In the words of Penelope Lively, “Getting to know someone else involves curiosity about where they have come from, who they are.”

As a company, NewHomesDirectory.com wants to make sure you know what we can do to help you sell your new homes but we also want to make sure you know the faces behind the website as well.  By doing funny company videos, welcome videos or introduction videos we have opened up our company to our consumers so they always have an idea of who we are.

This is a great idea for every company to do.  It gives your customers a sense of trust and lets them become a part of your company in a fun way.  Take time to capture the funny moments in the office, that are relative to your business of course, such as Halloween costume contests or a short video about some innovative new ideas that your company is coming up with.  The sky is the limit and we have many outlets in which you can showcase your videos including YouTube.

Just make sure you don’t go over board and forget about working only to film everyone in the office.  And always make sure your content is appropriate so it lifts your company’s image instead of pulling it down.

Check out our latest video, The Ladies of NewHomesDirectory.com.

On September 15, 2009, Inside Facebook reported it has reached 300 million monthly active users around the world. Facebook has added 50 million users in only the 75 days. That's the equivalent of 670,000 users per day. Remember, it seems like only yesterday (mid-July), that Facebook reported it had reached 250 million users.

Though Facebook users have been flocking the connection addiction site since 2004, the sites growth, as recorded by numbers of users, shows no sign of slowing down.  In June 2009, The Nielson Company announced the US had a unique audience of more than 87 million people, compared MySpace's less than 63 million visitors the same month.

Check out the Facebook growth over the last 30 days:

13 - 17 Males: 14.5%
13 - 17 Females: 10.2%

18 - 25 Males: 8.6%
18 - 25 Females: 4.9%

26 - 34 Males: 10.0%
26 - 34 Females: 6.4%

35 - 44 Males: 11.1%
35 - 44 Females: 8.3%

45 - 54 Males: 12.8%
45 - 54 Females: 11.8%

55 - 65 Males: 10.2%
55 - 65 Females: 11.0%

August 2009 US Facebook Users by Age and Gender

13 - 17 Males: 3.7 million
13 - 17 Females: 4.9 million

18 - 25 Males: 10.7 million
18 - 25 Females: 12.1 million

26 - 34 Males: 7.9 million
26 - 34 Females: 10.5 million

35 - 44 Males: 6.4 million
35 - 44 Females: 8.7 million

45 - 54 Males: 3.7 million
45 - 54 Females: 5.9 million

55 - 65 Males: 1.9 million
55 - 65 Females: 3.3 million

InsideFacebook.com reported that 45.4 million people, that's 57% of the site’s users, are women. That's higher than their males counterparts, who represent 34.3 million.  

For Home Builders

The rapid and continued growth of both female and male users of all ages signifies there is ever increasing opportunity to connect with both present home buyers and future home buyers.  Another undeniable metric, home builders cannot afford to look past is the increasing time spend on Facebook, Twitter, and blogging sites. 

In April 2009, time spent, in minutes, on Facebook had grown 700% from April 2008 (1,735,698 - 13,872,640 [000]). 

Time spent on Twitter was up 3,712% during the same period (7,865 - 299,836 [000]).  

Time spent on Blogger, though a much smaller increase in time was up 30% for April 2009 from April 2008 (448,710 - 582,683 [000]).

Home builders must figure out how to maximize Facebook, Twitter, and blogging.  Any builder without plans for these social sites, as part of their overall marketing strategy, will be left behind by the more 'in tune' home building competitors.

What Can Home Builders Do?

Mike Lyon, author of 'Browsers To Buyers', has the most progressive, forward thinking, and practical, virtual social media training series on how to get the most out of social sites, I know of.  Sign up today and begin navigating the new marketing frontier.

Contact Jim Adams today to see if NewHomesDirectory.com can subsidize your Mike Lyon training series fees.

Sincerely,

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory .com

Need a good place to search Twitter? How do you find information inside Twitter streams from months or years ago?  I found the place.

