REAL ESTATE podcasting, part 1

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If you dont know what Podcasting is, how simple it is to implement, or what the best ways you can use this technology on your real estate website, it is time you learn. Podcasting technology enables users of personal audio players (iPods, MP3s, some cell phones, etc) to receive broadcasts of audio media via an Internet feed to which users can subscribe. Basically, its your way of posting audio to your website and broadcasting it out to your subscribers.

I need to do this as a multi-part article simply because theres so much to say and my attention span is a little too short to write it all in one post! This part is going to go over the basics of Podcasting, why real estate agents should be doing it, how to implement a podcast and what options are available to you for recording and publishing.

What is a podcast?

While I would normally quote Wikipedia for a definition, even I got confused by theirs, so here is about.coms definition. A Pocast is an audio file you create in .mp3 format which contains your own radio show or any audio you wish others to have. You can upload a Podcast along with an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) file to a server (your website for instance) that your intended listeners download using one of several programs that have been created to retrieve your audio file automatically so, they can listen to it at their convenience on their own iPod or .mp3 player. Interestingly, it is estimated that perhaps only 20% of podcasts are actually consumed on portable media players; 80% are consumed on the PC onto which they are downloaded.

Check out my weekly podcast radio show with Real Estate Radio

www.realestateradiousa.com

What makes a podcast valuable to a real estate website?

Audio on your website, big deal, huh? Well, it is and this is why. Unlike the other Internet audio formats, Podcast technology allows you to associate searchable text to the audio/video file. Say what? Podcasts and vidcasts contain enough extractable information to be used for SEO. That means that podcasts can be searchable and indexable by engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo! and podcast directories like podcast.net, podcastdirectory.com and ipodder.org. What types of data can be coupled with the podcast to make the whole think indexable and SEOed? Keywords, descriptions, author information, publish dates, titles and chapter information, etc.

So, the end result is that adding podcasts and vidcasts to your website or blog (most blogs freely offer the ability for podcast publishing) can add to your site's overall SEO value.

What types of podcasts can help real estate professionals?

Podcasts that you record yourself:

You can record a podcasts yourself on your computer. All you need is your PC, microphone and some some podcast recording software. There are a bunch of free podcast recording tools, but I really recommend spending between $20-$50 for a quality package. My recommendations are: Propaganda or Webmaster Podcaster, both of which are about $50.

Podcasts that automatically convert your website text to a podcast

Autocasting is the ability to convert the text on a blog into speech so that it can be downloaded as via podcast.

Recommended AutoCasting Service:

ReadSpeaker

*For a great example of a real estate blog using a high-quality autocaster visit Sellsius and click on the podcast icon at the bottom of any article.

Podcasts that automatically convert your blog text to a podcast

This is pretty much the same as an autocast- just has a more specific name. A blogcast is a portmanteau of two better known media types, the blog and the podcast into a single website. A blogcast is a podcast with an associated text summary, which can be indexed by search engines to make the podcast searchable. (this is from wikipedia)

How to market your real estate podcast

Directory marketing is so far the best way to market a podcast. Here is a pretty complete list of podcast directories. Choose a few and list your podcasts there. It will help people find you and drive traffic back to your site.

Top 5 ways to use podacasting on a Realtor website or blog

Offer personal tours of listings: Couple your Podcast with a Virtual Tour or slide show for a listing to give visitors a personalized tour of your listings. This type of podcast would be called a Vidcast as it can contain video. By doing an official or unofficial podcast/vidcast of your listings you are providing a level of service and intimacy available no where else.

Tour local attractions: Similarly, you can couple a video of the downtown area with a description of all the local "hot spots." You could even do a series of podcasts and feature different attractions or hot spots in each cast.

Give mini seminars: Guide buyers through the mortgage and closing processes with bite sized audio clips of what they can expect at each step. You can even personalize RSS feeds to automatically send these audio tutorials to your clients as they approach their closings.

