The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed

Yesterday was the start of something very special.  If you’re into social media and you didn’t hear about the first ever Virtual Real Estate BarCamp you must be living under a rock.  For those of you that don’t know what a BarCamp is, allow me to explain.

BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences (or unconferences) – open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants.

To be honest, I’ve never been to a BarCamp, so this virtual event was my first.  The event carried on throughout the entire day with 27 Social Media experts who specialize in Real Estate.  At any given time there were three speakers in three rooms covering three different topics related to social media and real estate.  Some of the more popular sessions included You Tube, Blogging, and SEO.  All classes were conducted through webinar using the Go To Meeting platform.  That means all this education was delivered straight to you no matter where you were. Over 1,500 real estate professionals participated from all across the nation.

OK, enough about how the BarCamp was put together.  If you weren’t able to make it I want to share some of the highlights from the sessions I attended.

You Tube for REALTORs

The first session I attended was You Tube for REALTORs.  This session was led by You Tube pro Doug Devitre.  It turns out that You Tube is the second most searched engine on the entire web, second only to Google itself.  Video has become quite easy to produce while remaining relatively inexpensive.  If you want to get the most bang for your buck, video is definitely the way to go.  Another advantage to using You Tube is the fact that it’s a great way to increase your SEO (Search Engine Optimization.)  New videos are ranked high on Google when people search for your keywords.

Top tips for Free Advertising Online

This session was led by my friend Suzanne Roy.  Suzanne is a Virtual Assistant who specializes in helping REALTORs.  Some of the tips she shared included using Postlets and Craigslist.  The best thing that I got from her presentation was the idea of having a call to action in your online advertising.

I’m a big proponent of using calls to action in ALL your marketing.  What’s the point to marketing if there’s no clear direction of what to do next.

Converting Social Media into more Real Estate closings

This session was led by Ross Hair, the bald guy from South Africa.  Basically he believes that social media is nothing more than a place to build an audience so you can broadcast to them.  Anyone who’s been following me for a while knows this is opposite of what I believe.

Even though I don’t agree with Ross’ philosophy, there was definitely some merit in his system.  He uses social media to build lists, then he works to narrow down the people that could be clients and takes the relationship offline.  One of the most common mistakes I see REALTORs make with their online marketing is NOT taking the relationship offline.  If you’ve gone to the trouble to get a lead online, why wouldn’t you find a reason to pick up the phone and give them a call?

My favorite quote from Ross was, “It’s easy to make friends using social media, but it’s hard to sell houses.”

Linked In

Mike Mueller presented Linked In.  Mike took us on a tour of the Linked In platform showing us how to complete our profile.  Surprisingly most REALTORs actually join Linked In and never complete their profile. If your profile is incomplete, you should log in and finish it right after you finish reading this post.

This platform is more of a professional network and online resume.  If you’re looking for fun and games then Linked In is not for you.

Using Posterous for you Real Estate Business

My favorite session of the day was Bobby Caroll, who took us on a tour of Posterous.com.  Posterous is a live sharing platform that you can use to share photos, videos, and almost anything else.  I’ve been thinking about using it and Bobby’s presentation really piqued my interest.  The content is indexed by Google (which helps with SEO) and is really easy to upload.  Not only that, but Posterous can also update your other social networks.

Since I haven’t explored this platform yet I can’t write too much about it, but I can assure you that I will be testing and writing more about it in the future.

The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Review

After spending nearly four hours glued to my computer learning new and different ideas on how to use social media in my real estate business I have to say the BarCamp was phenomenal.  There were so many different ideas flying around that it was hard to keep up.

If you’ve never been to a Real Estate BarCamp I highly recommend attending one, you can thank me later.

