How/Why Do You Use Social Media?

June 16, 2008 | 1 Comment

As you might imagine, I have been thinking a lot about community building recently.

Whether you blog for business, blog to inform, or just blog to amuse, we all want to build a community, don’t we? Or, if not build one, at least find one where we can be a useful, active member.

There are a lot of ways to go about doing that. Here’s some.

Sounds pretty good to me.

Posted by Daniel Rothamel | 1 Comment | Filed Under Blog, Blogging, community 

Spread the Love Day– June 18th, 2008!

June 13, 2008 | 7 Comments

What is Spread the Love Day?

We could all use a little more love, couldn’t we? My idea for Spread the Love Day was inspired by Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, and Benn Rosales (among others).

The concept is simple– I want you do something for someone else that you wish could be done for you. It could be anything, business related or not.

Wanna learn something? Then teach someone something first.

Wanna learn the secrets to success? Share your secrets with others first.

Want more comments on your blog? You better get out there and start commenting.

In short, I want you to spread the love. You can’t reasonably expect to get everything you want without being willing to share with others, can you? Of course not. Call this addition by subtraction, call it pay it forward, call it helping others to help yourself– whatever. Just make sure you SPREAD THE LOVE!

When Should I Spread the Love?

Well, you should be doing it every day, but since the longest journeys begin with just a single step, I’m suggest that you make a concentrated effort to Spread the Love on Wednesday, June 18th. That gives you some time to think about what you are going to do. Once you’ve done it, I want you to share your experience with others. For bloggers, you can write a blog post about it. For those of you who don’t blog, just tell a family member, friend, business associate, whoever. It doesn’t matter who it is, but make sure you share with them your Spread the Love experience. That way, you can hopefully inspire others to do something similar.

I’ll Go First to Get things Started

I wanted to give an example and spread some love first, so I did it in the video above. In the future, I want to launch a RealEstateZebra.com store, with various items that people could buy and wear, use, you know– schwag. Well, if I want people to do that for me, I am going to have to be willing to do the same for others.

In the video, I am wearing a sweatshirt given to me by fellow Virginia real estate blogger, Jeremy Hart. It is a very comfortable sweatshirt, and its got his logo on it. Very cool. I am also wearing a sticker given to me by the fine folks at RealSeekr.com. I like stickers, and they have a very cool website.

I wanted to spread the love to Jeremy and ReelSeekr. Hopefully, when the time comes, they’ll do the same for me. In the meantime, I want them to embrace the message and spread the love to whoever they can think of.

So, what are you waiting for? Come up with those ideas for how you will celebrate Spread the Love Day. I can’t wait to hear your stories, so remember to share them.

Posted by Daniel Rothamel | 7 Comments | Filed Under Blog, Blogging, Fun Stuff, Video Posts, community 

On Becoming the Inman News Community Mangager

June 9, 2008 | 27 Comments

Today, I embark upon what I expect will be a very interesting, enriching, and exciting endeavor. Today, I begin in my position as Community Manager for Inman News.

What does this mean? Well first of all, it means that I will still be blogging and creating the best possible content I can right here (did you really think otherwise?); and I will still be doing the samefor Agent Genius, as well. I will, of course, still be selling real estate. So I guess, in some ways, things don’t really change all that much for me.

In other ways, things will never be the same. Now, all that social media and Web 2.0 research that I do will have an additional purpose. I will be able to direct my efforts towards building, enriching, and expanding the already strong community at Inman.com. The Inman.com Community site is up and running, and one of my responsibilities will be doing everything I can to make sure that community is a vibrant one.

I want to thank all of the folks at Inman, Joel and Don especially, for being willing to give me this opportunity, and I want to thank all of you here who have supported my efforts at RealEstateZebra.com. Without you, there would be no community. Together, I know that we can spread the word and grow the community to include everyone who could benefit from the knowledge and experience we have all gained.

I am excited to have this opportunity, I am excited to be able to share it with you. But right now, an opportunity is all it is. I want to grow this opportunity into an experience that the industry and its professionals will look upon not as a high point, but as a foundation for how the real estate industry can innovate and revolutionize the profession.

It’s gonna be an exciting and interesting ride, so come along!

Posted by Daniel Rothamel | 27 Comments | Filed Under Blog, Industry Issues, Inman, News, Social Media, community 

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