This post was inspired to day by my journeys into a website and the tweet that followed. I was visiting a link a friend sent about a place he was published on a photographers site. Being the good friend I went by to try and leave a comment of encouragement for the new blogger and for my friend. I was greeted by some obnoxiously loud music that almost made my eardrums bleed. I then tweeted: “I’ll say it once again, please disable auto play songs & videos on your site!”

I am sure you remember back in the day when Conan O’Brien had his infamous standing skit “In the Year 2000.” We would sit and laugh at that show as it poked fun at the future and things we would expect when it got here. Wondering would the internet survive the Y2K bug. Then the year 2000 came and left us quickly without much fanfare. We move forward and in 2003 came along a site called MySpace. We all rushed and created our account & started gathering friends as fast as we could.

We visited a friends site & grew an instant case of envy as we saw how much cooler their MySpace page was than ours. We began searching for free Myspace themes to “Pimp my Profile.” After giving the page a new look, we had to have our favorite song rocking out on home page in order to have a certain level of coolness.

Fast Forward to Today

Unfortunately some got stuck in the mid 2000’s where it was not only acceptable, but was the “in thing” to have music and video players automatically start playing when a page loads. This style of doing online business is becoming more & more an bad practice. Before I continue, please don’t feel bad if you have an auto player running on your site. I am not talking to just you. I’ve seen major businesses like MLB.com use this tactic and it just drives me nuts. Whenever I am in the initial consultation for building a new Custom WordPress Site for a client, I explain the negative effects music and videos that start playing automatically can be. Most never realize it until I mention something. Remember, you only have one chance to wow me, so make it the best! If I get blasted by audio off the bat, I am gone for good.

The reason it bothers me is because I work from home most of the time. So I normally have iTunes jamming you. And all of a sudden in comes this blaring commercial when I just wanted to check on a score of the game. My good friend Ken Cook had a rather embarrassing story the other week that he shared on our weekly social media radio show.

Ken was in his office one day and wanted to check on something so he visited a website. Now unlike me that has the luxury of working from home, Ken is in an office that is filled with other people and is normally on the quiet side. The minute the page loaded it started playing a video commercial. All of his co-workers were instantly greeted by a woman loudly proclaiming: “I sometimes have really bad diarrhea!” His co-workers who were engrossed in their computers and handling loan files stopped and all glared in his direction. How embarrassing.

I shared all this to get to my point behind this blog post:

We are no longer in 2005. Online practices that were acceptable then are not as well accepted now. While you found it a good idea to have auto playing video & songs on your site, the general public has voiced their opinions and begged for you stop. As an owner of a website, you are going to have constant changes needing to take place.

Right now we are in what is called web 2.0. The season of social media is upon us. Learn the correct practices for this season and implement them into your business today to have a successful online presence. Also, learn what things are no longer effective and discontinue them immediately. For some of you, this might mean an complete overhaul of how you have been doing things. This could even mean building a new website to accomodate the trends of today.

Whatever you do, please do us all a favor and disable the auto play for songs & videos!

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

Apples, oranges, blackberries, and droids-doesn’t all of this sound like a futuristic fruit salad?  And as if that isn’t confusing enough-everyone is talking about Twitter, Facebook, blogging and SEO -which really sounds like cereal (note to self, don’t write when hungry…)

Are you curious, or possibly more likely, totally confused by what to do and how to use any of these tools in your business?  Wary of people peddling their wares, promising to make things work; catapult you to the top of search engines-for a (often hefty and absurd) price?

Bring your confusion to RE Bar Camp Rye!

What is a bar camp you ask? It is an unconference, an event driven by YOU the attendee, low cost (in this case FREE thanks to our wonderful sponsors and volunteers-full disclosure I am one of the latter). It’s a great way to wet your palette, jam packed with knowledge, from people just like you, other real estate professionals, from the trenches. Its not about sitting in a room having fruit thrown at you, please don’t throw fruit at us, but its about planting seeds, sharing knowledge ,starting and furthering relationships , taking the online offline, so that we may do what we do best even better, serve our clients ! Have something you want to discuss or present on that you are knowledgeable about-doesn’t have to be social media related-DO come and participate too, or if you’re a little shy-send us suggestions too.

Extra special bonus, we in the NYC are lucky to now be home to one of the co-founders of the Tech Savvy Agent blog, which recently was recognized as most innovative blog by Inman News. Chris Smith will be at REBC Rye!!!! Here is a prime opportunity to connect and engage directly, ask questions, learn what may work for you!  Become a tech savvy agent, so you can learn what could work or not for you, and become an informed consumer, learn what is worth investing your time (and money) into or not.

And, by the way, if you don’t believe in the power of  the fruit salad (if its for you, or that it works for anyone) WHEN (not if) you come to REBC Rye, be sure an introduce yourself to me and I will be glad to tell you some of the awesome things I’ve learned, people I have met, and yes, even business too!  At the end of the day, it’s not about social media, it’s about integrating tools to improve your business, that hasn’t changed-it’s just that now we have to “plug in” occasionally…

Don’t miss this event, register at www.rebarcamprye.com, connect and engage on http://facebook.com/rebcrye (and for those of you tweeting, the event hashtag is #rebcrye-if you don’t know what that is,come ,and find out !)

Follow me there !  The event is on Saturday September 11th from 8:30 to 4:30 in Rye, NY at the Hilton.

Nikki Beauchamp is on the planning committee for REBC Rye, an agent at Warburg Realty in NYC,, blogs on the Warburg Realty blog, and at YourNYCRealEstateResource.com …and of course on twitter and facebook!

