Real Estate Social Media Blog

The Age of Social Media

The Age of Social Media has changed the way we think, how we communicate, and how we function.  Now instead of Emailing, we Text.  And instead of texting, we tweet, so that a large audience can be reached in just seconds.  Imagine if a highly acclaimed restaruant reviewer who had a HUGE following on twitter (say most people in the area who eat food) went to your business, ate your food, and because the food was bad and service wasn't great tweeted about it, and within 10 seconds the 20,000 people who got the message were told to pass over your restaurant?  That could shut your business down!  As a business, we thrive on sales, on business, and on a positive reputation. 

Because of the Age of Social Media, we are reverting back to the doing business the old fashioned way, by word of mouth referrals and suggestions.  Back in the 1800's you went to a store because someone said it was a great place to shop, get a hair cut, or buy that fancy new automobile.  The price was right, the service was excellent, and the product was fantastic.  Because of Socal Media, blogging, twitter, and messaging to your sphere of influence can have a drastically postitive or negative effect on whatever you choose to write about, endorse your name on, or slander.

The way agents and professionals are taking advantage of ActiveRain is through blogging.  Your blogging is an extension of your knowledge and experience as as real estate professional.  Without a voice on the internet, you are just another person in the sea of possibilities for potential customers.  Blogging gives you that voice, and if written properly, can let your voice be heard in the search engines like google, yahoo, and bing, and let you stand out, increasing your visiblity and increasing your business.  Your able to do this as a Rainmaker on ActiveRain.  If you're not a Rainmaker, we offer training and a trial here at ActiveRain so you can learn how to blog, and appear on the first page of google organically through your blog content!

At our recent raincamp, we showed this video for all our guests, depicting how the Age of Social Media has changed the way our world functions.  It certainly has changed the real estate industry!  This video will open up your eyes to how powerful social media has become.  And the fact that you're part of ActiveRain, means that you're in step with this.  Watch this and enjoy!

Hey all,

I know that alot of you have had some trouble with creating or using your own custom banners for your header image in your outside blog or ActiveRain blogs.  I just want you to know that have no fear, I have found a free site that makes creating your own banners a BREEZE!  

www.bannerfans.com is a completely free website that allows you to customize your size, text, images, and download your own custom banner for your blog or website!  

Here is a little walkthrough for those of you who are interested in how it works:

Here is there home page.  You'll start out with a generic template, seen in blue.  As you make changes to your banner, (size, image, font, etc...) you'll see them in that box.

First Select your size.  Under the layouts tab, you can enter a custom size, (for activerain blogs, it's 960 x 134) or select a standard preset.

Next, choose your banner color or upload a custom image!  As you can see, I selected upload my own image, had it stretched to fit the custom dimension I selected, and it shows you what it will look like in the preview box.

Next, click on the text and fonts tab, and input your custom text and font.  After making these changes, click Update my banner, and it will update the preview above to reflect your changes.  Notice that you can just grab and drag the text anywhere on your image to place it where you want it!  I moved mine to the right.  You can also change the size of your fonts.

Check out all the cool fonts they have for you to choose from!

When you are finished, click download to download to your computer in one of three formats:  .Gif, .Jpeg, or .Png.   Change your format under the format tab.  Click get Code to get the html code to insert into your social media page, or other website!

The end result is a beautiful Custom Banner that you made! 

So if you don't have a awesome looking banner for your activerain blog, or want to make a better one, check out the site www.bannerfans.com