We also give you a choice as to where and how to display your listings within your Facebook account. You can post listings individually on your Profile page, or include all your inventory on a dedicated “My Listings” tab on your Business Page.

Now you have a third option. From the same “Social Syndication” section of the Homes & Land Control Panel, advertisers can choose to post select listings on their Business Page wall. This way your new listings are shared with everyone who “likes” your page – instantly.

Here’s How

Are you thinking about doing more volunteer work, helping the needy in your community, but not sure where to turn? Here’s a website that identifies both short-term and long-term volunteer opportunities. Go to www.VolunteerMatch.org.

According to Google, “mobile went mainstream in 2011” with increased smartphone and tablet usage – which means your listings not only have to be online to reach consumers, they have to be mobile-accessible too.

Nielsen reports that 44% of US mobile customers are using smartphones – up from 18% in 2010. With thousands more consumers having instant access to the Internet, it’s no wonder mobile browsing has increased 45% in the past year – not to mention the huge influx of Internet traffic from tablets (up 440% according to Google).

In fact, Google states “It’s not just that more people are using smartphones and tablets (though the numbers are skyrocketing at an accelerating pace)—it’s that a huge, and fast-growing base of smartphone users, now expect to engage with businesses on mobile.”

This is true for home shoppers too. HomesAndLand.com has seen an 186% increase in mobile traffic in the past year. That’s why mobile-enabled websites are included in our marketing package. Advertisers receive personal websites that are automatically formatted for smartphones and tablets at no additional charge. Which means no additional work for you to put your listings online – or on-mobile.

Last month Bernice Ross, a Realtor and one of Inman.com’s best columnists, declared that Micromarketing is the hot real estate marketing trend for 2012. Ms. Ross described micromarketing as “old-fashioned farming with a 21^st Century twist.”

Micromarketing means marketing to an area where the residents’ demographics, lifestyle, and recreational pursuits match your own interests and expertise. Perhaps you target residences around a large recreational lake where people buy second homes or retire. This appeals to you because you are an agent who a. lives on the lake and b. owns a boat and likes to fish.

Ms. Ross uses AustinLakefrontProperties.com as an example of a micromarketing website, as opposed to a more common and generic URL like www.Realtorsname.com. You should also use micromarketing to enhance Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and promote your social media efforts.

Ms. Ross reports that “agents who are having the best luck with this approach have integrated their print marketing efforts with their online marketing efforts.”

If micromarketing intrigues you, consider using Homes & Land’s Integrated Marketing Package. Your Homes & Land Publisher can help you reach a micromarket using direct mail. A Homes & Land ad is also a great place to promote your Facebook page and blog. In addition, we feature QR codes that link to a video promoting your micromarket.

With the Homes & Land package you receive a website that can be branded as a micromarket (e.g., AustinLakeFrontProperties.com). You can also backlink your Homes & Land site to your current website for enhanced SEO.

As usual, Homes & Land is ahead of the marketing curve.

When you are marketing what to most Americans is their biggest financial asset, you need to do it right. Columnist Phoebe Chongchua explains how great photography can help you sell homes. http://bit.ly/wcRTJs

#5. 7 Steps For Writing Effective Ad Copy
In today’s market, it can be difficult to attract qualified buyers. Print advertising is an effective way to generate leads—if you give buyers the information they are looking for.

#4. What is a QR Code Anyway?
There is a lot of buzz in the real estate industry about QR codes. But what is a QR code and how does it work? And – how should you use them to better connect with prospects?
This short video explains.

#3. Ad Design Challenge: To Starburst Or Not To Starburst
Starbursts are one of those graphic elements included in ads to call attention to specific qualities about a home. They do the job – but they’re overused. Nothing clutters an ad (or screams “used-cars”) more than a page full of starbursts and small photos.
There is another way. Lots of them in fact.

#2. Choose Your Words Wisely
That’s what a study at the University of Guelph in Ontario found from analyzing the wording of more than 20,000 listings. According to the research, a listing’s phrasing affected sales price and the length of time it was on the market.

#1. Coke vs. Pepsi – A Marketing Case Study
The Cola Wars are fierce. Coke, the perennial leader in beverage sales, is still at the top of the class. And Diet Coke just passed Pepsi to take the number two spot. Pepsi has held that number two spot for many years – so what happened?
Pepsi has been closely watched by marketers because of the innovative social media strategy it rolled out at the beginning of 2010.

We look forward to bringing you even more insight and inspiration in 2012.
Happy New Year from Homes & Land!

P.S. The top posts from 2010 are also worth reading.

Homes & Land works hard to make sure you get the best possible response from your marketing. To that end, we’ve created a website devoted to effective advertising and design. Short videos cover topics like How To Write Ad Copy That Works, How to Win Listings, and Effective Branding Techniques. To find out how you can maximize your advertising investment, visit www.HomesAndLand.com/Design

It’s almost the New Year, a time to reflect on how to make our lives more productive. One thing to consider is using a To-Do List that actually yields results. Wall Street Journal columinst Sue Shellenbarger reflects on why some To-Do Lists are ineffecive, and she reviews new software applications that can help you stay on task in 2012.  http://on.wsj.com/tlhicj

Most Realtors understand the value of branding. Consumers see your name/image over and over and they become more comfortable with the idea of working with you. Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt, as the adage states, it breeds something more desirable—security.

But why?

There is an extremely interesting book on the current bestseller list called Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. Kahneman is a Psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his theories on how human beings make decisions. (At heart, we are not as rational as we’d like to believe, even in money matters.)

In the book, Kahneman states that the relationship between repetition and liking is an important biological fact, and it extends to the animal world too.

For example, to survive in a dangerous environment, animals must react cautiously to new things, because the new thing may be dangerous. As a result, when something new shows up, animals get scared and run away. The prospect of an animal surviving without this trait is not good because sooner or later a predator will arrive.

However, through repetition the fear of the “new” subsides. Repeated exposures to the “new” brings nothing bad, and the animal eventually gets the safe signal. It feels secure.

This is one of the reasons brands like Coke are so powerful. In blind taste tests, consumers don’t have a strong preference for the taste of Coke over other colas, but once a soda is identified as Coke, the preference becomes high. We feel secure with Coke because we’ve been exposed to the soda and its advertisements all of our lives.

What does this mean to you? Realtors help people buy and sell a huge financial asset. The emotion you want to elicit in your prospects and clients is security. Repetition of your name, image and services is one of the best ways to generate this sense of security. We all know agents who have built a strong personal brand, and they are usually top producers.

If you don’t have a strong personal brand, your Homes & Land Publisher is a great resource for helping you build one.

We’ve said before that one of the benefits of advertising in Homes & Land magazine is its shelf-life – something that websites and newspapers just can’t duplicate. Last week we received incredible proof of the shelf-life of Homes & Land.

Homes & Land has a request line, where home buyers can call a toll free number or go online and order a magazine from across the US and Canada. Before the Internet, we also included request cards inside the magazines themselves. Last week we received one of these cards.

A couple of things to notice in the request card above:

• The expected move date is 2013 so the card was recently mailed, not just lost-in-transit for decades
• The internal identifier in the lower right corner shows that this card was inserted in the magazine in 1989 (plus this is a H&L logo that hasn’t been used since the early ‘90s)

Our reader in Mount Vernon, NY kept her Homes & Land magazine for 22 years. Talk about shelf-life!