The world’s greatest agent has access to the coolest tricks and gadgets.
He can dominate a market, schmooze with the industry, sell houses, and still find time to be a hit with the ladies. How does James Bond, Realtor do it?
Well, here’s how he leverages one of the most underused tools available on the net. RSS.
Most people think of RSS (Really Simple Syndication) as a way to read their favorite websites all in one place. Which it is but it’s such a very limited use of the true power of RSS.
But, James Bond, Real Estate Super Agent, knows all the cool gadgets and tricks to using RSS to gather market intel and spy on his competition. This fella is a guerrilla 😉
Take a look at his arsenal of RSS weapons.
Google Reader
There are others but this is the one Bond uses to monitor his RSS feeds. If you don’t currently have an RSS reader, use this one. https://www.google.com/reader
aideRSS
It can be a volatile thing, being a real estate super agent. Bond uses this tool to keep tabs on his competitors hottest topics. He can see which topics received the most comments, received Diggs, or bookmarked on Delicious.
Of course, these results are available as an RSS feed and be added to Google Reader for continued monitoring. https://www.aiderss.com
Google Alerts
You may already have a few Google Alerts set up to be delivered via email, but a James Bond has these same alerts delivered to him as an RSS feed.
Visit Google Alerts and set up searches for your name, keywords, neighborhoods, and more. Then have them automatically fed into Google Reader so they can now be archived and searched. Your inbox will thank you. https://www.google.com/alerts
Twitter Search
One of the most popular social networks, people are talking on Twitter. Are other agents talking about you? Someone interested in one of YOUR neighborhoods?
Listen in (then jump in!) on the conversation using one of James Bond’s favorite tools. Visit Twitter’s search page and type in your search term, the results are available as an RSS feed which is easily added to Google Reader. https://search.twitter.com
So, there you have just a few ways James Bond, Realtor would be maximizing the power of his RSS reader and the feeds many sites make available. I’d share a few more but then he’d kill me.
What other ways are you using RSS to keep tabs on your market and competition?
Ben Goheen
October 9, 2008 at 11:38 pm
Great article Mark! Now I know all the tricks to stay ahead of the competition (and spy on them).
Danilo Bogdanovic
October 10, 2008 at 7:42 am
Uh oh…you just shared classified document and key intelligence secrets with our enemies! lol
Another one to check out is “Twitter Local”. I’ve found Google Alerts, Twitter Search and Twitter Local to be the best ways to stay on top of what’s going in on your local community and what people are talking about by keeping an eye on certain keywords.
In addition to staying on top of what’s going on, it’s great for connecting with other folks and businesses in your community. For example, I have certain keywords in Twitter Search and Twitter Local that alert me when someone who is located in the towns I work in Tweets something. It also alerts me when someone uses any of the keywords in a Tweet. I’ve connected with people and companies who joined Twitter because I was alerted of their Tweet via Twitter Search or Twitter Local that I may have not run across otherwise.
Melanie Baker
October 10, 2008 at 10:09 am
Wow, I feel cooler by association. Good coincidence my name is M, too. 🙂 It’s always great to see people from specific industries elaborating on the value of our services for a specific audience. Really lowers the barrier to entry/understanding for new folks. Thank you!
If 007 would like to spy on our new beta site, he can slip me a microfilm. I promise to pass all feedback directly along to Q.
And, of course, we can discuss information management over martinis… shaken, not stirred.
Mark Eckenrode
October 12, 2008 at 9:08 am
@ben: your secret agent card is in the mail…. along with the decoder ring
@danilo: i’ve used twitterlocal but never noticed they had rss. thanks for pointing it out. and don’t worry about competition finding out our tricks – you’ll have them silenced in no time, i’m sure.
@melanie: M, thanks for stopping by and visiting with us agents 😉 and, like the new lotus, i’d love to take the new beta site for spin
Vicki Moore
October 12, 2008 at 6:19 pm
I was reading your post on a friend’s computer yesterday and just had to stop. I had nowhere to put notes. I’m back at mine and I’m ready to put your ideas to work. Thanks.
Cindy in Indy Marchant
October 12, 2008 at 6:55 pm
Very catchy title, pulled me in. I have been looking for a way to get the “daily dose” of news for my area and the Google Reader/Alerts is perfect, thanks. You have a slight typo in the aiderss.com link; need a “.” rather than a “/” ; but being the techy that I am (NOT), I did figure it out. That is very interesting indeed. I am really drawn to the whole idea of “spying” on my competition; I wonder what that means???
The whole RSS thing has me baffled, but it is my first time (be nice) on Agent Genius so I’m sure it will get explained as I travel around the site a bit.
Lani Anglin-Rosales
October 12, 2008 at 9:28 pm
Cindy, most of us keep an eye on competition not only to be aware but we all learn from each other, it’s not necessarily “spying” unless you do it offline by hanging out in the bushes of their offices. 🙂
Stick around, you’re right- you’ll learn TONS from the many many talented writers and readers here!
Mark Eckenrode
October 13, 2008 at 8:18 am
@vicki: sweet. you’ll find RSS an easy way of keeping tabs on things.
@cindy: thanks for the eagle-eye on the link. see, it’s that kind of thoroughness that keeps Bond and all other super agents at the top of the field 😉 as you get more into RSS (and agentgenius) you’ll find it’s mighty helpful way of distributing content and if you got any questions there’s plenty of folks here at AG to help out. just holler.
Atlanta Real Estate
September 7, 2009 at 11:33 am
Mark:
This stuff is so cool, like Bond.
I’m so far behind on even things like RSS, which has been around forever. I’m on purposely behind on social networking, except for blogs, and will either convert at some point in the future or just miss that boat completely.
I’m going into my Google account today and figuring this all out and setting up a feed from AG for starters. Maybe I should start and stop with that, judging by the content here (FAR superior) vs the content out there elsewhere.
Thanks again, and nice cartoon picture. 🙂
Rob M