focus-on-facebook

What Customers Want From Your Facebook Page

focus-on-facebookOne of the biggest struggles that real estate agencies face from a marketing standpoint is putting themselves in the shoes of their clients. If you can do this, you’ll be able to understand exactly what they need, what they can do without, and what their main problems are. From this, you’ll be able to develop a tailored marketing strategy that’ll transfer beautifully to a high-performing Facebook page.

Although it’s a relatively bad place to physically sell anything, Facebook is a great place to empathise with your audience and develop strong, lasting connections. In this article, we’re going to help you to figure out exactly what your Facebook page needs to attract, retain and convert an audience into clients.

Contact info

First and foremost, your Facebook page needs to have contact information prominently displayed. As a minimum, you should have your business website, operating hours, contact information, and links to your other social channels clearly displayed.

If you’ve got several different phone numbers on your profile, you should make sure that each one is clearly labelled – this is as much for your benefit as the customer’s, as it’ll save time on both ends.

Customer support

This one shouldn’t be too alien to you either, as it’s one of the primary reasons that customers seek out a brand’s Facebook page. Gone are the days of calling a hotline number and waiting to be put through to the right office – instead, customers will get in touch with you on social media to troubleshoot their real estate dilemmas.

Over 1 billion people use Facebook Messenger every month, so you can definitely expect to get messages through about your real estate agency. Just make sure you’re not part of the 87%, who don’t answer all of their customer queries.

Exclusive offers and hot deals

You do, I do – everyone loves a hot deal and your Facebook audience is no different from us. One study even found that 35% of all Facebook post likes are from people who are specifically interested in offers and competitions.

With real estate, you’ll have to get a bit creative, but it can be done. Consider offering free valuations or property marketing reports for a short period of time – regardless of what you do, it’ll give you a leg-up over rival agencies.

Top 5 tips for Real Estate Marketing on Facebook

Content that’s relevant

This is another point that seems obvious, but trust us – you’d be surprised at the number of real estate agencies who don’t understand how important relevancy is to their overall social presence.

When you’re sharing content and general information, you need to make sure that it’s uniquely relevant to your overall business and industry. Your audience shouldn’t be left confused by what you’ve posted – they should be able to immediately see why the post was relevant to them.

When you’re posting content on your Facebook page, you should be wary of the format that you post in. Posts that contain images, on average, garner an insane 53% more engagement than posts without. On top of that, one study even found that photos get 104% more comments when compared to posts without visuals.

Why Your Agency Should Focus On Facebook

Once you’ve got an understanding of what your customers want from your Facebook page, it couldn’t be easier to give them what they’re looking for.

videos-for-social-media

5 Top Tips For Nailing Your Social Media Videos

videos-for-social-mediaThe great thing about modern technology and social media is that you don’t need a film degree to get great content in front of your target audience. Amateur marketers are using the platform every day to create stunning short video clips, all from the familiar surroundings of their smartphones.

Over the past 5 years, Snapchat and Facebook have both topped 8 billion views on a daily basis, whilst YouTube’s loyal community watch hundreds of millions of video hours every day too. If you can find room to squeeze your real estate agency into this equation, you’re going to get some great results. Check out these 5 top tips for making sure your videos get the best reception possible.

4 Simple Steps on How to Get Started With Real Estate Video

1. Plan your story in advance

With social media videos, setting a scene and telling a story is keen to winning an audience’s attention. By bringing storytelling and emotion into your videos, you’ll be able to motivate and persuade your audience into engaging with your brand. You’ll also get your name remembered, which is a huge advantage over the competition.

Lay out a plan for the beginning, middle, and end of your story. If there are going to be speaking parts for people, make sure that there’s a clear script that can be followed.

10 Video Styles That Should Be In Every Real Estate Marketing Plan

2. Keep a steady hand

When watching a video, one of the biggest giveaways that it’s amateur shot is if the camera is shaking. You wouldn’t send out emails with a crooked logo on them, so why do the same with a video?

You can pick up a phone tripod fairly cheaply online (or a stabilising rig if you are shooting these out and about) and it’s a great investment. Your audience will get a better, clearer viewing experience and you won’t get tired arms – it’s win-win.

