Everyone is Twitterpated these days, right?  Well, just what is Twitter , and why would it be useful for you as a Realtor to get in on the twit action?

What is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social networking and microblogging service utilising instant messaging, SMS or a web interface.  You sign up and you get a twitter page such as @virtuallin where you can make a post of up to 140 characters to update the world about what you're doing.  If you have other twitter users who 'follow' you, they can see your posts live. 

To me, twitter is more like a cross between instant chat and a forum - you can twitter via your mobile and connect with folks while you're at lunch, in the car, on the plane, or sitting at your desk.

Benefits of Twitter

So, you've got Twitter now and don't know why?  Some of the benefits of twitter may not be apparent at first. I'll go into a few here and don't hesitate to twitter me if I leave anything out!

They say imitation is the highest form of flattery, so {josquote}I must admit to being insanely flattered by the recent and huge influx of Virtual Assistants who have adopted Joomla{/josquote} as their content management system of choice.  A content management system or CMS is a method of creating a website utilizing software to enable easy updating of files, images and documents.  Rather than creating a website with pure HTML or be kept hostage by a template site provider, a good CMS can make it easy for non-coder's to add content to a website anytime they wish - as easy as working in a Word Document.  Drupal and WordPress are famous CMS systems, as is Joomla. 

It's Friday and as an interlude, I wanted to do some quantification.  I've been reading "The E-Myth Revisited," by Michael E. Gerber which discusses taking your small business past the "Technician" stage, whereby there is no real business, only YOU - to a place where you have systems and processes in place to the point where someday if you stepped out, your business could go on without you.

Today, {josquote}I'd like to learn your thoughts about Virtual Assistant's and get your ideas on what makes a good Virtual Assistant{/josquote} and the experiences you've had (if any) working with a Virtual Assistant.

So, feel free to add your comments to this post below - include your website and you'll get a link back to your site for the effort!

At first, I just thought it was an issue with my browser or bandwidth - perhaps I needed a quick cache clear or reboot, but I realized quickly that ALL Advanced Access websites were totally offline today.  After doing a quick search, I found news at Active Rain that indeed, AA were having some "power" issues and needed to relocate all of their servers to another location.

Of all the various scenarios I've heard over the years with multiple hosts, both big and small, this is a first for me.  I've heard the "denial of service" attack, we're working on it.  I've heard the "close your browser and reboot," it's all your own fault excuse.  I've heard the "you're using unsupported xyz."  IMHO, it just seems a little fishy.

There's an unsubstantiated rumor over at Active Rain that they're moving servers to obtain new IP's due to spam black listing.  If all of their IP addresses are black listed from most servers due to spam, few of their subscribers would be able to get any email through to anywhere. 

Follow up -  May 24th:  It's official - on behalf of a client who has an AA website and Comcast as her ISP, we contacted a rep at Comcast because she has had serious email trouble.  It seems Comcast blacklisted the entire Advanced Access range of IP's due to spam issues.  The rep at Comcast stated that the blacklisting of all AA sites wouldn't be listed unless the management at AA contacted them directly to work out the issues.

So, you can firmly bet that the "power outtage" is a cover story for AA moving their entire server base to new IP's - however, it may be a short-term solution if Comcast quickly detects this move and simply blocks the new set of IP's.  Be warned! 

One of the biggest hurdles in my business so far has been effective communication - keeping clients updated, returning calls and emails promptly and just ensuring my valued partners know I haven't died or dropped off the face of the earth.  When you're deep into an exciting new website design, sometimes you look up and realize it's three days later...2:00am....and you forgot to eat again.

As a person who balances analytical and creative skills daily, I've often found communicating effectively difficult.  There have been times where my communication has been excellent (several calls and emails per day) and my turnaround time stellar (same day results) with a brand new client yet they've expressed disfavor due to some unexpressed need.

Yes, I'm still alive - although rather sleep deprived due to a gigantic influx of prospective new clients.  I'm not sure who's been out there raving about me or if it's just a search engine thing, but my phone is ringing off the hook!  Bear with me if you're waiting to hear back, I haven't yet gotten my new assistant up to speed.

I was doing my usual morning search at Google News for real estate items when I stumbled on an investing blog hosted at Blogger and now I'm seeing spots!  While the content of this blog - The Millionaires Blog is interesting and worth grabbing the RSS feed, the layout of his blog is awful on the eyes.  The Millionaire's Blog has a 100% black background with white text - and while this format may capture attention for its' uniqueness in a world stuffed with white backgrounds, the content is difficult for the eyes to adjust to and once I left to view another site with a typical white background, my eyes were burning and seeing black horizontal lines. 

