Butterfly Publications

8 basic steps for Jamaican Realtors to Get Started on Twitter and Increase their Visibility

2009-12-09T03:50:00.008-05:00

What is Twitter? Here is the Wikipedia definition:

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

As a marketer, my advice is to be visible and active in social media and use it to leverage your visibility, leverage your offline marketing efforts, to connect with your audience or target market wherever they are (and they are indeed on one social media platform or another). So get involved, get interactive and get more business.

Here are some basic steps to get started:

1) Go to Twitter.com and click on sign up Go ahead and sign up and be sure to use your real name, a Twitter username that is either close to your real name, represents your brand/product/service in a simple and clear way. So ‘TheActionMaven’ or ‘John Doe’ is good, but ‘Act1234’ is not descriptive enough. This is important because once you start building your Twitter followers, you want to be recognizable and consistent across all your social media platforms.

2) Once you sign up, the next thing to do is to adjust your settings First, go to notifications and uncheck, ‘send an email when someone starts to follow me’ and ‘send an email when I get a Direct message’. Twitter is a fast-growing social media platform. It’s easier to find random people, celebrities or people doing business in your niche than it is to do the same thing on Facebook. And there are people on this platform that directly monetize Twitter with Affiliate marketing programs and the like. These people make it a part of their day to mass follow Twitter users. There are programs and software that are structured to do help them do just that. So once you are on Twitter, you will find people following you that you don’t know. These emails can be annoying because you can receive 20 and more unsolicited followers per day. That is alot of email to go through.

3) Profile Next is to customize your profile. As you know, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. So Twitter updates and even your profile has to be kept under 140 characters. Write something descriptive about your business or your brand, maybe a mission statement. Try to make it sound results-oriented or solution-oriented so that as soon as someone in your niche sees it, they will say, ‘That’s just what I need!’ For instance, ‘Successful Jamaica Real Estate Sales Consultant committed to finding the best deals for my clients. I focus on a win/win solution for all.’

4) Website Include your website URL in your profile in the space allotted for Website or URL. This is important for branding and promotional purposes along with your profile. It is also helpful for your website page ranking, the factor that helps your website to get found on the search engines. To optimize your profile and help users to see your website easier, enter your website in the format, http://yourwebsite.com instead of http://www.yourwebsite.com Test the former to make sure it actually goes to your website when clicked.

5) Follow people in your niche There are many Twitter Directories out there. Do a Google search for Twitter Directories and then use one or two of them to find followers using your most popular keywords for your niche. You can also do a twitter search for #hashtags related to your niche and follow the people that are using them. Hashtags are keywords preceded by the '#'to categorize tweets, i.e. #jamaicarealestate Hashtags are most commonly placed at the end of a tweet but it is not a rule.

6) Set up automatic sharing on Twitter If you do article marketing, video marketing and if you have a blog, you can customize your settings to update your twitter status every time you update those networks. You can also set up automatic Tweets through Hootsuite.com or SocialOomph I use the latter to send motivational quotes at specific intervals throughout the day.

7) Start getting interactive ReTweet, comment or share links with the people in your niche. Motivational quotes are very common and tend to get ReTweeted quite a bit. ReTweets and @ mentions are great for exposure to other people’s networks which helps to increase your followers.

8) Promote your Twitter Profile Include a link or note on your website, blog or other social networks inviting people to follow you on Twitter.

Twitter is a powerful micro-blogging social media tool that provides an avenue to build your brand and increase your virtual visibility. It’s fun, interactive, but can be time-consuming. Decide on a schedule for you or your company’s participation and then be consistent with it for optimum benefit.

5 Personal Marketing Tips for Jamaican Real Estate Agents

2009-12-01T01:03:00.002-05:00

1) Write a helpful Real Estate Article for one of the local newspapers This will of course give you exposure, position you as an expert and give you some credibility. The key though is to make the article content-rich, helpful and not promotional. You will however, get credit at the end of the article which can contain your name, email address and possibly your website.

2) Start a blog So easy to set up. You can use a free platform like Wordpress.com or Blogspot.com or one with your own domain name. You can promote your blog on your business cards, email signature, classified Ads, facebook profile, twitter profile, LinkedIn profile.

3) Start an e-Newsletter Follow up with prospects or new networking contacts by inviting them to sign up for your Monthly, Weekly or Bi-Weekly e-Newsletter. For email newsletter marketing ideas, click here for a previous blog post on the subject.

