From the talk that James Geary did for TED.

And how cool is Prezi for a new kind of presentation? Hmmm…

How swift is this video about Word Of Mouth marketing? It’s been said that Eric Bryn rocks; I tend to agree!

The Power of Word of Mouth (WOM) Marketing from Eric Bryn on Vimeo.

Sean Parker’s Rise of Facebook And Twitter, Fall Of Google Presentation

My mind read that but saw, “Rise of SocNets, Demise of Google.”

Huh?

While Sean’s CV is truly impressive, I’m having trouble swallowing this premise that the rise of SocNets will somehow diminish the relevancy of Google.  Again, given his background, I would have to agree with the one of the commenters that the talk probably had more to it than simply the presentation slides embedded on TechCrunch.

Knowledge Based Economy

In my opinion, our economy is rapidly shifting to a knowledge economy (thank you Pete Drucker).  As such, BOTH SocNets and data collectors (ie. Google) are necessary.  Without common, readily accessible data that all folks in your SocNet can access, a social network becomes little more than a glorified coffee clatch. Being able to point your peeps to the relevant information and resources online (wonderfully indexed by Google) has already allowed much to be accomplished across the digital landscape.

Think about your own use of Twitter, for example.  It is great to be able to share conversations and ideas with folks across the ‘net.  The ability for you to share and discuss is inextricably tied to your ability to communicate, effectively, your ideas.  That’s where ‘the Google’ and other search engines come riding in.  They have made it their mission to catalog the world’s data.  And that data is darn near useless if no one can find it or access it.

Earlier this year, I mentioned a trailer for a movie coming out that looks intriguing.  While highlighting the film itself, I explained part of my fascination with science fiction in general:

One of the draws to scifi, for me, has been the “what if” of the stories presented.  Vernor Vinge wrote a book called “Rainbows End” that I recently picked up again.  The premise is a near future story, 2025, and the prevalence of access to the net, data and therefore analysis of said data plays heavily into the storyline.

Vernor Vinge’s, “Rainbows End,” is a story that truly does not seem too far fetched, or removed from our current technological progress.  His premise of ease of ‘access to the net, data and therefore analysis of said data’ is the direction I can see our economy heading.  Mentioned in the periphery of this story are the collaborators; those with giant SocNets that can analyze data/trends and delegate quickly through their SocNet.

The Rumblings of a Beginning

The recent news of Twitter “pipelining” its feed to search engines is the beginning of a new collaborative age.  SocNets ability to transmit information quickly is renowned.  The “balloon  boy” hoax earlier this year is a great example of how quickly a hoax can travel around the globe… and nearly as quickly get ridiculed for the attention attracting hoax it was.

Being able to sift and sort real time “conversations” will make crowd sourcing near instantaneous.  Furthermore, the ability to determine patterns of marketing affects, disease, weather anomalies and emergency conditions will allow the appropriate institutions to respond accordingly…and a LOT faster than we are currently used to.

Is the rise of the SocNet going to bring Google to its knees?  Nope.  In this particular instance, I firmly believe the sum of the whole is vastly greater than its parts.

A LOT of stuff has been written about Wave and how it will revolutionize communication.  While I don’t have much more to add to that discussion, I would like to offer my review of using it for about two weeks.

First Few Days: Barren as the Antarctic

Yeah, so it was ‘cool’ to be in the first wave of nominations that went out (thanks Dan!), but man, there simply weren’t a bunch of my paesans there to try out this new medium.  Thankfully, Dan and I tinkered, crashed a wave or two and generally kicked the tires while we waited for more folks to join in the fun.  The good news was that this ‘forced’ me to do some research and see what was already out there in the form of bots, extensions and how to search public waves.

Since then…

Many of my SocNet friends have gained their nominations and joined in the Wave.  Kinda fun breathing deep that “shiny new object” smell.  You know, kinda like that new car smell? Except not so automotive…

For sure, Wave is still experiencing growing pains.  For example, one feature that was present from the beginning was the “green dot of here-ness.”  This dot simply showed whether someone was online or not.  It disappeared and has recently made a reappearance, though it only shows the current user as online and nobody else, regardless of their status.

