For 15 years, Inman News has been recognizing the Nation’s best of the best real estate-based companies with, what has proven to be the industry’s top honor awards to those who have proven to be both technologically and innovatively sound in their applications and business dealings. This comes in the infancy of Tech Savvy Agent’s life, since they have yet to crest their one year anniversary of being founded. Past award winners have included Google Maps, Curbed.com, ActiveRain and Altos Research.

Tech Savvy Agent has certainly proven that the philosophies and strategies are not only highly effective, but now award-worthy too. Co-Founder, Chris Smith, explained his insight as to how they reached this milestone so swiftly, by saying it was “ultimately due to the entire team’s passion, drive and dedication to what they love to do.”

The team at Tech Savvy Agent comprises of Co-Founders, Chris Smith and Stephen Pacinelli, and Lead Contributor, Suzanne Roy. Smith and Pacinelli both have been speaking in front of thousands of Realtors across the nation over the past decade regarding tools, social media, online marketing and techniques that Realtors can take and use on a daily basis within their respective businesses. Roy has owned and operated her own real estate virtual assistant business,V.A. Work, over the last 8 years, providing up-to-the-minute online marketing, blog design and social networking services to Brokers and Realtors alike throughout North America.

Smith, Pacinelli and Roy created Tech Savvy Agent after it became apparent there was no true resource available for Realtors to go to, to gain relevant and reliable tech news, tools and tips of the trade. By utilizing these free tools, Realtors are now able to take their businesses to a whole new level and become a “Tech Savvy Agent”.
# # #

Utilizing your social networking profiles (and pages) to benefit your real estate business and generate revenue is a staple requirement in today’s world.   Simply creating a real estate Facebook Fan Page, LinkedIN profile or ActiveRain account will bring you little return to your invested time.  However, there are some amazing tools that can be utilized to make your social networking sites work wonders for generating new business, one of which is the Facebook application called Static FBML.

Static FBML and Contact Forms

One way to gain new leads is by having opportunities to allow visitors to reach out to you via Contact Forms.  A FREE way to add a completely customizable and professional looking contact form on to your real estate Facebook fan page can be done by an online form creator at JotForm.

Here’s two bonus features that you should include when creating your contact form:

1.   Customize where they will land once they submit the form.

You can customize where your new lead is taken to depending upon what they answered within your form.  For example, if your form is offering weekly market reports for foreclosures, short sales, and bank owned properties, depending on which option they chose in the form will determine which website they will be sent to after pressing the submit button.

This states that it is a “Thank you” page, but you can actually send the lead to any website page you want:

You can have as many different options as you want when it comes to where you send your new lead, which makes these forms absolutely incredible!

2.  Notification Emails for Teams / Brokers

If you work in a team environment or your real estate fan page is run by a Broker, you can have email notification emails sent to particular team members/realtors based upon the information provided within the contact form.

For example, if you have an agent that solely works with foreclosures, you can set up a notification to only be sent to that agent with the completed contact forms information:

You’ve just gained some great knowledge of how you can optimize the number one social networking site to bring you more leads and subsequent business – So make the most of this free resource!  And remember it is available for you to use not only within your real estate Facebook fan pages, but within your websites and blogs too!  Go crazy!!

Often we hear that the concept of using Facebook to gain business is lost on Realtors and the opportunity is brushed off as unimportant.   However, more and more tech savvy agents are beginning to embrace the true potential of what real estate Facebook Fan Pages have to offer them and their businesses are thriving from this amazing social network.

One of the factors that comes into play with anything we put our efforts into is where is the proof that this actually works?   Well, there’s good news – traffic on your real estate Facebook Fan Page(s)  can be tracked the same way you (hopefully) are tracking your website and/or blog traffic.  By implementing Google Analytics into the backend (edit) section of your Fan Page, you will be able to track daily the type of traffic you are receiving and in turn utilize that information to increase your return on investment (ROI).

Being equipped with information to back your continued efforts just makes business sense.  So with this in mind, here’s a step by step guide on how to set up your Google Analytics within your real estate Facebook Fan Pages:

1.  Set up Google Analytics with a New Profile

If you don’t have a Google Analytics account set up yet, it is free and simple to put into place.  Assuming you already have one created for your website and/or blog, you will now need to create a new profile for your Facebook Fan Page.   Simply copy and paste your Facebook Fan Page URL (domain name) into the space shown below.

After you press continue, a new screen will appear and you will be given some code.   The first code (Tracking Code) will look something like this “UA-15302856-2“.  This is what you will need to create the tracking code on your Fan Page.  Keep this code handy and click the “Save and Close” button at the bottom of the Google Analytics screen.

Now, here’s the important part.  You will need to complete a separate form to create the special fbml code that Facebook requires since they do not allow javascript in their pages.    God love ‘em!   Following is the link to the form you will need to complete:  http://ga.webdigi.co.uk/

and below is what you will need to add to this form:

Once this is done, you will then be given the special fbml code that can be placed within your fan page.

2.  Add fbml tracking code to your Fan Page

By using an app such as Static FBML, you can now copy and paste your own generated code into your Facebook Fan Page.  Should you want to track visitors to your custom real estate fan page, for example, you would add this code either to the top or bottom of your existing FBML code for that custom fan page.  Alternatively, if you were to track the traffic coming to and from your Wall of your Fan Page, simply click on the (add) on the Box, and it will be added to the wall.  To change this setting, click on “Application Settings” within the edit section of your fan page, under the FBML that you would like to create as a box.

3.  Check Your Analytics

It takes about 24 hours for Google to begin tracking your analytics on your newly created profile, so check back the following day to see if it has begun.

Now you are all set to really keep tabs on the traffic you are getting on your Facebook Fan Page.  Just as your Google Analytics tracks your visitors location, entry points, keywords used to find you, etc., this will also be available within your Facebook tracking profile too.  By leveraging this inside information, you’ll be better able to focus on your efforts and get a better handle on your ROI.

Need help?  We’re here for you!  Click on the Live Chat box (to the upper right of this page) and speak with one of us right away.  If we are offline, we’ll be sure to respond to your message you can leave there too.