3. If audio is key, invest in a microphone

If you’re planning to use a scripted video, you don’t want to be let down at the final hurdle by poor audio quality. For this reason, it’s well worth your money to purchase an external mic.

As with the phone tripod, these don’t have to break the bank and they’ll work wonders for the clarity of your video’s speaking parts.

4. Shed light on the situation

Despite the recent advancements in the cell phone tech industry, smartphones still have small image sensors. Unfortunately, that means that shooting in a dark environment isn’t going to turn out well. You’ll end up with a poorly-lit, grainy video that’s going to work against you.

Either select a brightly-lit setting for your video, or invest in some external lighting. If you’re shooting videos within properties, this is once again a worthwhile investment, because you’ll be able to use it for listing photos, too.

5. Bear your intended platform in mind

Depending on which social media platform you’ll be posting on, you need to bear the different requirements in mind. For most of them, landscape-shot videos are going to be best.

Unless they’re watching on Snapchat or Instagram, your audience will have to sit through portrait videos with two large black bars down either side, which can be pretty off-putting. Base your video’s format around where you intend to post it and your audience will thank you for it.

5 Ways to Create a Great Online Video Strategy that Works

Video marketing is huge and it’s continuing to grow at an astonishing rate. Get your agency involved and watch your sales pipeline grow.

email-signature

The Dos And Don’ts Of Email Signatures

email-signatureWith everything moving online these days, the e-signature is on the rise. An e-signature for anyone not in the know, just tags onto the end of all of your email automatically. These signatures contain lots of important information such as your job title and the company/department you work for. Email signatures are also useful tools for displaying company branding, and providing a slick image for the business.

Here is our list of dos and don’ts when it comes to setting up an email signature for yourself:

1. Do be a socialite

With social media being on everyone’s lips, it’s really important to use your signature to spread the word about your company’s social presence. An example of how you can do this is to tag on a recent tweet or log post snippet under your signature – giving the recipient a sample of what you’re up to.

You can then add a social media link to Twitter, Facebook etc.

2. Don’t do it yourself

Making a signature yourself can lead to a scruffy company appearance – especially if everyone across a company does it differently. Let’s be honest, that just looks unprofessional all round. You can get round this by using a template for the entire company.

3. Do keep it narrow

Whether it’s in the preview pane of your email client, or on an internet browser, you’ll want to keep your signature slim. Narrower signatures look much more stylish and the industry standard dimensions are around 650 pixels. Some experts even suggest around 600px is the best measurement; ensuring no details are cropped out by email clients.

4. Do utilise tables

If you’re designing your signature template, use tables. The reason for this being that it allows you to place all elements within proportion to one another. If you don’t want to see the borders you can make them transparent. Tables will also ensure that the design elements remain in the correct position, without items merging together by accident.

5. Don’t get complicated

Make sure the layout is simple, ensuring images and links have a real impact. Too much text can be overwhelming and will make your design look cluttered. Simple shapes and a limited number of colours will help to make the design look neat and tidy.

6. Don’t use bullet points

Bullet points are one of those unusual formatting tools that are so useful, but at the same time they can be a nuisance. Bullets tend to render differently across different clients. To make sure all email clients are satiated, you should think about avoiding bullets altogether.

7. Don’t use animation

Animations are tacky. In most corporate email clients you won’t be able to watch embedded videos or view GIFs anyway, so it’s a bit of a pointless exercise really…

8. Do use JPEG images

PNGs are great image files but they tend to be quite large files. Use JPEG and GIF images over PNGs, as they take up less storage space on an email. Don’t forget to use the ‘-nosend-‘ tag on all images too, so that they appear as intended in the email.

9. Do restrict image size

Don’t assume the image will render correctly – to avoid any terrible looking images, restrict their size before sending. You should hardcode the images in HTML to make sure that they come out the right size, or Outlook might render them a little weird looking.

10. Do find the correct image/text ratio

You will want to be getting the balance between images and text. For example, too large or too numerous images will look tacky. Make sure you don’t lose the email in the signatures. This is quite tricky, especially when some emails will only be a few lines long.