Do it here, or at the Google Twitter search.

While you're at it, create yourself a custom Google powered search engine?

Where does Twitter fall on the priority list of social media for home builders?  A close look at the trends tells the story. Yes we know Twitter's impressive growth rate (1,382 % from Feb 2008 - Feb 2009) and 32 million recorded visitors in April, 2009, makes Twitter the big social media buzz of today.  

But the question remains the same for any industry and any business.  Why is it important to me as a home builder?  Take a look at the Twitter consumer demographics. 

This informative graphic from eMarketer shows that 35% of Twitter users are between 20 and 24 years old.  Combined with the 31% of Twitter users ranging from 15-19 years of age, you're talking about 67% of Twitter users ranging in age from 15-24 years old.

While that is not typically the home buying age, it will be the home buying age in 5-10 years.  That gives the average home builder another 5 years to get up to speed with the whole Twitter thing.  If you want to be on the leading edge as a home builder, you'll be experimenting with Twitter today.

I think Twitter is the most powerful of all social media - because of its potential.  Everyone has a mobile phone.  You don't need a smart phone to receive information on Twitter.  Any new home sales professional can user Twitter.  With a 140 character limit, sending out a new home community tweet will take all of 2 minutes, whereas blogging or Facebooking can take an hour or more.

My vision is that each new home community has its own Twitter account.  When a consumer has a strong interest in purchasing, they are going to follow that account because no one wants to be left out of the 'Information Loop'.

Training a sales person on Twitter will take 20 minutes as compared with blogging and Facebook, which can take days or weeks or months to be proficient.

And because every person has a cell phone, pushing information and having that information received ensures success. No more worrying about whether your email blast got hung up in the spam box. No more waiting for corporate to create that email blast that is really for 30 communities in the same division. You tailor that short message to your community followers.

We're always talking about new home sales professionals being responsible for their own traffic. Using a Twitter account is by far the easiest way to get and stay connected with their new home community consumers.

This may not be the most effective means today, but look at the trends.  Younger people doing it today means our home buyers of tomorrow will be doing it.

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory.com

The notion that women tend to have the final say in homebuying decisions has become common knowledge in the real estate and home construction fields; if the findings of a new survey are any indication, this appears to have transcended into the social networking realm as well.

The poll, conducted by the social network ShesConnected, revealed that 59%  of its participants reported visiting their favorite social sites multiple times per day. Another group, totaling 14%, reported logging on to social networks on a daily basis. 

According to the research, the most popular sites included Facebook (83% of users are members), LinkedIn (73% have an account), and Twitter (55% have jumped on the bandwagon). MySpace, who once relied on the powerful female demographic popular, is only used by 41% of the survey respondents. Nearly half of the women polled (48%) reported belonging to four or more social networks.

How can this benefit women as homebuyers – or, as sellers? It seems that professional networking and staying up-to-date with friends were the most compelling reasons to visit social networks, according to the respondents. Also, many (79%) mentioned products and services, followed by finding deals and discounts (64%) important. Because all of these play into real estate transactions, it is possible for buyers and sellers alike to use social networking to their advantage.

Of course, the marketing side of social media is not without concern. While the vast majority of respondents were fine with social networks displaying advertising, more than four in 10 respondents said they would not be comfortable with the idea of their data being sold. So, those looking to use these networks for promoting homes for sale, etc. should do so with caution. Tech-savvy women can easily identify the fine line between keeping in touch and taking an unfair advantage; so, it’s important to know your limits and abide by them.

It seems that shipments went down for a time in response to low consumer excitement with mobile products in the post-iPhone era. Now, with new smartphones arriving on the scene and public confidence in the global market on the rise, the numbers are reflecting improvement.

Strategy Analytics’ Q2 2009 Global Handset Market Share Update reported that 273 million handset units shipped in the second quarter. After year-over-year declines of 10.7% in Q4 of 2008 and 13.7% in Q1 of 2009, it seems shipments are slowly on the climb.

