Social marketing, or blogging, is all the rage, but without good content Internet visitors won’t be spending time reading your posts. Marketing your name and services on the Internet is one free way to get lots of exposure.
What makes a blog successful?
The behind-the-scenes folks at the ActiveRain real estate blogging site, www.activerain.com, compiled this list of successful content topics from their most active real estate blogs.
Topics include:
- Coaching new members about the industry & blogging.
- Real estate, homes for sale, buying real estate, investing in real estate.
- About listing homes for sale. How to list homes for sale
- Local content and tie it back to their real estate businesses.
- Promoting services to buyers and sellers.
- Promoting the success of other ActiveRain members.
- Discussing market conditions on local, national levels.
- Sharing stories of open houses, listing appointments gone wrong, closings that don't close and the sheer joy of getting a family into the home of their dreams!
- Brokerage issues.
- Mortgages and financing options for homebuyers.
- Sharing information on how to protect your business.
- Home inspection information for buyers.
- Talking about professional certifications.
- Seller tips, information about home staging and preparing your home for sale.
- Talking about Realtor and mortgage professional relationships.
- Real estate taxes.
- How to choose your inventory of listings.
- Homeowners insurance and natural disasters, such as hurricanes that might affect buyers and sellers.
- Cool tools to run make your business more efficient or write about something to affect how we think.
- Tossing ideas around about search engine optimization and Web sites.
Take a look at what other successful bloggers are doing. InmanNews, for example, has listed its Top 25 Most Influential Real Estate Bloggers in 2007. These bloggers, according to Inman, have a knack for stirring up debate about industry issues while adding a fun voice to “gnarly” real estate issues.
Here’s the list in no particular order:
Broker and Agent Blogs
- Teresa Boardman
Founder, St. Paul Real Estate Blog http://www.stpaulrealestateblog.com/
Realtor, Keller Williams Integrity Realty
- Ardell Della Loggia
Founder, SearchingSeattleBlog
http://www.searchingseattleblog.com/
Designated Broker, Brio Realty
- Marlow Harris
Founder, 360Digest
http://www.360digest.com/
Real Estate Agent, Coldwell Banker Bain Associates
- Doug Heddings
Founder, TrueGotham
http://www.truegotham.com/
Founder, The Heddings Property Group, LLC
- Noah Rosenblatt
Founder, Urbandigs.com
http://www.urbandigs.com/
Senior Associate Broker, Citi-Habitats
Community/ Multi-Author Blogs
- Dustin Luther
Founder, Rain City Guide
http://www.raincityguide.com/
Director of Interactive Marketing, Move
- Greg Swann
Founder, Bloodhound Blog
http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/
Broker, Bloodhound Realty
Mortgage
- Morgan Brown
Founder, Blown Mortgage http://www.blownmortgage.com/
Chief Operating Officer, New Day Trust
- Todd Carpenter
Founder, Lenderama
Founder, Mariah.com
http://blog.mariah.com/
http://www.mariah.com/
- CR and Tanta
Bloggers, Calculated Risk
http://calculatedrisk.blogspot.com/
- Paul Jackson
Founder, Housing Wire
http://www.housingwire.com/
Housing Economics
- Jonathan Miller
Founder, Matrix
http://matrix.millersamuel.com/
Executive Vice President, Radar Logic
Industry Commentary
- Kevin Boer
Founder, 3 Oceans Real Estate
http://3oceansrealestate.com/blog/
Principal, Domus Consulting Group
- Joel Burslem
Founder, Future of Real Estate Marketing
http://www.futureofrealestatemarketing.com/
Social Media Manager, Inman News
- Patrick Kitano
Founder, Transparent Real Estate
http://www.transparentre.com/
Principal, Domus Consulting Group
Marketing and How-To
- Jim Cronin
Founder, Real Estate Tomato
http://realestatetomato.typepad.com/
Owner, TomatoBlogs.com
- Joseph Ferrara, Rudolph D. Bachraty III
Co-Founders, Sellsius Real Estate Blog
http://blog.sellsiusrealestate.com/
Owners, Sellsius Real Estate
Local Blogging
- Jonathan Butler
Founder, Brownstoner
http://www.brownstoner.com/
- Adam Koval
Founder, SocketSite
http://www.socketsite.com/
Company Bloggers
- David Gibbons
Director of Community Relations, Zillow
http://www.zillowblog.com/
- Glenn Kelman
CEO, Redfin
http://blog.redfin.com/
Journalist Blogs
- John Cook
Reporter, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/venture/
Writer, John Cook's Venture Blog
- Peter Coy, Dean Foust, Chris Palmeri, Maya Roney
Reporters, BusinessWeek loggers, BusinessWeek's Hot Property blog
http://www.businessweek.com/the_thread/hotproperty/
Bubble Bloggers
- Keith
Founder, Housing Panic
http://housingpanic.blogspot.com/
- Patrick Killelea
Founder, Patrick.net
http://patrick.net/wp/
Blogger, Reality Parser