Category Archives: Pound Ridge

3 Reasons Your Social Strategy is Failing (And What to Do Instead) | South Salem Real Estate

Leave a reply

“Social tactics are not meaningful sales drivers”, according to Forrester’s latest research report.

They analyzed primary sales drivers for eCommerce, and concluded that less than 1% of buyers were from social visitors.

There’s a few possible explanations for this.

The first (and most important) is that social aids the buying process indirectly, and is difficult to track — which leads companies (and research firms) to under-appreciate and under-invest.

The second, is that most corporate social media strategies… simply aren’t that good. And their results are mediocre because they’re too tactical, and too focused on micro-decisions.

Here are 3 reasons why your social strategy is failing, and what to do instead.

Fix

So every single status update should bear all the hallmarks of good content.

Research and dig into your prospect’s psychology, use copywriting to intrigue and address their pain points, and monitor your analytics to do more of what people like, and less of what they don’t.

Every status update should be like it’s own advertisement:

  • Objective: At the end of the day, you need engagement or click-throughs. But emphasis one at a time, not both. Because if you want to maximize results, then you typically have to make a choice that will hurt the other option.
  • Headline:The first goal of your headline is to grab attention. The best way is to touch an emotional nerve, or reference a specific “world-view” they might have.
  • Description: The description is where you use copywriting to play on reader’s interests and psychology, and get them to take action.
  • Image: Finally, the goal of your image is to produce a desired result. So it doesn’t have to be explicitly tied to what you’re talking about. Instead, make it sure captures attention and will make an emotional connection.

Here’s an example of all those components coming together:

Becoming a social media publisher allows you to set the tone for engagement, and steer the conversation in ways that ultimately benefit you.

Fix #3: Create Campaigns, Not Launches

Whenever a company has a new launch, promotion, or sale coming up, they want to start “marketing” on the opening day.

But by then, you’ve already lost.

Effectively promoting events or launches takes time, and can’t happen overnight.

“If you want to succeed in social media, then think in quarters, not days.” → [Click here to share this quote]

So tying in to use social channels to distribute those messages farther, faster, and more effectively.

via socialmediatoday.com

The Real Estate Book updates marketing products website | Pound Ridge Real Estate

Leave a reply

Real estate marketing platform The Real Estate Book has updated its online marketing tool, trebstore.com, to allow agents and brokers to target the brochures, postcards and flyers they create on the site to their contacts’ demographic characteristics and locations.

The three-year-old marketing hub, powered by communications company R.R. Donnelley and Sons Inc., allows users to access their listing photos and data from RealEstateBook.com, which has 1.5 million listings in the U.S., Canada and the Caribbean, and create marketing materials from them.

The service then charges users to have them printed and delivered or to download the digital file. Costs range from $0.61 per 6-by-9-inch mailed postcard to $2.05 per 11-by-17-inch mailed brochure. Users can download and print the pieces themselves at a subscription rate starting at $0.99 per download.

The service’s new targeting capabilities make it easy for real estate pros to maximize their marketing efforts, said Scott Dixon, CEO of NewPoint Media Group, parent company of The Real Estate Book.

Advertisers “can choose a specific area down to the subdivision level and then filter their list by household income, the amount of time the consumer has owned the home, for example,” Dixon said in a statement.

Sample design template on The Real Estate Book’s trebstore.com.

Trebstore.com also offers a broker product that allows brokers to create consistent branding for all of the pieces their agents send out using the site.

Last year, The Real Estate Book updated its website to make it mobile-optimized and released an iPhone app.

via inman.com

Home prices continue steady rise | South Salem NY Real Estate

Leave a reply

The 10- and 20-city S&P/Case-Shiller home price indices posted monthly increases for the fifth month in a row in August, according to a report released today.

Seventeen of the 20 metros tracked by the index posted annual gains in August, with home prices up by an average of 2.0 percent from a year ago.

All but one of the markets tracked in the 20-city composite index posted gains from July to August. The 20-city composite was up 0.9 percent from July on a non-seasonally adjusted basis.

A home price index maintained by the Federal Housing Finance Agency showed home prices up 4.7 percent from a year ago. That index — which tracks homes with mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — showed home prices returning to June 2004 levels, but still down 15.9 percent from an April 2007 high.

The S&P/Case-Shiller 20-city composite index shows home prices approximately 35 percent below a June/July 2006 peak. But August’s numbers indicate to industry watchers a positive position for the housing market.