This one is all about finding the balance, so you may need to play around with different length and style of emails to find what works best across the board.

11. Do the link shrink

No it’s not a 60s hippy dance, although the link shrink does sound pretty awesome. Whenever you use a hyperlink in the signature, you’ll be needing to shrink that link down to a smaller URL. There are many websites dedicated to doing just this – Bit.ly and Ow.ly are two good ones!

salespeople-with-christmas-hats

The 5 Top Ways To Win Business During The Holidays

salespeople-with-christmas-hatsIn the real estate market, business typically winds up and slows down towards December, as everyone is preparing for Christmas and settling into the festive atmosphere with their friends and family. It’s not a time of the year for alternative big commitments, and selling your home is about as big as commitments can get.

The assumption that many real estate agents make is that sellers will defer listing their property on the market until the New Year, when business starts to pick up again. Regardless of that, however, there are still a few ways that you can win listings during the holiday period. Read on to find out more.

Go after unsold homes

The New Year is a time for change, and you might even be able to re-roll the dice on those properties that didn’t manage to sell the first time around. These homes are likely to not have an agency working with them, so it’s worth getting in contact and seeing if they’d like to try your services in the New Year.

Sell the benefits of the season

Christmas is a special time of year and that’s something that sellers can capitalise on. During the period, unless you’re in a highly rural area, there are going to be prospective buyers around you on holiday. Coupled with the lack of competition from other vendors, as not many people choose to sell over Christmas, you could easily swipe a great deal on your home.

Add value to your local audience

Some real estate agents choose to make the most of the festive period by sending out greetings cards. How successful these are, however, is debatable. Often, they just get caught up in the household clutter around people’s homes and hardly looked at.

Instead of wasting time and paper, provide your audience with something that’ll actually be useful to them, such as a council schedule or a newsletter of local events from restaurants and bars. If you can give them something that’s helpful, they’ll be all the more likely to get in touch with you.

Take advantage of people’s lighter schedules

One of the main obstacles for selling a home as a seller is fitting inspections/meetings around a full-time job. Over the holidays, this isn’t an issue. You’ll have as much free time as you need to attend these and buyers will also be more available to check your property out.

During the Christmas period, buyers’ moods are also going to be more relaxed, meaning that they’ll be much more likely to negotiate. That lends itself well to all parties involved.

Communicate your opening hours

If you’re working tirelessly through the holidays, let people know about it! Many people are going to assume that your offices will be shut until the New Year, which could lead to a downturn in inbound business leads.

Don’t let this set you back – communicate that you’re going to be selling properties right through Christmas and that you’re still taking on clients.

facebook-mobile

Why Your Agency Should Focus On Facebook

facebook-mobileOver the past 5 years, the impact that social media has had within business communities has snowballed. Starting out as a niche area, it now controls a significant amount of business marketing expenditure.

The real estate industry is no different. With low costs reflected in getting up and running on social media, it’s truly a cost-effective channel that many continue to flock to for generating additional business leads. The evolution of these platforms and third-party software has even turned what was a confusing and daunting experience into an incredibly user-friendly one.

The issues that real estate professionals typically face when utilising social media are the following:

  • Where do you begin?
  • How do you scale it?
  • Where should you focus?

A recent research study, The Impact of Social Media in Real Estate found that, although 87% of real estate professionals are using the channel to promote their businesses, many are falling short of the mark when it comes to delivering consistent content. Read on to find out why you should be regularly using social media, as well as how this will benefit your real estate business.

8 Crucial Ways That Social Media Can Help Your Real Estate Business

Social media should be your go-to channel

Social media isn’t just a single platform for engaging with potential clients, it’s a cross-channel marketing resource that you should be making the most of.

To see the impact that social media is having, you only have to look as far as some of the world’s biggest business conferences, who focus heavily on social media in their agendas. Additionally, real estate news reports have shown that almost 20% of all content has been based around social media marketing. In fact, almost every large real estate conference now uses Facebook as their backbone.

So, why is everyone flocking to social media in such large numbers? It has huge benefits that are wide-stretching and incredibly powerful.

