I am getting prepared for a presentation at next week’s Virginia Association of Realtors’ Convention. The audience will be the Policy Board (they’re “important”) and whomever else decides to stop by. For those of you who are real estate bloggers – fresh or veteran – what mistakes have you made?
Likely one of the topics will be required disclosures on blogs – covered here before. Should Realtors have to disclose their licensee status in every single post? (I’m a Realtor)
Here is my biggest mistake that I can recall – I deleted a comment three months into blogging, and haven’t made the same mistake since. Unfortunately, the comments didn’t come through when I moved to WordPress. The caller found my blog, castigated me, I deleted his comment and then re-posted it after having immediately regretted my impulsive decision. Lesson learned.
Don’t get in bed with vendors.
Don’t put personal relationships before principles.
Don’t ever even shade the truth, much less lie. Everything you say can and will be double-checked by someone.
You don’t have to disclose license status in every post. I have it on my landing page and brokerage affliation in my footer. Problem solved and basically forgotten. No one scrolls down that far anyway.
I do have a serious “terms and conditions” page on my blog, where I am clear that I personally am not the “official voice of Prudential Connecticut Realty”, heck I’m not even the unofficial voice.
Also simply reading the blog in no way is actual representation.
Like Greg says, the internet is forever. RSS feeds in particular live on after your “oh #%&^” deletion.
Widgets generally suck.
We read from left to right, so the side bar should always be on the left.
White space and a readable font for the win.
-Athol
I have an about me on the page that shows who I am and my affliation. I am planning on moving it to my sidebar but I’m not sure if it makes a difference. Putting it in every post would start to make it look more like an advertisement and less like information in my opinion. We aren’t required to have it on every static web page….are we????
As I understand it any “real estate agent” webpage is considered an advertisement by the powers that be. So yes, you do need it on every static page.
My brokerage requires a very precise graphic of the Prudential Connecticut Realty logo and also the service mark of “Big Prudential” on every single web page. Bottom of the sidebar and footer for the win. I had to go look for it on my pages myself.
How the heck that is meant to work if you ever guest blog or submit to a group blog that isn’t your brokerage is beyond me. Likely no one has even thought of the possiblity of such a thing in the seats of power in Realtordom.
-Athol
My biggest is not branding my blog like a business when i am starting out. I guess disclosure can be done in the about page with rest of the relevant informations.