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Oct
30
Posted by Teresa Boardman
Notice I didn’t put the word “photography” in the title, I find the word intimidating. I also find it fascinating that when I write a really great blog post, no one ever asks me what kind of a keyboard I have but when I take a great photo I get emails and comments asking me what kind of a camera a I used. The pictures I have on my blogs are the most popular feature, or at least what is commented on the most by other bloggers and by people who are looking for information about real estate or about my market area.
There is more to writing than keyboards, and more to photography than camera’s. I was asked to write a post for a social network that I belong to about photography. I started like I always do when someone brings up the topic: “I am not a photographer” I did mention the camera in my post and three people immediately went out and bought one. I recommended a book too and at least one person ordered it.
Camera
I have a couple of them, but the one I use the most is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX07, that I bought at best buy, an “open box” special. It has a wide angle lens and takes 7.1 Megapixel pictures. It also has extended optical zoom, which means I can take pictures from far away.
The camera is small so that I can have it with me at all times. I have actually read the manual and have learned how to use all the features, so I get more the most out of the little camera. It is very possible to have a great camera and take lousy pictures. There is more to pictures than cameras.
When I choose a camera I see five factors as being important:
- A camera that I can figure out how to use.
- A camera that is small enough so that I can have it with me at all times. A camera is useless sitting at home in a camera bag.
- The camera has to have a rechargeable battery, mainly because they seem to have a much longer battery life.
- It has to have a stabalizer, I shoot pictures from my car.
- A wide angle lens, is a must have for interior shots. (Pictured below: Schurmeier Lofts – Unit #204)
Taking Pictures
Light is everything. I took the picture posted above because I saw it as I drove by. The light was perfect, and the clouds were perfect, stacking the odds in my favor that I would get a good shot. The photo was the first shot I took. I named it “lucky shot” because I used the extended zoom feature without a tri-pod, a big no no, if the goal is to get a sharp, clear picture.
- Don’t try to take pictures into the sun, a well duh! but I see it all the time, or photos taken in such intense sun light that they have that washed out look.
- It is possible to take a great picture on a dreary day or in a dark room but it isn’t easy.
- When taking pictures of houses or people they seem to look best at a slight angel instead of head on.
- Your tripod is your friend. I found one that folds up to less than a foot long. It is like my camera, always available. I keep it in my car with a small screw driver, a flash light and a magnifying glass for those photo emergencies. I can set it up in a minute or less.
What to take pictures of
I take pictures of anything that I see that I either want to show my blog readers or that I like looking at, or that might make an interesting post. For a real estate blog, pictures of real estate, like houses and buildings seem to work best. I take pictures of the Mississippi River because I see it every day and I walk along the walking paths.
Sometimes when I go out taking pictures every picture turns out. Sometimes none of my pictures turn out. I save the good photos on CD’s so if I need a photo for a blog post I can usually find one.
Digital Camera’s and PC’s
With my last two digital camera’s I never hooked them up to my PC to down load pictures. I have SD card readers built into my computer, and put the card in the reader to down load the pictures. I also have a separate card reader that plugs into a USB port. My daughter took her digital camera to France. She did not take the card reader I gave her. I asked her why she wasn’t uploading pictures, there has to be something to take a picture of in the south of France. She said she couldn’t get the pictures off of her camera and onto her computer. I mailed her my card reader, now she is uploading pictures a couple of times a week. Don’t mess around with hooking a camera up to a PC, use a card reader. She is my daughter, I thought I taught her to never leave home without her card reader or attempt to connect a digital camera to a computer, in the field.
How to get the pictures ready for the internet
I use photoshop elements 5.0., but there is a newer version, 6.0. It costs about $100 but is worth every penny of it. The features I use the most are the automatic fix, the cropping tool, and the re-sizing tool. Most photos need to be brightened before they are put on the Internet.
Raw photos from a digital camera are too large to put in a blog post. They need to be made much smaller. Often the software that comes with a camera can be used to make pictures smaller. If not photo shop elements, will do the job. Picasa and PhotoFiltre are free programs that will resize photos and much more.
Digital Photography
The best thing about digital photography is that I can take as many pictures as I want. If they don’t turn out I can delete them. Sometimes I just keep taking pictures until I get it right. I use a 2 gigabyte SD card, so I won’t run out of space. The more I practice the fewer shots I have to take before I get what I want.
A photographer recommended a book on photography that I really like, the author Scott Kelby, has a wonderful sense of humor and the book is just fun. I use it for reference and read his “recipes” which are how too guides for taking pictures. From the book I learned how to photograph landscapes, sunsets and how to take pictures at night.
The Digital Photography Book, by: Scott Kelby
Pictures are an essential ingredient on a real estate blog. Not pictures of me, but pictures of St. Paul and of houses. I also belong to a group on a photographers web site and have met some interesting people that way. I have a Flickr account, pro level, only $25 dollars a year and worth it. I have participated in some local groups and projects through Flickr and have met some neighbors. Take advantage of your flickr account, it is a great way to network.
** note – the pictures at the top of this blog were taken by Neighborhoods Undressed bloggers, we have some excellent photographers in the net work, visit their sites and check it out.
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Oct
05
Posted by Teresa Boardman
When I started my real estate blog there were not many real estate blogs around and no blogs about St. Paul. I was lucky. My instinct told me that if I wrote to consumers, and kept it local because real estate is local, that people would read my blog and that I would get to meet them, and maybe they would become clients. I learned to keep it real and to be myself and not to imitate others or try to be something or someone that I am not.
Then at some point, maybe about a year ago the real estate industry got interested in blogs. I started seeing them everywhere. Many of the bloggers would start out the way that I did. After a few months they would begin writing to other bloggers and giving advice on how to blog. I understand how this happens. It is hard to stay focused especially in the beginning. Writing a local blog can be a lonely experience, even more so for someone like me who does not live any where near Seattle, but in fly over land where blogs are not as popular.