4) Use Customer Testimonials on your blog, website or email newsletter Praise and credit by others sometimes have more weight than your own selling points.

5) Staple your business cards to giveaways that you are affiliated with For instance, advertisers in the Jamaica Real Estate Guide sometimes staple their cards to the magazine and leave in office lounges, doctors’ offices and similar high-traffic areas.

How’s your Referral Business? Back to Basics

2009-11-05T02:46:00.002-05:00

Referrals are great for a Real Estate professional’s business for a number of reasons. Firstly, they are prequalified, meaning they come to you already in the market for buying or selling real estate. Secondly, it gives you instant credibility when they are referred by someone they know and trust. Thirdly, they are instantly profitable because no advertising dollars were directly spent to get them to you.

Here are 5 key components of building a solid Real Estate Referral Business:

1) Organize your database Simple, but easily neglected. You need a database system for your past and current clients, potential referral partners, industry professionals and companies, etc. This can be easily done electronically using Microsoft Outlook or on paper using a diary, address book and/or business card holder.

2) Organize your contact regularly How many times have you received a business card that goes into your pocket and stays there until laundry day, then probably gets tossed? How many times have you written someone’s information on a post-it note and placed it somewhere until the glue wears away and it ends up in the garbage? Commit to updating your database of choice daily or weekly and stick to it.

3) Attend networking events Get out there. Always be marketing. Attend an event once per week or other regular schedule to meet new people, exchange business cards and start a networking relationship. You never know where your next lead will come from.

4) Contact at least 2 persons each day As they say, out of sight, out of mind. The more you stay in contact with people the more they are likely to throw business your way. And if you calculate 2 persons per day for an average of 20 to 25 working days per Month, that’s 40 to 50 people per Month.

5) Send them your e-Newsletter The easiest way to follow up with your referral sources is to add them to your e-Newsletter list. [Note: Let them know when you meet them that you send out an e-Newsletter and ask them if they would like you to add them to your list. Better yet, after adding them to your list, request a double opt-in via your email newsletter program to make sure they want to receive it.] Also, in each e-Newsletter you send out, include a referral request note to remind people because it may not come to mind to refer you on their own.

Spending a few minutes per day or week as the case might be, can do volumes to increasing your referral business and your Jamaican Real Estate business in general.

Build it and they will come?

2009-10-29T00:50:00.004-04:00

In previous articles, I mentioned the importance of making your website your hardest working employee. It is important to get good recurring return on your real estate website. So in this article, I will list and describe 9 ways to get more people to your website, thus more leads and eventual sales.

1) Pay per click advertising Have you noticed those sponsored links on websites or in your Gmail account if you have one. It is usually related to the website you are browsing or the topic of the email you are reading. You can have your company featured in those sponsored listings too. The most popular Pay-per-click program is Google Adwords. These programs are fully customizable for cost and for geographic area, keywords, etc. For instance, you can stipulate how much you want to spend per day or per month or per click. You can also specify which geographic area to display your ads. And you can drill down further to specify they keywords relevant to your Ad and for which you want your Ad to be displayed.

2) Website Optimization You can use keywords in your website content that are most popular for your market. In this case, some of those keywords are: “Jamaica Real Estate”, “Real Estate Jamaica”, “Jamaican Properties” and more. But don’t take my word for it. You can do a quick research for this using a free tool called, Google Adwords Keyword Research Tool. This tool tells you what people are searching for and what keywords or keyword combinations they use most.

3) Submit articles to Article Directories An underutilized tool by the Jamaican Real Estate Industry players. I heard someone in an online Teleseminar say recently that ‘underutilized’ translated means ‘opportunity’ You can take a look at my submissions to EzineArticles.com, the most popular article directory here, Jamaica Real Estate Guide Articles This gives you an opportunity to link back to your website, which helps your site to get found quicker by the search engines, this more web traffic.

