by Matt Gerchow
In this era it is pretty much a given that you want to be on-line.
After the initial internet businesses of the early 2000’s, people have been reluctant to say the least with regard to investing time and money into any internet strategy. Free email like Gmail and Online fax services like eFax and ringcentral are two of the only business models to survive in into the new generation.
The new technologies have put the power back into the hands of the individual. Although big companies have booming voices backed by millions of dollars in advertising, people tend to believe the individual that reviews a product or service over the huge advertising campaign. And with large corporate entities defrauding the public on the stock exchange, who can blame them?
Just what is Web 2.0?
If you are like most people, Web 2.0 is this foggy new concept that leaves you with more questions than answers. In simplest form it is a broad concept that covers all of the websites that are bringing the new technology to market. These new sites allow a greater manipulation and distribution of content than ever before.
What that signifies is we now have the ability to communicate with thousands of investors swifter than ever before. Messages can be passed along throughout the Internet with an ease of publication that has never before been seen. Investors can make a few clicks and all of the content from one author is put out on your site every day without any extra time invested. Copy and paste a few lines of code and you now have YouTube videos running on your site rather than on YouTube.com.
Many, many strategies and sites fit the Web 2.0 description but the basic necessities are creating a personal blog and having profiles on the various social networks like MySpace, Facebook and Real-Estate-Investing.com. You can also do social bookmarking, article writing like the one you are reading now, download mobile phone applications and so much more.
How can one use Web 2.0 techniques when doing real estate investing? One obvious way is the total number of people you will be able to reach. If you have knowledgeable things to say, you will be stunned how many people will pick up your blog and post it directly on their website.
Once you have built yourself as an authority in your market, people will begin to contact you for available deals and possible purchases. In the end, exposure means money. Your friend down the street may be a smarter investor than you but when a potential client Googles “real estate investing Seattle, WA” does his name show up or yours?
So how much does all of this cost? That’s the greatest part, almost all of it is free. While this might not be so good for the companies providing all these free services, it is definitely great for you and your expanding business. Now people like yourself can express their opinions where they might have never been heard before. You will have to invest a little bit of time but anything worth while usually takes a bit of that. A few hours per week or a few minutes a day, either way it is still not a great deal of time.
Spend a few months creating content for your websites and I’m sure you will become more efficient and find it to be no trouble at all. Best of all, once you create the content one time it remains on the internet for years to come. Careful though, this can be a double-edged sword. Make sure you are comfortable with the entire world reading whatever you write.
After the real estate crash people have been searching for unique ways to approach the market. Even though the strategies may not be completely cut and dry, Web 2.0 and online social networking are the clear winners for the new direction during this down market.
About the Author:
As we all know
Real Estate Investing can be a difficult business. You have to network with the very best to get the best deals. Before they start a membership fee, grab a free lifetime membership with
real-estate-investing.com and start a blog, take a look at some articles and meet a few investors in your area.
Technorati Tags: foreclosure houses, money real estate investing, Real Estate, Real Estate investing, real estate investing guide, real estate investing tips, web 2.0, work at home