds. Maybe you spend your day buried in Twitter and get no retweets. YouTube, LinkedIn, Pinterest, all the same story, nothing to show for your efforts. Then the question becomes, WHY. Why aren&#8217;t I getting people to like my page? Why aren&#8217;t people following me? Subscribing to me? Re-pinning me? The simple answer is, you&#8217;re trying too hard. There, I said it. It&#8217;s true, you&#8217;re trying too hard. Let me tell you a story about a Facebook page owner who is having tremendous success using the medium. I will leave names and links out of it so as to not bias the success story. This business owner, has not even launched a website yet for her products, but she has already developed a big following on Facebook. She&#8217;s not an Internet Marketing phenom. She&#8217;s not a social media guru. So what&#8217;s her trick? She exudes passion for her business. We all say we&#8217;re passionate about Connecticut real estate, but how do we show it in social media? Are you sharing open houses? Boring. Are you posting each listing you have available? Someone hit the snooze button. This is not engagement this is self promotion and it doesn&#8217;t work. What does work is talking about the towns you represent in a way that offers value and demonstrates your knowledge. Share photos of events happening around your community. Shoot video of scenic spots for people thinking about moving to the area to enjoy. Why do you love the area? Engage people in a conversation about your town and why it is a great place to live. Share links about your town. These are things that show you are passionate. Being a REALTOR® on social media doesn&#8217;t work. What works is being a citizen of a wonderful community that you love and sharing that passion and excitement for your area with others online. The business owner I used as an example regularly posts photos and updates that seem organic and show a genuine interest in all things related to her business which happens to be a clothing business. She is not posting about which fabric she uses or which stitch she hemmed this morning. She is connecting on an emotional level, not a business level. Connect first. Sell later. Why are you passionate about your area? Share some thoughts in the comments below and include your Facebook page so we can like it for you and get the ball rolling. More Reading:Membership Blog: Sign It! E-mail Signatures What Is An Internet Meme and Why Should You Care? My Internet Marketing Pet Peeve Where I Get My Ideas For This Blog My Virtual Pet Peeve With Virtual Tours]]></description>
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		<title>Why You Shouldn&#8217;t Use Twitter</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/06/why-you-shouldnt-use-twitter/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/06/why-you-shouldnt-use-twitter/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 06 Jul 2012 12:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social networking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2068</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;ll be the first to admit that I am not a HUGE Twitter user, but I have used it and do use it from time to time. There is one problem though, it takes a LOT of time and I mean a LOT of time to get any return on investment. As a CT REALTOR® there is no question that you strapped for time, running from showing to showing, listing presentation to listing presentation, the last thing you have time for is to update your Twitter feed. Anyone that knows me knows that I am a HUGE proponent of Internet Marketing in fact, I teach a couple of classes on it. I think there is a tremendous upside to working hard on your Internet Marketing and utilizing some of the amazing tools that you have at your disposal, however, I do not think that Twitter is one of those amazing tools. Twitter has it&#8217;s place. It&#8217;s great for journalists and celebrities to connect with the public. It&#8217;s great for real time interaction with people from across the globe. You can search discounts and follow your favorite TV shows. There are a tremendous amount of uses for this social media platform, but CT real estate is NOT one of them. Why? Twitter is a quick hit medium, in other words it is very difficult to create meaningful and long lasting relationships on the site. You must engage with your followers on a daily basis and when you do, connecting with a potential client is a long shot. This is not to say that some haven&#8217;t had success with Twitter, because they undoubtedly have, but it is not the most effective medium for connecting with your clients. If you&#8217;re willing to put the time and effort in to developing a lasting relationship on Twitter, you may be able to leverage it, but if you&#8217;re not, you might as well start putting all of your efforts into Facebook, a social network that has a proven track record of success for REALTORS®. Do you use Twitter? Share your thoughts on the medium in the comments below. More Reading:What Is A Keyword And Why Should You Care? What Does Internet Y/N Mean Inside MLXchange? 10 Ways To Promote Your Connecticut Real Estate Business Through Search Engine Optimization You Can&#8217;t Do That On The Internet&#8230; Use This Surefire Technique To Drive Your Clients AWAY]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Be You. Be Unique.