Author Archive
Pinterest Giveth and Pinterest Taketh Away
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Now, there is controversy over Pinterest and the exposure users could have to being sued.
Did you read every word of Pinterest’s terms of service? Uh, no, I didn’t either. But, if any of us actually did that, we’d discover that the responsibility for avoiding copyright infringement rests solely with the user.
It’s not just something that is addressed in passing. It’s a big deal in the terms of service. Which leads me to believe that Pinterest was extremely interested in protecting themselves from any remote liability for all the people running around pinning photos from the web to their boards.
Part of the problem is how Pinterest works. They don’t create a thumbnail that is then linked directly to the host website. They take the entire full-size image and enter it into their database with a unique identifying number.
I can see how the people owning license or copyright to those images may become concerned that their link to that image could be lost in the shuffle.
In addition, Pinterest has language in those terms that give them far-reaching rights to the images on the site. It reads a lot like Facebook’s, as far as I’m concerned. It gives them the rights to all the images on the site so that they can sublicense and sell the images. It’s true that Facebook doesn’t reserve the right to sell the content, so in that case, Pinterest has gone even a bit further.
If you’ve been using Pinterest, how are you going to respond? I’m not taking down the boards I started, but I won’t be very active on the site until these issues are tested over time. The last thing I need is a silly lawsuit. Heaven knows, I’ve got enough to do already!
I’m sure you’ve heard about Google updating their privacy policy. If you haven’t had a chance to research the issue, this post will provide some insight for you.
There’s been a lot of uproar about the changes, but from what I can determine, I don’t see anything that indicates that all the information that Google has about you is going public.
Get the news from the source. Check out this Google page about the policy change. According to Google, they aren’t going to be collecting more information, but they will combine information from one service to another, treating you as one user across all of their services. And, your information will not be made public unless you want it to be, or in specific situations like Google’s need to cooperate with law enforcement.
I don’t think there is any need to panic about imminent disclosure of the searches you did last week. But, the fact that Google is combining information from all services does bring up some issues I know I’m going to think about.
I’m already tired of Google’s attempts to “help” me. If I’m logged in to Google, searches I do are completely distorted. Today, for example, I did a search for “Esquimalt”, a city in British Columbia, Canada. The results showed a client of mine dominating the home page for that search.
How they figured out that I was related to that particular client in Esquimalt is beyond me. I don’t use GMail very much, and I don’t maintain a list of contacts there. So, how did they do that? Do they know that I have spent a fair amount of time lately on that website? To me, it’s kinda creepy.
Over time, I’m going to spend more time figuring out what information Google is collecting and how I can ensure the privacy of that data. I already change my location with Google on a regular basis. I tell them I’m in Florida or California, never Georgia!
Here are some tools I’ll be looking into.
- Google’s Privacy Tools – One thing this change did was point out to me how much I don’t know about the information Google collects. If you look at the Privacy Tools page, you’ll find all kinds of ways to opt out of having all kinds of information gathered that you didn’t even know was happening in the first place. Does that make sense?
- Google Web History – If you’ve never been there, you surely need to stop by. I wager you’ll be dumbfounded by looking back over every search you’ve ever done. I turned my History off. Wehn you log in to the History area, you’ll see a button called “Remove all Web History”. If you click that and confirm that, yes, you really do want to delete the history, you’ll see that the history is gone, and that Web History is “paused”, meaning that new entries will not be made.
- Keep up with Google’s Dashboard – I didn’t really ever think about the fact that I had a Google Dashboard. But, when you log in to it, you’ll see all of the places you go that are controlled by Google, and all the information they have about you in those different places.
I’m not sure this is an exhaustive list, but I’ll be spending some time with the Privacy Tools for sure. Turns out I can stop Google from personalizing my search results! Eureka!! And, there is an opt out for personalized ads, too.
How do you feel about the changes? Will you be making any changes in how much information you’ll let Google gather on you? Do you think this is no big deal?
Facebook Strikes Again with the Timeline
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As is typical every time Facebook makes a change, everything you’d set up related to Facebook breaks. Gotta love ‘em.
I wager there will be a lot of things we’ll have to straighten out (of course using Facebook’s marvelous documentation and support). But, here’s the first thing that happened.
