Jan10

How to Make Your Posts Sparkle

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How to Make Your Posts Sparkle

Looking for a way to make your posts sparkle?

Yeah, me too.  And since I’m not particularly witty in 140 characters or less (or more), it’s nice when pictures can do the talking.

Blurb Mobile has some real possibilities in that regard for small business owners.  It’s an app for the iPhone (or iWhatever) which allows you to take a string of photos, arrange them as you will, add captions or voice, and then post them from your phone to the Blurb site, Facebook, Twitter, and/or Tumblr.

You can find some very artistic story boards on the Blurb site, but even for the non-creative type, I can see small business uses for the app.  A realtor could snap pics of a home they’re selling and post it via Blurb in minutes, with voice and/or captions.  A business could post its special event – this would work particularly well, I think, with bars and other social venues.  Or (ahem) for a writer creating a teaser for her upcoming work.

The basic app is free.  The upgrade is on sale now for .99, regularly $1.99.  Honestly, I suspect the basic app will do the job for most small business owners, but $1.99 still falls within the do-it-on-the-cheap theme of this blog.

As a side note, if you’re worried about your photographic skills, there are some excellent photo apps out there to give you an artistic boost.  My favorites are Quick Lomo Pro and Camera +.  The latter allows you to edit your pictures while they’re still on your iWhatevers, and has some groovy filters and settings if you’re feeling wild.  I used Quick Lomo Pro for my little ghost “story,” using the Lomo Extreme setting to get that slightly unreal look.

Dec29

Social Media for Real Estate (infographic)

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Social Media for Real Estate (infographic)

Can realtors successfully use social media to drive leads?  According to this infographic, yes.  I suspect, however, the devil is in the details…  I’ve been coming to think that people are on Facebook for entertainment, and, well, for most of us, things like real estate and insurance are not terribly entertaining.  So while it’s probably not a bad idea for the more “professional” professions to have a Facebook page (hey, another site online can’t hurt if its done well, can it?), I couldn’t see investing a lot of time in it.

Interestingly, this infographic does not list top Facebook realtor sites – only Twitter.  And looking at the top Twitter accounts listed below, I see that they’re not listing heavy.  @Swanepoel is chatty.  @Marcosantarelli is more informational, linking to general real estate articles.  @RealtorRyan is sort of a mix of the two.  What do you think?  Is Twitter more suited to realtors than Facebook?

Social media killed the blog star

via Fixr  Click here to enlarge