Go Beyond MLS » Networking

Go Beyond MLS Facebook Page

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 16:20:45 +0000

After Matt’s fantastic introduction to what I think will be number series of posts about Facebook Marketing- it is finally time to announce the Facebook Page of Go Beyond MLS, even thought Matt did it in some ways. The main reason for not promoting this page before, was my own confusion about pages an apps on Facebook.

A while back I have tried to use a WordPress plugin called Facebook Connect by Sociable. To use this plugin an application was created for this blog on Facebook for the purposes of showing latest Facebook visitors, register new users once they left a comments etc. In the end I gave up on using the plugin since it had some flaws at the time I did not want to deal with.

In short, I confused them (Facebook Apps and Facebook Pages). However, after creating a Facebook page for Chocolate Belles, a business I have been advising about internet marketing over the past two years, I found a new appreciation of Facebook Pages and how useful can it be for any business. But I have to leave it at this, sine Matt plans to share more useful tips about Facebook and all it has to offer to help you with you online marketing efforts.

In the meanwhile if you do not see your picture in the widget bellow, chances are you not yet the fan of Go Beyond MLS on Facebook, please join us and don’t be shy to interact with us on Facebook.

Go Beyond MLS on Facebook

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Facebook Connect Solution For Your Blog

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:37:04 +0000

Ever since I saw the implementation of Facebook Connect on TechCrunch, I wanted to look into implementing it on my blogs as well. However since I was not very active on Facebook, I did not start digging into it until a few days ago. There are are number of solutions available for bloggers today should they decide to take advantage of Facebook Connect.

For now I have settled with the Facebook Connect WordPress plugin by Sociable. The Sociable plugin requires Facebook API so before you start using it, make sure to create new application in Facebook developer section of your account. You may also want to hack this plugin- see in the bottom of the post where described how I did it.

Once installed and configured the Facebook Connect plugin will allow your visitors to logging into your blog using their Facebook credentials. They choose to allow the Facebook Connect application (your blog), to post the comments they leave on your blog to their Facebook account as well.

The Facebook Connect plugin by sociable has a widged that you can place in the sidebar of your blog where the visitors can login as Facebook users. Once logged in, they will also have an option to invite their friends to visit your website without actually leaving your blog.

Another unique feature the plugin provides is the community page, which is hosted right on your blog.

There is however one huge downside wit the plugin. It does not word that well with WP Super Cache plugin. Unless of course you can hack WP Super Cache plugin in such a way that it would serve dynamic pages to Facebook users once they’ve logged in on your blog. If you come across such a hack, please let me know.

Hacking the plugin to display the facebook login button somewhere around your comment box.- do this at your own risk.

Another shortcoming of the Facebook Connect plugin by Sociable is that the sidebar widget is the only place where the login button is displayed. Unfortunately the sidebar is not exactly the first place your visitors might examine when visiting your blog. They many leave a comment without realizing they could have shared it on Facebook. Placing the Facebook Connect login button in vicinity of the comment box can serve as a reminder that they could use their Facebook ID to comment on your blog. Unfortunately I had to come up with my own hack to accomplish that- copy and paste to code below into your comments.php file:

echo "\"".$loginbutton."\" onlogin=\"window.location = ‘".$uri."’;\">\n"; ?>

This is how my comment box looks now with the code above inserted:

It is probably my worst ever attempt to hack anything. Hopefully some one can come up with a better hack. With the above hack, after successful login, the page if refreshed on the very top. Bringing the visitor back down to the comment box would be so much better- but as I said, I suck at coding.

For the list of other Facebook Connect plugins and solutions for other blogging and content management platforms make sure to visit Facebook Connect Plugin Directory.
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Entrecard Traffic Exchange With Benefits? I Am Not Getting It.

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 16:11:47 +0000

While some of my friends are using Entrecard for networking, I am still very sceptical about the service…

The mechanics of the Entrecard are quiet simple. After your blog is approved, other blog owners can “drop” their card on you or purchase an ad on your blog with Entrecard credits.

I presume if you have plenty of time on your hands, you can drop your card on other blog owners all the day long. It may increase a chance that that a blog owner, on whom you dropped your card, may pay you a visit back, and this where Entrecard reminds me of a traffic exchange scheme.

