This picture accurately describes what I have been feeling for the past few days after the 2nd Virtual Real Estate BarCamp on January 4th, 2010. It is vital to create a plan of action after an event like that or else the force of the information will just knock you over and you won’t take any action at all.

I will display the variety of classes and reveal just how hard it was to decide on which sessions to attend. Thankfully, all webinars were recorded and we will soon have the opportunity as free registrants to have access to them. The future plan is to have Virtual Real Estate BarCamps quarterly so the next one will be scheduled some time in April of this year.

I will list the classes that I attended, share some golden nuggets of wisdom that stood out to me, and specify my 3 focus goals from this event.

Flickr – The Last Truly Social, Social Network

I really underestimated this class. I really just thought Flickr was only a photo sharing site. I didn’t realize there is much more going on with groups and interaction with people. I have a Flickr icon on this blog but I haven’t activated my account, therefore it is not visible to you. I was inspired to open a Flickr account with some great ideas for photo uploads to my future account.

Twitter Essentials For 2010

I really loved the energy of Nicole & Reggie Nicolay! Their presentation was full of zest, passion, zeal and most importantly great Twitter ideas. My favorite tips from them were “Have a Tweet Plan” & “Give Your Content Legs” which means utilizing the RT (retweet) plugin on your blog which is the green button at the top of this post. So go ahead and click on that RT button now so others can read and share this article on Twitter.

Dominate Your Real Estate Market With Facebook

Ross Hair shared the power of creating Facebook groups and fan pages. Facebook groups allows you to email everyone in your group, however fan pages has a different spin on it. He didn’t get into this aspect, but I will share with you that Facebook fan pages allows your content to be displayed in the newsfeed of your fans. If your friends comment or like anything on your fan page, all of your network will be able to view their action which can cause others to join your fan page. Facebook fan pages are also indexed on Google which allows more Google juice for you and groups are not indexed on search engines. He prefers groups but I prefer Facebook fan pages.

The Value of Adding Posterous To Your Tool Belt

It was interesting to learn about posterous, a new way of blogging by sending emails to post@posterous.com of text posts, photos, videos, MP3’s and files. To me, it doesn’t replace blogging in itself. I believe it’s another avenue to share content with a new audience. Brad Carroll from Dakno shared an incredible tip about creating a custom domain name instead of naomitrower.posterous.com as this creates more Google juice for posterous. He suggests creating a sub-domain of your existing domain name so all of the SEO will go towards your site.

7 Strategies For Connecting With Agents

This class was specifically for mortgage professionals and I really enjoyed Mark Madsen’s presentation. He shared about establishing relationships with realtors that have blogs in your area by promoting their articles, tweeting about them on Twitter and posting their articles to your Facebook fan page. It’s a great way to build relationships. Be sure to be an active part of the realtor’s regular blog community and not a one time commenter.

Leverage The Power of Social Media in Real Estate

My friend, Jonathan Rivera shared about having your blog being the central focus of your marketing activity and having all of your social media sites pointing back to your blog, the main hub. This is the exact topic of my upcoming Social Media Marketing ebook with my major focus on Facebook, Twitter, Wordpress blogging and Active Rain. I already have LinkedIn, Posterous, & Flickr set in my mind for my next ebook.

Innovative Community Engagement Strategies

I had the opportunity to attend the LA Twitter conference with Pat Kitano so I was excited to hear that he was presenting at #vrebc. He really focused on having a hyperlocal focus in your community. I really love his idea of having a Breaking News Twitter account for your city. In fact, I LOVE my city so much that I started SCVBreakingNews and Pat is going to consult with me with a few more stellar ideas.

Now you can understand why I felt like this after this incredible event:

So instead of stressing out over my to do list, I decided to choose 3 areas to focus on this year:

1. Create a Flickr Account
2. Create SCVBreaking News Twitter Account
3. Create a Posterous Account

Stay tuned for the next Virtual Real Estate BarCamp event while I get ready for Mortgage Revolution!

Naomi Trower
Real Estate Broker
Premier Equity Group, Inc.
Real Estate Social Media Marketing
“Teaching Professionals Social Media”

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It is very special to be part of a 1st annual event of any venue. I was able to attend a few sessions of the 1st Virtual Real Estate BarCamp.

It was a full day of webinars on how to use Social Media in your Real Estate business.

You may be thinking, “What in the world is a Barcamp?” Wikipedia explains,


BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences (or unconferences) – open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.

There were 3 webinar rooms to choose from and here is the list of presenters and classes:

I started out my morning with:

Tom Ferry – 3 Ways Top Producers Are Making Sales with Social Media

Scott Sambucci – Beat The Headlines, Be The Local Market Expert

Ginger Wilcox & Hal Lublin – Secrets of Web Success for 2010

Mike Mueller – LinkedIn: The Red Headed Step Child of Social Media

Here are some of the key highlights:

• New site spatialmatch.com coming out in 2010 that allows you to search for certain homes by schools, starbucks, and shopping center proximities.
• 24% of all web activity is on Facebook
• Facebook users are on the site an average of 32 minutes / day
• Facebook users search on average 14 different pages / day
• Add SeeMyListings.com to your Facebook profile & fan page (my input: find mortgage calculators for the mortgage peeps)
• LinkedIn links such as My Blog & My Website are indexed on Google
• LinkedIn add in wordpress application to show live feed of your blog

There were a few sound glitches which is common but they were resolved. I enjoyed the presentations. I disagreed with a few things such as using ping.fm but that is just my personal preference.

Ping.fm is an application to update your status to all of your networks. I have a little different voice on each social network so I don’t have a need for ping.fm. I just focus on a select few social networks.

I’m looking around the web for a similar BarCamp for the mortgage side of the house. Be sure to let me know if you come across any mortgage related BarCamps. I will continue to keep my eyes open for any new and upcoming workshops.

Which one of these classes would be of interest to you? Let me know in the comments.

Naomi Trower
Real Estate Broker
Premier Equity Group, Inc.
Real Estate Social Media Marketing
“Teaching Professionals Social Media”

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Will you be attending Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Webinar on Nov. 17th, 2009?

It is a FREE Webinar for Real Estate Professionals that want to explore various social media avenues to market your business.

I sent in a request to be a presenter and I am currently on a waiting list if anyone cancels! Social media is definitely a hot topic in the real estate and mortgage industry.

It is very obvious by the rapid pace that people are becoming fans of my Real Estate Social Media Marketing fan page, that there is a definite need for this particular market.

As I browsed the webinar schedule, I noticed that there were no Facebook or Twitter topics. I decided to fill that void by sending in my request to be a presenter. As I stated previously, I am on the waiting list for this webinar but you will have the opportunity to read my presentation on the same day.

On November 17, 2009, the same day as Virtual Real Estate BarCamp,  my article will be featured in Social Media Examiner, one of Technorati’s Top 100 Small Business Blogs. My article will be entitled,  “5 Ways to Promote Your Facebook Fan Page” so be sure to check it out next week. Don’t worry, I will remind you. **UPDATE** You can view the article now at the link above.

Be prepared to learn the best strategies to market your business on Facebook without sounding like a used car salesman.

There is no need for cold calling in this industry any longer. So save the date! Nov. 17th, 2009 will be an exciting day for Real Estate & Mortgage Professionals.

Let’s ride the wave together. Leave a note in the comments which topic is of most interest to you.

Naomi Trower
Real Estate Broker
Premier Equity Group, Inc.
Real Estate Social Media Marketing
“Teaching Professionals Social Media”

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