Lately, despite my conviction that blogging is a terrific and necessary tool to market your business online in the world of Web 2.0, I've discovered that in the real world daily grind, blogging often ends up way at the bottom of the priority list.  I have a short litmus test that I try to reference whenever I get that haze of "what precise next action should now be taken" at any point in the day.  It's ranked on a point system:

When is something worth doing?

Looking for a simple and easy way to spice up your website?  You may have considered adding some Flash elements, but didn't relish the idea of trying to learn a complicated program or spending tons on a Flash designer.  Well, you can now get the spice you were hoping for free - and without a huge learning curve!

If you're in real estate - or even online these days and you haven't heard of Digg.com yet, then you're probably either selling too much real estate or very little at all.  Digg is a news website with an emphasis on technology and science articles. It combines social bookmarking, blogging, and syndication with a form of non-hierarchical, democratic editorial control. News stories and websites are submitted by users, and then promoted to the front page through a user-based ranking system. This differs from the hierarchical editorial system that many other news sites employ. (Definition from Wikipedia )

It seems 1and1 - the webhost I've recommended for so long has completely dropped the ball.  For the second time this year, a client of mine and a 1and1 customer has gone to upgrade their hosting account and unknowingly wiped out their website!  The first time, I thought it was simply an accident of choosing the wrong package, but it seems that 1and1's backend assures that this will happen for everyone.  What has happened is my client was on a Linux shared hosting account and when she went to upgrade for more features, the backend only offered her one option:  an MS hosting account.  Of course, you would say - so what?  What's the difference?  Well, MS hosting accounts do not have MySQL databases which means no Joomla support.  It also means that 1and1 immediately removed ALL of her files and deleted her databases!  

Hello folks! As you know, I’m always on the lookout for tips and tricks to get more visibility for my clients. This tip is so juicy, I just had to blog about it!

Some of you agents may have already heard about Google Base. Google Base is a place where you can post all types of content and have it show up on Google (including real estate listings). If you have a Point2 site, you know that they’ve been feeding your listings to Google Base and Trulia since last March. Do a Google search for Real Estate - and you’ll see the Google Base functionality that allows users to bring up a map of all listings available in that area.

I’m constantly being asked by clients and prospects “how do I market my business successfuly online?” They tell me that they hear reciprocal linking is what they need to do or some even tell me that they want to start a blog but have no idea what to do or what to write once they get one. They get so much information and mis-information from so many sources, they often just give up and stick to the old fashioned methods.

The three steps you must take before you can be successful in any online marketing goal are:

1. Know what everyone else is doing right now!

As a real estate professional, you already know that close to 95% of internet empowered consumers start their home search online. This means that it’s vital that you have a fantastic website with tons of amazing content and the lead generation tools to land those hot new prospects.

So - tell the truth - Just how much have you invested in - The Most Vital Tool - to your real estate business? How much time have you invested to add relevant content to your website? Does your website look just like thousands of other real estate websites?

If it does, you’re making a critical mistake that could cost you thousands and thousands of dollars in lost business.

Desktop Publishing

First of all what the heck is it?

It’s when you use a computer to create documents for printing. So, real estate flyers, newspaper ads, manuals and more are often designed by desktop publishers.

What’s the difference between using a virtual assistant desktop publisher and creating your own designs with Publisher or similar program? Often, your real estate virtual assistant has the skills and experience to produce much more effective results. Your specialty is real estate, while the real estate virtual assistant has honed his/her skills over several years and has learned what works and what doesn’t.

SEO - The Good, the Bad & the Ugly

Inspired by a recent article blogged out by Mike Davidson we felt compelled to try and enlighten as many as you as we possible can by giving you some handy dandy tips on the wonders of SEO (search engine optimization) and how to get right to the tip of the top of Google ranking wonders.

………….Of course that’s why you pay us the big bucks right?

Well….yes you are right, but we wanted to let you know in a little more detail what can get you a #1 ranking and what will get you a ranking on page 4098 (that’s a lot of hitting the *next* link on the bottom of the Google search page…..

First Impressions Count in Website Design

Web designers have as little as 50 milliseconds to capture the interest of potential customers. Through the halo effect, first impressions can influence subsequent judgments of website credibility and buying decisions.

If you're anything like me, you spend countless hours in front of your PC answering email. Have you often found yourself typing some of the same messages or phrases over and over? Have you ever tried to automate the process a bit by having a word document open where you could cut and paste some of your oft used phrases?

While that can help speed up your email composing time, I found it a bit cumbersome and usually I would forget to even pop open that document, especially when I was in a hurry or under a time crunch. So, I went on the hunt for a software utility that could somehow help.... and found it!  

Robo Type is an amazing and small utility that you can program to memorize your repetitive phrases and it will easily add them to any email, website or document you're working within. You define abbreviations for the words, phrases, and paragraphs that you frequently type and RoboType 3 does the rest, replacing your abbreviations with the expanded text.

Check it out here!