Real estate blogging for dollars: It’s time to make money…

As the tester at my second failed attempt to get my driver’s license said many years ago, I am easily “attracted and distracted.” That, and the fact that I at one point drove on the sidewalk, no doubt contributed to my poor marks.

On any given day, my To Do list would crush a Hummer. I have more lofty goals than I have time, but at least I am trying. I’m admittedly not a pioneer, but I am an aggregator. I read, listen, learn, and then assimilate the information and ideas in an ongoing attempt to build a better mousetrap.

This week, I owe my inspiration (okay, distraction) to Project Blogger and to Phil Hoover. Like a lot of you, I have been watching the Project Blogger apprentices at work, and have filed away a hundred good ideas. In particular, Greg’s insanely great idea fell under my “Why didn’t I think of that?” category. The hyperlocal or neighborhood blog is a concept which I have since been toying with, but I hadn’t quite mentally worked through the process. The problem for me was two-fold.

1. Time. There is never enough of it. I try to contribute here, and I have my own blog to feed. I also have to manage a static website (not to mention a real estate business).

2. Duplication. I am currently knee deep in cross-contamination. I link from here to there to here and back to the other. Too much synergy, to use a word from the corporate muckity-muck dictionary, risks confusion, lack of focus, and ultimately a lost audience.

Enter Phil Hoover. In a series of emails, Phil has been keeping me posted on his efforts to expand his blogging efforts into the hyperlocal arena. We know him from his Boise Blog, more recently from his Eagle Real Estate Blog, and now, at the subdivision level, from the Brookwood Subdivision Blog. And I think he may have built, at least in concept, a better mousetrap.

Static websites and the dodo bird: One is endangered and the other extinct. I suspect I won’t get much argument from this audience of bloggers and blog readers. Blogs I have seen to date at best complement the website but do not propose to replace it. The unwritten (and sometimes written) rules of business blogging prescribe that we keep them non-commercial, always dancing around the central issue — our real jobs. I have come to believe that subtlety, while socially proper, can only take us so far. It is time to beat the audience upside the head with the truth: We are in business! For those of us who have a business to run, there is no shame in effectively advertising that fact. Otherwise, all of this is just a huge distraction, a hobby.

“You dropped your peanut butter in my chocolate!” The recipe card mailers and swag door-droppers are no less enlightened than the business blogger. The perfect storm of marketing would be to successfully marry the two. At an open house this weekend, Steve was told my a visitor, almost giddy that it was Steve hosting the event, that he was “famous.” We get this a lot. People see our names and our grinning mugs online and in our print marketing, but when they encounter us a real people, the picture is complete. Therein lies the opportunity.

A blog is not a literal personification, of course, but it is our voice, and it makes us real, as real as one can get without sitting in your living room. And, sitting in your living room is precisely where I endeavor to be. So, thanks to Phil, and to all of the Project Blogger bloggers. Maybe there should be a new competition: Best New Blog by an Old Blogger. This is my entry and how I see it fitting in:

BloodhoundBlog — I am just a guest, but I’ll hang around as long as I am welcome. The audience is primarily industry wonks; my potential clients won’t generally be found here. This has been the best education I have ever had, and the resulting benefits to my real estate business have been immeasurable (the subject of another post, perhaps). Oh, and it’s fun.
San Diego Home Blog — This is my local blog, and the audience is a healthy mix of industry professionals and consumers. Topics range from the local and oft mundane to the waxing philosophical variety. Only certain consumers will find an ongoing appeal in this potpourri of dialogue. And, we keep it pretty non-commercial. I don’t attempt to overtly sell my services there, although we have had some limited success in generating business as a result.
Scripps Ranch Home Blog — This will be my new community-level blog. My goal is to have the discussion be less real estate and more everything else. At the same time, I am unabashedly promoting the fact that WE ARE AGENTS. The side bar has as many links to our website as it does to community sites. By the way, while I have migrated a few posts over from our other site, we haven’t begun to populate the new blog with new material yet. It’s our soft opening, and a work in progress.

Call it my version of peeing on trees (a most delightful phrase coined at BloodhoundBlog, I believe), but the beauty is that they are all my trees!

Many years ago, Steve was interviewing for a position with a local real estate developer. Upon being dazzled by Steve’s vast resume of experience, the company president offered the following: “&*^% the experience. It’s time to make money.” Colorful language aside, it has been an invaluable piece of wisdom that we dust off from time to time. And this could be a blogging mantra. The static website is dry and informative, your online business card. The blog is your online face time and brings your business card to life. Why not cross-pollinate a new breed of online presence that delivers both?