3 Ways to Get Out of a Creative Hole

Sometimes you fall and you can’t get up!  By that I mean, sometimes you fall into a hole and you can’t think of a single thing to blog about.

Don’t despair.  It happens to all of us.  Sometimes it happens because you’ve been busy on a project or with a particularly demanding client.  Sometimes it happens when you’ve taken a short break or a vacation and stopped focusing or your blog for a few days.  Sometimes your creative juices just aren’t flowing.

I know the feeling because it has been happening to me; for several days over the last week, I attended a conference that had nothing to do with technology or real estate and for those few days, I didn’t even think about my blog.  The result is that now, I need to reprime the pump in order to come up with new ideas.

What to do when you can’t come up with a good idea for your blog?  Here are three suggestions.

• Write about what you’ve been doing.  If you took a vacation or spent some time with your family, write a blog piece about something funny or interesting that happened.  In fact, including occasional pieces about yourself and what you do outside of your professional life helps people identify with you.  But keep it short and don’t do it often.  After all, prospects are more interested in real estate than they are in you.
• Find the real estate connection in ordinary events.  For example, the venue for the conference I attended was a Michigan Avenue hotel in downtown Chicago.   I couldn’t help but notice the vacancies on and around the Magnificent Mile, including an indoor mall built on Michigan Avenue only a few years ago that is now shuttered.  My observation could spawn a series of articles about the state of commercial real estate.
• Write about your writer’s block.  People who write for a living will tell you that one of the best ways to outwit writer’s block is to start writing about it.  If you have nothing profound or earth shattering to say, write about that.  It won’t be long before you have an entire article and you’re back on track.

Website Offers Free Plans for Sustainable Homes

Environmentally-conscious consumers now have a place to find plans for sustainable homes.  And the best part is, many plans are free.

FreeGreen, the collaboration of a diverse group of progressive, energetic architects, engineers, and entrepreneurs, lets visitors view and download plans to many styles of affordable, durable, energy-efficient homes.

Select a home and view 3-D renderings of the interior as well as explanations of the home’s sustainability features.  A plan I previewed, for example had, among other features, a flat roof for solar panels and a south-facing orientation to facilitate solar heating.  Choose a home you like and download the plans along with information on estimated energy and building costs—all for free with a basic membership.  Premium members have access to additional features.

Prefer a custom-designed, sustainable home? FreeGree can prepare plans to meet consumers’ specifications quickly and inexpensively.

It’s a fun site to visit and a great place to send clients or builders looking for green home ideas.

Why Facebook is Where You Need to Be

Source: www.retrevo.com

A bunch of data on the Internet in recent days confirms it:  Facebook is where you need to be if you want people to know about you and what you’re doing.  Facebook is surpassing Yahoo! on a number usage measures and is slowly gaining on Google.

Consider the following:

• Americans spend more time on Facebook. The Nielson Company reports that the average American spent just under 6 1/2 hours on Facebook in February, 2010, compared to approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes on Yahoo!, which came in second.
• Americans get a growing amount of information from Facebook. A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle underscores how Americans are doing less navigating of the Internet on their own and more navigating and making choices based on recommendations from friends.  Facebook is a big part of this.  For example, Techcrunch reports that 44% of the items shared on the web in the past month were shared on Facebook.  (The next closest was Twitter at 29%.)
• Facebook is starting to challenge Google as the most visited website.  According to Experian Hitwise, Facebook received 7.07% of all Internet visits during the week ending March 13th—more than Google, which received only 7.03%.  This happened once before, during the Holidays in 2009, and experts expect that it will continue to happen.
• Facebook is a constant in the lives of many Americans. Consider the recent study , for example, that reported that 30% of social media users say they check for new posts during the night!

Facebook is where people are looking for information and finding it.  If you’re not there, you should be.

How to Be Sure Prospects Can Find You

Recently, Chicago real estate professional Andrea Geller wrote about her frustration at trying to find the contact information of an agent in another state to whom she was referring one of her clients.   She wanted to learn something about that agent and maybe even talk to them before passing her client along.  But that out-of-state agent couldn’t be found on Google.   In fact, it took Andrea a good bit of work to find a direct link to that agent on the Internet.

What if a consumer or another agent were trying to find you?  What would they get if they googled your name? How much searching would they have to do on the Internet before they found your contact information?  And if someone did contact you based on an Internet search, how long would it take you to answer?

Here are the five minimum things you should do to make sure prospects and colleagues can find you with ease:

1. Have a LinkedIn profile.  Your LinkedIn profile serves as an online résumé that will come up whenever anybody googles you name.
2. Have a Google profile. Google also lets you create a profile, in which you can write a description of yourself, upload photos, and provide links to other applications you use on the Web.
3. Be on Facebook. A Facebook Fan Page is ideal because it lets you keep your friends and family separate from your professional image, and because the person looking for you wouldn’t have to have a Facebook account to find you.
4. Check Your Broker’s Site. Make sure your contact information is easy to find and up to date on your broker’s website.  If you can’t control what’s on your broker’s site, get your own website.
5. Have Your Own Website.  Even if you do have input regarding what appears on your broker’s site, you should have your own website.  On your own website, you can express our individuality, show your professionalism, and demonstrate how you differ from your colleagues.  A blog is even better than a static website because it allows you to easily update the site’s content.

There is more you can do.  But if you can’t find yourself when you google your name, start with these.

Podcasting for Real Estate

If sitting down and writing a blog is not your thing, consider podcasting as an alternative.

A podcast is a special kind of audio file that you create and that your “readers” can download and listen to whenever they like. Typically, podcasts are made to sound like mini radio shows with lead-in theme music and a different topic each week.  Prospective listeners can subscribe to your shows so they never miss out and they can listen on an iPod or simply through their computer speakers.

Podcasts are relatively inexpensive and easy to make.  If you get in the habit of producing and posting them regularly, people will get in the habit of listening, especially if you offer information that’s valuable, informative, and entertaining. Podcasts can position you as the real estate expert in your community, the go-to person when a journalist needs a knowledgeable real estate resource.  They can also help you build a following among prospective buyers and sellers in your area.

To be fair, podcasting is not as exciting a tool as it was a few years ago.  The rise of YouTube, along with iPods and smartphones that can play visual content, have pushed podcasting to the side a little bit.  But it still has its place.

Take a look (or rather have a listen) at how these real estate professionals are using podcasts:

• Kevin Cottrell at Cottrell Realty Group sets up his site so that you’re immediately drawn in by the energy of the announcer’s voice on the St. Louis Real Estate Today Podcast.
• Connor McIvor of ReMax of Santa Clarita produces a 20-minute show on the Santa Clarita Podcasting Network in which he interviews experts on real estate related topics.
• Melinda Duncan at ReMax Creative Realty offers sound advice and useful information on Real Estate 101 with Melinda Duncan.