November 2006 Technology Tuesday is a publication of the Massachusetts Association of REALTORS®. The first Tuesday of every month we will cover at least one technology issue in depth. If you have any questions about these or any other technology issues, please contact the free MAR Tech Helplineat 866-232-1837.   The Blog Days of Summer Do you enjoy the articles in Technology Tuesday? Then see the author, Matt Ferrara, teaching Website Maximization, Thursday the 16th at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Worcester, or Tuesday the 14th at the Boston Marriott in Newton. Show me an agent without an opinion about the market, buyers, sellers or mortgage rates, and I’ll show you a dead agent. But try to channel that agent’s opinions into a useful marketing tool and I’ll suggest you create a blog.   Web logs, or blogs for short, have made quite a lot of noise online in the past few years. Even before the last presidential election, blogs were slowly transforming the old Internet bulletin boards into a new form of daily journal. Blogs are well known in news, political and financial webspaces, where pundits, politicians and fund managers have been posting their thoughts – or ranting, more likely – about anything their fingers cared to type. More recently, however, blogs have started to appear on more traditional, published-based web pages, like real estate brokerage and listing aggregator sites.   The fascination with blogs is both energizing and dangerous. Real estate professionals consider blogs a place they can “speak their minds” about the market, consumer and everything in between. Consumers relish the power of blogs to give them a voice online, too, as many a blogspot has appeared to let consumers praise or vent about their real estate experiences. And this two-way street doesn’t just apply to real estate – just ask Apple computer who uses blogs to “leak” news about new products but likewise felt the wrath of their customers when a batch of defective iPods started malfunctioning just a few days after their warranties ran out. Still, just as Apple learned to listen to the consumer in blogs, real estate agents can use blogs as powerful marketing devices and feedback tools to help them refine their customer service.   Blog technology is relatively easy to use and usually free. There are two general approaches to blogging: you can get an account with a service that lists your blog – along with thousands of others - on their web site, or you can set up a blog account and feed the data into your personal website. The first approach is a snap: open an account and start publishing right away. In fact, blogging services are available for free from sites like Blogger.com where you can create a new blog within five minutes. Your account will feature a web page that contains your postings in chronological order. Since a blog is essentially like a “running newspaper column” you can also set your account to “archive” postings after a few days, but still let visitors browse them backward if they wish.   To create a blog entry, log into your account and use the built-in editor to essentially type your thoughts, just like a word processor. You can use text enhancements, include hyperlinks and even add photos. When you are ready, one click is all it takes to add the new posting to the top of your list. It’s really that simple and many bloggers post multiple thoughts throughout the day. You can even let readers reply to your postings by email or add their responses directly to your page (which you can permit on a per-comment basis).   Some of the more clever features of Blogger.com include the ability to send in thoughts and photos to your blog using your cell phone. Essentially, you write a posting using your text messaging or email feature and send it to a special email address for your account. For real estate agents, this could be very creative – such as posting some new listing photos or a price reduction to their blog in real time, simply using their cell phone! And if that’s not cool enough, just use your cell phone to post an AudioBlogger entry to your site – which records your voice and adds your comments as a downloadable MP3 file – perfect for your readers who download podcasts daily and listen to you on the run. And some blog sites even let you feed your blog data to your website in RSS format – which is special feed your web programmer can use to integrate the blog into the look-and-feel of your existing website.   Creating and managing blogs is really easy; once you get started, in fact, it’s hard to stop. It can become downright addicting, once you have a “voice” on the web that you can use within seconds. On the other hand, it’s also important to remain calm – and cautious – when using your blog. Nothing can do more harm than a “hastily” posted blog entry during the heat of a stressful moment. So here are a few tips for real estate professionals for managing their blogs.   Start slowly by posting maybe two entries a week. Use this pace to get familiar with the medium and collect your thoughts. For many business professionals, this is a time to create a “style” for you blog postings. It’s also important to assess your writing skills, since blogs should remain professionally spelled and punctuated. Create a theme for your blog: Maybe it’s a “market watch” approach or “success stories” you want to highlight; alternative ideas could be “new listings” or “buyer advice” columns. If you use a theme, then it’s easy to keep your postings targeted to your message – and keep off-topic rants to a minimum. Never post immediately. Create a new blog posting and save it to the Drafts folder. Then go for a walk or sleep on it. Make sure you really want to say what you’re about to post. Even though you can delete postings after they have hit the web, if they have already been read by lots of visitors, you could have created a PR problem. Real estate professionals can get very creative with their blogs. They are a great way to “drip” ideas into your sphere of influence about buying or selling property. Blogs also give real estate agents a voice on major issues – like rising interest rates, housing bubbles or proposed regulations – which they can use to speak directly to consumers. Updating your blog on a regular basis is even easier than sending out mailings or using an e-newsletter – and may have an even more valuable marketing effect of drawing prospects and clients back to your website every morning to see your latest postings and anything else new today (like a new listing). With some practice and planning, real estate agents can use this blog technology to create momentum and drive traffic to their web site – and add a little personality to their marketing efforts at the same time. This article was authored by Matthew Ferrara of Matthew Ferrara Seminars Inc. Reprinted with permission of Matthew Ferrara Seminars Inc.