Category Archives: Chappaqua

Social Media Sites to Explore | Chappaqua Homes

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When it comes to social media sites, there are so many options. Everyone knows the big ones: Facebook, Twitter, G+, LinkedIn, YouTube. So I thought it would be interesting to share some lesser known social media sites that are gaining momentum and that offer a new social twist. In some cases, I have noted how these sites could potentially be used by small businesses to engage with their customers in a new way and differentiate themselves in the increasingly crowded social media space.

1 – ArchetypeME

Through a short quiz, this site helps discover your archetype and proposes content that would be interesting to you based on your profile. You can connect with friends and learn about their archetypes and preferences. Provides a novel approach to both content discovery and socializing.

2 – RebelMouse

social media platformRebelMouse consolidates the various stories / photos / videos you share online across different sites into a single space simply called a page (not very original). This allows you to direct your followers to your RebelMouse page (or pages – you can have more than one) or embed the pages directly on your website – creating dynamic content that updates regularly based on your activities on the bigger social media sites. RebelMouse is hoping this fresh content will be appealing to both individuals, as well as businesses. For a small fee, you can use your own URL.

3 – Storify

Instead of using your content to create your page, Storify lets you find content to create your story. You can use keywords to search several social sites (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Flickr, G+, YouTube) and come up with content for your story. You would then pull in the most relevant content (tweets, stories, photos, videos), add your own text if you wish to narrate the story and publish it on any one of your social sites, web site, or send it by e-mail. As an example, businesses can use this as an original way to tell a story of what others are saying about their products or services, or report on an event they attended or organized.

4 – About.me

About.me is like your digital business card. It presents you (or your business) on one page with links to all your social sites, a short bio, a few buttons to interact (favorite, e-mail, share, etc.), and a big beautiful background image that you can create. It is a great alternative to a full-blown website for freelancers and solopreneurs looking to promote themselves and gain exposure.

5 – ListGeeks

If sharing is caring, then you can show you care by sharing lists of things with your friends. Enter ListGeeks – it allows you to create your own lists of things by adding your own content (from websites) or using content from other people’s lists into your own list and sharing this with others. Sharing. Geeks. Lists. It’s almost too much for the mind to take in. From a business point of view, it could be an alternative to infographics, for sharing data internally and externally (ie. top 10 products, or most popular colors, or countries to which we ship the most products).

6 – Storylane

Storylane is probably the most personal of these seven sites in that it asks its users to write their own stories to share based on questions Storylane asks. Other users respond by sharing emotions (was impressed, likes it, wants it, agreed, was moved, …) and their own stories to the same question. Definitely a site for the more creative-minded seeking to make meaningful connections.

7 – 43things

43Things is social goal-setting site. You set your goal and 43Things will show you how many other people are working towards that same goal. You can discuss the goals, share how-to stories, and monitor progress with each other. Business might consider setting shared goals with their followers (ie. weight loss for a dietician, or fund-raising for a charity, …)

Which one is your favorite lesser known social media site?

via socialmediatoday.com

ProBlogger Challenge: Create a Pinterest Persona | Mt Kisco Realtor

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I struggled a lot when I first started managing the Pinterest account for Digital Photography School.

I knew that I wanted to focus on visual curation, and that I wanted to provide a comprehensive overview of techniques and tools. There were so many possible boards I could create and I didn’t know what was the best tactic or idea. Should I spin this topic off into a separate board? Should I avoid creating this board altogether?

Then I accidentally stumbled across the concept of a Pinterest persona. My partner and myself are amateur photographers and I found myself asking whether I would be interested in the content that I was pinning. If it didn’t seem relevant then I wouldn’t pin it. This saved me so much time when making decisions and has allowed the DPS brand to maintain a very consistent focus.

It’s what today’s Challenge is all about.

mannequins

Image by SebastianDooris, licensed under Creative Commons

What is a Pinterest persona?

A Pinterest persona is simply a description of the type of person you are targeting with your Pinterest account. This is very similar to the concept of a blog persona. The difference is that Pinterest users have a different level of savvy and you want different behaviour from different groups.

Darren has previously written about creating reader profiles/personas to help with your blogging and identified the many benefits:

  • It personalizes the blogging experience.
  • It informs my writing.
  • It identifies opportunities.
  • It can be helpful for recruiting advertisers.
  • It identifies ways to connect with your readership.
  • It will identify opportunities to monetize your blog.

I recommend that you check out that article and see the type of profiles he created for Digital Photography School readers. I adapted these for my Pinterest Personas, and you can adapt them for yours, too.

Your persona description should include information about:

  • how people discover your boards
  • why they repin certain types of pins
  • why they use Pinterest in general
  • what inspires them to leave comments
  • why they like a pin.

I recommend you wait at least a month after starting your Pinterest account before creating personas.

How can you create a persona?

What creating a pinning persona, ask what actions you want people to take when they visit your Pinterest account.

Read this article at the Social@Ogilvy blog. It helps you figure out how your users differ from your blog’s profile. The author recommends that you answer three key questions:

  • How does the person behave in social media?
  • Who influences the users in social media?
  • How will the users engage with the brand or branded content?

You can figure this out by monitoring the types of people that currently interact with your profile. You will notice different behaviours for different types of people. You can then create profiles based around these.

You may notice their needs are different than you thought they were. You may also notice that your Pinterest account isn’t currently meeting their needs. This is fine—it’s all part of the normal Pinterest learning curve.

Your challenge

Your challenge is to create two or three profiles based around the types of people that your Pinterest account is targeting. These won’t be set in stone—instead, they will evolve as you learn more about your followers.

