We dug in and decided that, rather than just making a few changes here and there, we would replace 100% of all template headers and images!

Important News for Current Point2 Agent Customers:

1. On Thursday, July 8th, ALL template graphics and headers will automatically be replaced.
2. We have taken great care to ensure that the new graphics will match closely to those they are replacing, so we hope that the transition will be seamless and positive.
3. Any custom graphics and headers that you have created or added to your site will not be replaced or altered in any way.
4. Prudential agents and brokers – if you use images that include the Prudential logo, the replacement images will not include any Prudential logo.  This has been done at the request of Prudential.

We’ve done our best to make this a seamless and positive change, but if anything looks out of place, please don’t hesitate to let us know and we’ll do our best to get you fixed up in no time!

This was a massive undertaking but it allowed us to make a couple of important improvements:

• we’ve updated franchise logos across the board to reflect these brands’ updated looks
• we’ve made many image tweaks that we hope you’ll agree modernize and improve the look of our template websites
• we’ve replaced almost 100% of the stock photography that was previously used with Point2-created original photos and imagery

A few samples:

Before:



After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Any questions?  Hit us in the comments and we’ll get back to you ASAP!

Thanks very much on behalf of Point2.

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“How do I use all this Facebook and Twitter and stuff to sell my product/service?”

In the end it turns out it’s not a complicated answer:

“Don’t.”

And the conversation continues:

“But I want to sell stuff.  Selling stuff is what I do.  When I sell more stuff it makes it easier to pay my mortgage and buy the good brand of underwear made from Silkistasium™.  I can’t go back to wearing regular underwear now, so I need to sell stuff – and I want to use social media because I hear that it can be a really effective sales tool.”

“It is. It can be.  The internet is the most powerful medium in history.  It will help you sell a great deal more product, so long as you stop disingenuously selling and start having a genuine conversation with your audience.”

Of Diapers, DryMax and Dining

Pampers is using online advertising and social media to counteract potential fallout from suggestions that their new DryMax formula is causing severe rashes for some babies.  And this may well turn out to be a lesson for them in how badly it can backfire when a company uses social media improperly.

Mistake #1:  Tell People They’re Wrong

Neanderthal YouTube comments notwithstanding, when folks gather online around a particular subject of interest, say parenting, there tends to develop a fairly remarkable level of knowledge and varied expertise in those communities.  Some of the ‘Mommy boards’ for example have a collective level of sophistication in issues affecting children that is staggering.

So if (hypothetically, of course) a social media marketer were to approach such a board, and in response to the allegations of DryMax causing problems, posts some information about what diaper rashes are, how common they are, and how often they occur, diaper brand notwithstanding, suggesting that what these babies are experiencing is perfectly normal, happens to every baby, and has nothing to do with any products . . . well, what that person is unintentionally doing is saying “you don’t know your own children.  You believe that this product is causing a problem but you are mistaken.  These are not the droids you are looking for.”

(Okay, maybe not exactly that last bit.)

If a guest of mine said something like this to me at a dinner party I’d likely tell him not to let the door hit him in the rear on the way out of my home.

And this is my essential point – the social web is a whole bunch of big dinner parties.  If you want the other guests to consider buying your products, don’t walk in, introduce yourself, and pull out a vacuum cleaner and start espousing its patented Monsoon Sucker™ whirlwind action.  You won’t sell any and you won’t be invited back.

And guess what?  This is great news for good marketers.

Why?  Because if you genuinely join the dinner party, and you genuinely are interested in the subject matter and you throw in a few jokes here and there and you genuinely have good stuff to offer, you will form real relationships with the other guests, and real relationships are pretty much the most powerful force on earth.

(Aside from Monsoon Sucker™ whirlwind action, naturally.)

Pampers DryMax may well be an exceptional product.  These rashes on babies may well have been a coincidence.  Even if they were not, and Pampers made a mistake, that’s okay!  Every human and every company makes ‘em.

But if you spill a glass of wine at a dinner party, unintentionally of course, and then respond by saying that ‘dining room tables are often subject to wine spills and it cannot be known whether it was I who spilled the wine or not’ . . . well, it was really swell, had lots of fun, don’t hold your breath for an invitation to the next one.