</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/04/be-you-be-unique/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/04/be-you-be-unique/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 04 Jul 2012 12:00:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brag books]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[business cards]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[clients]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[leads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[personality]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2130</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What sets you apart from other Connecticut real estate professionals? Do you sell more homes? Maybe. Do you have a bigger marketing budget? Maybe. Do you have more connections? Maybe. Think about this question in a deeper way though. What truly makes you unique. What is something that should make a lead go from considering a number of different CT REALTORS® to ultimately choosing you? I&#8217;ll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with volume of sales, marketing budgets or connections. It doesn&#8217;t even have to do with your fancy business cards or your souped up Facebook page. What can ultimately seal the deal and turn a lead into a client? YOU. That&#8217;s right, plain and simple it&#8217;s about you. Sure all of the other things are important and good to share, but ultimately it comes down to does the lead connect with you enough to trust you with one of the biggest decisions they will make in their entire lives. You&#8217;re probably thinking about how badly that stinks right? So it comes down to an intangible that you can&#8217;t fit on a business card or brag about using numbers. The person that is uniquely you isn&#8217;t a slogan or a head shot. The person that is uniquely you is spending time with your family at the beach, visiting friends for a glass of wine at dinner, playing softball on the weekends and chasing after your dog at the dog park. This is the person a lead will connect with and this is the person that a lead will want to work with. I am not suggesting shedding the business suit and the fancy listing presentation packages, these are important. I am suggesting that you shed the stuffy business facade and let your lead see the real you. Ultimately what is uniquely you will seal the deal. More Reading:Why You Shouldn&#8217;t Forget About Foursquare 7 Points Of Interest Your Clients Want To Know About Why You Should Be THRILLED About Facebook Timelines Are You Passionate About CT Real Estate? 7 Lessons To Take From March Madness]]></description>
		<wfw:commentRss>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/07/04/be-you-be-unique/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>Internet Marketing: What To Share On Facebook</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/15/internet-marketing-what-to-share-on-facebook/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/06/15/internet-marketing-what-to-share-on-facebook/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 15 Jun 2012 12:30:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Internet Marketing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[photos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[referrals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Videos]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[YouTube]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=2027</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[If you take my Internet Marketing 101 class, you&#8217;ll learn all about how to leverage Facebook for your business and what to share and what not to share on the social network. Truth be told, there is no silver bullet, no magic potion that will bring people in to your Facebook page and get them interacting with your business. It&#8217;s also not true (no matter how many social networking gurus tell you it is) that interactions equal business. Speaking of Facebook pages &#8211; want to like us? That being said, what interactions do lead to are likes and what likes lead to are more chances to turn people who have liked your page into clients, so interaction is still very important to your page. How do you get people to interact with you on Facebook? Here are a couple things to ALWAYS share with the people who have liked your page which will hopefully turn in to other people liking your page and growing that cycle. 1.) Referrals: If you aren&#8217;t already doing so, you need to ask your clients to write you a referral on Facebook. Ask them to &#8220;tag&#8221; you in a post (tell them to add an @ symbol in front of your name and then choose your page from the list that Facebook populates &#8211; they must have already liked your page for this to work) on their page that says how great you are. This will spread the message to their friends/family and will also post it to your wall so potential clients who find you on Facebook will see just how wonderful you are. 2.) Photos: Photos are the most shareable of all items on Facebook. Just as you would pay close attention to the photos you choose for your listings, you&#8217;ll want to pay special attention to the photos you share. Sharing things like photos of a local Apple festival or a the Little League fields in town, things that show you&#8217;re an expert in the town you