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Jason Fried of 37 Signals Speaks On: Marketing By Sharing

I’ve been working with Tony Dove and Scott Sisson over in Anaheim Hills, California, to overhaul their community website, www.AnaheimHillsLive.com.

The idea of Anaheim Hills Live is to provide a unique online resource for the residents of the community, stocked with all sorts of information to help them with their day-to-day needs.

During the “real estate boom,” REALTOR®-sponsored community websites were sort of a dime a dozen. Agents could buy a template, throw in some keywords, and attempt to make the website a lead-generation tool without seeming like one at first glance. I’m not sure how that worked for people who used the templates as-is, but there you have it.

Tony Dove’s vision was always larger than that. While he makes no secret of the fact that he is a local real estate professional, he has worked with great diligence for nearly 5 years to make this particular website all about the community. Using the resources that were available to him at the time, he stripped out as much of the template features as possible (especially lead-generation) and really made the platform his own. It’s not about him — it’s about the community where he works and lives.

The branding throughout the site coincides with a community financial website that he also sponsors, his real estate website, and his overall marketing materials. He also has a page about who he is and why he’s sponsoring the website. But that’s where the “real estate connection” ends.

The rest is a compilation of resources that a member of the community would want to use on a regular basis. Planning a trip? The Transportation page approaches travel resources from the perspective of someone who lives in your neighborhood. Planning a weekend out? The Recreation and Entertainment pages give you local options.

Anyway, the site is in need of an overhaul — partly in design and partly in content. We’ve been working for the past year on deciding how to best do that. Over the next year we hope to successfully complete a remodeled Anaheim Hills Live, and I’m excited to see how it turns out.

One of the projects in our overhaul is providing a directory of businesses in the Anaheim Hills area, called “Preferred Providers.” Scott, in particular, is working on going out into the community and speaking with business owners to get them on board.

We’ve recently completed pages for a few local business owners, and we’ve got several more lined up to have their pages added. It’s slightly more of an intricate process than it seems, but then the best projects usually are.

This past summer, I decided I wanted to look at homes in the Hollywood Hills for inspiration. I had just watched a Clint Eastwood movie starring William Holden (“Breezy,” it was called) and I felt an urge to look at homes set on the canyon hillsides in that part of California.

This kind of exercise often helps me when I’m gearing up for some listing marketing for a client.

Anyway, I did a Google search for “Hollywood Hills,” and one of the top results was this site – HollywoodHillsHomes.com.

And what an amazing real estate website!

Beyond the excellent search engine ranking, the focal point of the site is all about eye-candy. That, dear reader(s), is CONTENT.

Granted, I’m not exactly in the market to buy a multi-million home from the REALTORS® who run this site – Rose Ware and Terry Canfield – but I can happily look at large, detailed photos of any number of homes I would love to live in. And I have “shared” this site to several friends, who are also not necessarily in the market for a home in that area.

Seriously, click on that link above and check it out. The engagement factor is pretty much a 10.

[NOTE: I am in no way affiliated with the people who run the HollywoodHillshomes.com website.]

UPDATE: A few people who read this post told me that, because of the way I wrote it and because of what I do for a living, they expected more of an all-around “perfect” website. I will admit that there are flaws in its design and execution. So I should clarify that what I admire about HollywoodHillsHomes.com isn’t so much the overall site, but the way its Hot Properties page really draws you in and gives you an insight into what homes in the area are like.

Call me a malcontent, but now that Google Chrome is officially in “Beta” mode for Mac, I’ve lost all interest. In fact, I’ve returned to using Safari as my primary browser. In a perfect world, I think that’s all I would use.

I use an iMac as my primary computer. I wouldn’t call myself an Apple “fanboy,” as they say, but I do love the whole Mac package. It’s glossy, it’s simple, it’s fast, it’s secure… and there are a lot of little wonderful details that make life more enjoyable.

Because I work for real estate professionals, however, I cannot bask in my “I’m a Mac” elitism on a full-time basis.

Many website CMS’s and other online real estate platforms require me to at least jump into Firefox to access them – if not switch to my PC altogether to boot up the albatross that is Internet Explorer (ahem, Advanced Access!). I’ve been doing this for years, so I’m used to it.

Just about every Mac desktop application I use is somewhat compatible with its PC-counterpoint. I’ve lately switched over to iWork (Pages instead of MS Word, Numbers instead of MS Excel, Keynote instead of MS Powerpoint) because I found that their compatibility with my clients’ version of MS Office seemed to work better than when I used the the made-for-Mac version of MS Office.

As far as browsers go, I generally divide my time between Safari and Firefox. Then, the developer version of Chrome was released, and I started using it – bugs and all. I loved it. I swore to everyone who would listen that as soon as Chrome was released in Beta mode for Mac, I would make it my primary browser.

