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I love to brag about knowing Jim Cronin. Most real estate agents know the guy from hearing his name in technology/marketing classes. Originally, Cronin was 1 of 3 independent contractors with one of the nations leading providers in real estate templated websites. One of my most highest ranking websites is actually from that same company and I still have it today. RealEstateIsCool.com was my demo site during the time I was also employed at the same company. Today, Jim Cronin has established himself as the leader and “go to” guy for anyone looking to blog for business in the real estate world. Any blogger for any topic can learn a lot of from his RealEstateTomato.com site which is a blog about how to blog in real estate.

Our downtown Seattle condo blogs are great and there’s really only 5 of us of which all have something a little different to offer. With that said, I wanted to go to someone I consider an expert on what is a real estate blog and who is a real estate blogger. I’m curious to know what he might say. It’s sometimes a lot of pressure to write a perfect post and a misspelling here or run-on sentance there sometimes comes back with some critisism. Naturally any blogger would like to be a better writer, but what does someone who’s lead the industry in coaching real estate professionals have to say about it?

Here’s what Jim Cronin had to say…

1. How many real estate agents have you now worked with?

I have lost count, not that I was ever really counting in the first place. 10′s of thousands for sure if you include all the presentations, classes, websites, and conferences I have been a part of. Currently, the count that have graduated from the Real Estate Tomato blogging course: 524. That’s over 5,000 hours of personal, intense blogging training. Yikes.

2. Who are a couple of your model clients and what is their niche?

I hate to chose just a couple to show off… there are so many that are incredible examples of blogging successfully for their real estate business. We spend so much time helping each client develop a strategy, set goals, develop a voice and the skills to ensure their success… you could literally just pull anyone from the client map.

Nonetheless… here are a couple:

Bruce Lemieux from MoCoRealEstate.com
Bruce does an incredible job with his blogsite. His use of video, graphs, blog content, neighborhood profiles, calls to action, property information… it’s all so wonderfully tethered together in a way that makes perfect sense to his readers. You can tell that it is a labor of love, and I know that the client’s he has generated from his effort are drawn to him for that very reason.

John Coley from LakeMartinVoice.com
John has been a client of the Tomato for around 4 years… so he has seen it all. What is unique about John is that he is always trying to push the envelope with what he offers his audience.  Watching him grow from newbie to expert has been really exciting. For me his success has been measured with one act: He changed his family’s real estate business name from Coley Real Estate to Lake Martin Voice. The success and impact of his efforts as a blogger have been so great that it seemed only natural to embrace it fully and change his identity to the site that has made all the difference in his business.

When you asked, what is their niche… I am not really sure how to define any differently than I would say we aim to develop for most of our clients. My philosophy when determining a client’s blogging niche is: Determine what keeps your target audience up at night, and blog about that.

3. Do they every get off topic and if so, how?

Off topic? You mean talk about something other than real estate? If that;s what you are asking… then sure. Being a good Realtor means that you are as much a community expert as you are a real estate expert. Blogging about the events in town, or local business profiles, or landmarks and historical items is always a great avenue ‘off topic’. I don’t generally encourage revealing too much personal stuff within your blog… it’s not your diary, after all…leave that under the bed. But sprinkling in a few posts about things of great interest to you is a great way to connect with your audience as well… and it lends to the idea that a personality authors this blog. For example: if you are into tennis, then blog about the clubs, tournaments and events that are in town. Compare tennis to home buying…. etc. People will enjoy it. And I bet that you have certainly done some business with that tennis-group you hang around… so why not expand that opportunity to connect online.

4. What writing skills can most improve on?

Hitting publish more often. The idea is to create an incredible resource that just flows from you… not post an opus every time you sit down to blog.
The real trick to blogging is maintaining the effort, making it part of who you are. If it is a chore to sit and complete a post – it will always be put off. Writing styles, skills and prowess never mattered much to me… sure there is a big difference between someone with incredible delivery and those who just puke content – but this isn’t about impressing anyone. Blogging is about being found, being read, and being seen as the trusted advisor for your topics. The best way to accomplish the above is to hit publish.

5. Is there a trait you’ve noticed among those who blog compared to those who don’t that deserves some recognition?

I can’t speak to this in any honest fashion, because I can’t really know… but I can tell you what makes a blogging Realtor a potentially better Realtor. First of all – you never have your thoughts more clear on any topic than when you take the time to write a comprehensive piece about it. Bloggers are forced to consider and commit to a conviction on every topic the publish.

