I was asked today what to “do” with Real Estate Shows once they’re made. They had ideas for what Shows to make, just not how to use them effectively.

I answered: You can put them ANYWHERE.

Let’s see:

• You could embed your shows on your website, following the instructions under “Show Links” from your Manage and Edit page.
• If you have a blog, don’t forget to put it there, too!
• You could email them to your Sphere of Influence just as a link or embedded into a newsletter.
• Use a link to your Presentation Show in your email signature so it goes out to everyone you email.
• Burn it on a CD and give it away at Open Houses.
• Use the shorter form (found under Show Links) in print ads.

If you have other ways to use your Real Estate Shows, please share them in the comments below for the rest of us!

Thanks!

I am so loving my new Tabs!! Have you played with yours yet?

My website has a link to my inventory list of my Real Estate Shows. Before tabs, all my Solds were nice and neat, but the Active Listings were a mess! Sure my listings were in there, but I love making Shows of EVERYTHING. And all my public shows were just lumped in that one category together.

I loved showing off more than just listings, but I hated sending people on a Hide and Seek game to find what they were looking for.

Aaah! Now I have TABS!! Organization! My Shows are all in neat, easy to find rows. BEAUTIFUL.

Also, those lovely little tabs are inviting everyone to see what else I have to show them. I love my community, and that Community Tab gives me a great way to direct people to some of the things I find so great about my little corner of the world.

Miscellaneous Shows sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? I’m hoping someone will think, “What the heck could that be?” They’ll click my little tab and find Shows on staging, why they should hire me, why NOT to hire someone else and even a little Desktop Vacation. Won’t they be glad they clicked that tab? (Go ahead and take that Desktop Vacation, you know you want to!) )

There is also a tab for Personal Shows. That tab doesn’t appear in my inventory list because my personal Shows are just that, personal. But if I choose to share a personal Show, I just just check that “Viewable in Other Shows” box and BOOM! — that tab will activate and be there as another choice.

To choose where your Shows should be, just click on that nifty little drop box to the right while you’re in Manage & Edit. As soon as you click, there it goes where it belongs! (If only cleaning my desk were so easy … )

It’s nearly insane that a little thing like tabs is making me so happy, but I love them! I have exactly the same Shows I had a couple days ago, but now they are all sorted in their proper categories. It actually looks like I have MORE Shows because it’s easier to find what you’re looking for.

Thank you, Real Estate Shows!

Coming Soon To RealEstateShows.com!

We’ve had syndication on our upgrade list for some time and we’re now ready to let everyone know about it. Many of our clients have told us we should add an easy way to push listing information to more sites than just Realtor.com, Homes.com and the MLS.

We agree. We want to be your resource for promoting and distributing real estate listings. When this update is complete, getting your listings out to sites like Google Base, Edgeio, Trulia, Oodle, Craigslist and more, will be as simple as pressing a button. And Shows of all types will be able to be broadcast via RSS feed as well.

When released, each Show you designate will have its own web page. We are still designing the page templates and ironing out the code, but we hope to have these new features launched in the next 60-90 days.

Stay tuned. We’re excited this. We hope you are too.

We have completed our private beta tests.

You will now be receiving the code for the Embedded Player in each linking email that is sent when you create a new Show at RealEstateShows.com.

All Shows may now be embedded.

You can also find this be clicking on Manage And Edit Existing Shows from the main menu of your account. There is a “Show Link” button for each Show you have created. Click on that link and you will be taken to a page with all of the available links for that Show, including the embed code.

Please remember, during this beta phase you will not be able to change the size of the player. So if your space is smaller than 500 pixels, you will need to wait until official release.

If you experience difficulties, please email us.

Realtor.com offers two kinds of programs to real estate agents, Basic and Showcase. If you are a Showcase Listing Enhancement customer of Realtor.com, there is no charge to link your Show to Realtor.com. This is part of the upgraded features in the Showcase package.

However, if you are NOT a Showcase Listing Enhancement customer of Realtor.com, then a $25 fee is required to upgrade that listing with a Show. This is a one time fee PER LISTING, for the life of that listing. Realtor.com charges this fee to all of their Picture Path Partners (all “Virtual Tour” vendors), not just RealEstateShows.com.

We collect this fee via credit card at the time you decide to link. You are not REQUIRED to link to Realtor.com, however, those who do link to Realtor.com notice a significant increase in the number of views on their Shows.

Shows posted to Realtor.com enjoy a distribution that extends well beyond Realtor.com itself. All featured tours are distributed throughout the Realtor.com Distribution Network. Sites in REALTOR.com’s® Virtual Tour Distribution Network include national real estate portals such as Homes.com and Homeseekers.com; national franchise brand sites such as ColdwellBanker.com, Century21.com, ERA.com, PrudentialRealEstate.com, RealtyExecutives.com, and REMAX.com; hundreds of regional and local broker and office sites; and numerous affiliated agent sites.

[tags]realtor.com, showcase, featured tours, virtual tours[/tags]

It’s a common question we get, “Do you provide MLS compliant links where all branding is removed?”

To that we say, “of course.” Non-branded photos and shows are required for broker reciprocity agreements. The fully branded show can be linked everywhere else you advertise your listings, such as Realtor.com, your personal website, Craig’s List, etc.

Each time your create a Show at RealEstateShows.com, you are sent a linking email. That email contains all the links you will need, including two different MLS compliant links. There are two because different MLS systems require different levels of “strictness” in how they want content presented. All branding is removed from MLS compliant Shows. Here is an example.

You can see all of the links to any Show by logging into your account and clicking on the Manage And Edit Existing Shows link. Once there you will see a list of your Shows. To get to all of the links for any Show, click on the link that says “Show Links.”

The Show Links page contains all of the links available for the Show.

[tags]MLS, links, IDX[/tags]

Because we allow you to create as many shows as you want, even shows
that may only be for personal use, you have to tell the system what
shows you want Internet viewers to be able to see when they are looking
at shows they find during their home searches. From your main menu,
click on Manage & Edit Existing Shows. This will take you to a list of your previously created shows, your My Real Estate Shows page. Then, check the box next to Viewable In “Other Shows”
for the listing you want Internet viewers to be able to see. This will
add that Show automatically. See the graphic below:

In this example, the top Show can only be viewed by those who receive the link via email or who link directly to it. The Show on the bottom now appears in the “Other Shows” link of all of this user’s Shows.