This is indicative of where technology is headed in general, no doubt.  Much of Twitter’s power, for example, and part of the reason for its explosive growth is its immediacy, because what constitutes ‘fresh’ news and what constitutes ‘old’ news is changing quite rapidly.

The news in the morning paper?  Whatever, that’s so totally, like, yesterday.

The same thing should be happening with listing syndication.

Point2 is a leader in the syndication of real estate listings, pulling listings in directly from your MLS (or directly from your Point2 Agent website where an MLS agreement is not yet in place).

We then send those listings out to over 40 high-traffic real estate marketplaces, and then send all of the clicks, views and leads back to our members.

We’re good at it.

But . . .

One thing that can always be improved upon in this arena is speed.  First, we collect listings from the MLS – but of course, some MLSs are only able to give us this data one per day.

Next, we perform transformer work with the inbound data, making it readable by our system, after which we do another transformation to make it readable by our syndication partners.

We’ve become quite fast at this step.

But . . .

Then, we send all of these listings, from cozy little fixer-uppers to rap star mansions replete with wall-to-wall bling, out to our network of syndication partners.  Of course this means another slight delay as we wait for them to perform the updates on their site.

As you can imagine, even though ours is one of the best, most efficient listing syndication systems in existence, there are still several delays in the chain.

And we don’t like it.

We’re a technology company, after all, with some of Canada’s brightest software developers – why can’t we go faster?

And what if we could go much faster?

What if it was a mere matter of minutes in between you as a REALTOR® entering a change into your MLS and that change appearing live on Trulia and a dozen (or a hundred) other marketplaces?

What if you could tell potential clients that, if they choose you as their listing agent, you can put their home in front of 10,000 homebuyers by sundown?

What if you could tell them that, if they choose you as their listing agent and price their home competitively, you would expect to have several inquiries for showings by noon tomorrow?

We think about this stuff a lot.  It’s not possible today, but it sure would be cool, wouldn’t it?

We don't typically get Mexican food this good, what with being a couple of thousand miles away from the Mexican border.

Of course the air was absolutely thick with discussion and speculation surrounding RPR and HouseLogic – on our plane down from Vancouver you could hardly walk two rows without hearing whispers about “data management” or “RPR.”   It was pretty cool to see, actually – and some very interesting discussions about technology were the rule throughout the week (some sober and insightful, some . . . less so).

With Jason and Lupe from El Paso, some of our favorite clients. (It's the mustaches that make the hats work.)

Point2 had a large crew in San Diego, speaking to MLS and Association representatives about our MLS Syndication efforts, speaking to agents and brokers about our Point2 Agent products, and hooking up with loads of new syndication partners to keep finding interesting and fruitful destinations for our REALTORS®’ listings.

Jen from Point2 & Rhett Damon from Homefinder.com - mustache > goatee.

The Point2 men were also fortunate enough to encounter some “Mo Bros & Sisters” in San Diego – Point2′s men are growing mustaches for charity (prostate cancer research) as a part of the Movember effort (donate here!)

All in all it was a great trip – thanks to Saul and his family for showing us a good time in San Diego – it was particularly nice to finally meet the IC crew in person.

It’s always rewarding to get out there in front of our customers (particularly when it’s 80 degrees and a football game is involved ).

See you next year in New Orleans!

Can I expect to see you at the NAR Convention this weekend?

If so, Point2 would love to host you for a little cocktail reception/technology discussion/focus group kinda thing on Sunday the 15th at 5:30.

What we’re hoping for is to gather a variety of opinions from REALTORS about the technology they use, they technology they’d like to use, and the technology they HATE USING!

(Just want to get your opinions – I’m not selling timeshares, Slap Chops, Snugglies or anything else for that matter, I promise )

If you’re interested, the beverages are on us, and we’d love to hear from you – please send me an email at feedback at Point2 dot com and I’ll get back to you with the details.

Point2 customers & non-customers welcome!

See you there.

Saul’s session will address REALTORS® in the age of wikinomics, social media, and web 2.0, and promises to be an entertaining and informative look at the shifting online real estate climate – as well as practical tips on how REALTORS® can use the web to drive more business.

Saul’s talk will take place at the San Jose Convention Center on Tuesday, October 6th from 3:30 to 4:30.

Hope to see you there!