Following up on the last post, here are four more digital tools that impressed me down at REBarCampNO and NAR:
4) QR Codes
QR Codes are barcode-like black & white squares encoded with information which is revealed when the code is scanned by a mobile device. Often the QR Code will launch your mobile browser and take you to a specific website landing page. But there are many other great uses for QR codes: for example, you can encode them with your contact details so when someone scans the code your details are automatically saved in their phone. To learn more about QR Codes in real estate, check out this post I made a few weeks back: QR Codes are in play At Sage Real Estate
Scanners:
- Scanlife (for iPhone and BlackBerry)
- BeeTagg (I used this on my BlackBerry until I switched over to Scanlife)
To Generate QR Codes:
- bit.ly (to launch a website QR Code)
- goo.gl (to launch a website QR Code)
- www.qrstuff.com (to perform any number of different actions, from launching a website to downloading a vcard)
- http://www.mobile-barcodes.com/qr-code-generator/ (to perform any number of different actions from launching a website to downloading a vcard)
5) Listening Posts
These are great tools to help you stay on top of conversations that are happening on your social networks and on the Internet and which you might otherwise not have known about. By using these tools you can set up alerts, so that you are notified any time a certain keyword or phrase is mentioned: for example, if you wanted to know every time your name is mentioned, or the phrase “Toronto Real Estate.” These tools can help you keep up to speed so you can engage in conversations relevant to your business.
- http://www.twilert.com – set up alerts for keyword/phrase mentions on Twitter
- Google alerts – set up alerts for keyword/phrase mentions anywhere on the web
- Facebook search – do manual searches to see who in your Facebook network has posted specific keywords/phrases
- Advanced search on twitter – do manual searches to see who in the twitter network has posted specific keywords/phrases
6) Syndicate Social Media Content
Quite often I hear from agents that they simply do not have enough time to do all this social media and digital marketing stuff. Often my response is that they need to: a) make the time by treating it like prospecting; b) utilize their time more efficiently by using tools. Listed below are three great tools to help syndicate content to your social media networks so you can post once and have the post show up in multiple places:
7) Dropbox
Dropbox.com is an easy way to store, synch, and, share files online. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are backed up and up-to-date. A folder sits on your computer that you can treat like any other folder on your system. As you save files into the folder or create sub-folders, it all gets synched instantly with your Dropbox account. This means that all of the files in that folder will be automatically backed up on the Dropbox server and you can even access the files that have been synched with your account from any computer through the Dropbox website. There is also a really cool feature that allows you to share sub folders with other Dropbox users, so instead of emailing files back and forth with your client, you can have them set up their own Dropbox account and you can simply share certain folders with them. This will allow your clients to access the files in those folders and also save files to the folder to share with you. And the best part it is that an account with up to 2 GB of storage is FREE.
In my next post I will be covering: Pdftypewriter, Eventbrite, live streaming, web video.
