Is Facebook going after Google?

I was recently reading an article in Bloomberg’s Businessweek “Facebook Delves Deeper Into Search” where they talk about the possibility of Facebook offering a real search engine component to its social platform.  Facebook never took their search tool very seriously, that being evident when you search for something like “Luxury homes in Bergen county NJ” you’ll get some Bing results from Microsoft, some people you may know, some disjointed ads and possibly a few groups.  In terms of a quality search engine result it is not very helpful.

In February, Facebook had 336 million search queries, according to ComScore— far fewer than Goo and its closest competitors.

It was suggested that former Google engineer Lars Rasmussen and about 2 dozen engineers are working on an improved search engine.  The sources familiar with the project who did not want to be named because the company is in a quiet period ahead of its IPO said this project is to help users better sift through the volume of content that members create on the site, such as status updates, and the articles, videos, and other information across the Web that people “like” using Facebook’s thumbs-up button.

Did I mention that Facebook declared on February 1st its intention to raise $5 billion in what will likely be the largest initial public offering in tech history.

The $15 billion search advertising market could be a huge opportunity for Facebook.  As Google is attacking Facebook with its Google+ network, Facebook is fighting back and hitting Google where it hurts, in their major product, the search.

Facebook could also follow the lead of companies such as Google and Microsoft and start selling relevant—and profitable—keyword ads alongside results. “Search is the best form of monetization on the Web by far, and they are leaving that on the table,” says Doug Leeds, chief executive officer of search engine Ask.com. “From a business perspective, you have to think about going into search.”

So do you think Facebook should dive into the search engine market?  Let us know.

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Facebook EdgeRank – Do I Need to Care?

What is EdgeRank?

EdgeRank is the Facebook algorithm that decides which stories appear in the news feed. The algorithm hides boring stories, so if your story doesn’t score well, no one will see it.

For those unfamiliar with Facebook, the news feed is what you see when you login to Facebook.  This is all the things happening with your friends on Facebook.

Every action your friend takes is a potential news feed story.  Things likes posting a picture, status update, game milestone, post from a business page etc. are considered news feed items.  Facebook refers to these things as “edges”. So whenever a friend posts a status update, comments on another status update, tags a photo, joins a fan page or RSVP’s to an event it generates an “Edge” and that Edge might show up on your news feed.

The problem is you cannot see ALL the posts because that might be very overwhelming – so Facebook came up with EdgeRank to kind of rating system where Facebook ‘looks’ at your interactions, likes etc. and provides you with news feed information around that.

How does EdgeRank work?

EdgeRank relies on 3 things to determine how well you will rank.

1. Affinity Score
2. Edge Weight
3. Time Decay

Affinity Score

The Affinity Score is how well connected are you to your Friends Edge. For examples, I am friends with Megan Lade. I write on her wall all the time and we have 20 mutual Friends.  So since we have a strong connection when I post something it will probably hit her news feed.

Facebook calculates affinity score by looking at specific actions that a user takes. These actions are:

1. The strength of the action
2. How close the person who took the action was to you
3. How long ago they took the action

These specific actions can include clicking, liking, liking a fan page, commenting, tagging, sharing, and friend-ing a person. Each of these interactions has a different Edge weight and the more effort you do to create the action the typically the higher the Edge weight will be.  So commenting will carry more weight than liking. Commenting on something is worth more than merely liking it, which is worth more than merely clicking on it.

Affinity score measures not only my actions, but also my friends’ actions, and their friends’ actions. For example, if I commented on a fan page, it’s worth more than if my friend commented, which is worth more than if a friend of a friend commented. Not all friends’ actions are treated equally. If I click on someone’s status updates and write on their wall regularly, that person’s actions influence my affinity score significantly more than another friend who I tend to ignore.

Edge Weight

Each category of edges has a different default weight. Comments weigh more than likes for example.

Every action that a user takes creates an edge, and each of those edges, except for clicks, creates a potential story. By default, you are more likely to see a story in your news feed about me commenting on a fan page than a story about me liking a fan page.

Time Decay/Recency

As a story gets older it will loose Edge points simply because it is old news!

EdgeRank is a running score.  So as your post ages it looses points because newer stories with higher Edge points will replace it. Your update will only hit the news feed if it has a higher Edge point score–at that moment in time–than the other possible news feed stories also being posted.

How can I optimize my Fan Page for EdgeRank?