Real Estate Social Media Marketing: Tips for Mastering The Top Networks

The key benefits of social media marketing

Social media research focused on Facebook identified the following main benefits:

It’s a powerful advertising forum

Facebook stormed its way to the top of the charts in the advertising world, becoming the biggest display ad-selling business in just one year. It also achieved it for video marketing within the same time frame. With this kind of growth, it’s easy to see the kind of value that marketers find from Facebook.

Video On Social Media – Real Estate Marketing’s Hottest New Trend

It’s the favourite resource for small businesses, such as real estate agencies

In the USA alone, 73% of consumers expect to find a business they’re interested in on social media. Many of this number will then go on to make a purchasing decision based on what they find on their social media channels.

Social media is fantastic for scaling your business

Research has shown that people who find a business on social media and follow them area more likely to become clients. If they continue to be engaged by the content posted on Facebook, they’ll even be more likely to remain clients in the future.

Top 5 tips for Real Estate Marketing on Facebook

It’s an excellent lead generator

One astonishing piece of research has found that Facebook drives as much web traffic as search engine giant Google. A recent study even found that Facebook has been responsible for 44% of total traffic to websites, with Google trailing behind at 38%.

How To Reach More Real Estate Leads With Facebook Videos

Boost your real estate agency’s social media efforts and watch your bottom line increase.

 

young-salesperson-talking-to-clients

4 ‘Mistakes’ That Are Positive For Your Business

young-salesperson-talking-to-clientsAccording to renowned salesman Zig Ziglar, “If people like you, they will listen to you. But if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” In business, a little bit of trust goes a long way. Further to this admitting your mistakes will also go a long way in business.

With tight competition across most industries these days, there is no such thing as ‘doing too much’ for your clients. Most people might consider the following 4 ‘mistakes’ unforgivable, but really they are displays of dedication and quality service to your clients.

Go above and beyond, even for those who don’t appreciate the effort

Without doubt, you’ll be wanting to do more than what the client could have ever expected from you or your business. Even if they show no thanks for your service, it’s always worth going above and beyond expectations. A prime example of this is when estate agents spend an untold number of hours researching a property for a client, and then the client goes and signs with another agency.

So how does this make going above and beyond for your clients, a mistake? It could seem like a big waste of time if something like that happens, but think of this example as a chance to test out your business practice.

Yeah sure you didn’t get the client, but you at least had the chance to sharpen your skills as a practitioner. There is nothing a prospective client could do that should make you lower the standard of service you provide as an agent.

Give more detail than you need

Some people believe that concentrating on the smaller, minute details of something can become distracting, and takes away from the bigger picture. When it comes to property however, the small details are where a sloppy agent can really lose out.

For example, in contract small print, details such as minor repair work and certain seller exclusions can have a big impact on price. Yes this can take a much longer time to pick all the details of a contract, slowing down the process over all. In the end your client will thank you for your diligent and thorough approach to their property.

If you care about the client enough to provide a high level of detail, your reputation will precede you in the future.

Be honest

There is no such thing as being too honest. As an estate agent you should never sugar-coat a property as this can lead to clients feeling as though they’ve been miss-sold or swindled. You should never promise what you can’t deliver, especially when it comes to keeping the client happy.

There are promises that you most definitely should make, like how you’re the best qualified person for the job, or highly marketing a client’s property on request. Just don’t got telling them that you can get $400,000 for their property which is only worth $300,000.

Give them more information than they can handle

When you communicate with your client, it all comes down to being able to handle their expectations. The most common client complaint when dealing with agents, is the fact that they weren’t ready for the potential pitfalls of the transaction. That’s the mistake of the agent as they clearly haven’t provided enough information to the client.

Sometimes it’s easy to feel like your client is getting irritated by all the information that you’re throwing their way. The truth is that people forget, so it’s always a good thing to give important information on more than one occasion. This can be important in preventing deals from falling through, or disrupting the scheduled timeline of a transaction.

Conclusion

There are many estate agents who would throw these ideas out the window, simply because they take more time and effort than simply following the bare minimum. This is a great reason to get stuck into the above, because it will set your agency apart from the competition.

