Time Suckage
Blogging isn’t the Holy Grail, a magical Silver Bullet or a Savior. For some, it really is a time-suck, a distraction or a poor idea. For others, it’s like Sunshine for Sweet Success.
Sunshine for Sweet Success
Think of everything you do to attract, uncover and discover listing and selling opportunities as your personal real-estate-business-solar-system.
You and your blog sit at the center of your business-solar-system. The planets and moons in your business-solar-system are the networks, tribes, niches and online communities that orbit around you. I’m talking about your In-Real-Life (IRL) spheres like past clients, suspects, neighbors, your Bunco crew, Yoga classmates and other places you live, love, play prospect for business. Additional planets and moons in your business solar system are the online communities you share and interact with. For example Facebook.com, LinkedIn.com, Youtube.com, SlideShare.com, Twitter.com, Flickr.com, etc.
Because competing real estate agents live and work within common solar systems, it’s important that you position yourself as the MMIC (Main Mistress In Charge) of your solar-system. Authoring a blog is like owning the Sun for your real-estate-business-solar system. When you own the Sun, you rule. Like our real Sun beams sunlight to all the planets in our solar system, your blog beams your personal brand of sunlight to all your important prospecting communities, tribes, niches and networks. The intensity, illumination and warmth of your sunlight is determined by the quality, relevance and frequency of the things you share on your blog. If you’re beaming sweet sunshine and your competitors aren’t, you’re going to win, right?
Your blog is where you can show (instead-of-tell) others who you really are and what you’re about . What you stand for and against. How knowledgeable and helpful you are and the emotional and logical reasons why someone should choose you to help them with their real estate needs. You accomplish all these things by sharing stuff on your blog (aka creating sunlight). Specifically, shared stuff includes things like; neighborhood news, photos of neighborhood parks, Festivals and Art Shows, real estate market updates, local restaurant reviews, answers to commonly asked real estate questions and the like. If you’re sharing and your competitors are not, you have a advantage, right?
Another blogging bonus, once you hit the “Publish” button on your blog post, your “Share” becomes part of the Online-Information-Ocean and becomes sharable via perma-web-link. Once you’ve shared (published) something on your blog, you and your friends and friends of their friends, can now rebroadcast-share your stuff (sunlight) around the inter-webs and within your/their social circles (planets and moons) using your perma-web-links. For example you and others can share and cross-post your permalinks with your/their tribes on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, email, etc. This is what ReTweets, Facebook Likes, Shares and Comments is all about.
Your blog also provides you with a powerful opportunity to further enhance your online presence by incorporating share-tools in your blog posts. I’m talking about using share tools like Flickr.com for photos, SlideShare.com for presentations and Youtube.com for video – all for free.
Bottom Line
Blogging beams your personal shade of sunlight to your IRL spheres, networks, tribes and niches. As a bonus, it makes your stuff sharable by others. Which is a beautiful thing. Of course their are other compelling reasons to blog too. Blogging makes you Findable, Discoverable, Sharable, Choosable and Referable. In my next share, I’ll expand on the Findable, Discoverable, Sharable, Choosable and Referable idea. Till then, grace, speed and success.
PS.
I was wondering what you think about blogging? If you do, what keeps you doing it? If you don’t, why not. Like I said at first, I know it’s not the right idea for everyone.
Thanks for reading. Cheers.
Gwen Banta
June 20, 2009 at 3:36 am
Will you marry me, Benn? (Go to your room, Lani) You are a bloody genius. Thanks for simplifying these things for internet-challenged writers like me.
Matt Stigliano
June 20, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Benn – Great idea on bringing these topics up. I think we’re going to start seeing some new faces floating around over the six months or so with all the different conferences, barcamps, classes, etc. By giving them all a body of work to help them build their sites is great and of course, all of us that have been doing for a little while can always learn something new or get a refresher course on what we may have forgotten.
I’ve seen a lot more interest in San Antonio in blogging and social media lately (packed house at a Town Hall meeting the other day – topic? social media). Even though it’s been around forever, I think the constant info people are hearing about it is starting to make them more curious – to the point where they know they need to at least try to learn a bit more.