Another intelligence firm, the International Data Corp. (IDC), released similar figures for Q2 handset shipments, for a 10.8% year-over-year drop. To reiterate, this was an improvement over Q1 2009, which experienced a 17.2% decline from the prior year. An IDC senior research analyst stated that Apple, in addition to Nokia, Samsung, and Research in Motion, “all beat expectations” for smartphones in the second quarter.

Which products are the most compelling? Two years after its initial debut, the iPhone clearly remains one of them. In Q2, Apple shipped 5.2 million units, for a 1.9% market share.

And, it seems that the high demand for GPS only enhances the trend. Strategy Analytics reported that GPS-enabled smartphone shipments are expected to increase by 34% this year, to 77 million units.

It seems that smartphones have not only permanently changed the way we communicate; they have also left their indelible seal on the global communications market.

Mobile phone sales are down.  Smartphone sales are rising.  Is this due to Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, and blogging addiction?

With 250 million users on Facebook, Twitter users growing almost exponentially, and 1 million blog posts added to the Internet daily, it begs the question: How much does connecting on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media mean to us?  Does it mean that now we need a smartphone so we can access our favorites through apps?  I believe the answer is yes.  I know it already has for me; and now other signs are appearing that support the same notion.

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory .com
www.JimAdams.me

Social media has all the attention today.  The number of users is phenomenal and the growth rate is what we all hope for in our businesses. Check out the Facebook growth rate.  If Facebook were a country, it would now have the 4th largest population in the world.

@techcrunch reported yesterday that MSN's new search engine Bing is incorporating Twitter posts into the search results.  

With social media becoming such a large part of our lives, doing a search for someone is becoming increasingly easier.  Now if I want to find someone I just have to search 'name and twitter', or 'name facebook' and if that person has an account, guess what?  I've found them.

I did a Bing search and a Google search for 'Jim Adams twitter'.  Much to my surprise, the @bing search gave me more social results than Google.  I actually preferred the Bing results.  It appears after several years of playing third fiddle in the search space, Bing is onto something that will make our lives better.  It looks like if you want to find social info, Bing is the place to go.

If this is an indication of what is to come, our Twitter and Facebook posts will have a strong influence in search.  In order to maximize visibility in the search engines, we will need to write our posts and tweets with SEO in mind.

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory.com
www.JimAdams.me

As of May 2009, Facebook is the most popular US social networking site.  According to comScore, Facebook’s May 2009 unique visitors totaled 70,278,000.  This is up 97% from last year at this time. Surprisingly MySpace visitors shrank 5% over the same timeframe, slipping to 70,255,000 unique visitors.

Debra Aho Williamson, senior analyst for eMarketer said “Facebook is becoming the go-to social networking site for marketers. While MySpace still has a huge quantity of visitors, they are becoming less relevant for advertisers.”

What this means for new home builders is that Facebook can’t be ignored.  People love being connected and Facebook is delivering the platform for which to do it.  With such a massive increase in usage, Facebook is now the number one way to connect and converse.

Reaching new home buyers today is not about advertising to them, it’s about connecting and engaging.

In the home building industry, the best use of today's marketing dollars is not one-way interruption advertising - it's connecting with consumers where and when they want to be connected with.

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory.com

Last night at 9:00p and one second, PST, the Facebook land rush was on.  My pre-Facebook party consisted of Lisa Redmond from RedRocketLA, Mike Lyon, Ed Doss (NHD), and Ruth Kincaid (NHD).  We were all eagerly anticipating the NASA type of countdown and launch to get our Facebook domain.

Once the rush began, I immediately saw that jim.adams was available.  I elected to pass and search for the slightly better jimadams.  The search for jimadams was unsuccessful so I immediately tried to go back to the second best domain, jim.adams.  My heart sank as I saw jim.adams was taken.  Knowing domains were going fast, I quickly chose the far lesser of the two, jimadams1.