Delivering the best possible service for clients should be at the top of your list, especially over making things faster and more efficient for your paperwork plie.

beereproperty

New Beere Property Website

iPropertyNewWebsite-01Beere Property required a website for their new company with a modern & responsive website design, incorporating the branding and colours of their company.

The new Beere Property website is completely responsive; working on Desktops, Tablets and Smartphones allowing their staff and visitors to access any, property any time.

The new interactive home page contains a great list of ‘must-have’ features, this includes:

  • Property Search Panel
  • Home Page Location Shot Image Scroller
  • Latest Listing on Home Page
  • Recent Testimonials
  • Market Appraisal Request Interactive Form
  • Latest Sold Properties
  • Latest News and Updates
  • Property Videos
  • Buyer and Renter Email Alerts Signup/Login

Along with this fantastic new home page, the website boasts a revamped property grid list view, property information pages, interactive forms and many more professionally designed features.

We wish the team at Beere Property all the best with their new website and look forward to our ongoing relationship.

If you are looking for a new website, wether you are starting from scratch or want to upgrade to a modern responsive design, contact iProperty today.

beereproperty

 

mailchimp

The Many Joys Of MailChimp

mc_freddie_blue-500x500What is MailChimp I hear you ask? Well it’s a web-based email marketing service, created by some cool dudes and dudettes in Atlanta, Georgia.

It is a useful service which lets you design email newsletters. MailChimp also helps you to spread the word of your businesses social media platforms, as well as tracking online stats.

So you might be wondering why you would need a specialist tool for email marketing. Well technically you can send newsletters about upcoming events to do with your company via your own personal email. Providers such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo are only designed to send out emails to a few people at a time. Cue MailChimp.

MailChimp is designed to send out newsletters in bulk, eliminating the tedious need to sit and select exactly who you want to spread new to. Through a personal email account this can be a very laborious task that is better left to a professionally designed tool. Here are a few reasons why MailChimp is the best tool for the job:

Approved bulk mailer

MailChimp is an approved bulk mailer. This means that most popular email services and internet service providers (ISPs) allow it to send unlimited numbers of emails, rather than limiting how many you can send in one go. This function is designed by email and ISPs to prevent spam, but MailChimp essentially overrides this.

Greater deliverability

MailChimp works with ISPs and corporate domains to make sure your emails are flagged up as safe, and not stuffed straight into the junk folder. If there is a problem with delivery and the email bounces back, MailChimp will attempt to redeliver at the earliest convenience. It will also very usefully explain why the email may have bounced back.

It adheres to privacy laws

Bulk mailers are required by law to provide the recipient with an ‘unsubscribe’ option within the email. This is a feature of MailChimp and will automatically include in all emails sent through the service. It will also gather some feedback on why a recipient might want to become unsubscribed from the list; giving a little more insight into your customer base.

Effortless style

The MailChimp service provides you with tools and templates to easily create and customise polished email newsletters. You can even build your own template from scratch.

Compatibility

MailChimp gives email recipients the choice of reading emails in HTML style, or in text only. This is great as some people may be running their email client on a device which can’t open the HTML. It also saves on data for business people overseas.

The option to click a link and read emails in a web browser is also built into MailChimp.

Who reads your emails?

MailChimp has a built-in tool to let you know how many people are reading your email newsletters. The tool lets you know the open rate of an email, as well as who deletes immediately. Who knew that analytics could be fun?

MailChimp extras

MailChimp can divide your lists into groups – meaning you can divide the client-base, and then subdivide once more. This can be really useful when it comes to location, social stats, engagement rate etc. In essence you can target your audience more effectively through MailChimp.

One other feature is that you can install a sign-up form for your website. This will let you customise the required fields and then embed the HTML code into your website. MailChimp helps to send clients a sign-up form via URLs, Twitter, Facebook and with QR codes too.

How much does MailChimp cost?

As long as you have under 2000 people on the list, MailChimp will be free forever. Any more than 2000 and you will need to select a monthly plan. They start at $10 for 500 subscribers, and go up from there. You also have the option to pay as you go, starting from as little as $0.03 per email – what an absolute bargain. 

So there you have it, MailChimp is an all round genius piece of kit. It can really boost the way you target clients through emails, and can even reduce the time you spend working on email newsletters.

