Greg Meyer is the customer experience manager and listening post for Gist. Reach Greg online at @GregAtGist on Twitter, or at greg@gist.com.
Realtors are passionate people, especially about their relationship with customers. One of the ways that they connect with these customers today is through the use of social media, and the methods for doing so are, themselves, becoming much more varied and sophisticated.
Realtors are also dealing with much more savvy customers. Today, customers want to buy a house or refer a real estate agent to a friend on TwitterTwitter
, FacebookFacebook
and other platforms, and agents know they need to be there to provide an open door to customers and provide an authentic, unique experience along the way.
If you’re reading this, you’re likely already familiar with social media 101. So, what are some of the ways you can increase home sales with the latest tools? And, how can you reinvent the home buying experience in clever, innovative ways? Here are three recommendations and accompanying tools that will not only increase sales, but will enhance the overall customer experience and set you apart from the competition.
It’s easy to upload static, one-room images of homes without giving your customer any real knowledge of what the home actually looks like. Instead share true-to-life panoramic images of your properties.
360 Panorama, an iPhoneiPhone app from Occipital, allows you to do just that –- share rich, full images of properties that are stitched together in real-time without any photo-editing work on your part. You can easily share these images over social networks like Twitter and Facebook to give your customers a deeper glimpse into their next potential home.
The broader trend: Be a salesperson, but sell something real — don’t just sell an idea. Easy-to-do panoramic images not only highlight the actual nature of the home, but give your customers a realistic expectation.
Many people look online for an agent who knows the most about a given area or city. For realtors, it has become more about adding credibility while still making it easy for customers to get to and understand the information they need to make an informed, home buying decision.
There are plenty of chart making tools out there, but the one that I’ve found to be most useful is FusionCharts.
Combine this with data pulled from Zillow and Trulia APIs (or if you prefer, their widgets) and you have a deep, intelligent way to inform your customers on everything they need to know before making a purchase. Anything from the latest mortgage rates in their state to historical home prices by zip code or neighborhood.
The broader trend: Differentiate from the crowd by being known as the realtor who provides deep insights into what is, at times, a data-deluged market. By providing credibility-building information and sharing it via social networks, you’re providing a transparent view of your unique understanding and also educating your customers on everything they need to know.
You’re busy, and so is the marketplace. There are plenty of agents in your neighborhood today and all of them want to sell your customers a house. The problem is that none of “your” prospective customers can find out what they need to know without you. So, how can you make finding a house as easy as possible?
Create a comprehensive and easy-to-use property listings site with AgencyLogic’s PowerSites tool. PowerSites is a single property website generator that has robust property listing layouts. The trick that makes this tool stand out from the rest though is its integrated social marketing approach.
First, you create the PowerSites listing, which comes loaded with high quality photo options and a selection of professional, real estate-specific layouts. Then, your PowerSites listing is automatically added to your Facebook profile or page, depending on your preference. There are also options for video, blog and podcast integration for those of you who want to beef up the listing even more.
Here’s an example of a complete listing.
Hopefully, knowing about these customized and task-specific real estate tools will take your customer interactions to the next level on social networks and elsewhere online.
It’s about making the home buying experience that much easier by delivering realistic images, deep data visuals and an integrated marketing presence to customers through robust tools, while still supporting your customer in one of the most emotional and important purchases they will ever make: Buying their next home.
Disclosure: Gist is a MashableMashable sponsor.
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Image courtesy of iStockphotoiStockphoto, MarsBars
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posted Jan 1st 2011 3:33AM 
In the digital age, libraries all over the country have been looking for ways to remain relevant and useful as they continue their core mission of giving people access to media and educational materials. To that end, The Library of Congress has announced plans to make selections from the National Film Registry available for streaming online. Of course, as the Federal Times notes, some of the copyright owners might balk at the suggestion (it's hard to imagine George Lucas ever letting anyone freely stream Star Wars) but in theory this isn't a bad idea, at all. "I hope we'll be able to work something out," said Librarian of Congress James Billington. "[The registry] has great educational and inspirational as well as entertainment value." Besides, if you don't give kids a legal, safe way to watch the classic W.C. Fields flick "It's a Gift" (1934), they're just going to get it from illegal torrent sites or from guys selling bootleg DVDs on Penn Avenue in Garfield.
2010 was a busy year for social media and the web. It began (more or less) with the launch of the Apple’s genre-defining 
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The holiday season traditionally sees a spike in mobile app downloads as users receive new devices and have more free time to interact with their phones. Today mobile social gaming platform