Cool Austin Texas Real Estate Blog

I have been here on ActiveRain for two years and two months (sounds a bit like the old Chuck Woolery "2 and 2" quote).  During that time, I have been very pleased to see how many consumers have found my blog.  I've written over 900 posts, and most of those are "public", meaning that they are indexed by Google and the other search engines. 

One of my posts, Austin Texas Relocation Package, was the result of a contest that was the brainchild of one of my friends, Adam Waldman, and backed by Bob Stewart.  It has been at the top of Google for a long while now, resulting in almost 31,000 visits (see graphic from my "Statistics" page below).  As you can see, it only has 36 comments, most of which came during the first month or so that it was up, but it has averaged about 1500 visits monthly since it was written in early March of 2008.

The post itself is a collection of links and descriptions for 26 other AR posts that I wrote back around that time, including a somewhat-informal introductory letter to buyers, and answers to the most frequently asked questions that I get from people who are considering relocating to the Austin area. 

I send this one to most out-of-town and out-of-state buyers that I speak with, and it gets them much further along in the process with very little additional effort.  Sometimes, I get calls from buyers who are looking at that post and calling it my "site", as in, "Your site at Activerain.com has a lot of great information."  :)  It's clearly working.This post is not the only example, but it's the most dramatic with regard to traffic.  

Sometimes, when I have a buyer with specific questions, I make sure to send them one of my posts on that subject when I email them.  In fact, I would highly recommend using questions from your clients to serve as blog topics.  If one client has the question, it's likely to come up again, right?

Frankly, and this may sound a little cavalier to say, but it seems to impress clients if we are discussing an issue, and I tell them, "I actually wrote about this on my blog.  Let me send you that article after we finish talking."  I guess it's much like the old saying about "writing the book" on any given topic. 

I have also used my blog to train and instruct the agents who work at my company.  As a broker/owner, this helps me to better leverage my time, so that I don't have to cover the same ground over and over again.  

Since I share all of my public posts on Facebook via the "Notes" application there, I often have friends from church or other acquaintances who mention reading stuff that I originally posted here.  I am typically surprised by which people took the time to read my blog - I guess I'm less surprised than I used to be, however.

One additional point which you may find helpful came up the other day when I had lunch with Ian Greenleigh of DriveBuy Technologies.  We both think it's a good idea to peruse blogs outside of AR in an effort to get additional exposure and gain more friends/contacts.  If you comment elsewhere regularly, you can become one of the "regulars" there, too.  I realize that there are only so many hours in the day - it's just an idea to get your name out there a bit more.  This notion is also discussed in "Trust Agents", by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith.  Whenever you do take the time to comment, make sure you link back to your AR blog (or outside blog) to gain more potential readers. 

Thanks very much for reading!

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/barnett/2836828090/

I am happy to report that our company has been quite busy selling homes lately here in Austin, with the last quarter shaping up very nicely.  In fact, this has probably been the most active season for our company in about two years.

My friend Brian Block, who is a broker in the northern Virginia/D.C area, sent me a link to an interesting and encouraging article from Realtor.com, which states that Austin took the top spot in year-over-year search increase on Realtor.com, with a 91% jump from September 2008 to September 2009.  WOW!  This is clearly very exciting news for us.  Brian spotted this article on Twitter.

Thankfully, we have seen similar results with the traffic to our website at www.austintexashomes.com, which is in the top 5 results on Google for almost every major real estate term that I care about. 

The other cities in the top five were Las Vegas, New Orleans, Reno, and Tyler, Texas.  Tyler came as an interesting surprise to me.  My parents lived in Tyler just before I was born and we have relatives in that area.

If you would like to see the entire article, visit http://bit.ly/THTQd. 

Austin remains one of the most affordable and desirable places to live in the U.S.  If you're considering making a move, you might be interested in checking out my online relocation package right here:

Austin Texas Relocation Package

I would love the opportunity to help you find the right home in the general Austin area.  You can also visit our Austin real estate website at www.austintexashomes.com.  Thanks!

