If you’re reading this post then you probably already have a pretty good idea about what blogging is. But what about those real estate professionals out there that aren’t too sure? They may have heard through the grapevine that a blog is a great way to build their business but may be confused on where to begin. There are so many choices out there. What’s a person to do?
The short answer is research. I’ll get into further details about how agents can easily learn the basics of blogging in a future post. But for right now, I want to focus on sharing some details about the blogging seminar I attended today which was hosted by Dustin Luther of Move.com and Rain City Guide.
I stumbled upon the seminar by chance. Well on second thought, maybe not. You see, I use this thing called a feed reader which helps me find new stories about any topic I’m interested in on the web. Google feed reader to be exact. One of the keywords I have in my reader is Rain City Guide. So, the other day, I found this new blog called Real Estate Marketing101. What’s this? Another blog by Dustin? Talk about a blogoholic. Anyways, I read each post and as I scrolled down the page, I found a link to a seminar he was conducting called InternetRelevance.com. Since I was going to be in the area at the time it was really a no brainer.
I arrived nice and early and was the second person in the room. This gave me some time to catch up on some work and make some calls. A short time later, I met up with Loren Nason from the Future of Real Estate Marketing Technology (oops). We have been chatting online for quite some time and it was great to finally meet him. We grabbed some breakfast which was courtesy of Top Producer and chatted away. As I sipped my OJ, I noticed Dustin slipping into the room with tripod in hand. Loren and I went over and introduced ourselves. Dustin was pleasantly surprised and as they say in Cali, I was stoked to finally meet Dustin.
The theme of today’s seminar was Finding Relevance on the Internet - Basics of Blogging. The majority of the audience that attended today were real estate professionals that wanted to increase their business with this great thing we all call blogging. Some had blogs while other just read them. Some just heard of them and thought the seminar was a great opportunity learn more about blogging. Either way, we all wanted to be there and listen to Dustin speak.
And speak he did. When I say speak I mean a mile a minute. Wow! The amount of information he touched upon was enough to fill a book. Hey, didn’t someone do that already? The fact of the matter is that Dustin really did provide relevant information that can help anyone grow their business via blogging. As I always say, it takes time and passion to blog. Do it because you love it and you will be rewarded. I highly recommend his seminars to established bloggers and newbies alike. Hey, none of us have all the answers. We are all here to learn from each others experiences. If you come across any rules, take them with a grain of salt and blaze your own path. It’s fun. I know. We do it on Sellsius° everyday. Listening to a guy like Dustin explain and illustrate his own unique personal experiences with blogging and technology will help you expedite your way to blogging success.
Blogspeed everyone!
Great Job Dustin!
Roberta Murphy of The Murphy Group in a Real Estate Tomato T-Shirt & Loren Nason of The Future of Real Estate Technology
Rudy & Roberta
Dustin’s Intro
Web 2. Oh My Goodness.
A room full of real estate bloggers and future bloggers - nice!
Loren and I talk Tech
Top Producer Realtor® Package = 7I Suite, Blog, IDX Listing Engine, Mobile Friendly, Analytics and Links to Move’s upcoming blog portal which will take your posts and send them to their partner sites at……shhh…..it’s a secret….I can’t say….I’ll let Dustin announce it when he’s ready:)
From the left, (white shirt) - Jeff Turner of Real Estate Shows & Brian Brady of World Wide Credit Corp
From the right, The Rainmaker himself- Jonathan Washburn of Active Rain & his lovely wife Sara (with an “A”) Washburn who also happens to be a Realtor®, chat it up with two Active Rain Bloggers.
Dustin Luther of Move and Rain City Guide gets technical and provides solid tips to a future real estate blogger.
Dustin and I strike a pose.
P.S. I have the entire seminar on a podcast. Just waiting to hear back from Dustin for the ok to put it up. If you want to hear it, please leave a comment for Dustin.
It really was a lot of fun and the turnout from the blogging community was incredible! I was definitely not expecting to be speaking to such a knowledgeable audience!
dustin - don’t you know, you attract the best of the best
thanks for the ok for the podcast. i’ll have them up in segments starting tomorrow.
What a conf put on by Dustin.
He was able to sum up what a blog is in words i have not be able to find all the time.
Rudy, see you tomorrow for dinner.
If you know of anyone else wants to join call them up and invite them.
Loren
Rudy:
Did you actually say “stoked”? You will be trading your MTA Metrocard for a VW Bus if you keep talking like that.
I’m glad Dustin approved the podcast. That should be a required tool for a new licensee.
I juts set up the feedreader (new concept for me) and have Sellsius on it.
I am eager to see the podcast. I have the feeling Detroit is not going to be on Dustin’s short list for seminars.
Rudy, looks like you got a new camera. Congratulations (thank god). What did you end up getting?
I like the idea of visiting Detroit!
Maybe I should get a VW Bus, name it “stoked” and start traveling the country!
“Maybe I should get a VW Bus, name it “stoked” and start traveling the country!”
Oh, Lord! You see what I’ve started. You can travel with the “Debt-Heads” (ask me about that phrase sometime)
hi loren - dinner was awesome. thanks for talking tech with me. you’re doing a great thing helping other real estate agents with their tech needs. keep it up!
brian - like totally dude! heck, i’d go on tour with dustin in a classic vw bus anytime. sorry about the low podcast volume. everyone should hear it. a fellow blogger is helping us out with the sound quality. can you guess who that blogger is? thanks for adding us to your feed reader. we have done the same.
maureen - hopefully, the podcasts will be up in the next day or so. they will appear on another bloggers blog. can anyone guess who?
condodomain - same camera, different flash setting. thanks for noticing.
dustin - let’s call it the “stoked” real estate blog tour and document the whole thing. who knows, maybe we can have it ready for sundance next year.
brian - debt heads…..?
Rudy,
Great seminar! I loved Dustin’s pace of speaking. Kept me on the seat of my pants all three hours.
I think I took away some good ideas from Dustin about how we can make ActiveRain better; OWNERSHIP of the blogs!!!! I get it.
Should we do it by letting people have their own subdomains like dustin.activerain.com, or should we go all the way and let people register their own domain names and syndicate the posts automatically back to ActiveRain and Localism?
No promises, but it would be cool huh?
Rudy, nice shot of the back of my head… I think that’s my good side! It was a pleasure to meet you!
jonathan - great seeing you again. hey, i think we all learned something from dustin. it was well worth it.
re:sub domain: interesting for sure. give it a shot!
jeff - nice to meet you too. i would however have loved to chat more one on one with everyone. i love learning about the person behind the keyboard.
Jonathan: Ownership of blogs might have some interesting results for Active Rain; like, mitigating the need for “outside” blogs. AR could become the 800-pound gorilla for real estate blogging–financially, too.
“Debtheads”! Traveling the country in a psychedelic-paisley-painted VW bus named “Stoked”! Groovy! Can you dig it??
Can you believe what a PR7, PageRank7 website sells for?