I am going to take some words from Chris Brogan blog, which will help us set the tone for the next following posts that we will be providing to you in regards of the tools on the Web for real estate agents and agencies.

a) I would create a blog about the community where I am selling and renting properties.

We all know by now that publishing on the Web is easy, but what is challenging about it is how to write and where to publish, answering the ¿How? requires practice and persistence because this will be just another task in our daily marketing effort for our real estate listing. The ¿where? is not that easy to define, you will soon find that there is a lot of sites to publish on.

So you need to consider two things:

1. who do you want to reach? You have to mentally create the type of audience that will be interested in reading your blog and foremost the information you will be providing them, so make it relevant.
2. where do our potential customers gather? There are forums, social networks, network of blogs or portals on the Internet where they get together to solve their problems, exchange ideas and socialize on the web. They are not difficult to find and remember always give more than you receive.

Most social networks today give you an opportunity to publish content, but this is not the same than having your own blog on WordPress, Typepad or Blogger. Being part of these platforms makes you a member of the community and you will have the chance to interact with very specific niches.

b) Publish many photographs on the blog.

A very important aspect of publishing is keeping the intellectual property of your creations, I know that by now you would have publish many photos on different social networks, but you need to know that you are giving up the rights to exploit the photos to those platforms, which means that you are sharing the rights to use them. You no longer have control over that content.

The following services can easily be integrated into many Blog platforms, like Flickr, Picasa, iPhoto, Photobucket o Photo.net they are easy to use and have different type of accounts, many have a free service and a paying service. The main difference is the storage capacity they can provide.

c) Create walk through videos of the communities where my real estate agency is selling homes and appartments.

This will provide information that is relevant to the interested party in renting or buying a property from a realtor, because your are providing a virtual visit to the neighborhood.

It is not very complicated to create, now the majority of photo cameras have the capacity to film video and many of us have digital recording cameras as well, maybe laying around the house inside the closet. This is a great opportunity to get some return on that investment, besides filming your kids or parties.

On the Internet we will find the very well know service from Youtube where you can upload the video tour of the neighborhood and also the real estate property you are promoting. There are alternatives like Vimeo, MetaCafe and Ustream. they provide great service, but Youtube is still the most popular and it is crawled on most search engines, so it has some search engine optimization advantages.

We also have a post about  video services on the Internet to sell and rent properties in Mexico.

We are not finished.

The list that Chris provides us is quite big to finish it in one post, so I will leave you with the link to the Blog called  “If I were a realtor”.

Since May 2009, real estate giant Coldwell Banker has been promoting their video channel on Youtube by the name On Location. The person in charge of promoting and marketing this initiative by one of the main real estate franchises in the United States is Michael Fischer.

We have nothing but to tip our hat to Michael, his job and effort haver really shown on what Coldwell banker is offering to their clients and partners, this is a true must follow by the industry.

What is really interesting in the service are the functionality it offers a person browsing for a home on the video channel. It shows on a map the most basic things when you are searching for a property to buy or rent:

1. Properties listed in the surrounding area searched.
2. Realtors that have properties listed in the area.
3. Real estate agencies office´s in the whole city.
4. Public information of the area.

This is a great example on the use of a viral channel such as video, because there is a lot of information that a user can share to its peers. By far a great execution of a marketing and business strategy by a real estate company thus far.

There a bunch of video sites focusing on providing video channels for real estate like Real Estate Shows and FrontDoor,but this are merely services to upload videos or animations. But this will not have the audience that Youtube can provide.

Vídeo channels for Latin America real estate.

In the Spanish speaking countries we have BienesRaicesVideo, that offers the full service of filming and streaming real estate videos, they are offering an outlet for marketing and promoting real estate in Latin America and Spain, but they are not doing it by user generated content.

The problem is the digital divide that Latin America is facing right now and that creating content is not the “core business” of realtors and real estate agencies.

Delivering content is a fundamental part in providing “Add on” value by real estate agents.

Creating an open tool to publish real estate videos, where realtors can have a way to upload their real estate video listings so they have a digital showroom; would be a great opportunity to motivate the creation of original content from the real estate industry, showcasing the current properties in the market.

Since most people now, know how to use a video camera, it is not like personal publishing on a blog that takes time and practice. Anybody can make a mini documentary on a property.

But for now YouTube reigns supreme for Viral videos and there is no one to stand in their way. For now……..

We got this information from WebPronews. Yahoo has released a news portal for Small & Medium businesses,which is an important part of the economic backbone for any country and it is setting up a place for them to get information, building a community of entrepreneurs/business owners.

This seems like an interesting proposal from Yahoo, making the use of a “Wisdom of Crowds” technic, with great ideas and good answers to the challenges that businesses face during this credit crunch; at least that is the objective of the site. To make things more interesting they have joined Bank of America to offer a $20 000 in Yahoo Advertising credits. Which is not that bad to start a marketing campaign if you already have one or if you are starting it is the perfect excuse to develop your online advertising presence. The only problem is that this price is only available to USA businesses as well as the service, which we are hoping will be available in other countries soon.

It is clear now, more then ever that SME owners in the real estate market are having a tough year  and have been cutting down costs, personnel, as well as traditional marketing efforts. The Internet will play an interesting role in the recuperation process and will most likely be the best alternative to kick start the efforts from realtors and agencies in the USA and Mexico. We can pinpoint why an online advertising can be effective:

1. People that are unemployed, have more time in their hands. They use it mostly browsing on the Internet and it is their tool of choice to look up information. This benefits us, so that we have more eyeballs looking at our online campaign and we have more referrals for our real estate listings. Also this people are always browsing on how to get a better deal on rent or restructuring their home loan, any information that can save them some money.
2. Real estate professionals and agencies can save some advertising money from traditional media, to promote their property listings online, there are a number of classified services (OLX and craigslist) and real estate websites that are offering tools and real estate web applications with no cost for the basic account. These are all viable ways to get leads for your properties in a quick way, but you have to spend some effort in part of the Realtor if it is there first time.
3. The Internet´s reach is far greater than traditional media,it has the advatange that you can change the way you promote your properties, according to the results you have been getting and instantly adjust yout campaign with a few clicks of the mouse. You can target the advertising depending of the type of clients you are looking for and have more people see your information.

Yahoo´s initiative is very compelling on these points and it is a clear example that Big Purple is opening services based on opportunities it has found in this credit crunch.

Now we are seeing such opportunities in the real estate market, even though the sale of homes and appartments has dropped dramatically, there is plenty of people looking to invest in it that are taking advantage on the low price and on developing countries.

This is just a matter of making information readily available to the seller and buyer, creating a thrust worthy channel for communication is the biggest challenge we face in this economic climate of uncertainty.