  • It was a very special event. Big Kudos to the boys at Real Estate Tomato for pulling it off. They had some issues but in the end everything turned out ok. As a REBarCamp veteran I can honestly say that if something doesn't go wrong it's not a BarCamp. Thanks for the mention!
    : )

  • Wowsers Mike, it looks like you have that vanity search fedding to you super quickly. How are you monitoring it? Email? Reader? Give us some tips while you're here 😉

  • Wowsers Mike, it looks like you have that vanity search feeding to you super quickly. How are you monitoring it? Email? Reader? Give us some tips while you're here 😉

  • I've setup a system of alerts (google alerts as well as for those on twitter) looking for my name, my name mispelled (Mike Meuller is common), my website, Facebook Business Pages, etc.
    Some feed to my Feed Reader, some go to email, some text my phone and some ping all 3.

    Or in this case I was actually replying to someone using the #VREBC hashtag and saw the link – LOL

  • That's the kind of tip I wanted you to share with my audience. You gotta have those vanity feeds in place for brand monitoring. I'm not sure whether or not you guys have covered that on the radio show, but I think it would be a great topic.

  • Jonathan, I agree with your take on VREBC. It was phenomenal. Your notes on the topics are helpful and perhaps others who have notes can share them as well. I think peoples notes would make for interesting follow up discussion and would give the day extended purpose.
    Thanks.

  • That's an excellent idea John. It would be amazing for all of us to come together to compare notes on #VREBC.

  • michaelroyce

    I enjoyed my experience yesterday on Virtual Real Estate Bar Camp. Thank you.

  • I'm still working on my review! 🙂 So tell me a little more about your philosophy? Is it only to provide a resource to realtors and nothing else? Just curious…I thought it was an AWESOME event with a few glitches with sound which is Ok. I did tweet a few corrections where 1 presenter said Facebook has a 500 friend limit. I also tweeted a re-direct to the person who said to take off your birthday from Facebook. I added to take off your year of birth only because that's when identity theft can come into play. I thought the new site coming out in Jan 2010 spatialmatch.com sounds interesting..Thanks for your input!

  • #VREBC was definitely ground breaking. So much great content delivered streaming to our offices, what could be better?

  • If you want to know more about my philosophy the best thing to do is read my blog. There's plenty of content that'll tell you where I stand in the social media arena.

    Glitches are to be expected, the main thing is that they provided tons of great content which was delivered straight to us via the web. It was a great experience and I'm looking forward to the next live event in my area. Let me know when you post your review.

  • The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://ow.ly/Dp5G #VREBC

  • RT @Real_TechGuy The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://bit.ly/5bPLO

  • RT @Real_TechGuy The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://bit.ly/5bPLO

  • The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed http://ow.ly/162CEN

  • Jonathan..
    Great post. I wasn't able to attend as I had clients and a closing I was prepping for that afternoon. I heard though it was great.
    I have gone to our virtual REbarcamp here in VA Beach back in the summer and the content was awesome as well as connecting with others in person that I'd been networking with online for a while.
    The social media platform is huge to bring new connections, business and education to each of us. I'm finding though the key is to sometimes get offline and go out and meet these people live..including potential clients. Easy to get caught up in all of it and other business slips by the wayside.
    Just with all business activities..we have to balance and plan out our day. Social media actually accounts for about an hour each day for me on my schedule..the rest is about doing what I do best, taking care of my clients.

  • I couldn't agree with you more Lisa, you have to strike a balance between your online and offline activities. The BarCamps are great, especially meeting new people. There was a lot of great info yesterday, but closings and clients take priority.

  • RT @Real_TechGuy The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://bit.ly/5bPLO

  • I couldn't agree with you more Lisa, you have to strike a balance between your online and offline activities. The BarCamps are great, especially meeting new people. There was a lot of great info yesterday, but closings and clients take priority.

  • RT @Real_TechGuy The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://bit.ly/5bPLO

  • RT @Real_TechGuy The Virtual Real Estate BarCamp Reviewed | Social Media for REALTORs http://bit.ly/5bPLO

  • Pingback: Don't miss the next Virtual Real Estate BarCamp | Register Here | #VREBC()