4) Submit press releases Send out press releases when you have added a new Real Estate Sales Consultant to your staff, new person on the Board of Directors, changed locations, redesigned your website, received an award, made a significant donation to charity and more. One of the most popular online press release services is PRWeb. But there are also Jamaican and Caribbean specific online press release services. Two of them are Jamaica Press Release and Caribbean Press Releases

5) Exchange website links One of the best ways to increase your website’s popularity is to exchange links with similar websites in your industry. Exchanging website links means to place a web link for another company on your website in exchange for a placement of your company’s web link on their website. Hope I did not lose you. For instance, www.JaRealEstateGuide.com has a Broker Directory page with links to Jamaica Real Estate brokers. Some of those brokers have kindly and smartly reciprocated with a link to the Jamaica Real Estate Guide. Some of those brokers are La Maison Property Services, Declan Real Estate and Howard Johnson Realty. This does two things for companies that actively engage in link exchange: 1) It adds value to the web visitor who sees your links page with helpful resource links to other companies in the industry; 2) It increases the ‘credibility’ of both websites, as Google and other search engines, rank websites high based on the number of links pointing to it. For instructions on linking to our website, click here

6) Offer a Newsletter When you offer a newsletter to your website visitors, it encourages them to come back to your website and refer others as well if your content is good.

Top 4 Facebook Marketing Tips for Jamaican Realtors

2009-10-21T04:11:00.000-04:00

Why should you add Facebook Marketing to your existing Real Estate Marketing Campaign? The facts are pretty compelling:

• Facebook is not just for high school and university students. In fact, the fastest growing demographic of Facebook users is those who are 35 years and older.
• Social networking on Facebook is Free
• There are over 100,000 Jamaicans living in Jamaica on Facebook
• Over 6 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day
• More than 10 million users become fans of Facebook Pages each day
• An effective Facebook marketing campaign can take less than 5 minutes a day
Here are 4 top tips to get started with giving your company a presence and start marketing on Facebook:

1. Set up a Facebook Fan Page You will need to already have a Facebook personal profile in order to set up a Fan Page. Your Fan Page will essentially be a combination of your blog, website, business card and more. So make sure to give it a nice clean look. The first essential for your Fan Page is your company logo, which will be the Fan Page profile photo. Add your mini-bio (the section underneath your main profile picture) with a few words about your company, a link and a call to action. Update the information section with your company profile, links to your website, blog, twitter account, YouTube account, etc. Click this link to set up your Facebook Fan Page View the Jamaica Real Estate Guide Fan Page here

2. Connect Your Blog If you write a blog, you definitely need to import your blog feed into Facebook. The first thing you will need to do is go to the Facebook notes tab http://www.facebook.com/notes.php and click on the import blog link. Every time you make a blog post, it will receive additional exposure as it spreads virally on Facebook. Your fans can make comments right into Facebook. And the cool thing is that when they do comment, it will update their friends’ news feeds and that will be even more exposure for your company/Facebook Fan Page.

3. Status Updates Every time you update your Facebook Fan Page status, it goes out into your fans’ news feeds. You should be very deliberate about what you put in your status updates. Use links often but not all the time. Mix it up with links about your company, news listings and industry news. Be careful not to be constantly promoting, but rather to add value to your fans. Throw in a few motivational quotes or thought-provoking questions. Shortcut: You can schedule your status update with http://hellotxt.com/ which also allows you to update your status across other social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn.

4. Use Facebook Ads If you are looking to attract more fans or drive traffic to your website, Facebook Advertising is a good way to go. It is relatively inexpensive and allows you to do some general targeting by gender, age, Country, etc. Note however that you will waste your money if your Ad is not set up correctly. Also, this form of advertising is relatively new and so click through rates are low. Click here to get started with Facebook Advertising

If you need help setting up your Facebook profile, updates and/or advertising, feel free to contact me and take a look at the Social Media Marketing services offered by Butterfly Publications for Jamaica Real Estate Professionals here.

3 Simple Tips to Engage Your Website Visitors

2009-10-12T00:08:00.000-04:00

1) Valuable Content Provide information on the Jamaican home buying process, tips, resources for mortgages, etc. Your website visitors are looking for listings yes, but they are also looking for what separates you from other Jamaican Real Estate brokers. They want to find out how customer focused you are, what your services are and any other valuable information that you freely provide.

2) Build Rapport First you need to have a lead-generating system on your website. It can be a sign-up form for a newsletter [recommended] or a simple contact form for property inquiries or general real estate related question. Then you need to keep in touch via a newsletter which can be sent out weekly, bi-weekly or monthly.

Alternatively, blogs are a very effective way to build a rapport without or in addition to having an email list and subsequent newsletter. How do you know what to blog about? In addition to the obvious topics to blog about like industry news or updates, you can make a list of the most frequently asked questions by prospects for one week. Write a blog post about each one.