You can however “purchase” advertising on blogs that use and Entrecard widget with the credits you and your blog earns, or the credits you can purchase from Entrecard.

Unfortunately, in the Real Estate category there are very few blogs that I would like to exchange traffic and/or banners. And so far the banners “bought” on my blog are from the blogs that are not quiet relevant to my own blog.

It is interesting to see that in order to advertise on my blog it will cost other Entrecard members 4 credits per day. If one was to buy the credits, he or she can advertise on my blog for 250 days for only $6.00. Quiet a difference from the rate I offer currently to my potential sponsors.

Of course these figures may change in the future, and I would like to know how does Entrecard determine their rates. But to be completely honest, I don’t see myself staying with Entrecard. I am taking it for a spin (no more than 3 months), so I can say I tried it. Let see if Entrecard will change my mind.

If you are using Entracard please share what do you think is the best practice when using that system.Similar Posts:

How To Ban A Member Of MyBlogLog From Appearing On Your Widget

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 10:23:41 +0000

I have been member of MyBlogLog since December of 2006 (feel free to add me to your contacts). You probably recognize the widget that shows the latest visitors to this blog located in the side bar.

Through this widget I have met and connected with many outstanding bloggers, business owners, real estate agents and just your regular every day Joe and Jane. In fact it is one of the first place I check every time I work on my blog. Just to see if there was some one new today on my blog or to be absolutely humbled by the fact that some one found my blog interested enough to pay another visit. Never have I imagined I will be banning some one from appearing on that widgets. In fact I never new exactly how to do it. So I learned today…

To my surprise it was very easy. Just hover with your cursor (aka mouse) over the picture of the person you would like to ban. A small red square with a white “X” (as shown in the snapshot below) will appear in the upper left corner of the persons avatar- you have to click on the red little square:

You will be taken to a confirmation page on MyBlogLog website. On that page (see another snapshot below- click on it to see the full size) you have to click the button that says confirm:

That’s it now you know how to ban some one’s avatar or picture appearing on your website. You might have to repeat the above steps if you have several blog listed on MyBlogLog and each blog having its own widget- although I am not 100% sure.Similar Posts:

ActiveRain: Why Every Real Estate Professional Should Join?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:23:56 +0000

Over the past few months I have been slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. The first time I have ever came across this real estate network, I did not know what to make of it. I did not join ActiveRain right away because I did not feel there was a place for me. I had no interest renewing my real estate license and was under impression the network is reserved to real estate professionals exclusively. I am not sure why I had this perception, but after joining ActiveRain I quickly realized that this community is very open minded and most importantly not limited to real estate agents exclusively.

However in this article I would like to point out that real estate professionals can probably benefit the most from ActiveRain. And here are just few points why.

Blogging. Every member upon joining the community is given their own blog. If you were thinking to start blogging yet was not sure you were ready to invest resources and time into it, ActiveRain blogs is a place where you can try to “wet your feet” as far as blogging is concerned. While their blogs may not offer all the bells and whistles that you can normally get when hosting a blog on your own domain. It does offer the basics and can get you started.
Instant Audience. One of the best part about blogging on ActiveRain is that you have an instant audience for your blog. Even a newbie to ActiveRain like myself can often get 10+ comments on their initial posts. To me the most rewarding part of blogging is an audience that is engaged.
Networking. As I am writing this post there are 108,851 members on ActiveRain. My guess that majority of the members are real estate professionals or working in the field closely related to real estate. If you ask me that is an impressive number of members!
ActiveRain’s Popularity. Before joining any online community or forum, I am always trying to look at the “popularity factor”. The more popular certain website is, the better chance to gain some extra visitors to my own websites. According to statistics from Alexa and Compete (see the charts below) ActiveRain is outranking Inman by quite a margin:

Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Alexa:

Click on the image below to see detailed statistics on Compete:
ActiveRain Referrals- a place to share and find referrals posted by other ActiveRain members. If you are on a “hunt” for leads, why not to browse referrals by other agents rater than spending money on lead generating schemes?

