Posts Tagged ‘Intero Cool Apps’

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Cool Apps: Get Real-Time Intelligence on Who’s Reading Your Tweets

By John Thompson | January 27th, 2012 0 Comments

One of the coolest aspects of social media marketing is the ability to test, measure and gain real insight into your efforts. There are a ton of free tools and apps available that can help with this. This week’s Cool App is a free Twitter analytics tool that lets you see which of your followers are online now so you know who’s likely to see your tweets.

SocialBro is a plugin that works with Google Chrome and Adobe Air. It gives you a nice overview of your Twitter community – enabling you to see who’s influential and who’s not, and sort them into lists accordingly.

The latest update to the app adds a real-time feature that enables you to see which of your followers are active (which clues you in to who will likely see your tweets), the number of active users each second, the apps they’re using to tweet from, and the languages they’re tweeting in. These are all interesting insights, but the most useful is the window into which of your followers are active, which enables you to segment, tailor and target the content of your tweets.

In addition, you can also focus on a particular Twitter list or search term – like “Silicon Valley real estate,” for example, and learn a bit about the people who are tweeting about that topic. This too can help you segment, tailor and target the content of your tweets for more effective social marketing.

SocialBro considers a user “active” if they’ve tweeted in the last 5 minutes.

Other notable features and uses of the tool include:

  • Easy follow-back tools that enable you to efficiently and strategically follow people back
  • Discover who has unfollowed you
  • Discover the best time to tweet
  • Discover who isn’t following you back
  • Discover influential people who follow you
  • Organize followers into lists
  • See your followers on a map

Check out SocialBro for the intelligence you need to effectively use Twitter for your real estate business. You can download the app from the website for free.

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Cool Apps: ‘If This Then That’: Recipes for Success

By John Thompson | January 20th, 2012 0 Comments

If you’re doing a lot of online marketing for your business, you’re probably pushing out a lot of content to your followers. How to keep track of it all? Especially when it’s coming from apps, social networks or even directly from your phone.

Try ‘If This Then That’ (IFTTT), a simple tool that can help you keep your to-do lists, social networks, pictures, RSS feeds, and other tools you use in sync with each other.

How it works: Check out the IFTT website, sign up for an account and start creating your commands. You can either choose from the more than 500 different ones users have already created and shared, or you can create your own (and also share them).

Here are a few uses for your business:

  • Store photos. Using Instagram to take and share neighborhood and other cultural photos? You can set up an IF This Then That that automatically pulls your photos off Instagram and saves them to Dropbox or another file storage system you may be using.
  • Maintain web consistency. You can have your Twitter profile pic every time your Facebook profile pic changes.
  • Be prepared for the weather. You can have If This Then That text you when the weather calls for rain.
  • Track your online conversations. You can archive your Tweets to Google Calendar, keeping a record of what content you pushed out by day.

The best part about IFTTT is that you can create your own conditions, or “recipes” as long as they use one of the 35 different services and apps that are currently supported. Check out the existing recipes here.

If This Then That is still in beta, but it’s free to sign up. Give it a test drive and see how you can automate and streamline your online life a bit in 2012.

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Cool Apps: Get it Done in 2012

By John Thompson | January 13th, 2012 0 Comments

With New Year’s Resolutions comes great accountability. Yeah, right. If that were true, we’d be the fittest, smartest, most motivated, wealthiest and generous people on the planet. We’d be nearly superhuman.

But really, why set goals or take aims into the future without intention to take the first and follow-through steps necessary to get there?

Try iDoneThis, a simple “accountability” app that simply asks you via email: “What’d you get done today?” then tracks your answers and tells you what you’ve accomplished. Seeing strides made yesterday can motivate you to forge ahead even stronger today and tomorrow.

What is this good for? iDoneThis can help you get things done. Simply.

A regular process of aim-do-reflect is the ultimate productivity weapon. By keeping track of what you’ve done, you can learn and build on it throughout the year. And let’s face it, New Year’s Resolutions are worthless clichés if not acted upon. That makes us human, but that also can separate the movers from the nonmovers.

