Those who have been in the commercial real estate industry for any amount of time know it lags the business cycle. Nobody gauges the economy by what commercial real estate is doing. Commercial real estate brokers, investors, and principals watch the economy, knowing that whatever happens there will be coming down the pike a year or two later for commercial real estate. It’s a frustrating way of life, but commercial real estate professionals have learned to deal with it.

Savvy commercial real estate investors always seek advice and counsel when it comes to making investment decisions. That said, all “experts” are not created equal – Those investors who have access to better, more timely information provided by more sophisticated advisors simply have an edge. So here are a few questions to ponder: How broad is your sphere of influence? Who are the “experts” you’re seeking advice from? What if I told you that you could have real-time, 24-7-365 access to the world’s best practitioners in every aspect of commercial real estate, and that this unfettered access was free – would you be interested?

To continue reading Vincent’s post, or any of his others on his blog, visit The Sentinel Realty Blogosphere.  Vincent is based in Chicago and represents properties nationally.

Today, Entrepreneur.com posted an article that talks to some successful ghostwriters, how they work, and what they charge.  One blogger points out:

“Ghostwriting can have a seedy appearance: Somebody you’ve hired is pretending to be you,” says Katie Gutierrez Painter, a writer in Austin, Texas. “Before I started, I saw it the same way. But you need to look at it from the business, branding and marketing standpoint. It’s just outsourcing an employee to work under the name of the company.”

And what are they charging?

Ghost rates vary, but generally, it costs far less to create a ghosted blog or Twitter account than to launch a traditional PR campaign. McCord charges $18 to $32 per blog post, and $150 to $500 a month for multiple daily tweets. Lindsay Manfredi, a social media strategist in Indianapolis, charges $75 to $100 for a blog post, a fee that includes research, writing and editing.

Click HERE to read the full article.

And, if you have been considering working social networking into your marketing strategy but aren’t sure how to take the first step, or want to contract someone to handle the management of this for you, Contact Us!

Social Media Savvy

Watch this very helpful, clearly presented 3 min video explaining… Social Bookmarking.

Granted, some are easier to find than others, but on more occasions than I’d like to recall, I’ve found no lead to twitter, facebook, linkedin, etc., and had to log into my account on these networks and spend more time than I should’ve entering multiple combinations of people or company names to try to find the person/organization I’d like to follow.  Twitter isn’t perfect.  Example:  I just searched Richmond grocer ‘ukrops’ and Twitter tells me: “We couldn’t find anyone named ukrops.”  I know they have one, and turns out, the search field requires the apostrophe before the s.  This wouldn’t slow people down, and good for Ukrops.com having their links on display, but imaging hoping to find an individual and running to that problem.  Take a few stabs in the search field and if you haven’t guessed the exact combination, you very well may give up and forget about it.  Lost opportunity!

Here’s a big offender: The New York Times.  Currently I stay abreast of breaking new with email alerts.  But, what if I don’t want that cluttering up my inbox and just want to set up to follow them on Twitter.  I go over to nytimes.com and – I’m still looking – where is the link to their Twitter profile?  Now I have to log in to Twitter (extra step, and if I’m mobile on a smartphone additionally frustrating) and look them up.  Pftt.

What are they? Social media badges/buttons/icons are a visual flag to your web visitors that you have a profile on any given social network.  Check our Contact Us page to get the idea.  If you prefer to limit competing graphics on your site, a text link works just as well.

What do they do? A badge/button/icon/text link properly positioned on your site will signal visitors that you have presence on these social media platforms, and given they are on the same platforms, with a single click can connect and follow any latest news from you or your organization.

Why are they important? More and more people are keeping informed about the happenings in their personal and professional lives by connecting with people and companies on social networks.  I no longer dial the weather to get an “instant” forecast for my local area, I check with RVaWx on Twitter to stay updated.  Takes 2 seconds.  No more dialing and waiting for a recording to pick up.

MAKE IT EASY for people to find your updates on Twitter, Facebook, or whatever social network you are using that best suits your purposes.  Put them ALL up there.  Maybe you’ll catch extra videos to a YouTube channel or your blog.  Put it clearly in a corner of your main web page or contact details page, your email signature, etc.  Don’t make potential followers search that information out, because with the pace of technology we are experiencing today, we are ALL becoming too spoiled to do so.