One of our agents just listed a nice home in the Avery Ranch area overlooking the golf course and a scenic pond, too!  It's hard to find places in the sub-$250,000 range like this.

Features:

• 3 Bedrooms, 2 Full Bathrooms
• 1937 square feet per tax records
• Backs to golf course and pond
• Built by Gehan Homes in 2005
• Fresh paint and carpet (October 2009)
• Island kitchen w/ silestone counters, beautiful mahogany cabinets, and black appliances 
• Home office with dark wood flooring right off the living area
• Light and bright!  
• Covered patio
• Immaculately maintained - Shows like a model

If you have any questions at all or if you would like to set up a time to take a look at this home, feel free to give me a call anytime at 512-796-7653 (cell) or email me at jason@austintexashomes.com.  If you are interested in searching all Austin homes for sale, visit my website at www.austintexashomes.com.  I look forward to hearing from you soon!

I remember getting invited to check out Twitter about 2 years ago.  Next, I remember thinking that it seemed useless.  Months passed....I got emails that said things like, "@delicioushair is now following you on Twitter". WHAT?!?  Why? 

The notion of someone following me used to strike me as both odd and off-putting. I guess it sounds catchier than saying that someone is "paying attention to you on Twitter", but that's basically exactly what this means.  I prefer to think of my subscribers, friends, contacts, and followers as part of my online audience.  The better you are at building an audience, the more likely you are to convert this to actual business growth, in my opinion.

Over time, I got the hang of it, and I finally jumped in with both feet just over a year ago, and I'm thankful that I did.

As of a couple of days ago, I have over 10,000 people paying attention to me on Twitter.  What's the significance of this?  Well, by itself, not much.  I had a brief conversation on Twitter with Derek Overbey (@doverbey) after crossing this milestone.  He mentioned that quality is more important than quantity, and I agree wholeheartedly.  I think having BOTH is pretty nice, too.  :)

I consistently see Twitter users with 20,000 or even 50,000 followers who have really only built a very big house of cards for themselves.  They never converse with anyone, and they are still trying to use Twitter like a traditional marketing channel, by broadcasting information rather than hanging out and listening.

A few nights ago, I was happy to be able to attend a local "tweetup" (Twitter-based meetup) with author Shel Israel.  I even got to sit next to him at dinner, which made my day.  Shel is the author of the newly released book "Twitterville" and co-author with Robert Scoble of one of the seminal books on blogging, "Naked Conversations".  During dinner, we had an interesting discussion with my local friend Mike Chapman about the fact that no politician has truly utilized social media yet, including President Obama.  Obama's campaign certainly did a very effective job of using the tools to broadcast their message, but that's not the same thing as listening and joining the conversation.  Shel noted that it would be newsworthy (and bookworthy) for a candidate to do this.

As with the candidates who jump on the bandwagon to appear hip, the same thing goes for anyone attempting to use Twitter to build his/her business.  You must listen!  Sending links from your blog posts, or just having a profile is not enough.  What if someone responds to your post but you aren't even there to see it?  In much the same way, having a giant number of followers means nothing if they are all spambots, or if you are never around to speak with them.  Raw numbers are not the important part - engagement is.

I am happy to hit this new plateau, but I also recognize that the key to success in any social medium is being consistent. 

Over the past 24 hours, I had two of my agents contact me, excited about new prospects that they have.  One of them is looking to spend up to $3 million for a waterfront home (fully pre-screened - it's his friend's fiancee), and the other is considering homes priced in the $1 million range.  If they both close, I would stand to make $22,500 or more for our company.  Why am I bothering to tell you this?  Because I met BOTH of these agents on Twitter.  It's a phenomenal recruiting tool if handled correctly.

P.S. Just a quick tip: If you want to get serious about using Twitter to build relationships and your business, I would highly recommend using TweetDeck, Seesmic Desktop, or something similar.  It makes it easier to pay attention to the people you care about and form bonds with them. 