A few more features that need to be implemented:

• better contact management –> too easy to add someone you didn’t mean to a particular wave
• better wave management –> currently can’t remove someone from a wave unless you are that person
• GUI needs to be tweaked for better contact and wave management –> kinda clunky and too easy for confusion

Sounds Kinda Rough.  Is It Ready for Prime Time?

While Wave is a bit on the rough side right now, the potential is staggering.  Currently, with patience, a little spit and polish, it has been pretty easy to collaborate with a few folks on some upcoming projects.  Agendas have been proposed, revised, edited and finalized all while being able to track who made what changes…in real time!  And if we’ve needed to go face to face or ear to ear, there’s a plugin for that!

Wave is not ready for prime time just yet.  However, if you and your associates are willing to be patient and want to explore the edges of modern communication, this medium is a riot!  It is too simple to drop YouTube videos, pictures and other resources right in the middle of the conversation…and not just out of sheer goofiness!  Wave makes getting your point across a lot more fully fleshed out than a word document or email.

Collaboration is Key

So, uses that I can see for Wave immediately.  Yeah, so I’m a real estate guy, right?  I can see where Wave can be used to collaborate between agent and buyer, the homes that are being considered.  At the buyer’s discretion, I can see a lender being added to the wave to discuss financing, with auto-updating rate sheets.  Or even allowing access to folks whose opinion the buyers value.

I can also see a setup where emails are delivered right into a wave and addressed by the wave collective.  Kind of a customer support on crack.  If you have a distributed team, your CS could potentially be 24/7 worldwide and every CS member would see what had been asked and what had been documented via Wave.

Once screen sharing makes an appearance in Wave and it becomes more stable, presentations will change forever.

Honestly, the possibilities only accelerate from there …

Some Initial Wave Tips to Share:

• First tip : to search for other, open, public waves, type- with:public
• This will return a list of ALL public waves. Want to search for other waves? Modify the search string. To search for real estate type – with:real estate
• In order to add yourself to a public wave, be sure that your own googlewave contact is in your own contact list. Therefore, when you want to participate in a public wave, you simply hit the + button and add your contact to that wave…
• To “embed” a video, simply grab the URL of the video, paste in your new reply, and a little light bulb pops up at the end of the URL asking if you would like to embed the video…
• To create a public wave: Add public@a.gwave.com to your contacts and add the bot to any wave you’ve created that you would like to be public. To date, you will need to add this bot EVERYTIME you log back into wave if you want to add it to a wave.

About four years ago, two things began to happen simultaneously in real estate: price erosion and social media.  The first, price erosion, is something that ‘happened’ to the industry.  While the second, social media, is something that real estate agents have jumped into head first.

Brian Boero of 1000WattConusulting has an “off the beaten path” post on the bizarro world that is social media.

The money quote, for me:

This social media thing was made for real estate.

But does it feel to you like real estate has really nailed it?  It doesn’t to me…

There are lots of reasons why. The details are less important than some of the faulty assumptions driving them:

• That hundreds of thousands of under-experienced practitioners could play effectively on a platform that rewards substance

• That the social media opportunity would get bigger the easier it got to participate

• That social media marketing could be sensibly peddled to agents by many of the same folks who convinced them that haranguing their friends and neighbors with scripts was a good idea

Right there is the rub…Are you in real estate to earn a living, change lives or be friends?  And this doesn’t apply merely to real estate!  If you are in any kind of business for yourself, and you are utilizing social media, you need to be asking yourself, “Why, how, & how much?”

Why, How & How Much?

Ok, so this is pretty much like touching the third rail of politics, Social Security.  Once the folks in the swamp even breathe that they are going to ‘reform’ social security, the rails come off their individual races for re-election…In other words, folks get all hyperventilated when someone begins taking on their beloved program.

Why are you using social media for your business?  Is the aim to get more business?  Presuming the answer is yes, what is your strategy?  Do you even have a strategy?

I stand by my analogy of social media as a giant Chamber of Commerce networking event.  To make good use of your time at the networking event, you arrive with one of two objectives: meet 3 folks that you need to “round out” your business network, or give away X number of business cards while having meaningful conversations.

If you are going to engage the SocNets for your business, you better have a strategy, or at least a well-thought out plan of utilizing the services provided.  Otherwise, you run the risk of wasting a lot of time and money or entirely trashing your business’ reputation online… and Google’s memory is greater than an elephant’s!

