FloorPlanOnline Top Secret News

FPO has been known as a leader in the Virtual Tour industry since our release of the very popular and often imitated Interactive FloorPlan Virtual Tour.

While some spent the last year reducing service and raising prices (or closing doors altogether) Our Development department has grown and we've had our nose to the grind stone. Thus we are preparing to release some really cool new tools, features and one gimmick. (hey gimmicks are cool too!)

We've already released our new Mobile Tours - Tours that can be viewed on your Palm, Blackberry and iphone etc. and ...we didn't charge a cent for it - they are included on each tour! Send a link to your phone or type it in the browser to try it out www.floorplanonline.com/1100 (it will look like a normal tour if you click it on your computer)

FloorPlanOnline also released the Social Media tools that are built into each tour and allow ANYONE to tweet about a listing, or post the pic and link of a home on their facebook page with one click. (this has received way more attention from our clients than I thought it would)

Our Get connected program helps agents learn to use Social Media in their day to day marketing - and focuses on TAFFY. (just ask and Ill tell!)

But the REALLY cool stuff is right around the corner. If you will be at Rebar Camp San Diego, or NAR 2009 in November give me a shout - Ill buy the beverages and you can be the first to know.

Twitter DM (Direct Message) Basic Tips

Twitter launched a built in tool that makes private conversations on Twitter possible. Most people use Twitter for comments and questions that are relatively public. Tweets can be seen by followers and easily found when searched. Sometimes you may not want the world to know about your tweet, and it is intended for one single person - like "Billy, Do you want to meet at Goose Island Brewery after work for a beverage?" Twitter created Direct Messages (known as a DM) to be a private tweet that is not seen by all your followers. In a way Twitter DM's are more like email than Twitter. You still have to limit your message to 140 characters, however you can save delete or privately respond like a good old fashioned email.

DM's are easy to use. When you write a tweet that is intended for one person include a "D" to start the message followed by the persons Twitter name and then the message. So my example from above looks like:
"D @billyblob Do you want to meet at Goose Island Brewery after work for a beverage?" The message will be privately delivered to Billy. I would improve the message and include a link to Goose Island Brewery, so Billy can learn more about the place. @gooseisland is the Goose island Brewery twitter name, so I would insert it in to the direct message like this:
"D @billyblob Do you want to meet @gooseisland after work for a beverage?"

There is a second way to send a Direct message that may make the process more easy to use. From your twitter page, click "Direct Message" on the right side of your screen. You will see the words "Send _______ a direct message". A drop down box at the top of the screen that allows you to select individuals from your Follow list. Select their name and enter your message, then click "send".

Following all your direct messages can get a bit tricky using the simple but effective built in Twitter tools. To manage my twitter Ive been using Tweet Deck or @tweetdeck. Its a quick Download at http://www.tweetdeck.com/ that allows you to view messages in movable columns. I follow my DM's in one collum, my mentions (where someone includes @fpo in a message) in another and then can track trending topics or conversations in several other columns. Tweet Deck allows for easy to follow DM tools. Simply mouse over the avitar (photo) of whom you wish to DM, look for the envelope icon (it is the icon for a DM in Tweet Deck) to pop up and click it.

Try posting your FloorPlanOnline Tour to Twitter using the blue "T" button at the bottom left of the tour. Send a DM with the tour link to the seller, so they can share the tour link on twitter with their network!

If you would like to test your new DM skills, Tweet a direct message Hello to D @FPO
Tweet ya later!

New Active Rain Blog Post

I wrote a Post for our Active Rain Blog that talks about the National Association of Realtor Expo and compared it to a new type of event called a "RE BarCamp".
It also talks about Social Media, and how companies are marketing to Agents to get their business. Do Agents need a carrot to buy, or would they prefer to search on their own and make an informed decision?

Facebook and FloorPlanOnline - How to get Social Media to work for your Tour

FloorPlanOnline has empowered and enabled all of its top of the line interactive tours with Twitter and Facebook (and many many more Social media sites)
Each FPO tour has built in buttons that allow buyers, sellers and Agents to post, tweet and share listings with friends.

Try it out your self - Here's how in 3 steps and 22 seconds:

#1 Click this tour link

(you may want to check out the great room and deck views of the lake by clicking the red icons)

#2 Then look to the bottom left of the tour for the Facebook "F" logo - and click it!

#3 If already in facebook, it will let you type a comment, or it will ask you to log in then comment - then click"Share"

Call, Tweet, Post, Poke, Friend or Write

There are lots of ways to contact FloorPlanOnline these Days. Here are some channels and tools you might find helpful:

Twitter
Weve been on Twitter for 2plus years - at first it was just a way to test new tools for agents - now our clients and homeowners can post listings and comments to twitter!

www.activerain.com/Fpo
Active Rain is the Social Networking site for Real Estate Agents. We work with agents in this community to help them Market homes more effectively online. You might want to snoop around the Active Rain community to investigate Real Estate related questions.

www.facebook.com/floorplanonline
Just like Twitter, we joined Facebook for the fun of it - and now agents, homeowners and friends can post floorplanonline tours to Facebook - and comment on the listings!

www.floorplanonline.com
Just our Sales Website - but it is packed with info about our Two types of tours, limitless service and record setting client care team.

