This is why Stacey Harmon has developed Facebook Page Marketing: Content Strategies for Real Estate. It is the only content strategy book that speaks specifically to the Realtor pages and provides 125+ unique, engaging and manageable content ideas that are specific for real estate fan pages.  Broken down into varies types of posts and when and why you should use them, this book will effectively give you 3 months of great content to post on your page.

Posting content that your fans enjoy takes only minutes of your day and is one of the most modern and inexpensive methods of marketing your company.  This book not only gives you content ideas, but will teach you strategies for long term success.  By the time you work your way through it, you’ll already be seeing the results in your fan count and interaction stats.  Order here.

Industry Praise and Testimonials for Facebook Page Marketing: Content Strategies for Real Estate:

“A fantastic read for any agent who wants a leg up in their Facebook page marketing.  This book illustrates through case study how to create engaging conversations on your page.  Content strategies like the ones offered in this book are what grew my real estate page to over 35,000 fans.”

- Shannon W. King, REALTOR, Co-founder Schoolhouse Realty,
Creator of 365 Things to Do In San Diego Facebook Page

“Stacey knows her stuff and has written this incredible book which I highly recommend. It’s something every REALTOR needs in their social arsenal. It’s an affordable way to make a huge difference in your business and how you approach Facebook.”

- Kelly Mitchell, Hawaii Real Estate Agent & Partner at Elite Pacific Properties

“Engagement with your customers and prospects translates to sales. Stacey’s book helps agents create engagement on their page so they can finally get paid from their Facebook marketing efforts.”

- Ben Kinney, REALTOR, Broker/Owner Keller Williams, IMSD Founder

“Realtors® are no longer asking the question, “Should I be using Facebook?”  – they are now asking “How do I use Facebook?” In this guide, Stacey provides a comprehensive overview of how Realtors® are using Facebook to market their businesses. What I really love about this guide is that Stacey provides real examples of how Realtors from all parts of the country are using this amazing tool.  If you’re going to be marketing yourself on Facebook, I highly recommend that you invest the money in buying this guide and use it as a blueprint for your Facebook Marketing Strategy.”

- Jimmy Mackin, Facebook expert and Inman Next Contributor

“Posting great content to your Facebook page has never been easier!  Whether you are a novice or an expert, Stacey’s book provides plenty of fresh ideas to use on your page.  Even I’ve been inspired with a few new tricks and I’ve been successfully marketing my real estate business on Facebook for years.”

- Lisa Archer, Broker, Keller Williams Realty

“Are you stumped on how to create a Facebook business page that works? Puzzled about what to post to attract clients? If so, Stacey Harmon’s “Facebook Page Marketing: Content Strategies for Real Estate” is packed with proven strategies from agents who are generating leads from their Facebook pages including the exact words, photos, and strategies they used. If you’re serious about having a Facebook marketing strategy for your real estate business, this is the book for you.”

- Bernice Ross, CEO, RealEstateCoach.com

Get a fully branded Facebook business page like these:

Fine Homes of Humboldt by Richard Dorn

(view page on Facebook or click image to enlarge)

Icicle Creek Real Estate – Leavenworth

(view page on Facebook or click image to enlarge)

Learn more here or contact us to initiate your order.

REALTORS:  Advertise your listings on Facebook.  Announcing a new service offering by Harmon Enterprises to help agents stay progressive in the marketing of their listings:  Facebook Listing Ad Management

Target the exact buyer demographic for your listing. Your seller will love you when you present their home to 1000’s of online consumers with targeted Facebook ads.

Harmon Enterprises is a nationally-recognized leader in Facebook strategy for real estate. We will manage the process of placing and monitoring your listing advertisements on Facebook and provide you with visual proof of your ad, along with a detail ad report for you provide to your seller showing the exposure your ad garnered for their listing.

Our advertising packages include the actual advertising cost to advertise on Facebook.  Everything is included in one low, per listing price.  Learn more and sign up to start advertising your listings on Facebook.

Not familiar with HootSuite? If you have a presence on multiple social media channels and are looking for a tool to help you manage all the places you appear, HootSuite is one to check out. It is free to managing up to 5 social media accounts so there is no cost to test it out.  You can also test drive a pro-account for 30 days for free.  With a HootSuite account, you can:

• Send updates to multiple social media sites – Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.
• Schedule postings for a future date
• Monitor the interest level of the content you are posting
• Easily share content from any webpage you are on
• Find and engage with influencers who can help spread your message
• Gather intelligence through keyword research and brand mentions online
• Collaborate your social media communication and response amongst your team

With this new certification, Stacey has launched a new live training course: Managing & Scheduling Your Social Media Strategy. This one hour live training will give attendees an understanding of how tools like HootSuite can help organize the chaos of a distributed social media strategy and build social media success.  If you are interested in having Stacey train your brokerage, company, or Association on this topic, please contact us to discuss available dates.