In most cases local bloggers do not get national recognition. I have had national recognition but only because I was an early adapter. There certainly are better blogs than mine. The first time my blog was noticed was by the Chicago Tribune and the reporter wrote about it because she was not finding local blogs written by agents. She was finding blogs written by Realtors for other Realtors. When she came to mine she found pictures of houses because I was writing a series on local architecture that week. The other blogs she visited had pictures of iPhones on them because that is what everyone was talking about that week. Those architecture posts generated about a million dollars in sales, the iPhone posts got more traffic and comments and links.
My goal was and is to stay focused and if you read my blog you will see that I have stayed on track. It can be fun to write to other bloggers who will leave comments, but my goal is to write about St. Paul and about real estate and it is a lot of fun to come up number one in the search engines, organically for keywords that other companies pay for.
Why am I writing all of this? Mostly to explain the undressed network. The idea is to have a local blog because real estate is local. Blogs are not technical, they are about content. What to write and how to write it. The undressed network is not about getting national recognition or about seeing which blogger can have the most real estate professionals reading. It is about building relationships with the consumers who live inside of our computers, so that they will contact us and ask for our help when they need to buy or sell real estate.
I contend that the real estate industry does not yet understand local blogs or the power that we as individuals have on the internet. As an industry we reward bloggers by how many others in the industry read them and have not yet embraced the idea of writing to potential clients. It is about being real and local and giving consumers the information they are looking for. It is about honesty and integrity and yes even undressing. In writing we are undressing online. We are exposing our beliefs, values and ideas. That takes courage but it is powerful.
I guess I have just exposed my beliefs and values about real estate blogs. It is OK to have a national blog, I have one of those too, and I read them, but if the intent is to win business try a local or neighborhood blog. National bloggers have a lot more competition because there are so many of them. There is almost no competition for local bloggers making it a great opportunity for agents who want to have a strong web presence that generates business,
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Jun
12
Posted by admin
This site is visited by agents and others interested in local blogging. So, what is here for you, in case you drop in and wonder what neighborhoods Undressed is all about. Great things we hope: Here are 5.
1- A local agent that provides great local content and that know their market. You both learn about the communities and about these local professionals.
2- Local mulitple listing searches in each market on agent websites. The big name dotcoms have not been able to provide you all of the listings on one website. The local brokers and agents, via their searches, is the way to search.
3- Lenders that do business with agents. In our experience you have the best opportunity for a great mortgage experience by using an lender known by an agent.
4- Current and ongoing articles about your favorite market. Being a blog you have an opportunity to ask questions. Keep coming back. Setup a blog reader and add a local neighborhood blog to your daily reading. Our agents are expected to write 3 to 7 articles a week.
5- Great local photographs.
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May
23
Posted by Teresa Boardman
This is an opinion, but it is based on two years of personal experience, and the experience of others, so I think it has some validity. A business blog is not very useful if no one reads it. According to Technorati there are over 90 million blogs in there directory and only a small percentage get any traffic.
People who write real estate blogs are writing to a niche, composed of the people who are interested in real estate. Real estate professionals are the most interested in real estate. With a lot of hard work and writing this group can be attracted to a blog. Larry’s real estate undressed blog is a great example. He has a large national following, and has the talent and imagination to keep them coming back.
It doesn’t work that way for everyone, and if real estate business is the goal, consider a local blog. Larry has a couple of them and they do generate business. My local blog has as many readers, but it does not have as many of the same readers coming back everyday. Since the focus is on St. Paul and on real estate, who would want to read about that every day? Yawn.
My blog works more like a web site. It covers a small niche that few others are writing about. When people are interested in St. Paul and in buying or selling a home in the area they find me through Google. The competition for my product is much smaller than the competition for a product like Real Estate Undressed, so I come up first in many searches.
The regular readers that I have are area residents who either know me or who just like seeing a blog about St. Paul and are interested in the local market conditions posts which show home prices and sales by St. Paul neighborhood. They don’t necessarily read me becasue I they think I am a great writer, they read me becasue I provide information that no one else is publishing and in a unique format. They can’t go to a national real estate or news blog and find the same content. I only have to compete with a few excellent local bloggers.
That is the beauty of a local or neighborhood blog. Coverage of a niche in depth. Kind of like selling real estate. Most of us are licensed in a state, or maybe two but we sell in just a few neighborhoods, some specialize further still, becoming experts in one type of housing or clients. As I drill down on the internet to the neighborhood level there is less competition than there is at the city or state level.
If you are a real estate professional who would like to start a blog that will help generate real estate business consider writing a neighborhood blog. You may not get national attention or a huge following but the people who are interested in your area will find you and you will stand out as an area expert. Your readers will also get a feel for your personality and if you are lucky you will build trust with them to the point where they will contact you and ask for help with a real estate transaction.
REALTORS who use business planning usually work on the plans this time of year. If you are considering a blog for 2008, put it in your plan and allot time each day for reading and writings. Make some projections. In your first year with a local blog you can count on your posts resulting in real estate transactions. I was going to throw out some numbers but there are many variables. Traffic increases when market activity is up and there are seasonal variations too.
The number of blogs on the internet is growing and will continue to grow. A local blog is a way to compete, and win business in your own niche. If you currently have a blog, don’t be discouraged if it isn’t paying off yet. Blogs are like farming in that to get results you have to stick with it for awhile. Also keep in mind that Who is reading your blog and why, may be more important than the number of readers. We have not yet found a correlation between the number of readers and the amount of business a blog can attract.
Artwork is of downtown St. Paul, with the Mississippi River in the foreground.
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