If you've been reading my blog for any amount of time, you probably already know that I truly love my kids.  Here's a quick and unedited video that I took tonight of our 3-year-old (Abby) and our 6-month old (Jenny).  Abby would probably kiss and hug Jenny all day if we allowed it.  In fact, my wife calls it "aggressive cuddling".  I really like that term.  I hope you enjoy this one.  I play the part of the camera man/soon-to-be-jungle gym.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to see which of our Social Media Edge episodes have attracted the most attention.  We have had 46 shows to date. 

I'm not sure which one is a more interesting measure of success - "live" listeners or archive listens.  Hence, I have included both of them here.  All of the top five in the live category garnered over 100 listeners during the recording.  All of the top archived shows have received over 600 listens.  It's exciting to see the audience grow after the recorded programs are available.  :)

Considering the fact that Sarah Evans was the only person to make both lists, perhaps we should consider having her back on the show sometime!

Top five shows for live listeners:

  Social Media Edge - Special Guests Reggie and Nicole "Nik Nik" Nicolay

  Social Media Edge - Special Guest Cathy Browne

Sept 15th - Special Guests HeyAmaretto, MayaREguru and Lesley Lambert

Sept 1st - Special Guest PR Sarah Evans

Brad Nix, Matt Fagioli REtechSouth

Top five shows for archive listens:

  Guest James Shiner of TweeplePages

Very Special Guest Steve McGranahan - "World's Strongest Redneck"!

  Guest Andrew Stone - Developer of "Twittelator" for the iPhone

  Sept 1st - Special Guest PR Sarah Evans

  Bloggers Sued for Product Endorsement?

So, why not take some time over the weekend and give them a listen.  I think you'll find that we try to keep things both fun & informative.  I would love to hear your feedback on what you think after you listen.  Thanks!

Every week or two, I get a handful of requests regarding the archives for our BlogTalkRadio show, Social Media Edge.  Sometimes these requests are via email, and other times I get quick notes on Twitter or Facebook asking about a particular show that we had before.

In an effort to make it easier to find all of our shows in one place, I had written a post about this a few months ago.  Since then, I got too busy to keep that post updated properly, so I would like to publicly thank Mike Mueller, who is a regular part of our show, for keeping the archives up to date. 

Mike moved the archives over to our Facebook fan page: http://facebook.com/socialmediaedge. 

You can pretty much see where Mike took over, since the summary notes dramatically improved over my own.  :)

So, if you have any interest in hearing a previous show, with our phenomenal guests, head over to the Facebook URL above to find some great info from authors like Shel Israel, Paul Chaney, and Tara Hunt, or social media specialists like Sarah Evans, Reggie and Nicole Nicolay ("Nik Nik"), Connie Reece, Jay Baer and Mike Chapman.  Once, we even had the World's Strongest Redneck.  We liked having the Twitterqueens founders so much as guests, we gave them their own one-hour show on the network! 

Mike is now hosting "The M Files" and Diane Guercio, Maya Paveza, and Lesley Lambert now host TQ Radio - both shows air on Monday at the same URL as Social Media Edge: http://blogtalkradio.com/jckc

We hope to continue expanding the network, and I like the sense of community that we've managed to foster.  Join us sometime!

Here's this week's episode, to whet your appetite a little: 

   Oct 20th - Special Guest Mike Chapman

I just listed a home today in the Estates of Blackhawk in Pflugerville which I expect to sell very quickly.  In fact, I don't think I have seen a home in this price range with the upgrades that this one has to offer.

Take a quick look at some of the features:

• 5 Bedrooms, 3.5 Bathrooms
• 2623 square feet per tax records
• Built in 2006
• Large formal dining room fits table that seats twelve!
• Highly upgraded kitchen with Jennaire stainless appliances (including a double convection oven)
• Undermount sink
• Granite countertops
• Large ceramic tile flooring
• Master down
• 4 bedrooms and 2 full bathrooms upstairs
• Large lot (.232 acre)
• Very convenient to 130 & 45 (toll roads)
• Dedicated gas stub for grill  (Jennaire gas grill also stays!)
• Neighborhood amenities include pool, clubhouse, workout facility, and more!

