The Real Estate Broker Blog - Bigger, Badder, Better and Beyond

Are you are real estate broker seeing the power that individual agents possess through blogging, thinking, we could own the search engines for this area if we could just harness the efforts of our agents?

…Then suddenly, you realize that you have the following challenges holding you back?

- Can't risk the liability of agents posting freely.
- Don't have the resources to get the team to see the value and embrace the effort.
- Don't have the tool for agents to post content into the current company site.
- Recognize the nightmare in organizing the presentation of so much content.
- Don't have the IT team to support such a project.
- Don't have the resources to train the agents to blog effectively and consistently.

Making announcements about our company's product is not the normal M.O. here at the Tomato, but when you're about to make history, you need a soapbox, and what better platform than our own?

On August 21st, at EWM Realtors in Miami, FL, we soft launched a first of it's kind real estate broker blog.  The list of features and the possibilities that they have immediately afforded EWM are more than exciting, they are ground breaking.

Beth Butler was faced with a challenge.  How do I gain dominant exposure in the search engines for as many as 70 Greater Miami neighborhoods... and not spend a fortune doing so?

SEO companies were quoting her staggering figures to write Search Engine Optimized pages for each community.  The results we not going to be 100% guaranteed and it could take as much as 6-9 months to begin to see results.  By then the SEO company would have their money and have moved on.

Since she joined ActiveRain this April, Beth had been watching blogs rise as a powerful tool to gain nearly instant exposure in the search engines for all levels of search terms and phrases. 

The light bulb went off!  If a single real estate blogger can earn success in the Search Engines just through blogging, imagine the success EWM will achieve with a good percentage of an 800 agent office blogging their brains out.  With agents specializing in each community and real estate niche in the Greater Miami area, we'd have thousands of pages of local real estate content in no time. 

Just as ActiveRain has been able to leverage the blogging of many to increase their dominance in the SE's, EWM as a blogging group would gain similar exposure for their agents.

Beth called the Real Estate Tomato and asked if we could develop a tool that would allow her company to blog it's way into dominance in the search engines.

 

3 months later, we launched such a tool.

Massive Public Facing Blog

Unlimited Blogging Accounts for all agents to participate.
Unlimited Neighborhood Environments (categories) for pinpoint organization of huge amounts of local content.
Neighborhood Sorted Sub-Categories giving the visitor the information they want, without the clutter.
Subscription Feeds for all levels of organization: Neighborhood, Sub-Category, Individual Office and/or Individual Agent content syndication
Custom Design to incorporate the EWM look and to showcase the best real estate tools available to the consumer

Internal Private Blog – Intranet Alternative

Internal Dialogue for agents and managers to communicate freely
Well organized categories for Company Communication such as:
  Announcements (as a company and by office)
  Sales Production by Office
  Resources
  Forms 
  Training Docs
  Legal Docs
  Meeting Minutes
  and dozens of other Intranet style features.
Subscription Feeds for all categories independently for instant updates.
Blogging Support: Training, Wiki and Video Tutorials

Moderation Chair

Posts are run through a Moderator before being posted live.
Moderator Role:
  Approvals
  Suggestions
  Edits
  Deletions

So now, just one week after the soft launch here are the stats.

Just over 100 EWM bloggers have produced about 700 posts.  Their pace is staggering, and going to be a challenge to maintain, for sure.  Nonetheless, if only half that group posts half their current pace, EWM is still looking at flooding the search engines with as many as 700 new pages of content about the greater Miami area and real estate market.

Given the expertise and focus of the local Realtor, this quantity of content surely puts those proposed SEO packages to shame.

To follow Beth’s commentary on her revolutionary effort and to learn what “Blogerating” is check out her ActiveRain blog, and be sure to read these articles:

My Life as a Blogerator - Real Estate IS Blogging
Star Date minus 1 - Journey into the Blogosphere
Will Top Producers Blog?
Why Blogging is like a Sales Meeting
Opportunity Time - Can a Company Blog Replace Floor?

Tags: real+estate+broker+blog, EWM+Realtors, Beth+Butler, blogging+SEO, Real+Estete+Blog+Design

Comments

[Dan Green]

Wow, that's awesome. It suddenly seems obvious why a broker would want his/her agents blogging.

[Sharon Simms]

I remember when Beth first joined Active Rain. Congratulations to you and Beth for your success!

[Daniel Bates]

Wow....just wow! What a huge undertaking for Beth and The Tomato, congratulations to you both of you on your revolutionary achievement.

[Galen]

Jim, way to identify a huge need in the market! Brokerages have been missing the blogging wagon for far too long and could really leverage the collective knowledge of their agents to dominate a market area.

[John Schroeder]

Ok.

How do we acquire such a product?

John

[Toby Barnett]

Now that is quite an undertaking and accomplishment, I like it!! I've been working on recruiting bloggers from around the real estate industry to assist my sites blogging efforts but haven't looked interally, might want to rethink my efforts.