To try this app, visit iDoneThis.com and create a login. You will see your calendar, which you can start filling up with things you accomplished today. Then at 6 p.m. Pacific time every day, you’ll receive an email asking you to respond by listing what you got done today. Both the accountability and the sense of accomplishment can go a long way in filling your list the following day.

Change your email settings if you want to set a different time of day and frequency for receiving your reminder emails. You can also set the time and frequency of your memory emails, which give you a roundup of the day/week/month’s accomplishments.

Another cool feature is that you can export your data as a Google Spreadsheet, Excel file or text file. This way you can access your data later (and if the website ever were to stop operating).

Olympic athletes train this way – tracking their workouts, drills and nutritional intake, then using the information to make informed improvements. This is a tactic that could be very useful in improving your business in 2012.

Check out iDoneThis for free online.

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Cool Apps: Easily Find Out Where Your Twitter Followers Are Located

By John Thompson | January 6th, 2012 0 Comments

If you’re an agent who’s really putting a lot of thought and time into your social media presence and marketing, ask yourself one simple question: Do you know where your followers are?

It’s a valid question – especially considering your business, real estate, which after all is all about location.

That’s why I like this cool little app called Tweetsmap. It analyzes the data your followers have in their bios (many will include or allude to location) and plots the information on a Google Map so you can visualize where your network is located.

To use Tweetsmap, visit tweetsmap.com and give authorization for it to access your Twitter network data. The data will very quickly begin to display on a Google Map. You can zoom in to see the locations that follow you most based on Country, State or City. You’ll get percentages of where followers are most concentrated.

While this app won’t change the way you use Twitter to find or consume content, it can help you determine how effective your Twitter marketing efforts have been so far. For instance, if you sell real estate in Silicon Valley, yet 80% of your followers are in other locations, it could mean one of a few things: It could mean that many of your followers are potential relocaters looking for local real estate information in anticipation of a move. Or it could mean that your efforts are not really working as you’re not attracting the folks you should be – those who are in or near your area, prospects for future sales.

Twitter is constantly evolving. To use it without periodically stepping back to get a bird’s eye view on what you’re doing would be a vast waste of time. Tweetsmap is a free and simple way to get some simple, key data on who it is you’re talking to when you share content on the social network. Following up on that data with conclusions and a change of course if needed is the next step to making your efforts work.

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Cool Apps: Send Out Cards and Intero Foundation Offer Easy, Unique Client Follow-Ups

By John Thompson | December 16th, 2011 0 Comments

Save time. Save money. Stay connected. Differentiate. Help at-risk kids in need in the process?

Welcome to the partnership of Send Out Cards and the Intero Foundation.

Founded in 2004, Send Out Cards has grown into the third largest online greeting card and gift company. While Hallmark still remains the leader, it does so mainly with a “bricks-and-mortar” approach.  Hmmmm, I have heard this analogy before.

Send Out Cards recently added an iPhone app to its offerings, giving users the ability to send high-quality, two-panel cards immediately from their iPhones for just over a $1 (which includes First-Class postage). This is a great deal compared to cards you buy in the store.

Imagine taking a photo of a seller’s house after your first appointment, and having them receive a thank you card with a customized picture of their home on the front, sent First Class that same day with just a few clicks. You can even include your customized handwriting and signature!

Send Out Cards has also jumped on the QR code bandwagon, allowing you to send a video along with your card by simply including a QR code. This should make Mother’s Day a bit more modern – that is as long as Mom knows what to do with a QR code.

Automate mailing campaigns with a simple upload of your database, make personalized calendars/photo books/and vision boards, send postcards/tri-folds/or oversized 8.5 x 11 cards(one of my favorites that stand out in the mail), and choose from hundreds of gifts to send. The options are robust, and they have something for everyone.

The final hook? With the structure of this company and Intero’s arrangement with them, you can join at a wholesale level and Intero will pick up close to half the cost. Every time the service is used, a small portion gets donated back to the Intero Foundation. The kids win. You win.

You can try it out for free at www.sendoutcards.com/InteroFoundation, or contact our representative, Kim Hunter at (650) 948-1610 or khunter@factpoint.com.

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Cool Apps: Share Your To-Do List and Get Things Done

By John Thompson | November 18th, 2011 0 Comments

To-do list apps are a dime a dozen in the Android and iTunes app stores – but I’ve discovered one that has a particular great use in real estate transactions: Any.DO.