3) Make your website easy to use Design your website with your prospective web visitors in mind. Simple navigation system so that web visitors can find their way around easily. People browse websites differently than how they read print. They scan very quickly and don’t have time to figure things out. Try to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and browse your website to make sure you can find things easily and quickly. Are you attracting returning residents? Do you have information on your website that may help a returning resident? Ensure you have information on your website that will help each user type. That means general information for first-time homebuyers, investors, returning residents, sellers, etc.

These are just general tips that are relatively easy to implement. Give them a try and see for yourself. At the very least, take a look at your website’s effectiveness or lack thereof and see how you can improve it. The time you invest on this now can mean increased leads and listings down the road.

Top 5 reasons for Jamaican Realtors to Blog

2009-10-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

Blogging is a tool that helps to broaden or establish an online presence, build a community and start dialog in an open and unfiltered way and provide valuable information. From a business standpoint, it is a low-cost marketing tool that helps to increase your company’s online visibility.

1) Build credibility If you have a blog outside of your corporate website, it helps to build trust and credibility among prospects or leads. Typically, the corporate website contains static information about your company, team, listings, etc. However, a blog allows you to be more conversational and provide valuable information.

2) Makes you seem more real In other words, more approachable. It puts a voice on your business. Blogs have the distinct functionality of inviting visitors to make comments on your blog posts and everybody likes to be heard. This adds tremendous value and creates a community type of environment. It’s also the easiest way for people to start a dialog with you or your business. So when you do speak ‘in real life’, it’s as if you already know each other and the formalities are already out of the way. Then you can get right down to business. [Quick side note: Let me know that you are real too, leave a comment on this or any other blog post that moves you. I would love to hear from you!]

3) Lead generation Getting website traffic to a blog can be easier than a website because the search engines rank blog posts with valid content higher. Once you have a blog set up and post on a consistent basis you will see a surge in traffic to your corporate website as long as they are linked. Of course, the smart thing to do is to capture these leads via a sign-up form for a newsletter because the fortune is in the list. You can send property alerts, updates and a newsletter to an email list and keep them in ‘your space’ as a ready market.

4) Position yourself as an expert Blogs are a platform to express your views, demonstrate your knowledge and provide expertise on Jamaica real estate industry issues. If you are very vocal on the issues and post regularly about them, prospects will view you as an expert in the industry, which means more business.

5) Sets you apart from competitors How is your firm different from the hundreds of others in the industry? Why should prospective clients do business with you? A blog can help to bridge the gap towards differentiating your firm from your competitors. A blog gives your readers insight to who YOU are and what YOUR firm is all about.
So how do you get started? Well you could get started tomorrow if you’d like using a free platform like Blogger or Wordpress If you want a unique domain name, you can get that inexpensively at GoDaddy.com In terms of design, you can go very basic, minimal branding and get decent blog themes for free or you can incorporate branding and premium themes quite inexpensively as well.

I use Wordpress for a personal blog on a unique domain with a free theme (still under construction but I will provide you with the link at a later date). I use Blogger for the Butterfly Publications blog using a free theme called Revolution.

With regards to updating, you will have to decide on a schedule and stick to it. This can be once a week, bi-weekly or Monthly. However, some email newsletter programs like Aweber actually allows you to do what is called, Blog Broadcasts at scheduled intervals with some minor programming. The idea is to write a series of blog posts and input in Aweber to be delivered on the dates and times you set.

If you are interested in consulting services to start your blog and get it up and running, please contact me directly here.

Happy Blogging!

Jumping on the Online Video Bandwagon

2009-09-29T04:52:00.000-04:00

With the economic downturn and its effect on the Jamaican Real Estate Market, you need to continue to develop ways to stand out to your prospects. As I have said before it is key to continue marketing efforts, build your brand and the prize will be yours. Money is tight, but those who are on the market for real estate are spending cautiously, buying with more discretion in a competitive business environment.

Going back to online and social media marketing methods, video marketing comes to mind. Search engines tend to index video content higher in the search results. Also, there is no denying that people are watching online videos more than ever. An August 2008 study by eMarketer estimated that 129 million people watched online videos at least once a month.

Here are 7 points to help you develop your own Online Video Marketing Campaign:

1) Ensure the video covers the key points your target audience is looking for. Include the key selling points about your company, vivid images, contact info or website and a call to action. The good thing about online video is that people usually don’t care about whether your video has high production quality like a television show. They will choose content over quality.