How to Use Creative Commons Photos- The Why

We all understand the importance of adding photos and labeling them properly into our blog posts. Adding just 2 images can increase the time someone stays at your blog by up to 300%! That means if the average time is around 30 seconds, we can get someone to stay up to 3 minutes by adding them. This is an important thing to note because not many people can read 500 word blog posts in under 30 seconds.

The reason this works is because consumers scan posts for the important points. If a photo is there, that consumer’s eyes are drawn to the photo and they will study it. If the photo is good enough to get their attention, they will read the content.

How to Use Creative Commons Photos- The What

There are several ways to get photos for your blog. Some are legal, and others are not. Let’s first address the not so legal ways. Many times when I ask a client where they found the photo for their blog, they say that they simply did a Google search and the photo appeared. They liked it, so they copied & pasted it into their post. Whatever you do, don’t copy & paste a photo from the a website without permission! When you copy & paste an image that you do not have permission to use, you are begging for a lawsuit to come your way. I have seen and heard countless horror stories of people who have been sued for several thousands of dollars for doing this.

The second is to take the photos yourself. We all now own some sort of digital camera or smartphone that has a camera built in. Use those to snap photos yourself and load them into your blog. You don’t have to be a professional photographer to get good pictures for your blog. But what do you do in instances when you don’t have a photo of your own? You can turn to photo sites where you can purchase the photos for a few dollars each, or if you are on a tight budget, you can use a creative commons licensed photo.

An Example Creative Commons photo I took.

What are Creative Commons photos? To understand completely, visit their site here & read what is CC? Basically, they are pieces of content that someone else has agreed to allow others to use under a common agreement that you will give the credit for the piece to the originator through proper recognition as required. Giving proper credit normally means placing a link back to the photographer giving them credit for the original work.

Creative Commons Photos- The How To

So how exactly do you go about finding the photos and using them properly? Well instead of writing it out, I decided to do a short video over on my site that shows you step by step how to do this. Simply follow the steps and you will be well on your way to finding great photographs to use in your blog posts.

I hope this helps you to find great photos for your upcoming works that are both functional & free. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me for more help.

Photo Credit by Trekkyandy

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

One of the best parts of my job is getting a chance to visit numerous technology and social media based events throughout the country.  The events are a blast but more importantly the people at the events are really where you learn the most.  Recently, at the Inman Agent Reboot Tour in Seattle, I met Dale Chumbley who is quickly becoming a go to resource in real estate industry for social media talk due largely to the success of his 365 Things To Do In Vancouver, WA Facebook Page and accompanying blog.  When it comes to an agent “doing it right” in the Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogging spaces, as well as seeing significant ROI, Dale is one of the best examples in the country.

Chumbley, who admits he has been involved in the RE.net world for about three years now, actually drew his inspiration from some other high minded influencers including our favorite SM guy Gary Vaynerchuk.  What Dale realized on a trip to see Gary speak in New York City in 2009 for Inman Connect was that he was already on the right track, creating passionate content about his community.  Where the 365 Things To Do idea started to make sense was that it would put some structure as well as self pressure on his blogging quality and frequency.  Dale had seen a couple of other 365 Facebook Pages pop up in Austin and Nashville with success and decided it was the right model for his local market Vancouver, WA.

The other ah ha moment for Dale while in New York was that his Palm Treo was not going to be sufficient for this endeavor. Being busy agent in the field can cause many to say “there isn’t enough time” for all of this.  Dale picked up an iPhone 3GS and quickly realized that he could now capture video and push it to YouTube, capture images and easily put them into a post and even composing, tagging and syndicating his content is a breeze.  He uses a video editor on his iPhone for the intro music and transitions and has now successfully posted every day for 183 straight days.  Coffee shops, restaurants, local businesses as well as parks have all been the focus of his daily post and he is really growing his brand beyond a Realtor looking to help you JUST buy or sell.

Meeting Dale in person and hearing him speak so passionately about his community and his love of what he does is infectious.  He is generating buyers and listings and at the same time having a blast.  That being said it is as he said many times during our talk “a lot of hard work” but totally worth it.  Check out 365 Things To Do In Vancouver, WA and maybe you will be inspired to create a similar resource for your area.  Remember, the number 365 is a commitment, but with the right DNA, passion and work ethic I am confident that there is room for more stories like Dale’s to surface.  If you have any comments or questions for Dale feel free to leave those below!

Strategic Wordpress Real Estate Blogging

Originally recorded on Monday, August 9th, 2010, this webinar was recorded for you to return to in the future to revisit how to strategically blog – from where to host your blog, to picking the correct keywords/phrases, to what exactly to blog about.

Here’s a synopsis of what this Strategic Wordpress Real Estate Blogging webinar covered:

- Difference between Wordpress.com and Wordpress.org

- Keywords / Keyword Phrases – How to Choose The Best Ones (Supply vs Demand)

- Choosing The Best Theme

- IDX Plugin Features

- Widgets and Plugins

- How to move your existing blog content to a self-hosted blog

- Why NOT to embed (frame) your blog into your website

- Are you Consuming or Creating content

- What to blog about – having a structure (a major stumbling block for the majority of agents out there!)

- How to properly structure your content (blog titles, H1 tags, keywords) for search engines

-…and much more!

You’ll want to bookmark this blog post for future reference!  Please leave your comments below if you have any thoughts or questions after you have watched this video.