Harmon Enterprises is proud to announce that it has launched a niche company, Pixel Coaching, which focuses exclusively on Facebook marketing for the real estate industry. With over 500 Million users, Facebook continues to infuse itself into the fabric of how a growing percentage of humans communicate with each other, find new products and services, and interact with companies. But, Facebook also represent a whole new vocabulary, marketing philosophy, and learning curve for many real estate professionals. As a marketer, Facebook is a complex medium filled with diverse products, multiple terms of service, constant product launches, and platform changes that suddenly appear with little to no warning. What is an agent to do? Enter Pixel Coaching, the Facebook marketing resource for the real estate industry.

Pixel Coaching is an education and services portal providing the foundation, tips, and strategies needed to effectively market on Facebook. In a business dominated by relationships where who you know, repeat business, and referrals make up a huge portion of an agents transactions, most agents (only 5% of California REALTORS are using Facebook as part of their real estate business) are greatly underestimating the opportunities that exist on Facebook today. And as Facebook is continuing to grow and expand their platform offerings, the opportunities are only going to increase.

To learn more about how Facebook can become part of your real estate marketing plan, check out Pixel Coaching.

In addition to the ample free information and tips Pixel Coaching provides, there is an evolving and growing product line of Facebook related marketing and training services.

There are multiple ways to connect and keep up with Pixel Coaching.  You can:

• Visit the Pixel Coaching website
• Subscribe to the Pixel Coaching blog in your RSS reader
• Like Pixel Coaching on Facebook
• Follow Pixel Coaching on twitter

For further information on Pixel Coaching and its services, please contact Stacey Harmon via this form or 714.754.5788.

Seeing a need to give real estate agents tangible examples of how others, just like them, are implementing marketing into their real estate business plan, Harmon Enterprises has launched Agent Applause, Real Life Real Estate Marketing Examples In Action.

The site showcases real examples of real estate marketing in today’s market.  It highlights the interesting, the innovative, the creative, and the good.  While there will certainly be multiple examples of social media marketing (showing how agents are using blogging, facebook, twitter, and other social networks to market themselves), the site is not limited to digital marketing techniques.  It  highlights modern marketing – both online and off – and is designed to be a portal for an ever evolving array of practical marketing ideas in the real estate industry.  There are multiple ways to keep up with Agent Applause.  You can:

• Visit the site and browse what is new
• Subscribe in your RSS reader
• Subscribe via email and get new applause automatically emailed to you
• Follow Agent Applause on twitter
• Fan Agent Applause on facebook.

So check out AgentApplause.com and even better, submit an agent who should be applauded.   There are some great marketing examples out there.  Let us know about it and help further the conversation and recognition of those agents who are doing it right.

This is a little nugget that I’ve been using for years, and I recently casually shared with a friend.  Her enthusiastic tweet response a few days later made me think it might be worthy of a post:

So, the tip is simple.  Anytime you are shopping on line, and in the purchase process you see a box that says “Discount Code” or “Coupon Code” or “Promotion Code”, open up a new browser tab or window, go to Google, and search “the name of the site you are on” + “discount code”.

So, for example, when you notice a “Promotional Code” field as part of the process to sign for a credit monitoring service (a great service by the way, particularly for people who are shopping on the internet):

Leave the screen up that has the promotional code field, open a new browser tab, go to google, and type in “MyFico.com discount code” and see what comes up:

One of my favorite sites that often comes up is RetailMeNot.com which is a “coupon community” where users can post coupons and discount, and report on how reliable they were.  The coupons are presented grouped into “Current Special Offers”, “Active Coupons”, and “Unreliable Coupons”  For MyFico.com, you can find up to 30% off!

Jot down the code you find, go back to the window where you are purchasing, and apply your savings coupon. Cha-ching!  It works more often than not and saved me a bundle over the years.  And, who isn’t happy to save a buck or two…especially this time of year?

Keep in mind, if you don’t see the coupon code box, you can still to google the product or service you are trying to purchase.  Often times there are affiliate marketing programs out there and you can find a link from a blog or 3^rd party website where you will pay less by clicking through from that origination point.

For those of you who are looking to buy a domain name, or looking for web hosting (any Realtors out there looking to start a blog?), be sure to apply this technique.  It has always worked for me with GoDaddy, and hosting companies like Blue Host and Host Monster get cheaper than their already affordable rates.

Happy on-line shopping!

• California Realtor Expo 2009 (The annual CAR Convention)
• Tech Tuesday (Day long technology training preceding the official CAR Expo)
• RE BarCamp Silicon Valley (A free un-conference attracting the technology progressive and interested in the Real Estate business)

Here is a rundown of the great opportunities these events provide as well as some auxiliary activities I’ll be participating in.  If you’re in San Jose, hopefully we’ll cross paths while I’m there (join me at a Tweetup?!):

Friday, October 1st, 2009:

• Social Media Success for Realtors Presentation:  Anyone a member of SAMCAR (San Mateo Association of Realtors)?  If so, come hear me speak for free (thanks to Pango Group for sponsoring me to speak)!  Registration starts at 10:30.  Presentation is from 11:00-12:30.  It you would like to attend, RSVP via email to Julie Ziemelis, Director of Public Affairs for SAMCAR.

