What is a QR Code?

A QR Code is a matrix code (or two-dimensional bar code) created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. They are currently used for a wide array of purposes including: driver’s licenses, paperless coupons, on bills and other publications. A QR code, when scanned by a smart phone (i.e.: BlackBerry, iPhone, Android) will take the scanner to a website.

QR Codes are a fantastic way to promote any kind of marketing information in a modern, non-traditional and green method. A code can contain text information, a phone number or a website url: any information that you want to share with your customer.

While used widely in Japan and other parts of the world for some time, the use of QR Codes is a fairly new concept in America.

Enter Lesley Lambert, Realtor for Park Square Realty in Westfield, MA and co-founder of TQ, Inc Social Media Consulting. Lambert prides herself on her use of technology in real estate marketing. Over the past few years she has become a blogger; including blogging for both local and national online magazines, studied search engine optimization and web site coding and has been using social media tools to grow her business.

“I learned about QR Codes at PodCamp Western MA and through a post by Lani Rosales on Agent Genius,” said Lambert. “The code was added to the event t-shirts by one of the organizers, Jaclyn Stevenson. After having the concept explained to me and then seeing it in action, I got to thinking about a QR Code campaign for my real estate marketing.”

Lambert is rolling out a marketing campaign that will include the use of QR Codes on sign riders at her listings as well as on printed materials like flyers and postcards.

Lambert explained how she sees this working. “Let’s say a potential buyer with a smart phone drives by the house and is curious. They stop to write down information and then notice my sign rider. They take a scan of the QR code and ZIP! they are delivered to a webpage dedicated to information on that property. A website that is rich in information and content like video, photos and important documents…all available instantly by scanning the code”

While Lambert knows that this isn’t a commonly used tool, yet, she feels it is the marketing wave of the future and is excited to be offering something new and innovative to the home sellers and home buyers.

“I am also trying this out as a test program that we can add to our list of services for real estate consulting,” Lambert added.

If you have a smart phone you can find a QR Reader application in your application store. Go download the free application and give the code above a try. To encourage the fun in this new gadget, Lambert is running a contest. Anyone that tries the QR code on her newest listing (seen above) will be taken to a page with instructions on how they can be entered into a contest for a $25 Starbucks gift card.

“It’s like a virtual scavenger hunt,” concluded Lambert. “I want this to be fun for people.”

Watch this video for further explanation on how QR Codes can work for Real Estate:

Real estate may never be the same.

As I did my normal perusal of Facebook today I noticed something very odd. Many of my friends had a color as their status update. Just a color…nothing else. My page was rife with: green, white: plain white, beige, black, leopard and even a champagne.

I thought it was strange, but it was a limited group at first, so I brushed it off. Fast forward a few hours and when I look at Facebook all I see is colors and I now have some Facebook messages inviting me to join. The messages said something like this: “Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY women no men …. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the women have a color in their status…”

WHY DIDN’T ANYONE POST PINK?

Now, the really amusing thing was that many of the color updates that I was viewing were posted by men. So much for keeping them in the dark (and good for you for being secure enough to come out with your bra wearing habits boys!).

Let me say straightaway that I am a HUGE supporter of breast cancer awareness. I had my first mammogram at age 30 because of a family history that includes both my mother and her sister. My aunt passed when she was 38 from breast cancer. I actually put my $ where my mouth is…..btw.

That being said…I am not really clear how this update business will help fuel Breast Cancer awareness. I went ahead and posted this as my Facebook status: “I am a huge supporter of breast cancer awareness, but I don’t think anyone really cares what color my bra is….or that telling you will make anyone more aware. If you are interested, just use your imagination: I am sure that will be more exciting than the reality.”

The responses came in and were plentiful. Many people were confused about what was going on and were thankful that I put it out there so they got some answers. My response to them is: Why are you too chicken to ASK? I went on Twitter and said WTF is going on with Facebook statuses being all colorful and got the answer right away.

Many people agreed with me. But one person didn’t agree, my Twitter friend Melissa Case DelGaudio (@startabuzz), and she came right out with a very valid point: “As silly as it might seem, I submit that EVERYONE is talking about this right now. So whether anyone actually cares what color anyone’s bra is, it’s got people talking about awareness, which was the whole point. ”

My opinion on this topic isn’t swayed by her point…I still don’t see how Breast Cancer research will benefit from knowing what color my bra is (and I am still not telling you dirty lecherous beasts). I do see her point and I get that it brought this to everyone’s attention, BUT what it brought to my attention was THIS….

SOCIAL MEDIA IS FAST.

Before you get too deep into “duh Lesley”….I knew this already, you did, too, but I mean REALLY REALLY fast.

How powerful is this tool? How amazing that someone (and do we even know who started this bra nonsense anyways?) decided that today would be the day to post your bra color (tee hee hee) and suddenly WOOSH every woman (and many men-not that there is anything wrong with that!) were doing just that and within hours it was a huge topic of conversation.

What does that tell us?

Well, it tells me that my grandmother was right…clean underwear all the way. Cuz if I get in an accident I don’t want you all going viral with the fact I died in dirty underwear.

What it tells me (really this time, no REALLY I swear) is that social media is becoming the most powerful marketing tool in history.

People, fasten your seatbelts: this is the best ride ever!

oh and ps. Go donate to Breast Cancer Research.

I love starting a blog with that, but it is true. I now have solid confirmation, metrics even, that I was dead on center CORRECT.

Several years ago I started to use social media to be, well…social. A little bit later I realized that this stuff could work for business, too. After doing some research and LOTS of bumbling around I began to use social media and new media techniques in my real estate career.

My thought was this: I shop online ergo: others shop online. I prefer searching for information on the web ergo: others do, too. I use my smart phone for just about EVERYTHING ergo: others want to use theirs.

Now I know that not EVERYONE is the person I describe, but there are many people who do fit the description and THEY are the ones I wanted to work with.

I did a lot of groundwork, made some key errors and then got more and more savvy. I asked a lot of questions, I read everything, I spent days upon end educating myself in the ways of this social media world. I set up profiles, started blogging and using Facebook and Twitter for business purposes. And then a wondrous thing happened: I got a lead. A lead that called me and said “I read your blog and thought it was great. I want to buy my house with you.”

When the angel light went away and the resounding trumpet blaring ceased I realized something….something BIG. I was onto something that other agents in my area weren’t. I was finding a means to speak to people who I had never met and they LIKED me.

That was followed by many other successes for me, but I am only one agent. One agent alone does not a standard make and everyone wants to know if there is any “real” return on this social media “stuff”. While teaching social media to real estate agents, I had general business statistics to call upon, but I wanted some hard proof in the real estate field. When I came upon this little article on realtor.org I finally had my resounding substantiative proof….

• The Internet has become an essential and indispensable tool in the home search process with 90 percent of home buyers using it to search for homes, up 30 percentage points during the past six years.
• Additionally, among buyers who reported using the Internet, 76 percent reported using it frequently, an increase of 7 percentage points from 2008.
• Furthermore, as a result of searching online, buyers frequently request additional information or find an agent.
• Around 60 percent of buyers were also likely to walk through home viewed online.”

—from realtor.org

Now I DO realize that I am not the only real estate agent that figured this out. So, those of you that did and read this: you get to say “I was RIGHT!”, too.

If you are an agent that isn’t using new media for business growth then it is time for you to reach out to TQI Consulting and ask for a guiding hand. We are like your best girlfriends, only geekier and we know real estate AND social media. Join us: your clients already did!

Nothing at all? You have work to do.

Yesterday on our radio show there was a lot of discussion (some on air and quite a bit in the chatroom which unfortunately isn’t transcribed) about transparency.

Transparency?

I had originally heard this term used to describe a real estate transaction, but lately it has been used more broadly to describe a person’s actions, both online and off. It makes no sense to me.

When I am at a party, I behave differently than I would at the office, yet I am still me. I don’t wear my swimsuit to church no matter how hot it is, but it is still me sweating inside those clothes. That’s what human beings do; we are taught to observe those around us and interact appropriately. Given this definition of humanity, how can “transparency” be applied as a characteristic of human behavior?

My voice – how I speak to people both online and off – is naturally going to shift depending upon who I am speaking with. Is someone who chooses to downplay last weekend’s revelry while attending a Policemen’s Ball duplicitous or sensible?

Or is it polite to not want to offend others, and sensible to not expose others who wish not to be spoken of?
I think transparency- in the sense that it is used here- is probably something the world could do a little less with. Although they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I am inclined to think that the pavers instead are unbridled honesty. We have all encountered honesty that, really, was not useful in the course of life- whether it is cloaked in the guise of constructive criticism, or tossed out there with the sentence, “You want me to be honest, don’t you?”- there is no place for it.

No, I don’t want you to be honest. I want you to be nice.

So I agree that transparency should exist in transactions and courtrooms. But in human relations? I am championing translucency- be yourself, but put it through a filter. And this goes for whether you are engaging online or offline.

Here’s one example of a success story- and there are many others. Do you have fond feelings for your cable company? Most people don’t- and Comcast wanted to change that. They developed a twitter presence, choosing ComcastCares for the twitter name instead of just Comcast. This was actually a very smart move, because each time the individual trying to reach Comcast on twitter typed that name, he or she reinforced that idea.

Frank Eliason uses a search to track comments about the company: “Eliason discovered that by doing a search for the word “Comcast” (and occasionally “Comcrap”), he could find tweeters who just happened to mention service complaints he could address. In December 2008, he celebrated the handling of his 22,000th tweet.”

Instead of waiting for contact from the person who is unhappy with service, Eliason monitors a search and proactively deals with problems. This is very important in creating a strong customer service social media program.

Companies like Comcast are dealing with an individual’s issues very publicly in the twitter offer to help, as all conversation is seen in the public stream. Additionally, press releases announcing the addition of a social media component to customer service will reach a large audience in a more effective way than advertising. And Comcast itself has been the subject of a multitude of news articles, again more effective than advertising.

What does this mean? A company can add a whole new layer of publicity- but this can be a double-edged sword. You need a plan in place to be able to address any complaint that is brought up. Comcast’s offer of “Can I help?” would not be effective if systems for dealing with problems were not in place.

From http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2008/10/30/why-does-comcast-care-about-twitter-video/ by Jeremiah Owyang

Your responses have to be under 140 characters. If you don’t understand the acronyms, www.urbandictionary.com is a huge resource for all modern permutations, although keep your blinders on- it tends to be NSFW in parts.

You sign up at twitter.com. For company use, you probably want to find a name that can be used across all platforms, so if you decide to build a facebook page or expand your presence, you can consistently use a name. To search to see if the name that you like is actually being used anywhere else, try http://knowem.com/. I run my name through every now and then for the fun of it to make sure that someone else isn’t using it on other sites that I don’t frequent.

Sign-up is simple:

twitter Sign- In Screen

This is why most people use twitter. It is a way to stay connected in short bursts, and networks can extend all over the world.

In the same way that people share bits of their lives, they will also complain about what goes wrong- and, where before the Internet their thoughts would have touched a small group of people, now online influence extends to the thousands- to the world really.

http://www.youtube.com/v/5YGc4zOqozo&hl=en&fs=1&

This video got over 2 million views. When I flew United, it was one of the first thing that the flight crew referred to. “We are experiencing a slight delay upon take-off; the ground crew is slowly and carefully stowing your luggage,” one quipped.

Twitter is an ideal way to step in and solve problems before they get big.