Since most of my post is based on what I have read since Facebook does not come out and directly say how their algorithm works my best strategy advise would be to compel your readers to engage you.

All of your posts need to generate “likes” or comments.

Some examples:

• “Click ‘like’ if you’re excited that we just released our Mobile Real Estate Website.”
• “Fill-in-the-blank: I want my new house to have a ______. “
• “Yes or No, I think Real Estate Prices are DROPPING.”

All those likes and comments will increase the Affinity Score between each fan and your page, boosting how many fans see your status updates in their news feed.

Using images.  In general you see more posts with images then those without.  So go ahead and attach a photo or video.

So if you generally try to engage your readers at the end of your posts you are already increasing your EdgeRank.  So what types of closings do you use and are they working for you?  Let’s build a list here for everyone to share!

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30 Tweet-able Topics

Sometimes it’s difficult – sitting in front of your computer screen – trying to figure out what to post on your social media sites…we’ve complied a list of ’30 Thing to Tweet About’ to help you along!

1. New announcements from your niche – upcoming market trends, house that just sold etc.
2. Teaser previews of offerings you are working on.
3. Related interesting news from the industry – market stats, offer free snap shots etc.
4. Trivia related to your business: history, technology, market, anything relevant to your niche!
5. Ask for suggestions: people love to help someone out.
6. Events you are holding: this informs as well as gets you attendees.
7. Events you are participating in: this shows you are active.
8. Witty one-liners: this can be jokes, daily wisdom or just about anything else.
9. Helping people find opportunities: Helping people solve problems is the best thing you can do to promote your brand.
10. Popular events: tweet about the upcoming school play, festivals, town soccer game (hyper local tweets)
11. Unexpected developments: Was Gmail down today? Tweet about it!
12. Regular industry news: yup, this doesn’t hurt if mixed in.
13. Sales announcements: Tweet about any sales announcements you might have.
14. Open houses: tweet address and time of open house to your niche – don’t forget about a special offer to stop by!
15. Ask for customer feedback: Invite people to share their experiences selling or buying a home with you.
16. Participate in the relevant hash tags conversations to get more visibility.
17. Set up and announce tweet chats based on brand-related hash tags.
18. Follow people and make acknowledgement via tweets.
19. Thank people who have recently followed you in a ‘Thank You Tweet’.
20. Post the latest updates from your blog along with the link. (you can use this site: https://bitly.com/to shorten the URL)
21. Direct people to other social media channels you own by tweeting about them.
22. Search on your brand name, past #keywords, relevant business and niche keywords (http://twitter.com/#!/search) and respond to tweets revolving around those hash tags.
23. Create Twitter lists of industry-relevant analysts, well-wishers or customers, and announce the lists publicly.  This sends a positive message to your followers.
24. Participate in trending topics and viral hash tags to rope in some attention. Ensure your opinion are related to your brand somehow.
25. Tweet-greet your followers daily. Saying small things like “good morning,” or asking about their holiday weekend.
26. Tweet and tag your best employee/follower/business affiliate of the week. This keeps the connections and personalization flowing.
27. Announce weekly deals, giveaways and specials (free dinner for a special follower, discount on commission during the month of June)
28. For business-to-business companies, follow conversations on Twitter and build them up. Twitter is the best place for making your opinion heard.
29. Give daily twitter tips or quick definitions/explanations on keywords within your niche using your industry expertise. (example: home liens, APR, equity etc.)
30. Make regular #FillInTheBlankFriday tweets with some incentives or freebies to the winners.

What other Tweets do you find best? Please share!

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New Facebook Business Page Layout – Yeah or Neh?

To all my REALTOR® friends:

As you are all aware Facebook has recently deployed its new Timeline format for business pages – while many seem to like this new format, I am somewhat dissatisfied.  Here are some things that I feel Facebook got wrong with implementation of this new layout.

1.  No ability to set a default landing page

If you spent time and money creating a landing page for visitors it will still appear on your Facebook page but will no longer be the main/forces landing page. If your welcome page was used to display your real estate listings or to provide links to your site it will still appear on your site but under a sub menu – so fan gating and lead capture went out the door.

2. Harder to follow conversations

Facebook’s new layout has a double column wall now making it harder to follow and track conversations as you now have to look left and right rather than down the page.