As I shut my computer and went back to watching Grand Torino with my wife, I was completely depressed.  I thought it would be a passing depression that would ultimately be just an evaporating disappointment.

I was wrong.  I woke up this morning still depressed.  Growing more and more introspective as to why I still felt depressed, it dawned on me.  It’s not that someone won’t be able to find me at jim.adams1 or that jim.adams1 will be THAT much harder to remember.  

It’s about the real estate. I was depressed because I got the lesser of the pieces of real estate.  Instead of getting the authoritative beachfront property, I got the small lot on the corner with only a partial view of the ocean – and all for the same price as the beachfront real estate.

It’s similar to getting the .NET domain extension instead of the .COM.  

The bottom line is, in the digital world, real estate is about the domain.  The domain conveys authority – or a lack of.  Domain affects consumer perception.  

Real estate becomes important when there are a lot of people in the same space.  Today, real estate is important on Google, Yahoo!, Bing, YouTube, MySpace, Twitter, and now Facebook.

I side stepped the desired jim.adams and lost it.  I now must settle for a second-rate domain.

No, it’s not the end of the world for me that my Facebook domain is second-rate.  I still have my most important domain JimAdams.me, which has links to all my social profiles.  But my lingering depression made me realize that if you delay in the digital world, the consequences can be enormous and irreversible.  

Speed is king, not cash.

The idea of getting the most prized real estate should resonate the loudest with Homebuilders.  The same concept holds true in the digital world.  Unlike the physical world where the best real estate comes at a premium price, premium real estate in the digital world costs very little, and is given to the quickest decision makers.  Speed is king, not cash.  The spoils of digital real estate go to the quick.  The quick also happen to be the leading visionaries in the digital world.

The Internet is expanding at almost a ‘big bang’ rate.  Much of the talk I hear today is about how to monetize social media.  The bigger and more pressing issue is getting the digital piece of land.  Get the land and figure out later how to monetize it.  Homebuilders can’t wait until everyone knows how to monetize it.  It will be too late.  I know everyone has less money and fewer personnel.  A marketing person that knows the digital world is a homebuilder’s greatest asset to selling homes in the year 2009.

Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory.com

NHD Buzz just got better. We just added an RSS feed link to each NHD Buzz user account.  This means that all Buzz stories posted by a unique user can now be fed into any RSS feed reader (i.e. iGoogle). RSS feeds are becoming an increasingly important way to filter out noise on the Internet and have the content YOU want, delivered direct.  You will now see an RSS billboard logo on the right of each user page.  To view an example, active adult communities by Epcon Communities now has its own RSS feed.

RSS feeds can also be fed from one site into another for display purposes. So if your company won't let you blog, you can use NHD Buzz as the blog and you can stream the RSS feed into your website as a way for your consumers to view updates on your new home communities.

NHD Buzz has evolved from soley a search engine optimized PR site, into a blogging platform also.  If you're a new home sales or marketing professional and your company is not yet comfortable with you maintaining a company blog, you can use your NHD Buzz account as a blogging tool.

Stay tuned.  You will soon be able to update your Twitter and Facebook account when you post a Buzz story!  Because Twitter and Facebook are becoming critical tools to reach out and connect with our consumers, I felt like this was the next critical development to NHD Buzz.

I'll keep you posted on its development.

NHD Buzz continues to permeate the Internet with relevant home building news that consumers are looking for.  Stats for May 2009 show almost 6,000 visits, from 3,032 search terms.  Here is the May 2009 search term list NHDBuzzStatsMay2009.xlsx (29.41 kb). 

Some notable searches include:

ryland model homes
ryland homes in rochester ny
hovnanian homes
luxury penthouses
tustin cottages
henley on hudson
edgebrook glen
roosevelt collection

and all of our favorite - penthouse model


Jim Adams - CEO
New Homes Directory.com