When the timeline was made active, all of my blog posts disappeared. I publish to Facebook using Networked Blogs. Turns out I had to make some changes to my Networked Blogs account to get the posts back in place.
So, if you use Networked Blogs to syndicate to Facebook, you’ll have to fix the link manually.
The other thing I discovered is that Facebook chooses which activities they’re going to show on your Timeline. Yes, that make that decision themselves.
Right now, 2 of the 9 posts I published in Facebook are showing on the timeline.
You’re supposed to be able to instruct Facebook to display things they’ve ignored by pursuing your Activity Log. That link shows on my personal Facebook page, but there are no posts in the log.
For my business page, there is no Activity Log button.
Have I told you lately how I feel about Facebook?
No, well it’s not fit to print today either.
The other day, someone who called me said that they had found my website in a search for direct response marketing. Interesting.
There are three posts already on this blog about direct response marketing – two from 2008 and one from 2006. If you ever wonder if long tail searches work, or if years of blogging is worth it, consider that!
The other thing that became clear after that telephone call is that I’ve ignored the direct marketing concept for too long! So, it’s time for a new discussion.
How Do You Spend Your Marketing Dollars?
What does your marketing plan look like? Everyone’s plan looks a bit different, but there are undoubtedly some elements that appear in many real estate marketing plans. Here are some examples:
- Farming – Sending postcards to your farm. Sending Just Listed and/or Just Sold postcards.
- Promotion to Your Sphere – You may send email updates, newsletters, or even print material.
- Internet Marketing – You probably have a website. You have a strategy for driving traffic to the website, and you’ve set up the site to generate leads.
What is Direct Response Marketing, Anyway?
You can use direct response marketing for any of the marketing efforts described above. But, what is it? You’ll find all kinds of definitions, but here’s mine:
- Direct Response Marketing: A marketing effort that encourages an immediate response from the consumer, and often provides the opportunity for measuring the response.
Too often, I see real estate professionals doing very passive marketing. You send out a Just Listed postcard and all it does is identify a house for sale in the neighborhood. You spend big bucks mailing a postcard to your sphere and you have no idea if anyone even looked at it.
There are really two things wrong with that approach. First, you never know if you’re getting a return on your marketing dollars. That typically results in continuing to allocate your budget to marketing that probably is generating no return at all. Certainly a waste of marketing dollars.
The second thing that is wrong with passive marketing is that you most certainly end up with less benefit than if you’d been more proactive.
How Does Direct Response Marketing Help?
Direct response marketing can increase the effectiveness of all the types of marketing efforts described above. For example:
- Farming – Before you send out Just Listed postcards to your farm, set up a page on your website with an offer for a real estate market report for your area. If people are thinking of selling, use the postcard to direct them to that special page. And, of course, set up the page so that the visitor completes a form in order to receive the report.
- Promotion to Your Sphere – You can send a newsletter to your sphere, and that’s a great way to keep in touch. But, from time to time, send out a direct response email. Set something up on your website or your Facebook page or blog that invites people to take advantage of a special offer.
- Internet Marketing – Your website should be one giant piece of direct response marketing. Almost every page on your website should display a contact form and make some type of an offer.
This is one of the reasons we offer Web-Centric Real Estate Marketing services. The Internet is an excellent way to do direct response marketing. If you can direct a domain name to your offer page, you can measure effectiveness based on the number of people who land on that page during a specific promotion.
If directing a domain name isn’t possible, your ability to measure results will diminish, but it’s still worthwhile doing the direct response piece. You can put a very prominent button on your home page. When people land on your home page based on a call to action, they will be able to quickly figure out where to go to take advantage of the offer.
Of course, measurement will be skewed by the fact that people who never received a postcard offer from you will probably use that button, too.
Do you do direct response marketing? Do you think it would work for you? Questions, comments?
Ron White is one of my favorite comedians. He is irreverent with a very quick wit. So, naturally, when I saw the title to a post on Active Rain called “You Can’t Fix Stupid” by Ron Barnes, I just had to stop by.
I don’t want to spoil his thunder, so I can only say that if you want a laugh, take a minute to read it yourself. If stupidity were illegal, we’d have one less agent right now!!
If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you may not be able to access the post(s) mentioned above. So sign up for Active Rain now. If you’re not a member of Active Rain, you should be anyway.
