Real Estate Marketing 2.0

I just got back from The Inman Real Estate Connect conference in NewYork and what stuck me most was how many different MLS services and providers there were.

While in Canada we are not immune to this, with local boards for each area, we are none the less a little more centralized than the US which seems to have (as per data I was given at the conference) over 900 MLS providers.

Ouch ... as a software engineer building next generation system, it makes me wonder what's up and how I could ever negotiate those 900 deals.

While it may seem self serving (and lets face it, most things need to be if they're going to get done) but wouldn't it be nice to just have one place to go for current, timely, useful listing data that could be used by anyone that wanted it?

Searchers, Publishers, Agents, Brokers...

I wrote a blog post about " Open Source MLS - Real Estate Listing System " and I'd love your feedback on it.

I think it's in everyone's best interest to push for an open MLS, what do you think?

Weigh in here or on my blog post

Stop selling, start providing good information.

The key to growing your business online is in being the best place to get information.

People online are searching for answers to their problems, if you remember that and focus on what their problem is and how you can best solve that problem for them ... you'll have business beating a path to your door.

PS - We'll be at Real Estate Connect (providing information) next week, please feel free to set up a meeting, or drop by our table in start up alley (S6) if you'd like to talk to us about our web solutions

**Note** I first posted this directly to the newbies group, but several people asked me to be able to reblog it, so I'm copying it here to my blog channel so that people (besides newbies) can get better access to it.

First thing you want to do is set up your Referral alerts.

That way it will email you when someone is looking to refer a client to your area.

To set it up, you go to the sidebar of your home page and click on "referral network", then again in the side bar look for referral alerts.

Click on "Create New Alert". and fill in the city where you are.

While it's use varies depending on the area, the alerts are a great "set it, and forget it" feature that ActiveRain provides to it's members and it should be one of the first things you setup after your profile.

Second thing you want to set up is your Listing Router.

Got to your profile, click hit router on the side bar and then in the "my markets" enter your city, and then the URL for your listings page.

Then when people are on your profile and they click on your listing tab, it'll take them to your listings page on your website.

Hope that helps, let me know if it results in a lead for you.