Any.DO currently is available only for Android devices, but will soon be available for iPhone and as a Web app. What makes it unique is that it takes the to-do list and makes it social. Why would you want to share your to-do list? Because in a real estate transaction, we all must do our part to ensure things get done on time.

Many agents may already be using a transaction management system, which can offer similar features to Any.DO. But Any.DO is great at just being a social to-do list – no more, no less. It’s not meant to manage the entire transaction (and frankly, shouldn’t be used like that). That is its beauty. Life is a series of tasks, and this helps you cross them off your list each day.

Any.DO could work well for keeping clients on task in what they need to do, and it could also work well for agent teams who split the work on several different transactions. Teams can enjoy a simple way to divide and conquer, and always know what’s been done, and what’s pending.

Cool features:

  • Type or use voice recognition to dictate your tasks into Any.DO
  • Drag and drop tasks right into your agenda
  • Organize tasks by date, folder or priority
  • Sync with Google to see all of your tasks in email
  • See to-do’s right from your home screen
  • Set reminders
  • Share to-do’s with clients, colleagues and vendors
  • Get notified when shared tasks are updated

Any.DO is easy to use and simple because it lives right on your phone, but also syncs to your inbox if you’re using Gmail. There’s never an excuse for not getting things done anymore when it’s all right there in your pocket – and sending you reminders of what’s due.

Any.DO is available for free in the Android App Store.

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Cool Apps: Google+ Rolls Out Pages for Businesses

By John Thompson | November 11th, 2011 0 Comments

The long-awaited “business” version of Google+ is now here! Google launched “Pages” for Google+ this week to extend the connections we make on the company’s social network beyond people to now places and also things.

I know what you’re thinking: Gee, I already have a blog, a Twitter handle, a Facebook profile and a Facebook page for my business. Do I really need yet another page for my business to plug into yet another social network?

It’s a fair question.

It’s worth pursuing a new page on Google+ for your real estate business because:

  • This is Google we’re talking about, a 500-pound gorilla when it comes to the web. Google has shown this year that it’s pretty serious about social networking and seems to be determined to invest heavily in Google+ to keep it relevant, innovative and essential to the social web experience of the future.
  • Google also announced “Direct Connect” from Google search as part of the unveiling. That means that Pages in Google+ will now be found in Google search results, allowing people to connect directly to businesses.
  • Google is a beast when it comes to search. The majority of the world now searches on Google, which means you want to be there to be seen by folks seeking out the services you offer. Some say the business opportunity is far greater here than with Facebook because people searching on Google are in the frame of mind to research and buy things or services. People on Facebook, on the other hand, tend to be there to socialize with other people, which is a totally different motivation and much harder to connect to from a business perspective.

Convinced? Google has a page set up for creating Pages at https://plus.google.com/pages/create. If you don’t already have a Google account, you’ll have to set one up first. The page will then walk you through the process of locating your business and building its page.

For a little inspiration, check out these pages that are already up and running:

The Phoenix Suns
Burberry
Toyota

Google+ Pages presents a great opportunity to connect with consumers who are searching for real estate information in your neighborhood online.

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Cool Apps: Manage All Your Cloud Storage Accounts in One Place

By John Thompson | November 4th, 2011 0 Comments

Cloud storage is probably the most amazing technological advancement since the smartphone. It enables mobile professionals like real estate agents to ensure anytime anywhere access to important files, which makes the fire drill situations that can come up a lot easier to handle. But, if you’re like me and using a few different cloud storage options, you may actually have created a layer of complication that no longer needs to be there.

This is where Joukuu comes in. Joukuu now has a web app for accessing multiple cloud storage accounts all in one place. That means that you’ll be able to manage files you have stored in Google Docs, Box.net and Dropbox in one place rather than having to chase things down under each account. (The service also has plans to support Sugarsync, Huddle and Skydrive in the near future.)

Not only does Joukuu offer easy management for yourself, but it also encourages more cloud storage collaboration among colleagues and clients because now you can use whatever system you or they prefer and still have the convenience of managing it in one spot with all your other files.

