The HOW’s of Social Media
: February 8th, 2010 
: Evelyn Bruder 
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Over the last year, I have written and read a lot about social media. This blog, about the possible upcoming trends and new website to explore, could be very helpful to someone who is unhappy with the layout or user interface of a specific website. Earlier there was this blog, musing over why social media is the best way to market yourself and pondering, what did we do BG (Before Google)? There was this blog in which we linked to a video that explained the how-to’s behind Twitter, and another Twitter post about how we need to reach the right audiences. And of course, there was another blog that exemplified just how important social media is.
I realized I have done a lot of “why’s” and not a lot of “how’s,” and absolutely no “what’s.” There are a lot of tools out there that any real estate professional - or any business professional - could use in their arsenal in order to be the most effective with all of those websites we have talked about recently. I wanted to highlight a few things, both tangible and intangible, that I think are absolutely essential to utilizing all of that free Internet marketing stuff that will help you save on the one thing that it does cost you: your time.
Everyone’s time is valuable, and I know few people who want to be sitting at their laptop establishing connections or tweeting while everyone around them is making memories. That’s where there are websites like ping.fm and TweetDeck come in handy; they turn you into syndication. Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and more all updated in just one place; I can say from experience that it’s very convenient. On Facebook, under the Notes application, there is a simple way to set up an automatic import from an outside blog so you minimize your copy/paste time. (On the sidebar nav, look for the Note option. On the right of the Notes page there is a box to set up the import/export function). That is HOW you organize your social sites and save yourself time.
In order to utilize SEO, blogs and websites need pictures and videos. Now it’s fairly easy to do a Google Image search and pick whichever picture you wanted to put on your own site, but remember that the image you chose was hosted by a website like yours, which you gave traffic to in order to get that picture and every YouTube video you search for is some kind of advertisement; that stuff is free. That’s why every business professional should have a digital camera or smart phone that takes good quality pictures to have original content on a blog/website. I admit that it can be hard to get into the routine of taking a picture when the city looks beautiful, or even remembering to take your camera out with you but once you do, it’s worth it. Videos are a little bit trickier, because typically they involve more editing and time, but it’s easier than ever to be your own videographer; all you need is a basic program like Windows Movie Maker to get you started. With tools like Flip Video Camcorders and most digital cameras, it is affordable and easy to build things like testimonials, motivational videos, informative shorts, and so on. These are examples of WHAT you need and HOW to make SEO work for you.
I hope this blog helped to expand on the initial discussions of social media. I think that at this point we all know why it’s popular and what it is, but now it’s time to figure out what we need and how to make it work for us.
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Evelyn Bruder: CRS, GRI, ABR, E-PRO, Las Cruces Cyberstar
The Evelyn Bruder Dream Team http://www.homesforsaleinlascruces.com
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Tags:computers and technology, helpful hints, Social media, social media marketing
