I am Jeff

Apparently the “sales team” from a company called Inside Real Estate (normally I’d provide a link here, but it’s against my “no links for sleazy companies” policy) is making the rounds in Portland selling their “blogging services” to agents.

For the low price of $75 a month, plus a small $199 “creation and setup fee”, you get a… Drum roll please… WordPress blog. But wait, wait, wait, there’s more…

For an additional $10 per month they’ll set you up with your very own Twitter account, Facebook account and even an RSS feed!

You thought I was done?  Oh no my friend, oh no.

Don’t have time to write your own content?  No problem, they have a cure for what ails you! For only $27 per month (on top of the $85 you’re already spending), they will provide you with Real Estate related articles for you to publish on your blog.  Presumably the same articles they’re providing every other agent in the Nation who is foolish enough to fall for their sales pitch. Think about that for a second…

So what is it that has me so worked up about this?

Is it a bad product? Nope. WordPress is my platform of choice and what we build for our agents at M Realty (examples). It will do pretty much everything they say it will. No issues there.

Is it the price? Yes. $75 a month for a WordPress blog?  Come on…  The other fees/services are equally ridiculous. Unless you’re getting a top notch IDX home search and contact management system (like HomeQuest) along with that fancy WordPress blog, you should only be paying about $5 a month for hosting. I guess they have to pay their traveling snake oil salesmen somehow, right?

$10 a month for a Twitter/Facebook/RSS feed? Sorry to say, but if you need to pay someone to setup your social media accounts for you, you’re never going to get it. Don’t even try.

$27 for ghost writing? Same deal. This is your blog, you need to create the content that expresses your personality, your attitude, and the way you run your business. Plain and simple.

I think more than anything, I was a little perturbed by the sales tactics these guys were using on the agents. Telling them there are only a limited number of “spaces” available in a market, guaranteeing top placement on Google search results, you know all the usual bullshit sales tactics companies like this would have to use to get people to give up their credit card info and get the sale. When I heard several of the agents in the office fell for it and signed up, all I could do was shake my head.

On behalf of all the honest vendors out there, I apologize that we couldn’t get you more information in time to make a better decision.

Focus, consistency and a clean message. Rinse and repeat.

If you struggle with marketing, try sticking to this simple mantra. You’ll be amazed at how these simple words, once mastered, can make a huge difference.

Bern out!

Plagiarism: “the use or close imitation of the language and thoughts of another author and the representation of them as one’s own original work.”

Watch this video, it’ll blow you away… Don’t mind my shaky recording style, I hear it’s all the rage in Europe right now.

I’ve said on Twitter several times that if you’re going to steal someone else’s ideas, at least try to improve on the ideas somehow and make them your own, so that we can all learn from it.  I guess this takes that to a whole ‘nother level!

After poking around on this copycat blog a little more (which has since been taken down), I noticed that there were several posts labeled “Day 1 of 365…” in a couple different areas of Washington County. Apparently the agent is using this as a home for the content of several similar Facebook pages. That explains my confusion as to why the Beaverton/Aloha page linked to a blog with content for Banks.

Now, I know that @DaleChumbley wasn’t the one that originally came up with the idea for a “365 Things to do in…” page, but like I’ve mentioned before, I think he’s one of a few that is doing it correctly, for the right reasons, and has the commitment to keep doing it. Sure, Dale took someone else’s idea and incorporated some of his own into it, but he didn’t straight up plagiarize the original content on the other pages (and their related sites) before his like this agent did.

So, what are your thoughts on this? Does it piss you off that there are people out there that can’t even think for themselves and are willing to blatantly steal the content you’ve worked so hard on creating? Obviously it does me…

Would you ever work with someone that did something like this?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below…

I just added a new WordPress Plugin that adds the @Anywhere functionality to the blog. So now every time I reference someone’s Twitter ID in a post or page, a couple things happen.

First, the username is automatically converted into an active link directly to the persons Twitter profile. A definite time saver there…

Secondly, if you mouse over the link without clicking, a hover box appears with the user’s basic details. Clicking the “more” link expands the box showing the user’s full bio, latest tweet, follower stats and even a +follow button, as seen in the image to the right.

Go ahead, check it out for yourself on my Twitter ID: @JBern

Cool huh?

Social Media is such a beat up term these days. It’s tired. Weak. In fact, I’m done with it.

I’m going antisocial!

Seriously though, I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. Making some changes in the way I interact online. Creating some controversy around the “proper” way to follow and unfollow people, if there is such a thing. I was told I was being antisocial, an elitist, acting like a 9 year old and that my life was in ruin because I had done a mass-unfollow to clean up my Twitter account. Whatever…

Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn… All these social media (yuck, there’s that term again) platforms are based around one thing. Community. A community that I build. One that I have control over. If I want to unfollow people, I can. There’s no rule saying if you follow me, I have to follow you back. But, if you engage me, chances are really good that I will bring you into my community. Call that line of thinking whatever you want, it is what it is.

So, what IS it?

To me, these platforms (mostly Twitter and Facebook), have become more collaboration tools than anything. Community based collaboration tools where I can reach out to my friends and followers to get questions answered, find new things to do, cool people to do them with, etc. Google used to be my answer for pretty much any question or problem I was having. Now, I turn to those I know and trust for opinions, answers and input. THAT is worth it’s weight in gold to me, whether I’m antisocial or not.

So, there it is… Community Based Collaboration Tools. The end of social media (for me at least).