January 26, 2012 By Leave a Comment

How to Disable Twitter URL Shortening

In short: You can’t.

Recently, Twitter has started automatically converting all URL links in tweets (i.e. twitter messages) into 20 character “shortened” links. For example, if you send the message: “http://ChristopherPrice.com is awesome!” everyone will actually see something like: “http://t.co/IzKOWFnE is awesome!” Both links will go to the same place, but the shortened one is, in effect, cloaked. (Go ahead, try it.)

Shortened URLs are very handy sometimes, especially within the confines of a 140-character tweet. Additionally, you can convert a super-long, column-wrapping link into something you can email to the team and avoid the concern that Outlook will break the link.

There are times, however, when transparently sharing a URL is not only appropriate, but also important. Like when one is trying to develop a website’s brand. Or maybe an author believes (correctly, IMO) that fully disclosing a real link will provide some additional level of trust with readers. After all, in many cases, you really have no idea where a shortened URL is going to send you. On some devices, merely visiting a “bad” website can be harmful. That won’t happen too many times before increasingly suspicious people stop clicking on shortened links altogether. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,
February 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Why Most Bloggers Fail

Most bloggers fail because they talk only about themselves. It’s a ego thing. They think that if they make themselves look super-successful and important, people will want to work with them. This is true, to an extent. There will always be insecure people who are attracted to confident personalities. Is this the market niche your are targeting? If so, keep it up. But be aware that such people tend to be indecisive and have less money to spend.

The opposite of this “me! me! me!” scenario can also be a problem. Some bloggers are so insecure about publishing their own thoughts for fear of rejection and ridicule, that they don’t put any of their personality into their site at all. We’ve all happened upon blogs with a handful of posts cut-and-pasted from some other news source. A good tell-tale of this sort of blog is 10-20 news-y postings with the last article posted 6 months ago. Clearly this person posted a bunch of “content,” saw no result after a few weeks, and gave up.

As a service-oriented professional, the reason to blog is to make people aware of you, and over time, encourage them to trust you. Bragging doesn’t encourage trust. Merely reposting other people’s ideas doesn’t encourage trust. In fact, both approaches could totally backfire and the reader may become aware of you in a negative way.

So, take inspiration from news you think your niche should be aware of and add your own slant on it. Have an opinion about whether it is good news or bad news for your readers and why they should care. Invite them to engage with you in the comments or better yet on the phone or in person. And for pete’ sake create a likable about page with contact info! If you are doing things correctly, your about page will be the most visited page on your blog. (“Who is this person?”) Once they trust you, your conversations are destined to be more enjoyable — and possibly more profitable.

So what are you building trust with your readers? Do you get business directly from your blog, or does it just warm leads for you? If a reader wants to talk with you more, can they easily figure out how to reach you?

Thanks to Derek Halpern at DIYThemes for the video and original concept.

Filed Under: Blogging Tagged With: , , , ,
January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

No Hard Feelings — Just Business!

saddog.jpgA few days ago, I lost some clients.

A top-producing “mega-agent” would say: “Big deal! I list 70% of the people I present to. You just have to keep enough leads in your pipeline that it doesn’t matter. It’s nothing but a numbers game. Believe me, it’s better they decide early on before they waste any more of your time. Next!” (Mega-agents talk like that.)

The thing is, I don’t work that way. I build my business primarily to serve friends, family, and their referrals. Put another way, I have spent years trying to build enough awareness and trust with people I care about with hopes they will call me when they need the services of a real estate professional. I do so just as many other independent local businesses have done for years — because work is so much more gratifying when you know and care about your customers personally.

This isn’t to say that feel I’m owed anything or that I’m entitled to anyone’s business. In fact, after presenting a CMA and talking about the market (and our babies), I failed my friends by not communicating with them between Christmas and New Years (they wanted to list Jan 3) to reassure them that I value their business and that I am eager to work with them. I just quietly prepared to hit the ground running after the holiday season, so when I called them on Jun 3rd I was shocked to hear and later read:

We were just eager to get going and didn’t know what your interest level was. We have a 4 month contract with [another agent], so we’ll contact you if it doesn’t work out with him and you are interested in working with us again. No hard feelings – just business!

Ouch.

I share this story specifically because it is not the kind of thing agents usually share, even though it happens to all of us. Those of us in relationship-driven businesses walk a thin line: When people don’t need our services we communicate too often. When people do need our services we don’t communicate enough. Our greatest business challenge is to figure out which category each of the people in our sphere of influence (i.e. people that know us) is in. If you guess wrong, reality hits hard.

So watch out [another agent]! Because I’m coming back swinging in 4 months and I’m sure I care more for these people than you do. And by the way, it is Jan 6th and the property still isn’t in the MLS. You suck. :P

Filed Under: Real Estate Business Tagged With: , , , , , ,