Monday, October 5th, 2009:

• RE BarCamp Silicon Valley:  This is a free, day long event, born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment.  There is no set schedule or topics.  Instead, the day is shaped by the passionate real estate professionals who gather and discuss how technology and social media can benefit the real estate business.  Any forward thinking Realtor who is interested in applying technology to their business should attend.  It is an outstanding way to network with industry elite and add be engaged in discussions that can truly transform your business.  If there is interest, Andy Kaufman and I will be facilitating a session that day discussing how to use Twitter to enhance your conference going experience.  Hope you can join in.  The event is free, but you do have to RSVP hereto attend.  Twitter hashtag for the event is #rebcsv.

  

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009:

• Tech Tuesday:  An add-on day to the CAR Expo, Tech Tuesday is full of technology training and tips to help Realtors in their business.  The twitter hashtag for Tech Tuesday is #TTCarExpo.   There are some great techie agents presenting – including Ted Makel of Keller Williams, Simi Valley who is part of the opening panel titled “Text, Tweet, and Sell:  A Dialogue on Tech’s Possibilities for Today’s Agents”.  Other great sessions include:
  • The Benefits of Blogging
  • Media is the New Marketing:  How to Attract the Right Attention
  • Best Practices for Building an Online Presence
  • Social Media and Social Networking:  A Guide for REALTORS

• Tweetup at Tanq Bar (San Jose Marriott) starting at 5:15 pm:   Within walking distance of the Tech Tuesday I’m hosting a tweetup.  Come mingle with fellow Tech Tuesday attendees over a drink (everyone is responsible for their own food/drinks…just to be clear!).  Tech Tuesday attendance is not required to join in on this one though…if you want to come on out and say hi, please do!  @candacecapella, @ericstegemann, and @andykaufman will be there too.  More info and RSVP list is here.

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009:

• CAR Expo 2009:  California’s largest real estate trade show which draws “thousands of California’s key franchise executives, top producers and movers and shakers every year for educational networking, and professional development opportunities”.  The Expo runs for 3 days (Wed the 7th – Fri the 9th).  I’ll be there on Wednesday in order to check things out and see what’s hot this year at the vendor show.  Twitter hashtag for the conference is #CARExpo.

It is the “years for extinction” part that really caught my eye.  This weekend I had had a conversation with a friend’s neighbor that made me wonder if real estate really is ever going to evolve.  Will agents who are doing business in the “old way” ever adapt or go extinct? As someone who is enthusiastically in favor of industry evolution, the following conversation put a dent in my zeal. 

I saw a for sale sign in front of his condo and asked the seller how it was going.  He said, “great – it sold in the first week!”  Wow, I thought. 

I asked, “What did it go for?”  He responded, “$370,000.  It went for $10,000 over asking price, and I also had a bid for $20,000 over asking price.”

When I asked him why he picked those buyers, he said “because they had a down payment, and they loved the house”.  I know from my real estate sales days that putting together a deal that will actually close is an important part of the Realtors job, and it appeared that this seller received some good coaching from his agent in this regard, especially since the financing on the higher offer sounded weak.

But here is where the conversation got alarming for me:

Me:  “How long is the contingency period?”
Seller:  “I don’t know, what is that?”

Me:  “How much of a deposit did the buyers put down?”
Seller:  “Don’t know, my agent never discussed it with me.”

Me:  “What was the commission?”
Seller:  “5%”

Me:  “How did you pick your agent?” 
Seller:  “She sold the house next door.  I gotta tell you, she is one high energy woman.  There are times she calls me and she just yammers.  It’s all I can do to get off the phone with her.” (his tone was annoyed…I didn’t get the impression he liked her much).

Then, at the end of our conversation, totally unsolicited by me, the seller concludes our chat by saying:  “Let me tell you, she is an outstanding agent.  I’ll go out of my way to recommend her to anyone who needs a great agent.”

WTH?  This seller would give his agent a 10 on the Net Promoter Score that Rob Hahn of 7DS Associates evangelizes.  A 10!  Unbelievable to me.

I went to the agent’s website.  When I go to the “About Us > My Background” page, it has her name, a broken image (which I assume is her photo), and nothing else.  She has a navigation item for “Featured Properties” but none of her listings appear.  It then defaults to a search for property in Alabama (to be clear, we’re in California). 

What exactly is this agent’s real estate talent?  Finding uninformed buyers and keeping them in the dark?  I understand that the client signed the paperwork, but I can’t imaging representing a seller and not even discussing the deposit amount, nor the contingency period with them.  This is astounding to me.

I just have to throw my hands up in the air and ask – how does one compete with this?  There is much talk about internet buyers, and leads, and Realtor professionalism, and a new model of real estate.  But, NONE of that played a part in this agent getting this listing, this agent selling this house, or this client’s level of satisfaction with the deal.  Where is the motive to change?  Why on earth would the agent, or client, look for a new way? 

I think it is going to take a VERY long time for the old dinosaur to become extinct.