3.  Reduced profile picture

If you created a custom image (skyscraper image) 180 pixels x 540 pixels it will no longer work, as your new profile picture is only 125 pixels x 125 pixels.  The new large custom masthead would have made up for this inconvenience but as per Facebook’s TOS you cannot include phone numbers, website addresses or any other promotional information in that new large photo.

4.  Lose the Left Column Navigation

I liked the left column navigation that appeared under the previous layout as it was easy for agents and brokers to add navigation to their pages. You can still add navigation but it will appear as boxes that will appear under your masthead.

In conclusion, while Facebook may have changed its format it is still an important factor to building new leads and promoting your real estate brand.

I am curious to hear from everyone regarding you thoughts with the new layout.

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3 Secrets to Boost your Organic SEO

The phrase ‘Organic SEO’, or organic search engine optimization, is used to describe the positioning of a website or blog on search engine result pages. The ‘organic’ part of that term indicates that the rankings that site or blog receives is directly related to the amount of hits/interaction it gets from people searching for that source (based on keyword and other SEO practices done by the site owner) – NOT how much the site owners pays to boost the site’s SEO rankings; which is also referred to as pay-per-click.

There are 3 key factors that play a major role in your website or blog’s organic SEO rankings – unique and fresh content, how immersed you are in social networking and blogging and the amount of back links you’ve built to point to your website/blog.

1. Unique Content: I do not care what you’ve heard from any SEO ‘expert’ you’ve talked to – content is still king. Now I do agree that my use of the word ‘content’ is used loosely…what I mean is how you are utilizing your keywords, meta information, header tags, photo and video keywords, anchor text etc. in your content to boost your one site SEO. I feel that updating your content is the cheapest and easiest way to boost organic SEO – and a LOT of REALTORS® just do not take the time to do it! Please read more on keywords density/placement, scannable content and the use of long tail keywords in another post of ours.
2. Social Media and Blogging: If you do not currently use at least one social media site or blog to further your online marketing please take a moment, step back from your computer and do the ‘you should’ve had a V8 – head bump’. Social media is free, easy to use and should be a MAJOR part in EVERY REALTORS® ONLINE PRESENCE. Search engines LOVE a constant stream of new content – which is exactly what is found on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn, ActiveRain etc. Marketing through imagery has also taken a front seat in organic SEO and Ill let you in on a little secret – Google owns YouTube and Yahoo owns Flickr – so I suggest using those sites (with proper keywords) to market listings, community information, a town walk through, virtual tours etc.
3. Back Links: In my experience many REALTORS® have no idea what back links are – when in reality they are pretty self explanatory…they are links created that point back to your website or blog. Now you must keep in mind putting your real estate blog URL on an affiliate page of a lumber company or nail salon (basically a source that in no way relates to your website/content) will not offer benefit in your organic SEO ventures. We posted a great article that explains how to create and effective use back links – check it out!

Hopefully this helped you create a new approach to your web marketing for 2012 – what have you done this year to optimize your website or blog?

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Are You Losing Buyers on Your Real Estate Website?

You could be losing prospects on your website and not even know it.  Here are some common reasons why people may be leaving your Real Estate Website:

1. Does your website simply load too slow?
2. Are you offering real time listing data via some sort of IDX feed?
3. Do you provide niche information for your local market?  People need more than just listings.  You need to become an area expert — a valuable resource to the buyers in your area. You need to have a website that will deliver all the resources buyers needs.
4. Do you have a mobile version of your Real Estate Website?
5. Does your website fails the 10 second rule?
   1. When a visitor first comes to your website they spend the first 2-3 seconds, subconsciously, inspecting the general layout and color scheme of your website.  Is your website appealing and professional?
   2. The next 2-3 seconds they will gravitate towards the largest text on the page.  Does your H1 tag line offer something that will draw attention to your website.  Bergen County Area REO Specialist is much better than Welcome to My Website.
   3. The next thing people will look at is the smaller paragraph headlines and then scan the text in them the remaining 4-5 seconds.

People want a website that is valuable and do not need a website full of high profile designs or Flash animations.  The serious buyer is looking for a professional and useful website to help them in the buying process.

If you think you may be losing potential prospects you should make sure you have some sort of analytics installed on your website such as Google Analytics.  That way you can research why people are not staying on your website and what pages are creating the highest bounce rates.

If you still think your site in lacking, let us do a FREE analysis of your site and its SEO — after all your website is one of your most valuable marketing tools you have!

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