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A blog vs a website!
As Windermere solutions gets ready to launch their new agent.com tools set there will be lots of discussion on the topic of blog vs website. 8 years ago a website was a good idea. Today that has shifted especially when it comes to having a website that lives in the world of Real Estate. Today we are seeing a greater need for both living under one URL.
Lets do a comparison between what a website can offer you vs what a blog can do for you.
The typical website today tends to be very static, techterms.com states that a static website is the following “A static website contains Web pages with fixed content. Each page is coded in HTML and displays the same information to every visitor. Static sites are the most basic type of website and are the easiest to create. Unlike dynamic websites, they do not require any Web programming or database design. A static site can be built by simply creating a few HTML pages and publishing them to a Web server.” Many of the sites I see today are static with the addition of a data driven IDX search tool embedded into the HTML code. This is a bit better but still very uni directional when it comes to interaction with the end user.
A blog on the other hand combined with a dynamic website can offer much more.
A blog is interactive and it allows you to have a voice that you get to control while at the same time allow others to contribute to that common voice. Blogs are immediate and if done correctly they build loyalty because then tend to bring together other individuals with common interest.
They are a great way to build content for social media and they give you content that helps to create great conversation. They can also be a gateway into SEO. (Search Engine Optimization)
Where I tend to see blogs fail is when they do not have a focus and are not offering the reader base value as it relates to the specific topics. Many times you will see a blog start up but die a slow death because the creator didn’t stick with it. I think the most successful blogs will be very focused, up to date with relevant information with interactive linking off to useful sources of like information.
I have attached some helpful articles that I have read recently that give you some good idea and specifics on the differences.
Should I change my website into a blog?
Be a curator on social media rather than a watcher!
Recently I saw a great slide presentation on Socialgraphics in relationship to social media.
It shows how many people today in the social media world fall into the area of sharing and watching and only less the 1% are actually curating. This is where I see a huge opportunity for you to excel. Sure it is great fun to open up facebook and watch what everyone is saying but how does that translate into creating stronger relationships with your friends. “it doesn’t” See chart below.
When you think about a relationship it pivots off of what you bring to the table and how much you give. The more you give the more you get back. Many of you out there today have great amounts of information and resources that could be shared with your friends by a click of a button yet you still choose to watch. If you can push your self to become a curator then 78% and 63% of your friends will be watching and sharing what you are curating. Are you picking up what I’m putting down here?
Remember you don’t want to become that friend that post non useful content 20 times a day. But become that person that post good useful content 3 or 4 times a week.
So how do you find good information to share on a daily basis?
Here are some sites I like to use when I go out to search for relevant and timely info. To make the most use of my time I like to use a search tool that will look at all the major search engines in one search.
I found these great ideas and more from a blog article on Socialmedia Today.
“Addictomic: http://addictomatic.com allows users to search for real-time content on various Web 2.0 based sites all at one time.
IceRocket: http://www.icerocket.com is a web search engine which specializes in real-time search. It searches the popular social networking websites such as Twitter, YouTube and news. IceRocket’s Big Buzz feature allows users to search Blogs, Tweets, news, images, etc all from one page.
Social Mention: http://socialmention.com is a smart search tool that allows you to find real time information on blogs, bookmarks, comments, and other social Web errata. In addition, the tool provides an analysis of the mentions in terms of sentiments: positive, neutral and negative.”
If you have some great ideas on information sharing feel free to chime in.