To conclude, I simply would like to repeat my earlier statement- I am slowly falling in love with ActiveRain. I am also confident you will appreciate ActiveRain as well. If you are already a member, visit my profile page and add me to your associates, I would love to connect with you on ActiveRain.Similar Posts:

LinkedIn. How Realistic Are Your Newtwork Statistics?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:04:33 +0000

As you may already know LinkedIn has a “signature” way to visualize your network statistics. I have never paid any attention to those until recently. According to LinkedIn, I can reach out to well over one million professionals:

Realistically only 52 professionals I can contact directly. I can see potential of reaching out to 10,500 people through your immediate connections. But not over one million. Still even reaching out to 5,000 for a particular cause can be extremely valuable. Are the network statistics there to show the potential of your immediate connections? In the past I have never used LinkedIn actively besides just having an account there. With most of my contacts on LinkeIn I am connected in other ways.

How are you using your LinkedIn connections? This is not a rhetorical question. I am contemplating upgrading my free account and your feedback will be greatly appreciated.Similar Posts:

Whom Should You Remove From Your StumbleUpon Friends?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 19:20:59 +0000

Update: Since writing this post it appears StumbleUpon will be lifting the 200 friends limit after all. It is not yet in effect, but it will probably be possible to add more than 200 friends in the days to come. I still think however it is a good idea to clean up your list once in a while.

Yes I know. The question does not sound like a nice one, but bare with me and you may discover that it is indeed a valid question.

There is one thing I used to hate about StumbleUpon- that I was limited to adding only 200 friends in my account. Today I was proven wrong or at least partially wrong.

In the last few months I have came across many great Stumblers and wanted to follow them. However I was not able to do so due to above described limitation. So I decided to do a major clean up of my contact list on StumbleUpon. I have set forth following criteria for this clean up:

I planned to remove contacts from my list if they were last seen on StumbleUpon before January 1, 2008. I think seven months of inactivity was plenty to let me know that a particular stumbler lost his or her interest in the community.
I intended to remove any one who did not befriended me back. Only leaving those who were unable to befriend me due to the above limitation.
Finally I was planing to remove every one with whom I hand no more than 3 interests in common.

Fortunately I did not have to follow through on #2 and #3. As soon as I began removing those who fell into my #1 criteria, I discovered that many of them had their account suspended on StumbleUpon. I also noticed that every one of those who were suspended had a default StumbleUpon avatar (image to the right) associated with their account. That of course made my job so much easier.

The end result was that although I am still limited to have only 200 friends on StumbleUpon, there is some room for new friends. I also plan to reserve these few spots for real estate bloggers. If you are one of them, feel free to add me to your friends: My StumbleUpon Profile. If you already have 200 friends in your profile, please leave the link in the comments so I can add you to my contacts anyway. Hopefully one day you will do the similar clean up and will find some room for me.Similar Posts:

How Can I Thank You?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 18:31:38 +0000

photo credit: psdOver the period of last few months I was a recipient of incredible support and generosity for the bloggers around the world and real estate bloggers in particular. While I have no words to describe my gratitude, there was one question constantly on my mind: “What can I do to show my gratitude to all these wonderful people?”

I am a firm believer in saying “what does around, comes around”. In other words I should not be expecting other people to be supportive and generous to me, if I am not supportive and generous to other people. However at the end of the day, no matter how much I give it always seems that I receive back hundredfolds. And so is true about last few months.

As a token of my gratitude to many bloggers and real estate professionals, I am working on few projects that hopefully will benefit you in some way.

Blogroll
While I am not in favor of site wide blogrolls, I have decided to implement on on my blog. The exception of course is that it is not a side wide but a dedicated page which will show the blogs on my blogroll. With the help of the Live Blogroll plugin, I have added a little twist to my blog roll. If you navigate to the blogroll page and hover with your mouse over the links a need ajax pop-up will appear with the latest articles from your blog. This blogroll is the work in progress, so if you did not see your blog there yet it will probably appear in next few days. I will also look into the way to paginate that page so it can redistribute the “link juice” to the bookmarks there in equal measure. I will also try to play around with the plugin and instead of serving the “latest post” through the ajax widget I will attempt to embed them in the page itself. I think that would add more value to the blogroll itself besides it being just collection of links.

