Q: I’m finally making videos and LOVING IT. But, I want my emails to look a little more compelling. How do I entice people to click on the links that I send them and watch my movies?
A: I’m so happy you’re enjoying bringing visual content to the web! However, you cannot (yet) embed a video into an email and have it be playable within that email. The good news is that there’s a simple work around to take your emails from this:
to this:
YOU WILL NEED: -Microsoft Outlook -Microsoft Paint -Microsoft Publisher (optional)
…In talking to hundreds of individual REALTORS®, we came to an powerful realization: The vast majority of agents still get 80%+ of their business via word-of-mouth referrals. [This], combined with the incredible mainstream adoption of of Facebook and the Social Web over the past year, triggered a thought in our minds: What if we could build technology that helps REALTORS® optimize the 80%+ of their business that really matters? [...] The Roost Social Real Estate Toolkit is easy to use and all about helping you grow the biggest, most productive part of your business: word-of-mouth driven referrals from the people you know and the people who know them.
First things first: how can you get the app? Easy peasy lemon squeazy: go to the Roost App page of Facebook, click the “Go To Application” button, allow permissions, and follow the directions. Need a more visual example? Roost created a great video tutorial.
So… what can this do for you? A lot, actually…
Create a real estate tab on your personal page or business fan page (This first example if for a personal profile. See my test profile page in action here. And click on any image below to see a larger version in a new window.)
Add your picture (from your profile picture album), a tagline, and some marketing copy. Note: to stay in compliance with Facebook’s TOS, you will not be able to edit a phone number. I added mine manually in the marketing copy section. Is this a violation? I’m not sure.
You also can add introduction copy to the left of your photo, which is the text above the Google Map image.
Based on the information you provide about your market area, Roost will provide market stats, education information, graphs from Altos Research, and a Walk Score (see my test page.)
You can also add up to four listings (active, contract accepted, sold, open house). The Roost app will ask you to create a photo album called “Listings” from which you will select the photo for each property (I went with clip art for simplicity’s sake- you should put an actual home picture). You enter the address, price, bed/bath/square footage and a short headline.
You can edit, change, or remove these listings any time.
How does the personal page differ from the business fan page?
(Click here to see my test business page in action.) The biggest (and maybe only?) difference that I can tell is that you are now able to add a phone number, web address, and company logo. Note: You will still need to select a page owner and owner picture. Because of this, you wouldn’t be able to use this on behalf of a company without singling out one person as the “owner”.
Schedule future posts from within Facebook with Publisher
The Roost Social Toolkit also provides an invaluable tool: the ability to schedule future posts (to your profile or any page that you admin). These posts can include link previews as well by using the Add Link function. Check out Roost’s video tutorial here.
I tested two links last night and was rather pleased with the outcome:
As you can see, the posts come via Roost, so you do run the risk of losing exposure if people “hide” the Roost app, just as you are if you use Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, or the Twitter app. FYI: The first test didn’t show an image when I created it, and the second test replaced apostrophes with special characters. Be aware also that you can only schedule posts to go out at the :00 :15 :30 and :45 marks, and there is currently no way to use the Tagging feature in a scheduled post (from any program).
Who will benefit most from using this? Realtors who are using Facebook only will find this tool to be a great aid, if only for the publisher (although having that non-invasive “I’m an agent!” reminder with the Real Estate tab can only help you). If you’re all about social media and like the ability to schedule and post to multiple sources (FB/TW/LI/etc) at once, I would stick with an outside program- my favorite being Hootsuite.
Room for improvement? Knowing admittedly nothing about creating Facebook apps… this is my wishlist for the Roost Social Toolkit: 1. The ability to use the Tagging function in a scheduled post 2. A plugin or popup to easily schedule links from other windows a la the Facebook Share Button, Hootsuite Hootlet, or Bit.ly Sidebar 3. The ability to add a few more listings. (It doesn’t make sense to me that you can only add four when there is clearly space for six). 4. The ability to upload images off the hard drive vs from Facebook Albums 5. The ability to use the Toolkit on a page without selecting a singular owner (although I suppose there would be lesser incentive to purchase a custom app from Roost) 6. (And this one is purely because I’m lazy) The ability to auto-populate listing data from an MLS number