Your next step is to evaluate your Pinterest account and see if you are meeting the needs of these types of people. Be objective. If you’re not serving all of them well, what can you do to better cater to your followers? What changes will you have to make to your Pinterest workflow to accommodate them?

Over to you

Do you have social personas to help you with your account? Are you having any trouble creating them? Let me know in the comments and I’ll see how I can help you.

via problogger.net

State Laws will Extend Foreclosure Pain by 30 Months or More | Chappaqua NY Real Estate

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The 23 states that require court orders to foreclose and other states that have enacted legislation that delays foreclosure processing will take twice as long as the rest of the nation to clear backlogged foreclosure inventories at their current rate.

The foreclosure inventory in judicial states remains three times that of non-judicial states and pipeline ratios — the rate at which states are currently working through their existing backlog of loans either in foreclosure or serious delinquency — are almost twice as high in judicial states than non-judicial states, according to the Lender Processing Services’ January Mortgage Monitor.

“On average, at today’s rate of foreclosure sales, it will take 62 months to clear the inventory in judicial states as compared to 32 months in non-judicial states. A few judicial states — New York and New Jersey in particular — have such extreme backlogs that their problem-loan pipelines would take decades to clear if nothing were to change,” said LPS Applied Analytics Senior Vice President Herb Blecher.

Blecher said certain non-judicial states, such as Massachusetts and Nevada, have recently enacted ‘judicial-like’ legislative and/or legal actions which have greatly extended their pipeline ratios. Nevada’s ‘time to clear’ has extended from 27 months in January 2012 to 57 months as of January 2013. The change in Massachusetts has been even more pronounced. Since June of last year, its pipeline ratio has gone from 75 to 171 months.

via realestateeconomywatch.com

If You Won’t Offer Gen Y Prospects What They Want They Will Go Away | Chappaqua Real Estate

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gen Y remodeling prospects Generation Y is getting older, they’re buying homes and they are now starting to improve and remodel the homes they own.  As more and more of them grow older the number of Gen Y homeowners will quickly grow. Therefore, they will quickly become a major share of the potential prospects for remodelers and other contractors.  In an earlier blog about prequalifying and selling to Generation Y, I discussed the fact that members of Gen Y are used to getting information instantly and for free using key word Google searches to find internet content.   Technology and the internet have definitely defined how Generation Y does all their research and makes their remodeling or home improvement buying decisions. Having a contractor web site and what is put on it for information will make or break whether Gen Y prospects will be doing business with a remodeling contractor or not.

There are two ways to think about the title of this blog

First, if you don’t have a web site, or if your site doesn’t offer the information Gen Y is looking for, they won’t bother with your business if another remodeler’s business does.  Second, if your web site doesn’t explain how you do business as well as the kind of projects your willing to do, internet savvy gen Y remodeling prospects will move on. Remember, they’re probably not going to call you to find these things out. They’ll just go back to the Google search page and find another contractor’s site that does. So, if you want them to attract them and you want to motivate them to do business with your remodeling company you better make sure they find what they are looking for when they find your contractor web site.

selling to Generation Y

“Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit.

Wisdom is not using it in a fruit salad.”

 

What if you want them to go away?

Yes, you read that right. Not all Gen Y prospects will be right for a remodeler’s business. Their motivations to buy and what will be important to them may not be a match with what you offer, who you have on staff or how you do business. Working with the wrong customers can also compromise profits and might not be very satisfying for the business owner or employees. If you want to maintain a defined business process, and remain in control as you do business and produce your projects, you need to avoid working with customers who would probably be better off working with some other remodeling contractor.

To help Gen Y prospects prequalify themselves before they contact you (or for that matter prospects from any generation) make sure the content you put on your site has been strategically decided and written to serve this purpose. For example, if you charge for design services make that clear on your site. Or, if you won’t allow customers to provide any of their own materials make sure you discuss this fact on your web site. Conversely, to attract the right prospects, explain why you charge for design or won’t allow them to provide the materials.  Blogging is a great way to accomplish these goals.  Who knows, your logic might just discourage some prospects from wanting to provide their own materials or go with a contractor who offers free design!

via shawnmccadden.com

Why Sinkholes Are Eating Florida | Armonk NY Real Estate

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Florida is known as the Sunshine State, but living there has a dark side, as the family of Jeff Bush discovered when the 36-year-old man was killed after a sinkhole opened beneath his house last week.

Authorities are now reporting the development of a second sinkhole in Seffner, Fla., just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the sinkhole that destroyed the Bush home, according to NBC News.

Sinkholes are an increasingly deadly risk in Florida, due primarily to the region’s geology. The state is largely underlain by porous limestone, which can hold immense amounts of water in underground aquifers. As groundwater slowly flows through the limestone, it forms a landscape called karst, known for features like caves, springs and sinkholes.

The water in aquifers also exerts pressure on the limestone and helps to stabilize the overlying surface layer, usually clay, silt and sand in Florida. Sinkholes form when that layer of surface material caves in.

The collapse can be triggered by a heavy overload, often caused by a downpour or flooding, or when water gets pumped out of the ground. When water leaves the cavities within the limestone, the pressure that supported the surface material also goes. Depending on various factors, that overlying layer can give way abruptly, as it recently did in Florida, or gradually, said Ann Tihansky, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Florida. [See Amazing Photos of Sinkholes]

And Florida’s groundwater has been disappearing rapidly as the state’s population grows at breakneck speed: By 2015, Florida is expected to hit 20 million residents, making it the third-largest U.S. state, according to BusinessWeek.

via news.yahoo.com