Free Consulting: Blogging and Internet Marketing.
As many of your may gather I know a thing or two about blogging and internet marketing. If you do not have a blog yet, I encourage you to start one immediately. If you have one already, feel free to ask my advise on how you can improve your blog performance.

Free Translating And Interpreting.
If you ever decide to market your real estate business in other languages, I will be happy to help you out. While I do not speak Spanish, I can translate and interpret for you in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish and Italian. Due to my schedule I will be offering this only to the blog owners listed in my blogroll, again the Blogroll is a word in progress and I am anticipating to have more than 100 blogs on the list. So please stop again in the future.

If you have any questions about the above offers feel free to contact me.Similar Posts:

Is Twitter Good For Real Estate Business?

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:15:51 +0000

Watch the video. Decide and then connect with me on twitter.

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Agent-to-Agent Free Referral Network Launches Today

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:35:58 +0000

Realty Lifeline- agent-to-agent free referral network was announced today at PRWeb. Website is aimed at providing real estate agents to share the referrals. Any agent can submit and bid on referrals for free. However every referral will expire in 90 days. When submitting a bid no personally identifiable info of your seller or buyer is required. After another agent successfully accepts the bid, you finalize your bid with that agent:

What are Bids?
When a referring agent posts a Rerrral on our site, it is available for all other agents to view. If you would like to get that lead (or Referral), you must place a “Bid” on it. When you place a Bid on a Referral, the referring agent can review your profile and reviews from past Realty Lifeline transactions.
How do I bid on Referrals?
You create a Bid by clicking on the Bid on this Referral button on the Referral Details page. The referring agent will review all of the Bids that he or she gets, then choose an agent that they want to work with. Who is selected is entirely dependent on the referring agent.
What are Active Bids?
A Bid is active on a Referral unless you withdraw it, or unless the Referral expires.
I’ve submitted my Bid… what’s next?
The Referring Agent will review Bids as they come in and make a decision on will get the Referral. When a Referral is awarded to you, you will see a message on the Home page and the Referral will appear under the Pending Transactions section.

This website indeed can become very popular among the real estate agents because it’s free and no third party is involved in the referral process.Similar Posts:

Real Estate Forums

Vlad Zablotskyy — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 21:38:55 +0000

Participating in online forum can benefit you on many levels. You can network with other real estate agents and even can bring some extra visitors to your website. I have compiled a list of five real estate forums that you can not afford to ignore. I will later explain who it can be used on occasions while working with Hittail. However there is one very important thing to remember when joining an online forum. You will benefit form online forums by contributing to them. If you join a forum only as an opportunity to leave links back to your websites, soon you will earn a reputation of a spammer and no one will take you seriously.

Many online forums reward active users by offering a signature which can accompany every post you write on the forum. Some use this signature to promote their websites. Many forums will require to write certain amount of posts before allowing you to use the signature. Some forums grant you this opportunity from the time you join the forum.

Forums in the list below are particularly focused on real estate. If you are not member of any forum on the list consider joining them. Should you be already a member of some of them feel free to leave your feedback.

Real Estate Webmasters Forum- probably my favorite forum. You can find there great webmasters tips for your real estate website.

Bigger Pockets- Real Estate Investing Forum- another great website to network not only with real estate agents but with potential clients as well. As an expert real estate agent you can really shine on this forum and earn good reputation.

Real Estate Forum- is another highly recommended forum for real estate agents. With over 13,000 members it is a busy place. You can find and/or share your expertise on anything from web design to mortgage and loans.

Agents Online- another “must join” forum for any real estate agent. This forums is more exclusively focused on real estate and everything that comes along. There are 9,333 members on this forum today. Why not to join the crowed?

The Pro Real Estate Network Forums- although this forum has only 457 members today, it deserves credit for the outstanding efforts in SEO and marketing. I will not be surprised that the forum will have few thousand members by this summer.