Well, yesterday it was released. And, I made it my primary browser – for all of about 5 minutes.

Then I opened Safari to start switching bookmarks over to Chrome, and I stopped. I love Safari. Was I just “over” Chrome because it was in public Beta and I no longer felt like I was living on the bleeding edge? Was I hit with a rush of holiday-induced nostalgia for the simpler times? Maybe.

But whatever. I’m back.

My name is Sterling, and I’m a Mac.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[DISCLAIMER: I am totally and shamelessly promoting a product here. I have provided consulting services for VillaMotion, I am friends with Chris Goodwin, and I stand to profit from VillaMotion's success. That being said, if you read this and decide to give VillaMotion a try, please tell them Sterling sent you! In fact, if you want to sign up with the free trial, you can use this link and I'll get credit for sending you over!]

Ladies and gentlemen, I am now going to climb up on my soapbox and shamelessly promote a product called VillaMotion.

I’ve been watching with great interest over the past year or so as co-founder Chris Goodwin (the other co-founder is a developer Chris has worked with on other projects) began with the seed of an idea and developed it to what it now is.

First… what is VillaMotion?

To put it simply, VillaMotion is a product that allows you to create your own:

• Branded single property/virtual tour websites (example)
• HTML Craigslist ads (example)
• MLS-compliant non-branded virtual tours (example)

It also integrates a feature that allows you to click and share your property website on nearly 200 “social media” websites, although you might tend to just use the main ones – LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

All you have to do – once you’ve set up your basic account – is upload the pictures and property information for each listing. The system generates all the goodies automatically.

It’s an outstanding system for the hands-on, do-it-yourself real estate professional.

VillaMotion offers three packages: One for agents, one for photographers/virtual assistants, and one for broker offices.

A Little History

VillaMotion is loosely based on technology that Chris developed for a photography business he had in San Diego.

When he moved up to Northern California, some of his San Diego clients needed a new photographer. So Chris called up one of his former competitors and asked him to take over. They got to talking, and Chris learned that there was something seriously lacking for real estate photographers – an easily manageable system that allows the photographer to set up unique websites like Chris had been doing for each of his clients’ listings.

So Chris started thinking about how he could create such a thing.

In the meantime, he and his coder took some time off to develop a platform for swim teams. Chris is an avid swimmer, so this was also right up his alley. He developed the platform (called Aquanite: http://aquanite.com) to allow organizations to manage all the things they need to manage, such as announcements, event signups, dues billing and processing, member management, and team communication.

Once he launched Aquanite, he returned to VillaMotion with that experience under his belt and thought: What if I don’t just make this for photographers, but also for individual REALTORS®?

How VillaMotion Works

I’m going to explain a little about how it works, but you’re welcome to try it for yourself. VillaMotion offers a free 14-day trial – no credit card required – so you can set up an account and play around in the back end and see what they offer.

First, you create an account. You upload your headshot, your broker’s logo and your contact information.

It is also advisable to set up your primary community pages ahead of time. Each virtual tour website comes with a community information page, and you are in charge of the content there. A simple description of the community and a photo will suffice, although you can get more creative if you’d like.

After running through your account set-up, you’re ready to go.

Simply create a new listing, upload your photos, type in the pertinent property details, save the listing, and VIOLA!

You get 3 things to copy and paste:

1. Branded version URL
2. Un-branded version URL (for posting in the MLS)
3. HTML code for Craigslist (and eBay, and Backpage.com, etc.)

There is a video help library and a text guide to getting started.

What’s in the future for VillaMotion?

I’ve talked to Chris about features he is working on adding, and here is a short list:

More Theme Flexibility – Right now there are a few themes in the “theme library.” You select one and it sets how all of your VillaMotion materials look. Until the theme library is built out, Chris is allowing his customers to have a say in the design of new themes. He also plans to add color-selecting controls, so you can make have more control over customizing your theme yourself.

Automatic Syndication – Right now you can syndicate your listings to social media websites pretty much with a click of the button. Chris is also working on automatic syndication to the major real estate search portals, such as Zillow, Oodle and so-on. Keep in mind that Craigslist will ALWAYS have to be copy-and-paste code, since automatic computer-generated posting to Craigslist is in violation with their terms of service.

In-System ‘dot com’ set-up – For the time being, you can give your virtual tour websites a custom domain (such as 123AnyStreet.com), but you have to contact support and let them set it up manually. It’s painless enough, but in the near future we can look for that functionality to be directly in the system.

What’s to lose?

If this sounds like something you’d like to add to your marketing arsenal, head on over to www.VillaMotion.com and check it out! (And if you want to make my day, use this referrer link.)

You can sign up for the free, no-obligation, no-credit-card-required trial, and you have 2 weeks to play around in the system and see just how powerful VillaMotion is.