Focusing your blog on a local or even hyper-local community is all the rage right now in real estate blogging. And for good reason. If you spread yourself too thin over a large geographic area, the “synergy” (to use an over used word) of all of your efforts is just not likely going to pay off as well as if you are laser focused on one specific area.
You can loop videos, photos, blogging, a Facebook fan page and much more all together with the focus being your target community. Having your content appeal to the larger audience (not just ones looking actively to buy or sell real at the present moment) is one way to build your presence and fill your pipeline. Keep them coming to your site for community info, and you will always be top of mind when they, or a friend of theirs, have a real estate need.
Finding fresh new info for your blog or content can become a challenge, but worry not! There are some nifty tricks that may help you sift through what’s out there.
- Set up a Google Alert to notify you when anything new is posted on the internet. This will keep you in front of the news about your community. When news breaks, post it to your facebook page and/or twitter account. You’ll be seen as the one providing the latest news, even before they see it on the 11 O’clock news!
- Subscribe to alerts on just about any topic on Everyblock.com (right now they have around 15 cities and growing). Topix is another site as is Outside.in. I subscribe to all three!
- Sign up for a local coupon service like Groupon and/or LivingSocial, and share the great deals with your friends, fans and followers.
- Subscribe to social event sites like Daily Candy, Thrillist and/or local ones from your community.
- I’d search through YouTube, Flickr, etc. to find the local photographers, vloggers and bloggers and subscribe to their feeds and share new and exciting content from them. Reach out to them as well and introduce your local blog.
- Centr’d is a more encompassing site, with info on just about everything from events to bargains.
- If you are on twitter, set up a search so that any time your local area is mentioned, you see it. This is often the FASTEST way to get breaking news, as people tweet it in from their mobile devices.
Everyblock and Centr’d have widgets you can add right to your blog.
Right now, larger cities are more heavily covered by these sites, but you can get info on just about any community/zip by using a combination of them. As time goes on, more and more cities are being added as well, so don’t despair, work with what is available and keep your eye out for new additions.
If you have a great hyperlocal source suggestion, please add it to the comments below.