There are many other online forums that real estate agents can benefit from. Especially if they are looking for webmasters, SEO, PPC and other tips. I will write about those in the future. The above forums were chosen specifically because they are closely related to real estate. I hope you find the above list helpful.Similar Posts:

Join Real Estate Group at BlogCatalog

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 12:59:50 +0000

It was very surprising to find out that there wasn’t a Real Estate group over at one of my favorite online community- BlogCatalog. There are however many real estate blogs listed on BlogCatalog.

Anyway, if you are real estate blogger or a real estate agent who blogs consider joining both BlogCatalog as well as Real Estate Group. Evidently BlogCatalog is removing inactive groups and groups that are three members or less. I will be writing in the future how online communities like BlogCatalog can help you grow your real estate business.

If you are already active BlogCatalog member please comment and leave the link to your blog so I can review and rate it via BlogCatalog’s rating/voting system.Similar Posts:

Networking: Real Estate Forums

Vlad Zablotskyy — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 14:29:13 +0000

On Saturdays I will be posting much lighter articles and will be sharing what is know as “link love” with other websites and blogs. If you have interesting and real estate related blog e-mail me and I may feature it in one of my Saturday posts.

Today I would like to bring to your attention two different online forums I am a member of:

Real Estate Webmasters Community- I have just recently discovered this forum but I am already very impressed with the amount of great information that can be found there. Whether you have a design questions or need some advise about your pay per click advertising you can find answers to your problem there. Great community and support. Highly recommend for real estate agents and real estate webmasters.
Real Estate Forums- I have joined this community back in 2006. Great place for real estate agents to exchange their experience. While they have few forums that are dedicated to subjects like advertising and search engine optimization, I think this forum is more geared to wards non technical part of real estate profession.

If you are a member of these forums please tell us what is your experience and if you benefited from being a member there.Similar Posts:

Get More Traffic And Exposure With BlogRush

Vlad Zablotskyy — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:03:22 +0000

As you can see in the video below, BlogRush offers a unique opportunity to get more exposure and more traffic to your blog.

Unlike many other traffic exchange website out here, you are not required to visit other blogs in exchange for traffic. Simple, easy and free. Don’t miss out on this opportunity – sign up today.

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Real Estate Links Bubble Burst- May 14, 2007

Vlad Zablotskyy — Mon, 14 May 2007 18:54:33 +0000

Our blog is a found member of Real Estate Community over at BumpZee! In efforts to introduce this wonderful and one of the fastest growing community on the Internet we have decided to introduce “Real Estate Links Bubble Burst”. What is it? It will be a short post of the finest real estate articles from the blogosphere. If you would like to make sure we keep an eye on your blog and highlight your posts join BumpZee! Real Estate Community- if your blog is already submitted, you can claim it there.

Following are the post we chose for today’s “Real Estate Links Bubble Burst”:

The Anatomy of a Credit Bubble

Top 5 Mistakes Made By Real Estate Investors During the Housing Bubble

60 Minutes and real estate

Cash Equivalency, Terms, Time, Location and other Adjustments Often Omitted

Eurozone housing markets coolSimilar Posts:

Real Estate Community at BumpZee

Vlad Zablotskyy — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:54:19 +0000

We have been lurking around BumpZee!- a new online social community- for some time now. The community began as a feed agregator of affiliate marketing blogs. While initially it was not clear whether or not bloggers who write about real estate can benefit from such a community, since BumpZee! started to allow it’s members to create their own communities, it is clear that there is room for a Real Estate community.

When you join BumpZee! you will be able to submit your blog and BumpZee will automatically pick up the latest post from your log displaying title of your latest post along with a â€œsnippetâ€ (if you choose) from the same post. Other members are able to vote for your article by â€œbumpingâ€ or â€œdumpingâ€ your post. When your post receives enough bumps it is promoted to the front page of your community, potentially sending your way extra visitors.

Many members who have joined BumpZee have no blog on their own but use the website to read on latest news about particular industry/niche. If you do have a blog you will be able to install â€œwidgetsâ€, just like the ones you see on our blog: a â€œbumpâ€ button (upper left corner of this post) and a side bar widget that will allow you to see the top entries from your community as well as what BumpZee! members have visited your blog.

It will take just a few minutes to join, after you do make sure to check out Real Estate community.Similar Posts: