2011 The year that REO is predicted to overwhelm the nation.  With 2 1/2 years behind us, the Subprime Mortgage Meltdown has left its print on the REO industry with moratoria, freezes, shadow inventory, and policy change in record volume.  As a resilient market, the US real estate market is poised for the start of a comeback.  2010 turned out some impressive numbers in states like Arizona and California while Florida continued to feel the pain of it’s regional and state laws.

“Necessity is the Mother of Invention”

During the worst recession since the Great Depression the entrepreneurs of the world have been working overtime in their creative labs.   Incredible technology and efficiency has erupted through changes in marketing, automation, reporting, videography, and design.  Our generation has been privy to a slew of evolutions such as the explosion of social media and online digital marketing, improvements in smart phone technology (I, personally, operate on a Garminfone which is a fusion of phone, GPS, and Google Applications running on an Android platform), and BPO auto-fill to name a few of our industry’s leaps in efficiency.  Let’s be honest here, who would have believed me 5 years ago if I would have told them I had an Android phone – excluding the developers of Android and sci-fi fanatics?

“To Much to Handle”

Regardless of your technological proficiency it’s most likely that everyone reading this article has been completely overwhelmed with technology’s invasion into our everyday lives in the past 3-5 years.  Just 5 years ago it was acceptable to still operate your business under the notion that business could continue to prosper without the bells and whistles of online marketing strategies.  Heck, a hand-shake and a phone call was more effective that any other form of communication.  It still holds true that a hand-shake improves your odds of building a long-lasting business relationship, but when the media posts that staggering numbers of consumers reach for their iPhone or Android and jump on Facebook before ever considering who they do business with it is time to reconsider that strategy.

The overwhelming amount of change that is taking place – from Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, blogs, forums, instant message, Skype, and everything else under the High Speed Sun – is almost unbearable.  Having taken on a role of online digital marketing expert over 5 years ago I can say without a crack in my voice that I have been nothing short of short-circuiting in the last year in my attempts to harness in everything that is critical with the future of business while leaving behind the white noise of fly-by-nights like Google Buzz.  Let me reiterate at this point that THIS IS WHAT I DO FOR A LIVING….Full Time.   My sympathy goes out to the millions of entrepreneurs in the country, excuse me, the WORLD who have to think about their niche AND try to harness in these changes.  Quite frankly it’s grounds for pleading insanity.

“Taking over the REO Marketing Business”

While it’s a bold statement (some may even think of it as preposterous) I am staking claim on the highest bar ever set for REO Marketing Performance in history.  It has been somewhat of a no-brainer to be successful in the REO training and networking business between the years 2008 and 2010.  Let’s face it, everyone wanted the knowledge and getting new business was not all that difficult.  A new REO or Default Servicing training company was popping up faster than anyone could keep track of.  Fast-forward to now and you can see that the internet is a proverbial ghost town of these businesses.  The reasoning is simple:  It’s challenging now.  But, I am always ready for a good challenge and I feel more incredible about NFSTI than ever before.  Our training, our technology, and our ability to provide top-tier service to the masses is better than ever before.  Through fire we’ve been refined and the agents and brokers get to benefit from it.

We’ve taken the ability to leverage every type of technology mentioned in this article and stream it through one centralized location while simultaneously offering training, certification, marketing assistance, and lead development.  I’m not sure, but I think we have something great here.

Best of luck to everyone in 2011 and may the best entrepreneur win.

Coming in 2011 NFSTI will be reestablishing it’s Foreclosure Training Program.  This will coincide with the recent announcement by Fannie Mae that foreclosures will resume.  Current members of NFSTI will be included in the portal with a 1 year membership with an updated username and password.  The new Training Program will bring about a deeper understanding of the REO and related industries as well as an enhanced certification exam.

As of 2011 all members, whether they have been previously NFSTI Certified REO Specialists or not will be required to pass the updated exam in order to be promoted as such.  This will reflect the current changes in the REO and related industries and will provide the assurance that each NFSTI Certified REO Specialist has appropriate credentials to service distressed assets properly.

We look forward to the new year.  Be merry, be safe, and be prepared for a very busy year in 2011.

There are many NFSTI members already following us. Join them as great information gets passed around by clicking the golden feather.

Danilo Montero likes

NFSTI

Social Media for Business: What Should I Tweet About?

Whether it is for brand continuity or cost savings, many businesses are handling their own social media updates – posting their own Tweets, managing Facebook and creating blog posts. Often times this places the social media content of a business in the hands of inexperienced web writers. For the company CEO or VP staring at the screen wondering where to begin, here is the answer to the timeless question: “what should I tweet about?”

Never start a blog post with “sorry it’s been a while since I blogged;” and never Tweet “what should I Tweet about?” We need to save our electrons.

When social media marketers talk with clients about Twitter, the client will likely say something along the lines of:  ”What do I have to Tweet about? We market real estate license training.” This is especially odd if the client doesn’t actually offer real estate license training.

A good rule of thumb is this…if your company, products or services are of interest to anyone, and if you search Twitter and find those “anyones” are some of Twitter’s 100 million users, then you have something to Tweet about.

For example:

1. Join the conversation. Just make sure to avoid clichés like “join the conversation”. Somebody is out there right now talking about real estate license training. Comment back to what is out there. Agree. Disagree. Re-Tweet things that are meaningful. Build on active discussions.

2. Tweet about what everyone is talking about. Discuss how oil companies do real estate license training (somewhere, at some time, past or present, that did/will make sense). Talk about BP’s safety and training records. Make sure to use a hash tag (#) so your Tweets can be found. Looking for the most popular topics? Try Trending Topics or TweetStats.

3. “What should I Tweet about?” How ’bout what no one else is Tweeting about.  If you can be  If you can be the first to break news the Re-Tweets are all yours. Got a scoop on an industry event? Hearing a big announcement at a conference? Have a truly innovative way to do something that your followers care about? Did you do something very funny, outrageous, edgy or useful? Break news on Twitter first, chances are it’s your best communication channel to spread the word fast.

The relationship between search engine optimization (SEO) and social media

This relationship can no longer be ignored. Integrating your SEO efforts with social media marketing can be achieved by sharing links and using social profiles to attain higher organic search engine rankings. Here are 5 ways to integrating your search and social media marketing campaigns:

1: Know the basics of how search engines work
Search engines use bots (robots) to scour the web, collecting data as they move through websites via links. The bots then pass that information to indexing servers, where it is processed and ranked. The 2 main ranking elements for SEO are “content” and “inbound links”.

2: Understand how social media affects SEO
As consumers continue to demand the latest news and content, search engines will add more social media updates within organic search engine results. These updates currently appear at the bottom of the first results page as “Results from people in your social circle for … [your query].” Searchers can see content from individuals they are connected with via social networks. Additionally, search engines will soon likely integrate public Facebook updates into results pages, and already do so for more open networks like Twitter.

3: Determine which social profiles your company needs
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have generally been accepted as the most popular social networking sites across industries. However, for SEO, creating a corporate Google Profile and Buzz profile is becoming more important with the upcoming release of “caffeine,” the new Google search algorithm. Your business should also create a YouTube channel and Flickr account for multimedia content — but try to also host that content on your own website.

4: Learn to monitor social media efficiently
Programs like TweetDeck, HootSuite and Seesmic make sharing content and links across Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook simpler. To monitor networks for inbound linking opportunities and reputation management, search columns for waywords or hashtags are extremely helpful. Additional monitoring can be done through Twitter Search and TweetBeep, while an overall online presence can be surveyed with tools like Trackur, Google Alerts or SocialMention.

5: Use social media to increase organic search engine rankings
With social profiles created, your company’s site listing should appear on the first page of results for branded queries, along with your company’s Twitter account, Facebook page and other social profiles — ultimately allowing your business to dominate the first page of branded search engine results. Finally, social media profiles will allow you to quickly distribute content to more individuals, who in turn may create additional inbound links, thus, improving link popularity.

BusinessWeek’s B.L. Ochman said it best in a blog post last year: “For businesses, resistance to social media is futile. Millions of people are creating content for the social web. Your competitors are already there. Your customers have been there for a long time. If your business isn’t putting itself out there, it ought to be.” At minimum, businesses who wish to have a comprehensive SEO campaign should do the following:

• choose words wisely;
• add words to website content;
• engage in quality link-building efforts; and
• engage in social media by creating a corporate blog and Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google Buzz profiles.

Marketing has come a long way and entered a number of new territories in 2009! In the wake of the global economic crises, businesses around the world have been faced with the pressing need to survive on tighter budgets, while at the same time maintaining sufficient profit margins. In order to do this, businesses need to undertake more aggressive marketing campaigns.

The question, however, is how can your business carry out a more aggressive marketing campaign on a smaller budget? The answer is social media on the internet!

The World Wide Web (the expansive and powerful medium of communication) is, without doubt, a great platform to market your business products and services to millions of people from around the world. Even better, it can be used effectively for such marketing purposes by businesses with a very limited budget. One of the best media on the web for marketing is Social Media

Get your Sales Team Involved in Social Media
Social media has crept into every possible sphere of business and it is likely that this trend will continue to rise in the coming years. Many customers have changed their information gathering habits. Nowadays, customers are relying more and more on word-of-mouth referrals and searching for compatibility providers on the web. Therefore, your sales team should be encouraged to embrace social media platforms in order to gather insight about potential customers and their needs and requirements. Social media platforms can also provide a lot of valuable insight about industry news and happenings.

Be Location Specific
Location plays a critical role in marketing. Location helps to streamline both your online and offline marketing endeavors and target prospects geographically. Location is an important component of business information. Therefore, make sure you specify your business location on all channels and platforms, whether on B2B marketplaces or social media platforms. Often, potential customers make a choice of service providers based on the location and accessibility of that service provider.

Generate Leads through Social Media
Apart from being a good platform for conversation and content sharing, social media platforms are also a very effective lead generation mechanism. This, of course, can translate into the creation of more sales and transactions on B2B marketplaces. Nowadays, nearly all companies, before they partner with other businesses, often do web research about a business partner or customer. Therefore, if you have a sound social media presence, it will work to your advantage.

Multimedia Content Publishing
Social media facilitates distribution of content in many ways. You can create videos, slide shows, presentations and disperse such content all over the web. This not only helps your content travel more effectively, but also boost your online presence.

Drive in the Real Time Traffic
Search engines are a great source of inbound marketing leads for B2B companies. Google is, by far, the most popular search engine, adopting real-time search. Search engines have started including social media updates in their results. Accordingly, to take advantage of this, make sure you have your social media profiles optimized and make regular and keyword specific updates about your industry.

Social media is no virgin territory! With more and more businesses joining social media sites every minute, you cannot afford to waste time. So, get started now and take advantage of social media marketing benefits.

Listen to a demonstration of NFSTI’s DS Core Series.  This one is on-the-house!  Here’s your chance to see what our courses are like.

Stay tuned for the entire series…coming soon.

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