Joukuu currently offers its web app and basic Windows desktop app for free, but also has a more sophisticated version for $59.99 that enables more folder management and an unlimited number of accounts. The catch is that to be able to use it with multiple accounts (which is the whole point!), you can first try a free 14-day trial, but eventually would have to pay to upgrade.

To use Joukuu, just visit the website and join or download to get started. I suggest trying the free web version first to give it a test drive. Once you’ve got an account set up, you’ll need to grant access to all of your cloud storage accounts. Then you’ll be able to search, share files and edit them across your various accounts right from the app.

If you’re not a cloud storage super-user, then Joukuu is not going to be worth your time or money. But if you find that you’ve got files scattered across Google Docs and a few other major services, then it’s worth checking out the free trial to see whether Joukuu can help you add some order and (even more) convenience to your cloud storage.

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Cool Apps: Meet Your Hands-Free Virtual Assistant, Vlingo

By John Thompson | October 21st, 2011 0 Comments

Because agents spend a lot of time behind the wheel, and because agents are super busy human beings, a personal voice-controlled virtual assistant would likely be a miracle to many agent ears. For new iPhone 4S users, there is of course the anticipated new Siri app. But don’t fret, Android and Blackberry users – you also have similar options.

The most notable option is Vlingo, a free virtual assistant app that can send SMS messages and emails, make phone calls, surf the web, find local businesses, and launch applications – all using natural language.

Vlingo’s speech recognition is quite good, rarely mistaking contact names or commands. The main point of this app is hands-free living, which translates to more productive car rides that are less life threatening. The practical scenarios:

  • Safe texting while driving. Instead of risking an accident to get your message out with your thumbs, you can concentrate on the road and dictate your message to Vlingo.
  • Find directions while driving. OK, so you probably have a GPS, but for the small percentage of agents who don’t, this is a handy time-saver as you can get directions without having to pull over and type it into your phone.
  • In a rush to an appointment, but want to get a message out to a client? Hit the road and dictate it to Vlingo as you’re on your way.
  • Let people know you’re running late without texting while driving or wasting time on the side of the road calling or texting them.

What Vlingo does not do, though, is command within applications that aren’t voice-control enabled. In other words, you can launch a specialized app, but wouldn’t be able to control it using Vlingo. This isn’t that big of a deal breaker, though, considering that most of the hands-free commands you’d need to perform would be messaging, calling, or surfing the web in some way – and all of these are covered by Vlingo.

Vlingo is available for iPhone, Blackberry and Android. To get started, go to http://www.vlingo.com/download and choose your provider.

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Cool Apps: Lemon Organizes Your Expenses In the Palm of Your Hand

By John Thompson | October 14th, 2011 0 Comments

As independent contractors, real estate agents know all too well the importance of tracking business expenses. So if you’re the type who shows up at your tax preparer’s office every April 14 with a shoebox full of receipts, then you should try Lemon, a free mobile app that can track your receipts and expenses on the fly.

Yep, say goodbye to rumpled pieces of paper. Better yet, say goodbye to that ugly feeling of knowing you forgot to keep your receipts and track them. Lemon is available for iPhone and Android users and has the potential to remove a lot of that tax time stress when trying to go through expenses.

How it works:

  • Snap a photo of your receipts using your smartphone’s camera, or email your online receipts to your @lemon email account.
  • Lemon organizes and stores your receipts online, so you’ll never lose access to them.
  • Tag and search your receipts online using your Lemon account.
  • Never lose or forget a receipt again!

Besides regaining some sanity over out-of-control accounting, Lemon provides the following benefits:

  • No more scrambling to find receipts and organize business expenses.
  • Simple interface: Some other apps will take your expense tracking even further, but Lemon’s simplicity means you’re more likely to use it regularly.
  • Lemon creates graphs to show you where your money goes (something we may not want to admit we don’t know much about, but we’re human after all).
  • Give merchants your @lemon email address and Lemon will prioritize what needs your attention (meaning you can count on less spam from these merchants because you won’t have to deal with it).

Sounds awesome, right? Now, if only it cooked and folded laundry.

Download Lemon in the iTunes or Android app store.

Good news! If you like the sound of this app, but aren’t using an Android device or iPhone, Lemon’s creators say they’re working on a version for Blackberry and Windows phones.

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