2) Post your video on your website and across other video sharing sites. If you have several videos, show one on your website and include a link to your YouTube Channel. Also, in order to help optimize your website for the search engines, it’s good to have the videos on other websites with a link pointing back to your company’s website. Some other video sharing sites include Metacafe, Vidilife, Revver, Yahoo Videos and more.

3) Ensure that people can find your videos by using keywords / tags effectively, plus keyword rich titles. So if you have made a video about a listing in Barbican, your keywords could be “Barbican home in Jamaica for sale, Barbican Jamaica House for Sale, Jamaica Real Estate in Barbican”. You should include your company name in the keywords as well.

4) KISSS Keep it Short, Simple and Sweet. This is key for online videos due to slow connections which make it difficult to watch a long video and short attention spans when it comes to online videos. Two to three minutes is adequate.

5) Refresh your videos Keep updating your YouTube channel with newer videos. Even if you don’t have any new properties to showcase, you can tape customer testimonials from time to time.

6) Network within the online video community. Subscribe to other related YouTube Channels, befriend other users, etc. You can view and subscribe to the Jamaica Real Estate Guide channel here.

7) Tie in your online video marketing campaign with other online or social media efforts. If you have a Facebook Fan Page or Group, corporate blog, MySpace page or Twitter account, then you should promote your videos there too.

Jamaica Real Estate Guide Advertising Benefits

2009-09-10T12:43:00.000-04:00

How Jamaican Realtors can use Email Newsletters to their advantage

2009-09-03T06:41:00.000-04:00

In a previous post, I mentioned the need for Jamaica Real Estate websites to have a sign-up form to build an email list. Building a list and following up with email newsletters is a key component of the real estate marketing mix that seems to be overlooked in Jamaica.

Email marketing via e-newsletters is an effective, low-cost tool to build brand awareness, loyalty and even bring in new leads. Some of the various benefits of email newsletters are:

Keeps your brand in front of your prospects

Helps to build and maintain relationships with your prospects

Helps to position you and your company as an authority in the real estate industry

The key is to provide value in the form of information and not make it too much like a ‘sales letter’. If executed correctly, your newsletter will bring in leads in the form of referrals from current customers and prospects that enjoy reading it.

Getting Started The first thing that the Jamaican Real Estate Broker should do is to sign up with a newsletter program like iContact or Aweber. Upload your existing contact list to the program – people who have emailed you for property information through your website, classified ad or open house. Upload a sign-up form to your website asking website visitors to sign up for your newsletter, property updates and alerts and local real estate news.
Contents of the email newsletter The email newsletter should contain:

Featured Properties

Latest Rental Properties available

Helpful hints and tips about moving, buying a house for the first time, etc.

Testimonials, recent sales, awards, company sponsorship or charitable involvement

Real Estate Industry news

Leverage your newsletter program features Use autoresponder features to schedule newsletter deliveries ahead of time, send a standard welcome email and even segment your list. Provide an opportunity for the subscriber to forward the newsletter to a friend. Program your newsletter to use each subscriber’s name in the greeting section of the newsletter and at any other appropriate opportunity.

Build your subscription list Put a sign-up form for your newsletter in a prominent place on the home page of your company website or preferably on every web page. Put a sign-up form on your corporate blog if you have one and also on any of the social media platforms you use, like Facebook.

An increasingly popular way to build your subscriber list is to offer a free download to a special report such as ’10 things you should do before buying a house’ or ‘Make a good first impression – preparing your home for sale’. In order for your web visitors to view these reports they would have to submit their name and email address.

In summary, your newsletter, just like other advertising vehicles, reflect on your brand. Email newsletters should be professionally written, marketed and consistent. Check your statistics regularly, like open rate, bounces, etc. Also conduct surveys periodically to get a feel for what kind of information your subscribers would like to see. Statistics reporting and surveys can be done with most email newsletter programs. You may assign a point person, perhaps a sales manager who will handle aspects of email newsletter marketing or outsource to an Ad agency or digital marketing agency . For information on how Butterfly Publications can help, please click here.

Tips for a Jamaica Real Estate Website that Works!