Did you know that iDashboard integrates with MailChimp?

copywriter

Copywriters: 8 Reasons Why You Should Hire One

copywriterWriting copy for your website or business page is so important these days, but if can be quite a daunting task. If you’re thinking of writing it yourself, or hiring a professional copywriter for the first time, the world of copy can cause confusion.

Copy writing is one of those things that; no matter how much you need to do it, always seems to get swept under the office rug or pushed to the back of the water-cooler line. To be honest we really shouldn’t be doing that – and that’s where wonderful time-saving copywriters come in…

Check out our 8 reasons why you should consider hiring a copywriter for your company:

1. More time in the mornings

The single most important reason why should hire a copywriter is because they will save you one heck of a lot of time. This means you can have a little more time for tea and coffee, or perhaps a bit more sleep if you’re that way inclined.

But on a serious note, a copywriter will free you up to spend more time on what’s really important to your business. Creating engaging material is a big time-consumer as a lot of thought goes into each word, making copywriters a great way to save that extra coffee break in the morning.

2. Copywriters are like photographers of words

A bizarre analogy I know, but copywriters aren’t just drones who will spam out text at an alarming rate – they’re creatives. They can capture and image of your services in what they write, especially as they’re trained to learn as much about your business as they can.

Copywriters can write about a whole variety of industries, but an industry-specific writer may have the special training in your area of expertise. This’ll make them able to snapshot your business, and will help engage your target audience.

3. Viral black-hole marketing

Remember the blue or gold dress phenomenon from a while back? It created a viral storm that sucked everything in like a black-hole. Several different businesses manipulated this online sensation to target their audiences in a fun and engaging way. Grabbing hold of something so current and making it work for you can seem a little risky at the time, but let me tell you it can pay off.

If you have an expert copywriter, you’ll have someone with the freedom to create fun content for your blogs and social media portfolio. This in turn will help to boost your chances for generating viral content, that could garner some major exposure for the business.

4. Don’t get your grammar panties in a twist

I’m assuming if you’ve read this far, you might be able to speak and write a little bit of English. Most people; even with the best intentions, might never have a great command of the English grammar system. Guess who does though? You guessed it – a copywriter.

Most professional copywriters will have some kind of degree in a field which requires perfect grammar usage. Spelling and punctuation come between these brackets too (spelling and punctuation), which means they can create expert-level content for you with ease.

5. The masters/mistresses of persuasion

Copywriters are majestic and seductive beasts that can lure in an audience with guile and charm, much like a second-hand car dealer. More than anything though, copywriters understand how important it is to focus on creating persuasive content for a client; drawing in many a sale.

When you write your own copy, it may come across a little stilted or perhaps even like a sales pitch – which we don’t want because A) it’s boring, and B) who buys things when they’re being sold to? If it’s obvious, then a smart business person will turn you down, but copywriters know how to flick that sales switch.

6. Don’t get too cosy with your industry

It’s great to be close to what you do, having a level of expert knowledge that can often be hard to come by in today’s saturated markets. In copy writing though, this level of knowledge can actually be a hindrance at times.

A good example of this would be if you had a problem with your car and when you talk to the mechanic about it, they hit you with a load of jargon like “catalytic converter” and “gasket”. It can be confusing right? So imagine how your audience might feel reading all of your technical terms.

That’s why you need a copywriter to step in and de-clutter your online copy. Copywriters are able to write about your services in an informative light that focuses on the message of your business, making content easy to understand and fun to read.

7. Getting social

These days, people would rather explore the faceless depths of the internet than meet face to face. This makes it so important to use social media platforms to give your business a face for customers to interact with – to face up to (excuse the pun).

A copywriter will be able to help you create the perfect social media presence, by creating engaging and at times down-right epic content. Generating clicks and interaction with potential clients is key on social media, so if you hire a copywriter you’ll notice that you have more interaction with clients. This then has the knock-on effect of those new clients possibly spreading news of your business through word of mouth. Word of mouth = free marketing…

8. Copywriters are current

Hopefully by now you’re convinced that hiring a copywriter is a great idea, but if you’re not I’ve got one final sales pitch for you. Copywriters are current. They’re up-to-date. They’re the BBC News of online copy.