Secondly, bloggers need to listen to their clients to hear the questions that are most important to them… because after all this is what they need to be writing about. So they are very engaged in the concerns and challenges of each and every client, not just going through the motions so to speak. And finally, the disciple on maintaining a real estate blog helps develop many useful traits for the agent: focus, organization, critical thinking, accountability, constant education, and networking. These are all very important traits for today’s agent.

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In addition to making a statement about not being the most perfect writer I’d like to share another thought that brought this topic up. I had written a rant on a social networking site for real estate professionals from a Seattle based company with over 195,000 members titled: I don’t understand why agents waste thier time blogging on Active Rain. I was surprised the next morning to find out that Active Rain featured that post on thier home page and recieved 195 comments within 24 hours. It was the 5th comment that caught my attention most and it was something like “…Active Rain is safe place for agents to blog.” I kinda understood that, but does one’s typos or grammer mistakes make so much of a difference that it would descredit one’s business? Cronin doesn’t seem think so. I don’t think so. Nonetheless (my favorite new word) I’ll be trying to do better.

Would you like blogging? Sign-up on seattlesavvy.com and I’ll set you up with http://______.seattlesavvy.com for you to try writing about whatever it is you’d like to write about. Write something some interesting about downtown Seattle and/or real estate and I’ll feature on our homepage. When you’re ready to set up a blog on your own with your own domain, all your content can easily be exported and imported should you ever choose. My only disclaimer at this point is that it must of course not be innappropriate or be directed at anything which could be considered negative. Just have a local business and want to post a page about your product or services? Want to share a calendar of events?  That’s exactly what we’d hope you would do.  …free blogs are limited (up to 10) while we continue to develop seattlesavvy.com’s functionality but can guarantee 100′s of pageviews, if not 1,000′s…for free to the first 10 as well as be grandfathered in to additional future upgrades and enhancements we make.  Love you Seattle!

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BONUS: My personal top tips on blogging.

1. Always give credit where credit is due.

Sometimes hard to do considering that credit must sometimes be given to a competitor.  However, nothing says more about a website’s value than truly being a one-stop shop.

2.  Spawn of #1 – Take the time to properly link and title YOUR images.

When linking to another website, take into consideration that it’s of tremendous value to do so.  Try to word the text and description of the link to the site’s keywords (site title).  An example of this can be seen by simply rolling your mouse over the two links provided in Jim Cronin’s model clients mentioned in question #2.

3.  Take crappy pictures.

Not terribly framed pictures, but REAL pictures.  The highest day in traffic I ever received when writing for Stroupe’s blog was construction photos for Four Seasons.  There was ladders, boxes, unfinished flooring and such all over.  People don’t care to see fake, doctored up pictures.  I found this to be especially frustrating with new construction developers who refused to allow bloggers to take pictures.  ”We don’t want to set improper expectations,” they would say.  One of the best things I ever learned as a sales person was to set expectations at a ’7′ then deliver at a ’10.’

4.  Do it because it’s your passion.

It’s THE ingredient to doing anything in life I believe.  I’ve certainly had jobs throughout my life where I’ve been stuck because of a paycheck, yet money didn’t buy me happiness.  Passion makes your blog complete.  So far, this is 5 months of a new blog and it’s far from complete and probably never will be.  However, it will certainly be the most informative about my passion for how kick ass downtown Seattle is.  Master your topic by writing about it.  The joy in development will never end.

5.  Have a sense of humor.

In addition to procreating, I don’t see any other reason why we’re here but to also have a few laughs.  Who really wants to be serious all the time?  Have fun.  Be fun.  Make it fun.

6.  Don’t worry.  Just do it.

Too many people I’ve worked with on blogging never blog.  I’d say only 1 of 5 people who start a blog actually follow through because there is no such thing as instant success.  Another factor, as mentioned about my Active Rain post, is just thinking you won’t be good enough.  WHO CARES!?  It’s your passion and that’s what matters.  Not other people’s opinion.  If you’re not passionate about it, then I would think it might be either a good idea to not even make the attempt, or to find another job.

7.  Sometimes, just spin it.

One of my favorite buddy bloggers is a Seattle home inspector (ie. a proper link) who has certainly mastered the art of a good spin.  There is certainly an art to it, but it keeps you creative and Charles Buell is nothing short of creative;)  ”quack quack.”

8. Don’t delete.  Correct.

Part of this post was inspired by some frustration I’ve been a recipient of from a mistake I made.  I don’t wanna make an impression to anybody that anything can simply be deleted and repaired.  I believe it goes against any good faith one might have on my word.  Therefore, I recommend if a mistake made, stikeout the mistake then add your correction.

Thank you for visiting our blog!  Other than procreation, I’m not sure there’s much more I enjoy than being able to share my passion with others.