[Beth Butler]

Jim - we are off and running thanks to the Tomato team! The blog has exceeded my expectations. Loved the post, of course, and thank you for the mention. Your team was a huge player in this game and it has just been a fun experience. The leads are already coming in... imagine all this and business too!

[Jay Thompson]

Nice work Jim! Will be interesting to watch it progress....

[Tony Arko]

Question: As an agent, if I set up my blog via the broker blog, if I move to a different area or switch brokerages, what happens to all of my content? Also, will I be able to take my blog with me?

[Brian Miller]

Wow...It seems like every time I turn around, blogging ratchets up a level in its usefulness and in the creative ways people are using it...keep it up Tomato Team

[Holly Brown]

I have to wonder what affect this will have on the small time blogger who wants to develop a following in their market. Will the individual's voice be drowned by the big corporate machine, pumping out more information than anyone would really care to read. I don't think many of these small time bloggers will ever even appear in the search engines any more, given that corporate blog SEO will keep everyone else way down on the list. Just a thought from someone who prefers not to work for the big guys, but likes to keep it small and personal.

[Mary De Luca]

Holly- Great comment- I had the same thought when I first saw this. I thought- well good for Jim and his team- but I'm sure glad I am not an agent in Miami trying to develop a voice. I wonder how the other blogger-agents in the area feel?

[Elizabeth Weintraub]

Leave it to you, Jim. You've mastered the concept of find a need and fill it. And it doesn't get any better than that. Unless you're a pioneer. Because you know what happens to pioneers, don't you? They get arrows in their back (no offense on a PC level).

Your new tool might be premature, but at least you're on the leading edge and, in my personal opinion, brilliant. Lots of management teams are struggling with trying to get their agents to use email and would love to pursue blogging; however, those brokers are light-years away. When they're ready, you'll have it fine tuned and dialed in. I hope you charge a lot, heh, heh.

[Teri Lussier]

Congratulations Jim! That's fantastic. For a broker, that is. For a little guy, this means I need to move my arse to be a Bigger, Badder, Better and Beyond blogger than any brokerage controlled blog can be. I love a challenge.

I'm wondering about the content as well- who does own it?

[Jim Cronin]

John,

To get started with our Broker Blog we need to schedule an appointment in order to learn more about your company, goals, strategy and needs. From there we will custom design you a full featured blog for all your agents to participate and develop a training program for the company to ensure your agents have the skills, motivation and inspiration to embrace the tool. Give us a call at 530-872-0892

Holly and Mary,

You have raised a fantastic point. The upstart of large groups of blogging will indeed flood the internet with content, and this content may very well be in your immediate area of focus. Yet, although I see it as competition, it is not going to 'take down the little guy'.

If you have a focus on a niche and/or neighborhood, you are still looking to out produce individuals, not the blogging company as a whole. It is a case of developing the best, most relevant and most frequent content on any particular range of topics that is going to determine your success... not the amount of people looking to do the same.

When it comes to blogging in this industry there is a saying, "If you write it they will come." There is no way to hold back the wave of interest in blogging. And this is a good thing. The more that people look to blogs as a source of information and value, the more that the cream that has risen to the top will be seen as the cream among their competition, regardless of how large.

Looking at the surging competition online as something that is spoiling your efforts would be like looking at the 10's of thousands of agents in any one large city and thinking, "I'll never have a chance at success with all this competition." If you have the voice, the focus, and the frequency, 1000's of pages of inferior content will never silence you.

Tony,

The moment you hit publish, and send your opus to the web, it is copyrighted to you. So, in essence, it is yours... at least the words are from that instant.

However, should you up and leave your company, what the company that you blogged for does with that content is up to them and what agreement you have by participating. In most cases, I would suspect that them taking it down is not going to be the case, but rather they may remove your profile and leave the content up as just being part of a larger, admin bases account. This is an interesting topic and will probably be handled case by case by the brokers.

Nonetheless, you are within your rights to ask for the content in order to use it again however you wish...like I said, it is copyrighted to you. But if your agreement with the company is that by participating, they too can do with your content as they wish, then expect that they will leave it up as you posted it originally, however, without your profile attached to it.

[Columbus Real Estate]

Yeah, hurray for the Broker. I don't care about the Broker though. I care about me.

This is great for the company but suddenly any individual agent within EWM who has been blogging is lost in a wave of wannabes and clones only to have to blog that much harder and faster to be noticed.

I always worry about Brokers and other Agents "Getting it" at the same time I want to shout from the rooftops how wonderful Real Estate Blogging is.

The good news, I guess, is that the cream will always rise to the top of the search engine rankings and those agents who blog and blog best will still do well.

[Real Estate Tomato]

Joe,

One thing to keep in mind is that this EWM blog is now going to have some serious Google Juice based on the frequency and focus of content that is being pinged and spidered. Instead of having to blog more and more to keep up, just riding the back of the monster will help so many quickly dominate for the niche and neighborhoods they write about.

