Social Media: Huge time waster or useful business tool?

Are you on Facebook and/or Twitter?  Why?  Are you the silent observer, just watching everyone else interact?  Or do you actually spend some time engaging people, commenting on their posts and photos, or retweeting what they say on Twitter?  Now I'm certainly no social media expert, but I really think your level of interaction can make a huge difference in how people perceive you.  

Some agents I follow post nothing but listings or plugs for an open house...and these are on their 'personal' page.  Of course, you want your FB friends to know what you do, but don't you also want to give them a glimpse of who you are, to make some kind of a connection with you?  Connection is such a key element to social media.  Would you say that the more they know about you, the more likely they are to trust your real estate expertise? 

We want to feel connected to other people, to find common interests, and social media is such a great tool for doing just that.  I recently reconnected with a school mate I had not seen since she moved away in middle school.  We were great friends, but lost touch.  Eventually I was able to find her on Facebook and was so excited to be able to 'see' her again.   Now I can keep up with what's going on in her life, see pictures of her newborn baby, and you can bet if I'm ever up in Michigan I'll be planning to visit her offline.  But I feel connected to her again by our interactions on Facebook.

Below is a link to wonderful post by Daniel Beer that differentiates the social networking aspect from the social media aspect, and the importance of blending the two.   If you're not interacting and providing useful and relevant content, you're probably not going to see much return on your social networking efforts.  Interact and be a resource!
http://www.geekestateblog.com/why-social-media-doesnt-work-for-most-agents-and-what-to-do-about-it/

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. --Proverbs 27:17

Pork Chops with Cranberry Sauce

This is a new favorite in my house.  It is an awesome slow cooker recipe I found on allrecipes.com.   This is a wonderful site for finding recipes for your slow cooker.

I've modified this one slightly, but if you want to see the unedited version click here.  These are so tender and absolutely delicious!  Mash up some potatoes and fix a green veggie to go with them...YUM!

• 6 bone-in pork chops
• 16 ounces (or so) of cranberry sauce (I make my own and the recipe for that is below.  If you don't want to make your own, then I'd use 1 can of the whole cranberry sauce)
• 1/2 cup apple juice
• 2 tbsp white sugar
• 2 tbsp spicy brown mustard

Put the chops in the slow cooker.  Mix the other ingredients together until smooth and pour it over the chops.  Cover & cook on low 7-8 hours.  The chops should be tender.  Then remove them from the slow cooker but keep them warm.


In a saucepan combine until smooth:

• 2 tbsp cornstarch
• 1/4 cup cold water

Then gradually stir in the juices left in the slow cooker.  Bring that to a boil.  Stir it for about 2 minutes and it should thicken.  Add salt & pepper to taste.  Pour this mixture over the chops.
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CRANBERRY SAUCE (This is my Thanksgiving/Christmas recipe.  I cut this recipe in half for the pork chops):
Bring to a boil:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 2/3 cup water

Stir to dissolve sugar.

Then add:

• 4 cups fresh (washed) or frozen cranberries (I can usually only find the fresh right before Thanksgiving/Christmas.  Found frozen ones yesterday at the grocery store)

Bring back to a boil then reduce to a simmer until cranberries burst (usually about 10 minutes)
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BEFORE:  

AFTER:

Calculating Texas Title Insurance Policy Premiums

Have you ever been sitting with a customer and wished you had a quick and easy way to let them know what the cost of an owner title policy would be?  Independence Title Company has an iPhone app that takes out the guesswork. 

Download the FREE app (search for "Independence Title" in the iTunes store and you'll see the Texas Title Calculator) and start calculating. 
Visit our web site for more information: http://www.independencetitle.com/Applications/Texas-Title-Calculator

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. --Proverbs 27:17

Less impact

I have been reading the book "No Impact Man: The Adventures of a Guilty Liberal Who Attempts to Save the Planet and the Discoveries He Makes About Himself and Our Way of Life in the Process," by Colin Beavan http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog/.  Wow, this book is awesome.  Full of extremely interesting facts about what we are doing to our environment, and examining the question:  are we really improving our quality of life in the process?  If you've not read it, you should.  But be careful, it just might change the way you do things.

One of the things Beavan learns and discusses in the book is how damaging our use of disposable plastic bags really is.  Among other things he states that "there are 46,000 pieces of plastic floating in every square mile of ocean."  This is causing a startling amount of sea life to perish due to blocked digestive tracks.  What are we doing?!!?

I decided that our family must do what we can to not be a party to this type of destruction.  We've jumped on the bandwagon of taking our own reusable bags to the grocery store so we can eliminate plastic carry out bags at the register.  But this weekend I've started taking it a step further.  I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a seamstress.  But I have a very dear friend who is wonderful at sewing.  I enlisted her help to make reusable drawstring bags that I can take with me for produce and bulk items.  She made the first one and showed me what to do, and I made 8 more.  I am thrilled with the outcome.  I have 2 small ones for items like rice, oats, small amounts of produce.  I made 4 large ones for ears of corn, large amounts of sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or other large items.  Then I have 3 medium-sized ones for the in between stuff.  Here's what they look like:

They are made out of muslin, and are machine washable.  I just stuck a couple of them in a mesh bag and did them on the gentle cycle and hung them to dry.  No problem!  In the future if I just need to wash one of them I'll most likely do it by hand.

Of course, I had to run out to the store today and buy some things to try them out.  I estimate I eliminated 7 or 8 plastic bags in my shopping trip, between my homemade bags and the reusable carry out bags.  It'll add up!

 

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. --Proverbs 27:17

Google to eliminate real estate listings on Google Maps

Effective February 10, 2011, Google will discontinue the real estate listings feature in Google Maps.

Google LatLong: Retiring real estate on Google Maps
What are your thoughts?
Google states that the decision comes, in part, due to low usage.  Have you ever used this tool?  Did you find it useful?
Realtors: Will this affect you at all?

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. --Proverbs 27:17