2009-08-25T04:31:00.000-04:00

It is no doubt that your Jamaica Real Estate Agency needs a website as many are starting their search for Jamaica property listings online these days. This is even more so the case for the over 2 million Jamaicans living overseas. At last check, the monthly average search volume for this keyword search term “Jamaica Real Estate” on Google is 33,100*. Many are ahead of the game in this respect with at least basic websites while some have high end websites with flash images, slideshows and the like.

But how is your website working for you? Does it bring in leads, inquiries? If it is working, it very well should be! If not, here are some tips for an effective Jamaica Real Estate Website

1) Make sure your contact information is accessible and clear This can cleverly be displayed on every page of the website or via a Contact Link on your site navigation bar. Offer your web visitors multiple ways to get in touch, such as phone/fax numbers, email address and a contact form. In keeping with the social media trend, your contact page should also alert the web visitor to your Facebook Page or Group, Twitter profile and/or Corporate Blog.

2) Property Search Engine You need to have a property search engine, visible from the home page or if possible from every page of the website. The search engine should have a segmenting function according to your listings. For example, an opportunity to search via Parish, Property Type, Price range, etc. This makes things easy and user-friendly for your web visitor who usually does not want to sort through all your property listings to find something that fits their criteria.

3) Use Pictures A picture says a thousand words. In the real estate business, property photos are essential. When you have a website, you need to use up the real estate (no pun intended) and include as many photos as possible. This is the platform under which the Jamaica Real Estate Guide was developed. People want to be able to see property listings in full colour pictorials.

4) Mailing List Signup Form I have noticed that many Jamaica Real Estate websites do not have a signup form to collect names for their database. This is an important, low-cost element in the agency marketing mix. An email list of persons who have made inquiries about properties, requested for alerts of new property listings or just asked for general information – is so valuable. This ready database can be marketed to over and over again. You can keep them abreast of new listings, photo opportunities or press coverage; ask for testimonials, leads and more.

5) Search Engine Optimized You may have heard this term before or its acronym “SEO”. When people are searching on the Internet for information about Jamaica Real Estate, they usually start with a popular search engine, like Google. Next they will use keywords or search terms like ‘Jamaica Real Estate’, ‘Buy a house in Jamaica’ or ‘Jamaica Properties for Sale’ to find what they are looking for. Now, here’s a quick test. Go to Google.com and type one of those search terms in the search box, then click search. Do you see your company website in the first page (top 10) results? Second page? Fifth page? If not, then your page is not search engine optimized for the most popular search terms people use to find Jamaica Real Estate. Studies have shown that most people do not go past page 2 of the search results to find information.

Some web design firms consult with SEO experts or Marketing consultants to help with optimizing their clients’ website. Check with your website designer to get your website optimized or you can consult with Butterfly Publications, publisher of the Jamaica Real Estate Guide magazine and website. You will notice that www.jarealestateguide.com is in the top 10 results for all the above mentioned search terms.

6) Update often Keep your website updated and fresh. Ask your website designer to install a Content Management System so that key persons in your firm can update the website when necessary. The Content Management System needs to be user-friendly and preferably managed only by the appointed persons in your firm for consistency and uniformity.

These are just a few tips to get your website working for you as a valuable marketing tool and provide a perpetual return on investment. For a free consultation or more information about any of the tips mentioned above, please contact us here. Also, take a look at some of the marketing services offered by Butterfly Publications, click here.
*Google keyword analyzer tool

Social Media and the Jamaica Real Estate Market

2009-08-18T12:36:00.001-04:00

Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, Blogging How can these impact and even more importantly help the Jamaica Real Estate business owner? The platforms listed above are part of the social media or web 2.0 stratospheres. And whether you have been paying attention or not, these are being widely used by Jamaicans. At last count, there are close to 200,000 Jamaicans on Facebook over the age of 18. Reportedly, there are 1.5 million Jamaicans on the Internet.

If social media is not currently a part of your marketing strategy, it needs to be. The Real Estate business is a lot about networking. Now with the advent of social media, the networking community has moved to the Internet too. Jamaicans are not only talking about their online social media networks, but they are quite active in it. To maintain and increase your company’s visibility, it is essential to join the conversation. Here are some basic tips to get started and expand your online network through social media:

1) Focus Choose the networks that you will be active in. If you establish 10 different profiles across as many platforms, your efforts look diluted if you are not active in ALL of them. Plus you will have a harder time keeping up with so many networks. Choose 1 or 2 maybe even three and become a pro user with them.