The internet is a fast-changing tool which evolves daily. Your business need to be able to adapt to this in order to generate sales, which a copywriter can help you achieve. Copywriters will be up to date with changes to search engines like Google and Bing, meaning you waste less time finding out why your ads aren’t showing up and all that jazz.

Similarly, they’re current in terms of social and online trends. They’re all up in that business of being down with the kids, which is harder than you might think. Professional copywriters are experts at hitting the target audience right where you want them; whether that’s spring-boarding off of a recent viral trend or by creating enticing content involving relevant social material.

The lords of language

As you can see there are a wide variety of reason why you should hire a copywriter for your business; especially when it comes to generating excellent web content.

If you leave your online presence in the hands of a copywriter, they can improve your copy, website and bring in loads of online traffic, clients and sales.

gmailvsoutlook

Gmail vs Outlook – Who’s the boss?

gmailvsoutlookSince the early 2000s, Google and Microsoft have battled it out for supremacy over the email world. Despite it being documented over the years that email is dying out of usage, it is still very much at the forefront of business and personal communication, whether it’s with colleagues, partners, friends and family.

Given that we still use email for such a long period of time, it is important to make sure that we select the right email solution. Without an efficient email system you can lose out on productive tools which can aid you in your everyday e-life.

The two biggest providers of email today are Google and Microsoft, with their Gmail and Outlook clients respectively. What are the main differences between the two I hear you ask? And what are the disadvantages of each service; who is better for business and productivity?

Let’s have a look shall we?

Historical context

Outlook began life as Hotmail back in 1996, but was quickly bought up by Microsoft in 1997. Hotmail started out with just 2MB of free storage, but this has grown considerably since the days of its 90s beginnings.

Gmail on the other hand is much younger, launching in 2004. The service contained 1GB of free storage, but due to its April 1st release date, people assumed this was an April fool’s joke. Clearly it wasn’t, as Gmail is now one of the most popular email services out there today.

First impressions – The interface

Both our frontrunners have a neat and tidy interface. Outlook takes inspiration from the sleek Microsoft Windows UI, with minimal clutter and a universal style. Generally speaking Gmail’s interface isn’t so tidy, with a mishmash of colour; but for a long time it was considered the cleaner of all email services. This has the advantage of meaning its users can concentrate on emails without distraction.

Many people find the reading pane feature of both providers to be useful. In Outlook the user needs to activate this feature, whilst in Gmail you need to use the Google Lab in order to enable it.

Organisational tools

One of the major ways Google differentiated from other email services, was to provide users with ‘labels’ instead of folders. This made it easy for people to organise and search their emails, without the need to trawl through separate folders full of emails.

It should be noted though that whilst Gmail has labels, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t contain folders. If you set up Gmail through a traditional email client, it will organise the labels you create into folders instead.

Outlook goes with the traditional folder approach to emails. Recently they’ve also added a quick-look folder tool. In effect these are not actual folders but operate more like tags or pseudo-folders. For example you might tag an email in a certain category such as Documents, Photos etc.

Both email services sport a search feature. I believe this was produced originally by the engineers behind Gmail, as they wanted an email service that could be searched just like the internet. You can search for things such as “from:” or “to:” as well as the titles and content of emails. This is an invaluable tool for those cluttered work email folders.

Storage limits

Let’s start with Gmail, as it’s a bit more clear cut. Gmail offers 15GB storage for free, but with a catch. The issue is that it counts across mail and the Google drive service. The good thing is if you need it, more storage can be paid for.

The case of Outlook however, is a bit more unclear – some say it’s around 5GB of free storage. Some other people will say it’s virtually unlimited, with no official line on actual quantity of storage.

It’s also worth noting that Gmail has a 25MB limit for attachments, whilst Outlook only allows 10MB.

Integration and Extension services

Google is pretty good at giving its customers access to experimental features in Google Labs. Users can test these features at their own risk, but who doesn’t love new free tools right? As you might expect, Gmail integrates with Google Docs, allowing users to seamlessly open attachments in-browser.