If you have any questions at all or if you would like to set up a time to take a look at this home, feel free to give me a call anytime at 512-796-7653 (cell) or email me at jason@austintexashomes.com.  If you are interested in searching all Austin homes for sale, visit my website at www.austintexashomes.com.

I was excited to see that the very first virtual Real Estate Barcamp is being held on November 17th.  They are anticipating over 1000 agents to attend from across the United States (there are already 272 registered attendees as of this writing).  Having attended a live version in Houston last year, I can attest to the value of this event.

They will have some terrific sessions and teachers, from the list I saw earlier today.  There are still openings if you're interested in hosting your own session.  There have enough virtual "room" for 27 total.

Current session topics include:

Social Media Risk Management
Flickr for Real Estate
Developing Your Brand
Online Advertising Secrets
Facebook for Real Estate
WordPress Training
Daily Goal Tracking
Starting a Real Estate Blog
...and more.

Following the virtual event, there will be many "in real life" meetups around the country.  I am considering hosting one of these myself, depending on the interest level here in Austin.

The sessions will run from about 11am to 6pm Central time (9am to 4pm Pacific).  You can get more details and track the progress here: http://rebarcamp.com/virtual/.  I hope to see you there!

Our guest today on Social Media Edge was Mike Chapman, a local friend of mine that I met via Twitter a few months ago.  He talked about an upcoming event that his company is helping to promote.  I think it's a very worthy cause, and I wanted to help him spread the word.  It's for International Adoption Month and it benefits the Gladney Center for Adoption: http://www.adoptionsbygladney.com/

Both of my parents were adopted, so without adoption I wouldn't even exist!  Clearly, this is a cause near and dear to my heart.  :)  My wife and I were very close to adopting back when we got pregnant in 1998.  That was four children ago for us!  I am always in favor of any initiatives to help bring children to couples and families that really want them and can give them a better life.

Here's some information that Mike provided for this post:

The event is a benefit concert called "Adoption Rocks!", and it was inspired by a local Austin family who adopted their beautiful Ethiopian daughter through Gladney. Upon learning of the trip to Ethiopia, friends hosted a live musical event last November to raise money for the Ethiopian orphanage.

The event was so special and so well-received that those involved decided to do it again but in a much bigger way!  This promises to be a unique, fun event that will donate money raised to support the many programs and services Gladney provides.
 
The Gladney Center is a licensed, not-for-profit agency that has been creating bright futures through adoption since 1889. Today, Gladney stands as an international leader in adoption services and has placed thousands of children in loving homes. Gladney facilitates domestic as well as international adoptions from 9 different countries including Russia, China, Guatemala, and Mexico. Besides education, social events and life long support, post-adoptive services are provided from the Gladney Center for birth parents, adopted children, and their families.

They set up a Facebook fan page right here: http://budurl.com/adoptfb  

The video below makes a very compelling case.  In my case, it brought swift tears as well.
 

  

 
Although the details are on the Facebook page I mentioned above, here they are again:

Location: Long Center For Performing Arts (near downtown Austin, TX)

Entertainment:

• Dumpstaphunk (Ivan Neville's group)
• John Pointer
• The Sangra del Sol Dance Troupe

Tickets: $100 each ($50 of each ticket is tax-deductible)  To order, just click on desired show time link below and enter the promotional code "ADOPTIONROCKS" (all caps)
7:30 pm link = http://budurl.com/adopt1
9:30 pm link = http://budurl.com/adopt2
 
 
Sponsorships are still available, and there will also be a silent auction held. Hors d'oeuvres will be served, and there will be a cash bar available as well.
 
For more information, please contact Mike Chapman: mikechapman2.0@gmail.com