2) Leverage Post offline pictures from events like Seminars or sponsorship opportunities on the Social Media networks that you have chosen to become involved in. This gives you more of a spread for your sponsorship and advertising dollars. In the case of advertising, get artwork from your newspaper Ads or magazine ads and attach as a picture. This exposes your online network to your offline advertising in case they missed it.

3) Be Consistent If you have decided to start a blog and a Facebook Fan Page or Group for your company, be consistent with postings. Decide if you will update your blog once per week and make sure you update your Facebook Page with the posting as well. Exceptions of course can be made however, based on point #2 above.

4) Add value Submit content to your social media network of choice that will add value to your end user or prospect. Sure, you can use it as a form of advertising, but remember that the social media users don’t just want to be marketed to, but engaged. It’s a fine line, but try at all times before ‘posting something’ to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and if you think it adds value, then go ahead and post it.

5) Involve your staff, sales consultants, etc. They should be a part of your Facebook page, follow you on twitter, subscribe to or follow your blog or whatever platform you choose. This shows cohesiveness to your prospects and also expands your reach as you get exposed to your staff members’ network as well.

So get started today. It’s best to manage your social media strategy through one point person or project manager in your organization. Forward moving Fortune 500 companies have even created new positions around social media like Social Media Manager and Social Media Strategist positions. However, smaller and medium size companies have found success through outsourcing. This is the most feasible option for Jamaica Real Estate Agencies and Industry related companies in the current economic climate. It is less expensive and can also be better managed this way. Some local companies and individuals are already doing this to some success. For information on how we can help, click here.

Related Link on Social Media Marketing, Internet Marketing and Newsletter Marketing

Butterfly Publications - Print and Online Marketing for the Jamaica Real Estate Industry

2009-08-18T12:12:00.000-04:00

Butterfly Publications is a boutique publishing and marketing company in Jamaica. We publish the Jamaica Real Estate Guide, the only print and online magazine of its kind in Jamaica. We also provide real estate marketing solutions to industry players to grow their business presence online and offline.
Butterfly Publications offers the following marketing services for Real Estate Brokers, Building Societies and other Jamaica Real Estate Industry Companies.

Social Media Marketing

We help to build and maintain your company’s brand presence in the social media marketplace. After a careful study of your company’s current position, target market and offline brand recognition, we recommend and execute a plan of action for social media marketing and promotion. This includes:

Social Media Strategy and Action Plan

Social Media Profile Set-up and Management

Facebook and Twitter Marketing

Online Video Marketing

Internet Marketing

Do you have a website but not getting any leads? The concept of ‘If we build it, they will come’ does not work in the Online World. There are many no cost to low cost ways to promote your company’s website effectively to bring in leads, grow your business and build your brand. It is possible to let your website be your hardest working employee, because it can work while you sleep. A good Internet Marketing strategy is essential to make this happen.

Our Internet Marketing services include:

Develop and Execute your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategy

Link Building Strategies

Article Marketing and Submission to Social Media sites

Search Engine Submission

Newsletter Marketing

Building a targeted and responsive list is key to service industries like Real Estate. Effective networking in Real Estate is important both online and off. When someone visits your website, they should be invited to sign up for a periodic newsletter and property updates. The same goes for when you meet someone offline. When you collect business cards, you should go a step further and invite them to join your email list. A good newsletter marketing strategy helps to keep your company in the prospects mind, can lead to referrals, brand recognition and business growth.

Our newsletter marketing services include:

Set up and management of Newsletter Account

Set up and programming of Autoresponders

Call us today to analyze, plan and execute your company's Marketing and Communications Strategy. Call Stephanie Treasure @ (876) 337-8406

Yes We Can!

2009-08-18T02:25:00.000-04:00

The All New Jamaica Real Estate Guide has finally been released. If you
have not already received your complimentary copy, you should receive it
during the course of the week. This has been the most challenging issue to
put together yet, but we made it!

Marketing During a Recession

There is no doubt that the Jamaica Real Estate Market is feeling the
pressure of these tough economic times. As prudent business people
therefore, we look for ways to cut our spending, tighten our budgets and
weather the storm. However, one area that you should not cut too much is
advertising. It’s one of the first places we look when we want to cut
spending but it should be the last.