Outlook hasn’t got much in the way of extensions just yet, but as you might expect from the mighty Microsoft, they’re working on it. Office 365 apps and OneDrive were announced last October and have since proven to be neatly integrated with Outlook. This feature provides easy access to Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Onenote online.

Junk filtering

Having used both clients simultaneously over the years, I can say that Gmail’s spam filtering works efficiently. Every now and then I get a few junk emails come through, but by and large it’s an effective system making junk email almost non-existent.

Outlook has a bit of a clunkier approach to junk filtering, but it also has a few features which put it ahead of Gmail. The feature I’m referring to is Sweep. It can get rid of all emails, all from 10 days ago, or it can keep the previous email from certain senders. It can also block future emails from certain senders, which is a nice touch when the same company inundates you with ‘male enhancement pill’ emails…

In Conclusion

Both clients are in close competition, and it’s perhaps too tight to call. There aren’t enough features in Outlook to get Gmail users to switch over, whilst on the other side there is no real reason for Outlook customers to move over to Google either.

Gmail and Outlook have become the benchmark in email services – leaving their competitors in a cloud of digital dust.

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Top 5 tips for Real Estate Marketing on Facebook

facebook-screenshotWe don’t need to tell you that Facebook is the biggest social media platform out there. That’s as good a reason as any to make sure you’re using Facebook properly to reach your target audience. Here’s the top 5 tips for making the most of your company’s Facebook presence.

1. Personal accounts are a big mistake

As a company you should not be using your personal account on Facebook. One of the main disadvantages is that Facebook profiles are capped out at 5000 friends. Compare this to the fact that you can have millions of followers if your company is represented by a Facebook page.

Facebook pages have the advantage because they give the user access to “Insight” – Facebook’s tool for engaging with your audience. Insight allows you to see some information about the people accessing your page – allowing you as a company to tailor your posts to the audience that you want to target.

The biggest draw for using a Facebook page and not your personal account, is the fact that you can’t use paid advertising on a personal profile. Just as a heads up, Facebook is amongst the cheapest of social media platforms to advertise on, even though it boasts one of the largest audiences worldwide.

2. Into another dimension…

When you’ve potentially got thousands of people looking at your page every day, you’ll want to make sure it looks swish. One way you can do this is by ensuring your display picture and cover photo are in proportion – nothing says “unprofessional” more than a badly cropped image.

For future reference, profile pictures are 170×170 pixels and will be cropped to fit into a square. Cover photos are 820 pixels wide by 312 pixels tall. It displays as a rectangle across the top of your page – acting like a banner.

It’s important to nail these images as they can often be the first impression of your company that many potential customers will see. Remember – first impressions are everything in real estate.

How to Select the Right Social Media Images for Your Content

3. Branding

Following on from the idea of first impressions, you’re going to want your Facebook page to be professional. One way to do this is to really nail the branding. Using a personal photo of yourself as the profile picture just won’t cut it. Quite frankly, such images can easily ruin the impression a customer gets of your company.

As a result, you should look towards getting some logos designed that fit your profile and cover photo spaces. Something that matches and makes use of the space provided can make your Facebook page look classy – standing out from the competition.

Managing Your Own Personal Brand

4. Tell a story

Your agency’s Facebook page can tell a story about the business. You want it to be a fairy tale, not a horror story, so make sure you write a description of your agency, including who you are and what services you provide. Don’t forget to also include contact information and detail on where your offices are located.

You can find the space to do this in the ‘description’ and ‘about’ sections when editing your profile. It’s really important to make sure visitors to your page understand what your company is, what it does and who it is aimed at. This information will go a long way in drumming up business.

5. Facebook review and brand ambassadors

In a world dominated by social media and the opinions found online, you really need to be bumping positive reviews to the top of your page. If someone has used your services and they’ve left a positive review, make sure you wear it on the page as a badge of honour.

Facebook reviews is a great tool for establishing your credibility in the field. Your own customers become brand ambassadors for the business – think about when you have a good experience in a store, and how that makes you feel like buying more simply because of the great service you received. It pays dividends to keep customers happy, so make sure everyone sees how happy your customers are.

6 Critical Precautions to Protect Yourself from a Bad Online Reputation or Review