“The sustained good news in home prices over the past five months makes us optimistic for continued recovery in the housing market,” said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at S&P Dow Jones Indices, in a statement. “Single family housing starts are 43 percent ahead of last year’s pace, existing and new home sales are also up, the inventory of homes for sale continues to drop and consumer mortgage default rates are reaching new lows.”

Writing on his blog, Calculated Risk, Bill McBride called the recent change to year-over-year annual increases for the Case-Shiller indices a “significant story.”

“The year-over-year gain is better than it sounds,” said Jed Kolko, chief economist for home marketplace Trulia. Since the composite indices only focus on a few metros, some of which have been hard hit in terms of home pricing, the indices have actually “been understating year-over-year national price growth,” he said.


Source: Calculated Risk

Metros in the 20-city composite posting annual declines were Atlanta (-6.1 percent), New York (-2.3 percent), and Chicago (-1.6 percent).

Metro areaJuly 2012 index levelChange from JulyChange from a year ago
Atlanta95.801.8%-6.1%
Boston158.270.7%1.7%
Charlotte116.580.6%2.8%
Chicago117.450.7%-1.6%
Cleveland103.041.0%1.1%
Dallas121.340.1%3.6%
Denver133.480.5%5.5%
Detroit79.182.3%7.6%
Las Vegas96.041.6%0.9%
Los Angeles173.021.3%2.1%
Miami150.121.0%6.7%
Minneapolis124.651.2%7.4%
New York166.320.7%-2.3%
Phoenix119.281.8%18.8%
Portland140.800.5%3.6%
San Diego157.840.9%1.9%
San Francisco142.370.5%5.3%
Seattle141.69-0.1%3.4%
Tampa134.910.4%4.2%
Washington, D.C.194.001.1%4.3%
Composite-10158.620.9%1.3%
Composite-20145.870.9%2.0%

Sources: S&P Dow Jones Indices and Fiserv.

via inman.com

Patch on Astorino: Westchester Preparing for the Worst | Pound Ridge Homes

Leave a reply

Time is running out for people in low-lying parts of Westchester County who have been asked to evacuate their homes as Hurricane Sandy bears down on the East Coast.

Westchester County Executive Robert Astorino warned those residents Monday to leave their homes now, before conditions worsen this afternoon and evening.

“We’re not doing it just for the sake of doing it,” Astorino said of the local evacuations in flood prone areas of the county. “We are doing it because people and property are at risk.”

Speaking to reporters from the county’s emergency operations center in Hawthorne, Astorino said early this afternoon could be the last chance for these residents to leave areas that face the most dangerous flooding.

“Those who have not evacuated, if there are problems later, we may not be able to get to you,” Astorino said. “This is the perfect time still to evacuate.”

During a tour in the City of Rye and Mamaroneck earlier in the day, Astorino said he noticed several people out taking pictures; a practice he said will become increasingly dangerous throughout the day.

“It’s very important right now that people start heeding the warnings, stay inside, don’t go out and about,” Astorino said. “This is a serious storm.”

Although there were no incidents to report as of early Monday afternoon, Astorino said the county is prepared to help local communities if things worsen Monday evening. The National Guard has 100 drivers and 50 pieces of emergency equipment on standby at nearby Camp Smith. County workers will also be on call through the evening.

Mandatory evacuations to this point have been limited to localized and smaller areas. Astorino said it is unlikely more evacuations will be ordered Monday, as most residents will be urged to ride out the storm in the safety of their homes.

Hurricane Sandy has already caused significant flooding in parts of northern New Jersey and in some Sound Shore communities in New York. Heavy winds are expected Monday afternoon and evening and power outages could be a problem.

Astorino said county officials have been in contact with utility companies and that power will be restored as quickly as possible once conditions allow workers to operate in the area.

Bee Line Bus service has been cancelled as of Sunday night. Astorino said the service will likely not return until sometime Wednesday. The Bronx River Parkway will also remain closed Monday and probably Tuesday, Astorino said. Although Westchester County Airport remains open, Astorino said it is unlikely any flights will be coming in or out Monday or Tuesday.

It is likely the worse of the storm will hit the region Monday afternoon into early Tuesday morning, according to National Weather Service predictions. Astorino urged residents to keep in mind that the worst of the storm is still ahead.

“This is not an ordinary storm,” Astorino said. “This is a dangerous storm.”

via rye.patch.com