Create a "talk radio" show: Interviewing builders of homes you are selling, happy clients who love the home you sold them, mortgage brokers that can help people understand the process or the options, etc. The list is endless. It really creates an intimacy with listeners and showcases your personality.

Announce events: Have an upcoming open house? Use a podcast to alert subscribers to the open house and other relevant local events.

In the next installment, I will go over how to create and publish your very own podcast/vidcast at almost no cost.

PODCASTING benefits
ULTIMATE GUIDE to podcasting, Part 2
PODCAST marketing
10 Features of Successful Blogs
Are you contagious? Viral Marketing 101

Posted on October 22, 2006 09:09:08 by Blog Author

Mary.McKnight - View Profile

Posted in Podcast Marketing

Trackback from: For Sale By Locals: A New Real Estate Approach [Visitor]

Real Estate Geolocation Data Performance
We have spent a good amount of time on the performance aspects of the geolocation database. As we talked about in our previous geolocation article, the properties for sale, members, and service provider data are all geolocation “aware” w...

Permalink October 26, 2006 20:17:52

Comment from: admin [Member]

RSS Pieces has built-in geo location as well. It helps you understand who is visiting your site and from where. It also helps visitors when they first come to your site- forms will auto fill iformation it knows about the user and the site can geo-target visitors with geographically specific information.

Permalink November 20, 2006 08:22:45

Comment from: forsalebylocals-Tony [Visitor]

· http://forsalebylocals.wordpress.com

Online geolocation has a number of interesting components - you describe two of them in identification and filtering.

Identification is the first component and can take many forms with varying levels of accuracy: property addresses, IP addresses, city/state, zip code, etc. Identification using IP address as you describe can identify visitors in a weblog. However, IP addresses can also be fairly inaccurate especially for large organizations that centralize their proxy servers or those who purposefully want to appear in a different places. For instance, I'm enjoying Thanksgiving in my house in Seattle which is thousands of miles away from the location that appears in your server logs. It's just the magic of proxy servers.

Filtering is the second component. You can filter information provided, form data, actions, or user interfaces (such as Google maps).

But there is a third level of gelocation criteria that we describe in our geolocation articles and are driving towards on our websites that isnt likely a feature of your website: the ability to internally relate data points.

Here is a example of this using the above metioned IP address to geolocate. Let's say that I have a site that redirects users to their closest local real estate website based on the geolocation information identified by their IP address. If your software identifies me as being in Mobile, AL and Mobile doesn't for whatever reason have a local website in the network, will the system know that Pensacola, FL is actually closer than Montgomery, AL without having to redirect the user to an extenal mapping service to arbitrate? Or that a visitor from Tampa, FL is actually closer to Cape Coral, FL than a visitor from Orlando, FL?

Again, having an app that is intrinsically "geolocation aware" is a powerful tool and from what we can tell isnt in wide use online. The vast majority of sites that use a google map interface for instance seem to be only using it as a visual filter - the locations themselves aren't aware of others at all. We didnt have that option since we plan to provide services outside of the five countries that the Google geoencoder services and don't want to spend the huge bucks for a full-blown geographic information system (GIS) solution...we needed to build our own infrastructure to make up for the missing capability. However, our geolocation infrastructure will work just as well in the US to help users make the types of decisions that I outlined above (and many more). The example that we use in the article involves building a playlist of the 20 closest property video for any given property video that is being watched.

Anyway, I've droned on for too long. I love your blog and the authoritative articles...keep up the great work.

Tony

Permalink November 23, 2006 17:41:40

Comment from: admin [Member]

I was discussing geolocation in terms of analytics. However, we do support geolocation technologies in the user interface as well. When a visitor goes to a site, it auto detects their general location and can auto populate direction searches, housing searches, restaurant suggestions, etc. Very cool technology glad to know others are using it!

Permalink November 23, 2006 18:02:07

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