Photo Courtesy of Paul

Yesterday, I made the mistake of Googling myself (yes, it tickled!).  I was searching for a guest blog post I had written and couldn’t remember who I wrote it for so I had to search.  What I saw did not make me happy.

Some of the sites on page 1 were not updated!  I should know better.  There’s no excuse for me to have outdated and incorrect information out there.  But, I did.  And the more I looked, the more I found.

Now I am making a spreadsheet of all the sites where I have created a profile.  This is a chore, but hopefully, will help me keep these things in check.  My goal is to go back at least once every 6 months and make sure each site has the correct information.  Also, as I have recently found, many sites have added lots of cool new features that I can now take advantage of.

This is a great task to complete over the holidays.  Take your time and put some thought and effort into your profiles.  Make the content you enter appropriate for the site you are on and the community at hand.  Try to write your bio/description without using the word “I”.  Write about what you offer and how you can help rather than how great you think you are.

Lastly, use some avenue to keep track of your profiles and add updating them to your business plan for the new year.  Good luck!

Last week, during NAR 2010 in New Orleans, I attended a Docusign user group session.  During the session, we learned about features being added to the service as well as some tips users may or may not know.  I did a short screen shot video going over some of the user tips.

In 1996, OgilvyOne, a leading public relations and marketing firm, studied the town of Blacksburg, in southwest Virginia.  At the time, 62% of the town’s residents were online when only 8% of America had internet access.  Recently, OgilvyOne went back to Blacksburg to see how they were using social media and it’s impact on the community.

I was honored to be part of this “study”.  I love my town and will embrace any opportunity to promote it’s virtues.  As I read more about the study, it got me thinking…are wired communities more attractive to home buyers?  Will we see a “wired-ness” percentage become part of the demographics?  Will buyers choose one community over another based on the speed of their connection to the internet?

I’m anxious to see what happens over the next 15 years!

SlimComputer allows you to “Slim Down” your Windows operating system by getting rid of all the junk software that has been pre-loaded.

You know what I’m talking about – the 3 virus protection programs, the 30 day trial for Quickbooks, etc., etc.

SlimComputer is a free download that removes and disables unneeded software.  The software uses community feedback to determine the definition of “unwanted” so it is constantly being updated.

With just a few clicks, you can quickly and easily get rid of all the trialware and other just that just gets in the way and eats up valuable resources on your system.

Best of all…..it’s FREE!

Oneforty.com is a great site to find tools to make the most out of Twitter.  They recently launched a big update and a great site is now even better!

Founded by Laura Fitton (@pistachio on Twitter), OneForty helps you find applications and answer all your Twitter questions.  They’re like the wikipedia of Twitter!

So, what are the new changes?  Well, first of all, Oneforty is now more social.  You can connect and share with your online Oneforty community.  You can also find out through activity streams what Twitter apps your friends are using.  This can be very useful to see what is working for others in your work-circle.  They also made the profile section even easier to fill out – it literally takes 30 seconds!

Be sure to check out the Toolkits and see what apps are recommended for your career and/or lifestyle!

Thanks to Oneforty for putting all our Twitter references on one, easy-to use site!

Seth Godin’s blog post today has some great tips for your “About” page:

“When someone comes to your site for the first time, they’re likely to hit ‘about’ or ‘bio’. Why? Because they want a human, a story and reassurance.

Here are some helpful guidelines (okay, they’re actually imperatives):

1. Don’t use meaningless jargon:

… is a recognized provider of result-based online and mobile advertising solutions. Dedicated to complete value chain optimization and maximization of ROI for its clients, … is committed to the ongoing mastery of the latest online platforms – and to providing continuously enhanced aggregation and optimization options.

2. Don’t use a stock photo of someone who isn’t you (if there is a stock photo of you, congratulations). The more photos of you and your team, the better.

3. Make it easy to contact you. Don’t give a contact address or number that doesn’t work.

4. Be human. Write like you talk and put your name on it. Tell a story, a true one, one that resonates.

5. Use third party comments and testimonials to establish credibility. Use a lot of them. Make sure they’re both interesting and true.”

I would like to add 5 more helpful guidelines with regards to a real estate “about” page:

1.  Don’t say, “I love helping buyers and sellers with all their real estate needs”.  That says absolutely nothing about you as an individual and can be found on 95% of all real estate agent profiles.

2.  Don’t list your awards unless you truly feel they define you as an individual and speak for what your are about.  If your awards define you as a being, you need to go to therapy.

3.  Try to write your “About” page without using the word “I”.

4.  Provide testimonials from colleagues as well as clients.  As for a testimonial from the agent who referred a buyer to you and knows how hard you worked.  Ask for one from a co-broke agent with whom you worked really well.  Don’t forget to ask for testimonials from loan officers, title companies, attorneys, etc. as well.

5.  Try using bullets and pictures as much as possible.  Keep your paragraphs short and easy to read.  No one wants to read your biography (except your Mom).  Ask for an honest critique from some friends who aren’t in the industry.

Here is a great post from Design Reviver highlighting 55 Awesome About Me Pages.

I’ve now had this conversation 3 times in the past week with a few parents and wanted your thoughts.

There has been a lot of discussion lately about teens and young adults posting things online which they may regret down the road.  Most of these “kids” don’t know and/or don’t care that this content may come back to haunt them with regards to college admission, future employment, holding public office, obtaining a scholarship, etc.

I read an article a few weeks ago about how we may see a large trend in this generation changing their identities once they reach maturity.  Will that really help in “erasing” their former persona’s online behavior?

What is the parental role here?  Should the parent be proactive or reactive?  In my opinion, it should be the former.  A few thoughts and questions…not necessarily with answers.

1.   Should a parent register their child’s name as a domain?  Would this help to protect their name from someone else registering it and/or their child using it inappropriately?

2.  Is a minor child’s Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. profile the intellectual property of a parent until the child turns 18?

3.  Should a parent encourage their child to register their profile under a “pseudo” name to protect their “real” name down the road since there are obviously things out of both the child’s and parent’s control such as inappropriate pictures and wall posts by friends.

4.  Do parents have an obligation to create a Google alert for their child’s name so it can regularly be monitored?

5.  Should a minor child’s profiles be set up by and therefore, belong, to the parent and the child just has permission to use the profiles?  Would it make more sense for the online services to set profiles up where the parent has the primary account and the child, a secondary user whose account falls under that of their parent?

6.  For parents who are technologically illiterate or just “too busy” to monitor their child’s online activities, will we see more and more companies which can be hired to protect, monitor and report back to the parent like an online spy service?

Your thoughts?????