Doug Devitre presents to the Houston Association of REALTORS® the Relevance of Social Media. The workshop includes how to build organizational value without spending any money.
Here are the steps to make the process easier.Personally complete the template located in Appendix A on a Microsoft Word Document. Answer each section in as much detail as possible in a professional tone.Create online profiles at each one of the sites listed above by visiting the site. If you have an assistant or hire a virtual assistant, email them the sites, directions, and templates for them to create the profiles for you. Select YourName as the username and a password that you will most likely remember. Your username should reflect your name or company name. This will determine your unique website for each profile. For example, my slideshare site is http://www.slideshare.net/dougdevitre. Use the first four letters of the website plus a unique four digit code that remains the same throughout ever online profile. For example, my password for facebook is face1234, linkedin is link1234, and flickr is flic1234. <number>
Before you begin online social networking on many different websites it is essential to understand some of the dynamics behind how these sites want you to sign up, login, create a profile, upload content, and share information with your friends, clients and colleagues. Create profile template by answering the questions or filling in the blanks in the Template provided for you in Appendix A. This can be located at http://dougdevitredelivers.com/?page_id=546.Visit websiteClick join or sign up which will appear somewhere on each homepage.Enter in username and create password. Select a username that is your full name or your company name. This is important because it will create a URL with your name inside because the search engines will rank your name higher if it is included in the URL. I recommend choosing a password that can be remembered in across other profiles but is different. Use the first four letters of the website and four numbers that will be the same across all other profiles. For example for Facebook a password would be face1234 and linkedin would be link1234. You may be required to enter a birth date, location and other fields depending on the site.Check your email for subscription link once you hit submit. An email will be delivered to your inbox from the email address that you entered into the profile. This verifies that you have a valid email address.Visit site and enter in username and password and start copying and pasting the information from the Microsoft Word Document that you want to appear on each profile. Each site is different and may not ask for all of the answers that you have added to the profile. Ask a virtual assistant or personal assistant to set these up for you if you do not have the time or patience to go through each site to create a profile. Give them the instructions on how to create the username and password for each one so they can start creating the accounts and profiles. Ask them to create a unique email address at http://www.gmail.com because they will need access to the confirmation link. When they have finished then you can change the password and email address when you are ready to assume control.Copy and paste from template into fields<number>
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Share videos with the world.
Create a YouTube profile with a username and password. <number>
You must be logged into your account to upload videos. Videos have a maximum time limit of 10 minutes and no more than 1GB of file space. Upload videos to your account in a few simple steps:Choose upload on the upper right side of the screen.Choose browser for video. This is similar to inserting a picture into the MLS. Note that it is best to create a folder in My Documents called My Videos if none exists. Select the video and press OK.Choose upload videoWhile the video is loading add additional information about the video.Title must clearly identify the purpose of the video and include key words when people search for the video.Write a description that defines the purpose of the video and why others should watch it.Add tags or keywords to each video that define the purpose of the videoNote the tags should include key words from the title and first few lines in the description. This will help the videos rankings in the search of videos similar to these key words.<number>
Once the videos have been uploaded to YouTube then each video will contain two different windows to share your videos with the world.URL – Each video automatically creates its own link that can be included in email marketing blogs or websites. Once the link is clicked on then a new browser will open and will play the video while including other related videos to preview on the side. Click on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XneiT8JM85Q as an example. This is the easiest way to share videos but has its own limitations. After the video is played other videos with similar titles and keywords will show afterwards distracting or confusing the viewer.On the right side of the screen others can see related videos with similar titles and keywords will show afterwards distracting or confusing the viewer.<number>
Please read Appendix G Photos for Social Media before beginning this moduleFlickr is one of the most popular social networking site for sharing photos online. It works with many of the other social media sites like WordPress, Facebook, Feedburner, and has the RSS feature to make photos appear on any website of your choice. There are many different ways to use Flickr included below but not limited to the following:Create profile that people can get to know you and your style of photos that you upload online.Upload photos into one convenient online location.Add titles, tags and descriptions so that photos can be found quicker online.Batch and organize photos into groups quickly.Create photo sets or albums to share with others.Share photos with other social media sites using RSS feed for photos sets.<number>
Share documents online without having to contact your website provider using a service called Box.net. Visit www.Box.net and create a profile with a username and password. This is a free application unless you start uploading several documents and want additional options to share and collaborate on documents. You can start uploading documents immediately. These can include and not limited to the following:.pdf (portable file document).doc or .docx (Microsoft Word).xls or .xlsx (Microsoft Excel).ppt. or pptx (Microsoft PowerPoint).jpg, .jpeg, .gif or any other type of picture filesOnce the files are uploaded they can be managed into folders. Each folder can be share documents online through email, blogs, or websites.<number>
SlideShare is an online community of sharing Microsoft PowerPoint presentations and other documents with the world. Individuals will upload their presentations, view other, make comments, send messages and form groups to help one another gain knowledge on subject matter.SlideShare allows you to create a profile, upload presentations, and then give you additional options to embed into your website or blog. Sharing information will position yourself as the expert in your marketplace as others will be able to see your content in many locations online.<number>
Twitter is a form of microblogging meaning that entries are limited to 140 characters or less. So how do you share content with people if you only state a sentence or two? There are some tricks to share what you are doing and be able to follow others and see what they are doing and communicate both online and offline.Twitter allows you to update what you are doing by text messaging or updating from the website.Setting up your profile on Twitter takes little effort since you can only add your name, username, email address. website, one line bio, location, and a personal picture. Also you can choose the color theme of your background or create your own by uploading an image. If you upload an image you can choose whether you want it to tile across the page.Set up your mobi<number>
Setting up your profile on Twitter takes little effort since you can only add a limited amount of information.Here are the following ways you can set up your profile and communication preferences:Account. Choose your real name, username, email, time zone, website, one line bio, location and language preference.Set up your password with twit1234 as an example but choose your own more carefully.If you wish to receive updates via your mobile phone you can add the 10 digit number, turn updates on, and in the future update your profile by sending a text message to 40404 and then in the message type the message 140 characters or less.Notices will send you emails when some is following you or you receive a new direct message.Insert a professional pictureChoose a background, color theme or create your own by uploading an image. If you upload an image you can choose whether you want it to tile across the page.<number>
Following others is a good way to see what others are thinking, what they are experiencing, and how they are using Twitter as a social an business tool.Once people start following you, look to see who they are following and next to their name click follow. Do this over and over until you have found as many friends as you can.When you follow people here are some ideas that you can use to make the experience beneficial:Learn who the most active tweeters are among the people you follow. Chances are they follow several people so it may be easier and faster to build a network of people.Look for hyperlinks in the tweets. Twitter pros will insert mini hyperlinks into their status update to share long hyperlinks<number>
Newspapers can sell advertising based on how many people are subscribers, purchase the paper, and how many potential people that could read the paper. Think of Twitter as mini online newspaper publication that you must squeeze 140 characters or less into your space. Everything that you write in this space goes out to everyone that is following you. The more people that are following you the more exposure you will have thus making Twitter a more profitable communication tool. Here are some ideas on how to get more followers on your profile:Ask people to follow you in as many mediums possible.Once you create a profile you will need to start marketing it on your website, email signature, or send out an email to people that you know and ask them to start following you on twitter. Use the hyperlink for your website such as http://www.twitter.com/username or in my case http://www.twitter.com/dougdevitreThe people that are following you are looking for creative thoughts, ideas, and tools that they can use. Self promoting all of the twitter will result in people removing you from your list.<number>