FloorPlanOnline Phone Number
Yup - we still have one, give us a ring during business hours for real live people. 866-810-3816

How to Buy a Home

Here is a video I thought you might like:



How to buy a home

Kris

5151 55th Ave S, Seattle, WA

Check out this cool tour in Seattle. You too can easily embed a tour into a blog post. It is as simple as copying and pasting and adding some explanatory text.

You can use Blogger (blogger.com) or Wordpress (wordpress.com), both of which are fee and have some easy templates to use.

Embeddable Tours are Here!

We have launched our embeddable tour feature. Right now it is in "beta" form (works but some issues). While we do support 3 different sizes of the embeddable tour, the floorplan image is not optimized for all. That is one fix. The other is for Photo tours, it embeds the photo gallery vs the WalkThru Video. So, we are working on those fixes. You can change the button colors and you can include a button for the full tour, which will give the user all the bells and whistles, including the branded tour with your info on it.

It works basically the same way you embed a YouTube video into a website or blog. So as long as your website supports embeddable objects, you just copy and paste and position your text around it. This blog post shows you how it would look on your blog, for example.

Interactive FloorPlan - Click Cameras for Photos!


As part of the embeddable object tool, we even allow you to change the colors of the buttons and text on the buttons, as well as show or hide the button to the Full Tour. This is great where you want a teaser of the the floorplan or video, but want the user to see the full tour, complete with your branding and contact info.

Buyers Love FloorPlanOnline!

We recently received an email from a potential buyer moving to Rhode Island. She is currently living in Europe where her husband is an Officer. We had to share it with you, because it really shows 1) people are starving for more and better listing content and 2) FloorPlanOnline can provide it for you!
__________________________________________
Dear FloorPlanOnline,
I am not a real estate agent, I am simply looking for a house online (I'm currently stationed overseas). I just had to tell you that in my opinion your product deserves 5 stars. Reviewing hundreds of listings the past few months has been challenging to say the least but whenever I come across a listing with your product attached - it's always a more positive experience from a
potential buyer's point of view. Your product takes only a few seconds to download compared to your competitors. If I WERE an agent I'd use your product.

So good job FloorPlanOnline, I wish you continued success.
~ Deborah Alves

Press Release: Agents Go “Virtually Hands Free” with FloorPlanOnline

For Immediate Release

Agents Go “Virtually Hands Free” with FloorPlanOnline

July 15, 2008 – Today’s Real Estate agents are required to have a strong working knowledge of a wide variety of digital tools in a seemingly decreasing amount of time. The time many agents plan on marketing a listing can get wasted simply loading and stitching photos for a virtual tour. Then there are flyers to design, videos to post and blogs to write – and today’s sellers want it all done with a very high level of quality. From Flyers to FloorPlans, Virtual Tours to Videos - FloorPlanOnline can save agents time, stress and money with “Virtually Hands Free” Premium FloorPlanOnline Tour Products.
“Today’s Agent wants the best for their clients, but there simply is not enough time in the day to manage it all. Even with an assistant, time spent on marketing can spin out of control.” Says FloorPlanOnline CEO, Kris Cone.
Kris Cone, CEO, Michael Rahmn, CTO and Chris Drayer, Central Region Sales Manager, will be demonstrating the exciting “Virtually Hands Free” concepts from FloorPlanOnline at the Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco, July 22-25 2008 at Demo Station #D10 on the second floor of the conference.
FloorPlanOnline has a nationwide Service Provider network (available in most metros) that can not only professionally photograph, but measure and create a floor plan rendering from your existing listing. The FloorPlanOnline Production Department then edits the photos, digitally recreates the floorplan rendering and builds the Interactive FloorPlan Tour with outstanding features such as the WalkThru Video, Mapping, Flyers, Viral Marketing and “built-in” tracking and reporting.
The Interactive FloorPlan Tour gives the online viewer the opportunity to see all the key features of the property via a detailed floor plan which names the rooms, gives room dimensions and shows key features. Buyers can click on camera icons in each of the rooms to view the photos or view the “WalkThru” tour of the property – a video set to music from a library of over 200 songs. “Agents should not let today’s technology get in their way” Says Cone. “We really are making today’s online marketing Virtually Hands Free.”
Visit with FloorPlanOnline at Demo Station #D10 at the Inman Connect San Francisco Conference to learn more about this cutting edge technology.
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For additional information and to schedule an interview with Kris Cone please contact Chris Drayer, 866-810-3816 x110 or chris@floorplanonline.com