Companies that increase advertising during a recession are able to
increase market share and enjoy a better return on investment than during
the good times. Advertising dollars should be seen as an investment.
Uncertain consumers need the reassurance of strong brands during a
recession. Brands that are constantly in the various media, be it
newspapers, radio, TV or magazines. Think of it this way, when consumer
confidence is up and they are ready to spend, how will they find you?

The key is to strategize, maintain market spend, aim for more bang or
longevity for your buck and target your consumers. It is a known fact that
magazines offer longevity when promoting a brand. Readership is high since
it is not as disposable as newspapers and is passed around/circulated much
more.

Jamaica Real Estate Guide offers a Print and Online Solution for
Advertisers

Our reach is more effective than ever with 1.5 million Jamaicans online,
hundreds of thousands on online social networks like Facebook and the
search for “Jamaica Real Estate” is over 30,000 Monthly via Google
alone. JaRealEstateGuide.com is a fully optimized website which shows up in
the top 10 results across most search engines for Jamaica Real Estate. Our
readers can download our magazine for FREE online and read it in its
entirety from cover to cover. We receive magazine downloads from all over
the world.

Our print magazines continue to be distributed Islandwide via
Supermarkets, Pharmacies, Banks and selective Gleaner Inserts. We would
appreciate the opportunity to market your brand to the thousands of readers
of The Jamaica Real Estate Guide in print and online.

It is my sincere wish for your business and mine to survive and flourish
during these challenging times. So I will work with you in whatever way I
can to ensure maximum exposure for your business without breaking the bank.

Contact me today and lets meet to talk about the most economical way to get
exposure for your business through the Jamaica Real Estate Guide and
www.JaRealEstateGuide.com networks. Send an email to info [a] jarealestateguide.com or call (876) 337-8406

Best regards,
Stephanie Treasure

Top 10 Tips for Real Estate Agents Using Twitter

2009-08-18T02:10:00.000-04:00

by Emma Sorensen

Social media is here to stay and everyone’s using Twitter. But if you’re worried about how to best use it, here are propertyadguru.com’s Top 10 Tips for Real Estate Agents Using Twitter:

1. Understand what Twitter is and plan before you tweet. Twitter is about posting short updates of less than 140 characters, which have been described by some as a little like a mobile phone text messages for the web. It’s all about telling your followers about what you’re doing at that moment. Look closely at examples of how others use it.

2. Every word matters. You only have 140 characters, think carefully about how you choose to spend them… Consider using

3. Personalise your Twitter account, but keep it professional. Make sure to think business and include all your relevant contact details in your profile, choose a relevant name, add a photo, include a short bio and make new friends or follow other relevant businesses using the “find people” function.

4. Tweet. You can’t just sit there – you need to be active. Twitter is social – so participate, and find your Twitter voice. Read propertyadguru.com’s article on Twitter: to tweet or not to tweet.

5. You need to be followed, and follow. But remember: it’s about quality, not quantity. There’s no point having the most followers if they’re not remotely interested in what you’re doing.

6. Think big and be creative with your Tweets. No one will care much for hearing about what you ate for lunch, but they might be keen to know you sealed a big deal, or have a great new property for sale. Whatever you tweet should be newsworthy.

7. Don’t overdo it. Think about the frequency of your posts. Nobody likes a spammer and the aim is to keep your social network alive and expand it through Twitter, rather than annoying people.

8. Learn the Twitter commands. Using the @ symbol before someone’s username is a reply and the user will receive notification. Using the # means it is tweet about a certain topic or event (#icny is Inman Connect New York). You also have the facility to send and receive direct messages that don’t show as a public tweet.

9. Think about how you can best use extra Twitter related applications. There are many such as: tinyurl.com, budurl.com, tweetdeck.com, twitterfeed, Twitter for mobile, twitpic.com, ffwd.com’s Twitter Connect for Video, or Facebook’s Twitter function.

10. Keep up-to-date with some of the fantastic twitter advice sites. twitip.com is jam-packed with useful information. UK comedian Stephen Fry has even been advising on Twitter best practice (and he should know, he has 100,000 followers).

But overall, just enjoy it.

You can follow us here at http://www.twitter.com/jarealestate

Originally published by Property Ad Guru

Jamaica Real Estate Guide Spring 2009 Issue

2009-08-18T02:08:00.000-04:00

Download the latest issue of the Jamaica Real Estate Guide *FREE* plus previous online issues from our website at http://www.jarealestateguide.com