specialize in and also are of some interest to people who might be looking for information about your town. 3.) Videos: Nearly more important then photos are videos. Did you know that YouTube is the second largest search engine on the web? Does knowing that change your opinion on how important it is to share videos? It should. Whether you&#8217;re on YouTube of Facebook, videos should be a critical component to your social marketing strategy. What types of things can you take videos of? Storm damage, a beautiful sunset, a parade &#8211; be creative, but don&#8217;t take your photos of each property and turn them in to a &#8220;virtual tour&#8221; by creating a video slideshow and calling that your video marketing strategy, that&#8217;s not going to fly. Social media can be VERY powerful for your business, but it takes hard work. People often say it&#8217;s free (I&#8217;ve been known to say that a time or two) and it is, but not when you count your time spent, because it can be very time consuming. However, when it is done right, you can certainly reap many rewards from it. Got some photos or videos your thinking about sharing on Facebook? Share them here first and we&#8217;ll let you know if you&#8217;re on the right track. Post a link in the comments below. More Reading:Using Facebook For Good: Proving The Medium 7 Tips for Connecting On Facebook How To: Reorder Your Photos In MLXchange You&#8217;ll LIKE This: Enter To Win A Free Professional Home Photo Shoot Why You Should Be Measuring Your Online Presence]]></description>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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		<title>What Facebook&#8217;s IPO Can Teach Us About CT Real Estate</title>
		<link>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/05/18/what-facebooks-ipo-can-teach-us-about-ct-real-estate/</link>
		<comments>http://ctmls.ctreal.com/2012/05/18/what-facebooks-ipo-can-teach-us-about-ct-real-estate/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 15:26:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Adam</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Pricing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[market conditions]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[seller]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://ctmls.ctreal.com/?p=1940</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Instant billionaire. That&#8217;s what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg became when he rang the opening bell for Nasdaq this morning. At $38/share the stock hit Wall Street with a bang and some skepticism and has the company valued at $104 billion. Many have called this valuation outrageous which fuels the skepticism. Is it outrageous? Truth be told, the market will ultimately dictate the answer to that question. The stock price will likely not sit at $38 all day today or moving forward. It will go up and down as the market continues to correct and ultimately price shares in the social company at the appropriate price. Let&#8217;s say Facebook overshot on it&#8217;s initial valuation of $38/share and ultimately the stock closes the day at $34/share. The market made that determination as to what the company was valued at, NOT the company itself. Is this starting to sound familiar? You go through this same situation very often with home owners who refuse to take your advice and list the property at the price the market would dictate. They&#8217;ve decided that ultimately their house is valued above the rest of the market and there is no budging on that. You can try to give them charts, market statistics, comps, etc. and nothing will change their mind, they&#8217;ve valued their home at a particular price and it&#8217;s staying there. So what ends up happening? The truth is, it&#8217;s an emotional versus reality type of situation with most homeowners. The concept is called Efficient Capital Markets. The prices reflect rational and unbaised valuations based on all available information. This is why most companies drop following an IPO, because they tell the market what they believe themselves to be worth, just like the homeowner telling the agent what they think their house is worth. Sometimes they are both in tune with the market, sometimes they are not. Eventually the market will do the work for you. It may take some time, but ultimately CT homes for sale are worth what buyers are willing to pay for them. At some point, after having waited days, weeks and even months, your seller will heed your concerns and reduce the price or risk having the property simply sit on the market for months and years. The market will have corrected the valuation of the property. The same will be true for the Facebook IPO today. Sure there will be people who will jump at the $38/share, but eventually the fervor over the valuable stock will wane and market conditions will adjust the companies valuation to what the market can truly handle. So watch the stock as it fluctuates today and over the course of the next couple of days and the next time you run into a client that wants to overshoot the price of their home, use this case in point as a clear example of the market setting the price which is what will happen to their property as well. More Reading:Setting Yourself and Your Clients Up For Success]]></description>
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