Posts by "Jay Thompson" http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/ Jay Thompson is the Designated Broker and a co-owner of Thompson's Realty -- an independent real estate brokerage serving the entire Phoenix (and Tucson) Metro area. He is a certified blogaholic and can usually be found at the award winning real estate blog, Phoenix Real Estate Guy. His latest blog adventure is Real Estate Blog Pro.

WordCamp is coming to Phoenix, and there is a dedicated real estate track.

What’s a WordCamp?

From the “About” page:

The point of WordPress is to provide a powerful, flexible, scalable and easy-to-learn website tool that anyone can access for free.

The point of WordCamps is to celebrate this open tool by teaching people how to use WordPress, how to bend it to their will and even how to leverage it as a business–and to do it all for about the price of lunch.

In other words, it is a chance to learn a whole lot about WordPress, the software behind most of the successful blogs on the Internet. WordCamps have been held across the country, and for the first time ever, there is a track dedicated to real estate!

Come learn from real estate blogging wizards like Teresa Boardman, Mariana Wagner and Todd Carpenter (I don’t know about “wizard”, but I’ll be speaking as well) and other WordPress experts like Tyler Hurst and Cory Miller. In addition to the real estate track, there are also tracks dedicated to design, programming and marketing. There will be an “unconference” segment and a “genius bar.”

It is going to be a day (days, actually) jam-packed with information. And fun.

The real estate track only has room for 60 – 75 people, and I suspect it will fill up fast. But even if you can’t wedge into the real estate arena, there is goodness to be had all about.

Here is the full schedule.

And here is the registration page. It will sell out; get your tickets soon.

If you have any interest in WordPress, or making your existing WordPress site better, stronger and faster, then $35 is a small price to pay.

Posts by "Jay Thompson" http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/ Jay Thompson is the Designated Broker and a co-owner of Thompson's Realty -- an independent real estate brokerage serving the entire Phoenix (and Tucson) Metro area. He is a certified blogaholic and can usually be found at the award winning real estate blog, Phoenix Real Estate Guy. His latest blog adventure is Real Estate Blog Pro.

Back in August, Kelley Koehler wrote an article here on the AAR Blog, An Introduction to RPR. Kelley did a great job explaining the basics of RPR, which at the time of the writing was still in a very limited beta release.

Flash forward to yesterday… RPR is now live and available in Arizona.

Or at least most of Arizona.

If your MLS is participating, you can venture over to the RPR site right now and set up your free account. (You will need your NRDS number in order to register for an account.)

Which Arizona MLSs are now live on RPR?

Here’s a screen shot straight off the RPR account setup screen showing the MLSs in Arizona that are currently live on RPR:

In addition to the above, both the Green Valley / Sahuarita Association of REALTORS and the Santa Cruz County Board of REALTORS are on board with RPR, but their launch dates are to be scheduled in the future.

The glaring omission in Arizona MLS / board coverage is Tucson / TARMLS.

What can you do on RPR?

The best way to see what you can do on RPR is to get an account and explore. The user interface is clean, simple and easy to maneuver. (Read Kelley’s post too.)

Think of RPR as a big giant database that has information on properties – all properties, not just those listed for sale. Tax records, area demographic information, sales trends, school districts, zoning, neighborhood data, economic info, trends and more. Also included are some very nice, very easy to generate reports – property reports, seller reports and market activity reports.

Think CMAs, but beefed up with all sorts of local and market information. RPR is a listing presentation all wrapped up in a shiny bow and only a few mouse clicks away.

So go ahead, create a FREE account, put your picture and brokerage logo in your profile and explore. There is a wealth of information available literally at your fingertips.

What do you think of RPR? How will you use it in your business? Let us know in the comments!

Posts by "Jay Thompson" http://www.phoenixrealestateguy.com/ Jay Thompson is the Designated Broker and a co-owner of Thompson's Realty -- an independent real estate brokerage serving the entire Phoenix (and Tucson) Metro area. He is a certified blogaholic and can usually be found at the award winning real estate blog, Phoenix Real Estate Guy. His latest blog adventure is Real Estate Blog Pro.

You’ve probably heard of Twitter, the “microblogging” web site that’s taking the Internet by storm.

But what is Twitter, what is it good for, and how do you use it?

What is Twitter?

Twitter is an open social network that is a microblogging platform.

Huh?

An open network is one where anyone can “follow” anyone else. Unlike a closed network (Facebook) for example, where you have to “approve” a friend or follower, on Twitter all you have to do is click “follow” on a Twitter profile and you’ll be able to see every message that person sends on Twitter.

A “microblog” is a platform that allows only very brief messages to be sent out. In the case of Twitter, messages (called “Tweets”) are limited to 140 characters. How much is that? Not much. This is exactly 140 characters:

Jay Thompson writes this amazing blog called The Phoenix Real Estate Guy. You should read it! It is here http://www.PhoenixRealEstateGuy.com

Of note, self-serving Tweets such as I wrote above don’t work well in the social media space. We’ll have more on that in a future article.

Twitter, what is it good for?

Much of what you may find on Twitter could easily be construed as idle and meaningless chit chat. However, it is a very powerful platform for several things…

A real time news source and education tool: If you are a news junkie, Twitter can be the answer. With tens of millions of users, the odds are overwhelming that someone will Tweet out news as it happens.

Remember the plane that landed in the Hudson river last year? Twitter user Janis Krums (jkrums on Twitter) was on a ferry that headed immediately to pick up survivors. He snapped a photo with his phone, and sent it to Twitter – a photo that has been viewed almost 600,000 times.

This photo, and the ensuing conversations on Twitter, beat all the major news outlets to the news story of the “Miracle on the Hudson”.

During and shortly after the recent devastating earthquake in Chile, there were over 2,000 tweets per minute emanating from Twitter users. Many of them from the site of the quake itself.

It’s not just major news events like these that you’ll find on Twitter. You’ll also see traffic reports (note, Tweeting while driving is not recommended), weather updates, and links to articles about virtually any topic you can think of. Twitter is a world-class educational tool.

A way to meet people – online AND in real life: Building your SOI (Sphere of Influence) is something every agent should always be working on. Yes, you can learn a tremendous amount about someone just by “meeting” them and getting to know them on-line – and Twitter is great for that. However, real life always has been and always will be the best social network. Ever. Period. Real estate is a face-to-face business. A tool like Twitter will never replace that, but Twitter is a great way to facilitate meeting people face-to-face. Use location based search tools like TwitterLocal.net, TwellowHood.com and Twitter Search to find local users and go to “Tweet ups” (real life meetings), or start your own Tweet up! Use sites like TWTvite and TweetVite to find or plan a Tweet up.

Follow a conference or event: “Hashtags” are little short codes used in Twitter to follow specific events. Organizers will determine a short phrase or abbreviation for the event and by placing a # sign in front of that, you can follow along with Twitter users at the event. For example, the AAR Winter Conference hashtag is #aarwc. Just go to Twitter Search and search on #aarwc. The hashtag for NAR’s annual conference in New Orleans this year is #NARdigras. This works well for finding people at an event, hearing about things happening, or following along virtually if you aren’t actually attending a conference.

Just do it!

Go to Twitter and sign up for an account. It’s free, so you’ve got nothing to loose! Give it a spin and see what you think. Be careful though, it’s curiously addicting. . .

Other articles on Twitter and Real Estate:

Twitter for Realtors, how Twitter can help your real estate business

How Not to Use Twitter

How To Use Twitter