How are you using social media? See where that strategy thing might come in handy?  Are you simply spewing links about your business and incessantly talking about your business?  Do YOU like ‘talking’ with people like this in meat space?

When you throw a party, you really shouldn’t, as the great host you are, usher people into your dining room, whip out the white board and hard sell your product to your guests.  They are all there for a party.  And a party is about getting to know each other and enjoying each others company.  The same holds true on the SocNets.  It is about creating meaningful connections, relationships.

How much time and/or money are you spending on the social media side of your business?

• Social media marketing costs just as much or more than “traditional” marketing. You’re going to need to spend a lot more in time and spend your money in different places. On a marketing director with great writing skills, for example. Or a video producer who can do right by you. Social media needs to be treated with the same care that big newspaper ad contract received back in the day if you want results.

Brian hits it out of the park with this point ALONE!  Real estate agents have positively flocked to social media as a panacea to their lack of a marketing strategy (dang! There’s that word again…).  They’ve heard or been sold a bill of goods that says, “Get online and all your problems are solved.”  Truth is, getting online will only magnify the positives, or negatives, that your business currently has.  Seeing as many agents don’t operate with a business plan, this social media “strategy” has the double-plus, ungood effect of showing their marketplace they have no business plan, marketing plan or strategy.

Harsh Words…

Yep.  Reality can be that way.  This is not to suggest that folks practicing real estate or social media “the unapproved” way can’t be successful.  Far from it.  I simply posit that the majority of real estate agents, and folks using social media for their businesses, have no idea the damage they can do by “playing around” on the SocNets without a clear strategy.

Information/data is the new economy.  How are you using your information/data?

One thing that I remember, constantly, as I interact online is: “My grandkids will be able to see what gramps was like in the early aughts.”  Can you see how this thought can apply to your business too?

While I am drumming my fingers on the desktop waiting for that magical, possibly mythical of all invites, I’ve been trying to figure out the method to Google’s madness.  The short of it is that Google appears to be tweaking and shoring up Google Wave before they have another huge influx of folks.

A good friend of mine nominated me for an invite on Thursday and here on Saturday I am still anxiously awaiting the invite.  Of course, if that darn thing shows up today, I will be torn between Google Wave and the U of M vs. MSU football game (interstate rivalries, blah, blah, blah).

If you’ve been wondering what’s up, check out Jesse Newhart’s site for a pretty accurate sounding run down on the lack of nominations turning into invites.  Also, ZD Net is running a “short description of GWave” contest on their site and state that two winners will receive nominations:

These aren’t invites – you don’t get those until Google processes the nominations: “we’ve got a lot of stamps to lick” as Google says when excusing the delay – but they’re the next best thing.

Meanwhile, I can’t help but hear Otis Redding’s, Sitting on the Dock of the Bay…

From the “Huh, I knew that, but it’s good to see a chart” department…

This is a screen cap of the National Association of Realtors® 2008 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers.  Instinctively, I believe many agents know this in their bones, but it is still something to see the chart laid out with cold, hard numbers.

Todd’s spin:  In 2008, there was a two percentage point difference between agents and the internet as sources where the buyer eventually found their home.  As agents, we have nearly been replaced by the internet in terms of buyers finding a home.  This does not speak of any of the value we bring in negotiation, property acquisition, network of service providers or our flat out experience in getting buyers and sellers to the closing table.

For agents to also consider:  32% (nearly 1/3) of buyers found their home online.  If your marketing material doesn’t include a web-presence, please join us in the 21st century.  For those that have a web component to your marketing material, an overwhelming majority I’m positive, your marketing needs to stand head and shoulders above your competition…

…and not from YOUR perspective!

You need to view your web marketing through the eyes of the “average” buyer hunting and pecking for homes online.  AND you need to see your marketing effort through the eyes of your seller.

• Are you making good on your promise to “be everywhere” on the ‘net?
• Are you quantifying what “being everywhere” on the ‘net means to your sellers?
• Can 100% of the potential buyers find the home online?
• Is your seller engaged in the online marketing of their property?
  • with the rise of video and social networking, it is a no-brainer for you and your sellers to collaborate in marketing their home

But then, I’m preaching to the choir again, aren’t I?