Zoomf Blog - UK Property Blog.

Missy Caulk, an agent in my old hometown of Ann Arbor Michigan, has posted a great presentation on why you should blog as a property professional. One thing to take away is that blogging should not be thought of too specifically using the term ‘blog.’ What I mean is that a blog is simply website content. Content that is a easy to create and update. Having good content on your website should always be a priority. That is if you want people to stick around and learn more about your business beyond just seeing your ‘property list.’

So if you’re still on the fence about installing on blog inside your website, then this might prove inspiring. Thanks to Missy!

As we’re always talking about how important a blog can be to the property
market, it’s only fair that we tell you about some of the options out there. Below are three systems we’ve reviewed that we can recommend.

TUMBLR

Tumblr.com is probably the Fisher-Price of blogging systems. You can be live with your thoughts in under 5 minutes with your own unique URL like londonagent.tumblr.com. It has some great features for making it easy to use and is a nice way to ease into the idea of blogs.

Pros -

1. So simple. If you can’t get this running then we will assume that email is also a new concept for you
2. Clean. With limited functionality, you have to try hard to not make it work but this means that the interface is a couple hours to get to mastery level.

Cons -

1. It is not as custom as you would like.
2. You lose the control of having your own system to manipulate.

WORDPRESS

Wordpress is one of the oldest and most used blog systems out there. The Zoomf blog is built on Wordpress and we’re very happy with it.

Pros -

1. you can install it yourself onto your current domain
2. the application is free
3. has all the bells and whistles you might want including an army of open-source programmers who are constantly creating more plug-ins and upgrades to the platform

Cons would be -

1. you have to install it yourself (you might need technology help)
2. you’ll have to invest some time in understanding the interface

TYPEPAD

Typepad is another older blogging system. The reason it is included here is because it has a hosted platform so all your install headaches go away.

Pros -

1. Credit card is all you need
2. Lots of templates for a custom look feel
3. Lots of online help resource

Cons -

1. Loss of control as you are using software as service model

Hope this helps.

In an amazing turn of events (that we hope we’re influenced), leading estate agent Chard is now blogging about the property market. According to our databases that makes two in the UK :

1. Brightsale
2. Chard

If you know of any other agents starting to embrace the blogosphere, we’d love to hear from you.

After all my whining that I wasn’t at Connect yesterday, I almost felt as though I was there thanks to the marvels of Twitter. Anyone that also wants to stay on top of the action should track the tag ‘#icsf‘ over at Summize, that way you won’t miss a tweet.

Zillow’s Drew Meyers has already written up a great post summarizing what went down at one of the morning panel sessions yesterday, the best gem to come from it seems to be from Linda Davis who (quite rightly) chimed…

“If you have a crappy business, a blog isn’t going to help.”

And whilst everyone is playing with real estate trading cards and getting excited about blogging at Connect, Trulia seem to be releasing their very own blogging platform. As reported by our gorgeous friends at AgentGenius, Trulia are (very quietly at this point) releasing their own blogging platform for agents that’s not a million miles away from what we’re used to seeing at ActiveRain. Is this going to crazily shake things up over in the US? We’ll have to wait and see. The usual concerns surrounding SEO and ownership of content are being aired in the comments sections of various posts covering the story but one thing is for sure, Trulia’s got consumer traffic…and tonnes of it.