Instead of having to post 5 or 6 times a week to be seen as the news source for your area, now you will have the ability to be a voice that is competitive because of the platform from which you post. And as we agree, the cream of the crop and the most focused on a niche will continue to rise to the top and be recognized for what they deliver.

[Marty Van Diest]

Good job Jim. It's a great idea.

I still think there is room for the individual blogger. Just like the individual agent. You are only looking for the little bit of the total pie. And keeping your blog going is the key.

It might be that the "big bad broker blog", is just ahead of yours on the SERPs but you will still get more than your share of clicks. We won't get lost unless we don't play the game.

Speaking of that...I need to pick up my own pace. I've been slowing down lately

[JoAnn Hostutler]

Hi Jim, We have had a very positive response from the associates and I think it's a "win-win" for all. It's very exciting. Thanks for all your help!

[Joan Donnelly-Ochoa]

Jim, Thank you for sharing such valuable information with us at EWM. I was a bit skeptical at first, but not anymore. I am already seeing the results and I am impressed.

[Tom]

Jim

Great idea, but there is a flaw in the ointment. If the goal of the group blog is to put out huge amounts posts on a region so that the presence is the serps will cover the landscape. Your concept works great on breadth.

But the SERPs tend to only put one or two links from a domain on the front page of the results for keywords. So Joe in the office is the most prolific blogger and gets into them first, and thus dominates it. Then 4 other agents write on the same topic and keyword and their results either do not show up, are buried, or blow Joe out of the water.

The broker is still protected by having a result in the SERPs, but they lose the depth that 4 individually listed blogs would provide. They would have the chance to be 1,2,3, and 4 and transferable to when the agent changes firms.

Now, I still think this is a great idea for brokers and they have the deep pockets to market to so I applaud you. But if I was an individual agent I would be careful suppressing my brand into the brokerage.

Tom

[Anita Cachaldora]

I can tell you first hand...there is a huge blog buzz at EWM. That is all everyone is talking about here. Did you read that blog? Are you blogging? I have to blog... are all questions and comments I heard at the water cooler, in the sales meeting and at brokers open today. Everyone is noticing.

[Steven Groves]

Awesome Jim!

Just the tool I know many brokers and teams have been looking for. I'll be sending them your way Amigo!

[Kevin Tomlinson]

Elizabeth, Holly, Mary

With regard to losing your "voice", I have my own personal blog and my EWM blog and my ActiveRain blog. I find the opportunities endless. I am very excited, do you know why? Because I started my own blog during the Project Blogger competition and I can appreciate how hard it is to get eyeballs to your blog as a newbie. EWM has a page rank of 5 and has THOUSANDS of visitors a day! Not a bad place to start.

Holly: If you are a small time blogger this is the perfect opportunity not to be a small time blogger. EWM is not a big corporate machine. The EWM blog is not a "press release" but a REAL blog.

I have another example: When ARDELL went to Rain City Guide, did she become more popular or less popular....mmmmm??? Seems like she leveraged the eyeballs coming to RCG and made herself even a bigger star.

As for who owns the content? I would imagine EWM would own the content. Why? Because they were giving the agents oppportunites to gain readership and clients from the blog; if they leave the company, what's the point?

One last question: If a member of ActiveRain "leaves" AR, AR still owns the content, no?

I see it as Beth introduced blogging to 700 agents who otherwise WOULDN'T have blogged (anytime in the near future)and is giving US an amazing platform (already in place) with which to blog and gain readership and clients, for free.

I think most agents get in the way of their own success by looking at something from the negative as opposed to realizing the opportunity in front of them and make the most of that opportunity.

[Kevin Tomlinson]

Someone should ask Dustin Luther or Greg Swann who retains content

[Judy]

I agree with Steven, if it wasn't for the EWM blogging that Beth organized, trained, helped and keeps helping I would never even think about doing it. I really appreciate all the extra work that was done for us to get started.
For us in Aventura, we need to get people to notice us and this is a great way since we are the new kids in town.

[Diane Cohn]

The evolution of this site will be fascinating to watch. If there's one thing I came away from Inman believing, it's that the brokerage of the future must have a blog and a blogging strategy to stay competitive on the internet. Because if 80% of everybody is online searching for expertise, that's where you want to be.

But the content can't be crappy. It has to be high quality information that consumers crave. This is why I also believe that an editorial director will become a key new position in the brokerage of the future. Yes, recruit agents to blog, but maintain an editorial vision so that your area is well covered, well represented and everybody isn't just yelling, I'm fabulous, I want to serve you and pick me, I'm the best agent. Publishing standards need to apply.

[Jeff Turner]

Well done, Jim. I've been watching from the sidelines and the work you've done is outstanding. Beth and crew are off and running. It's great to watch.

[Sean Malott]

Thanks for the coaching and excellent words of advice. As they say, the proof is in the pudding.

[Rachel McGuire]

Congrats, this is a great idea, I will be watching for the outcome.

[liveblueprints]

Nice read, more info to add to my useless knowledge of search engine ranking lol