Benn Rosales
June 20, 2009 at 3:28 pm
@rerockstar I’m talking to every single person who writes with any need to gain authority. The worst offender of trackbacks are those who have been doing it for a while and have gotten fat on ego and just plain lazy.
Matt Stigliano
June 20, 2009 at 4:16 pm
@BennRosales I find that sometimes the most obvious things become the most “A-HA!” moments. The answers are often something we know, but have let slip for whatever reason. I love linking to some of the other real estate authors I think are amazing and have something to add to the body of information I’m talking about. I suppose some agents fear this, because of giving other authors authority, but I just don’t think of it that way. And if I can help another author somehow? That’s a great thing. It’s also great for one-on-one relationships with those authors.
Benn Rosales
June 20, 2009 at 4:47 pm
You’re given authority by search engines because you pass authority, you are penalized when you horde it. It isn’t about passing an author anything, it’s about Google can read it but doesn’t know if it’s relevant. By linking out to content with the same body of context is how the determination is made that it’s not just content for the sake of content- it points to a larger conversation around the same subject, thus giving your content weight.
This has nothing to do with another author (although I understand your point), it’s about your posts lasting in search engine results, anything else is just plain petty and why I acknowledged the difficulty in linking to competitors, and why sites like AG, Inman, BHB, Lenderama or even bubble blogs who are not competing with you directly can be a benefit.
Those not linking out to trusted authority sites will find their competitors writing on the same subject and linking out surpassing them in search engines on that same subject, especially when done intensively in niche style.
Ken Brand
June 20, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Good stuff. It’s a series of small habits and insights that cascade from ordinary to remarkable.
Thanks.
Eugene
June 20, 2009 at 9:40 pm
Timely article Benn, and I’m in agreement with your comment above:
“Those not linking out to trusted authority sites will find their competitors writing on the same subject and linking out surpassing them in search engines on that same subject, especially when done intensively in niche style.”
Especially after reading a couple recent articles by Matt Cutts and Aaron Wall.
Russell Shaw
June 21, 2009 at 2:58 am
I would like to marry Lani and Benn. If that works out, I will then later also marry you, Gwen.
Excellent and helpful article!
Joe Loomer
June 21, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Have to echo what Gwen said, Benn (without the whole marrying thing). Those of us who are just taking our first baby steps in the blogging and SEO world appreciate these lucid posts very, very much.
Navy Chief, Navy Pride
Oh, and Happy Fathers Day everyone!
Erion Shehaj
June 21, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I love the idea of usind trackbacks to draw people to a conversation that goes beyond one single blog or site and spreads like wildfire to the Internet. The Google love is nice too, don’t get me wrong. But I’ve always viewed search engine success as a byproduct of providing quality content.
Bob
June 22, 2009 at 8:26 pm
“You’re given authority by search engines because you pass authority, you are penalized when you horde it. It isn’t about passing an author anything, it’s about Google can read it but doesn’t know if it’s relevant. By linking out to content with the same body of context is how the determination is made that it’s not just content for the sake of content- it points to a larger conversation around the same subject, thus giving your content weight.”
This isnt exactly accurate. Linking out doesn’t gain you authority or determine relevance.
Bob
June 22, 2009 at 8:35 pm
Benn, you are off a bit here. Authority isnt gained by linking out, and you dont lose it by not linking out.
Missy Caulk
June 24, 2009 at 8:19 am
Great explanation, Benn. I called Lani on this awhile back. Wasn’t sure what it was. I didn’t understand that if I link out it helps me, was only thinking about the consumer. Also didn’t know it showed up although I have seen it show up here on AG.
Is that a plugin for WP ?
tomferry
June 26, 2009 at 4:27 pm
Benn- great read! Thanks very much for a very concise and to the point piece!
mplsrealtor
August 17, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Thanks much, really got to the point with this. I have always struggled to understand how trackbacks work.