The Robot

Last week I attended RETSO (#RETSO)  – Real Estate Tech South in Duluth (Atlanta burbs), Georgia.  The conference was extended to 2 days this year and was jam-packed with the best real estate thinkers and speakers in the country.  This was not a RE BarCamp, but a well organized and tightly scheduled conference.  Organized for the third year by Brad Nix, Matt Fagioli, and crew, RETSO is a top-notch event.

Just before I left, I read Chris Garrett’s post, Why I Sucked at SXSW So You Don’t Have to, which I am archiving to read before attending any future conferences.  Chris gives some good pointers about do’s and don’ts and how to get the most out of tech conferences. STOP NOW and read it, if you are planning on attending any type tech conferences or BarCamps.

So, I am not going to do a play-by-play of the conference, and I am not going to write about the social/networking events (what happens in Duluth stays in Duluth).  I don’t need to list all the Cool Kids – they know who they are.  I will just do a stream of consciousness summary of my notes.  I didn’t include links, but you can Google anything that looks interesting.  I got lots of useful ideas.   Maybe you can pick through this and get some too:

Nik-Nik and the Social Media Dance

URL on Twitter profile should land on thank you/call for action page with contact information
Jeff Turner– wake up and smell your brand; your brand is you and what you deliver; conversation without content is clutter; you don’t need a social media strategy, you need a strategy that includes social media;  thecadmus.com and neoformics.com for trends and analytics
YELP presented by Brian Copeland – open your YELP for business owners account; Yelp=chamber of commerce 2.0; Yelp widget at widgetbox.com; take framed copy of your review to the reviewee; keep it local; use YELP Facebook app
Ricardo Bueno – whoopra.com; visistat.com; animoto.com; wistia.com; tubemogul.com; apture.com; socialaddict.com; gist.com; dlvr.it {useful sites for the SM/tech inclined – you look ’em up}  Best WordPress Plug in Find: mobilepress (automatically reformats your blog for mobile
Jeff Turner – Transparency is for amateurs.  transparency rhymes with trust;
Mike Simonson ALTOS Research – what real estate customers want:  What’s for sale?  How much is my house worth? How’s the market?
Video master, Brian Copeland, on Video – video for home tour, neighborhood tour, buyer-seller info, feature selling, fun, private.  Camera:  Flip; next step up Sony with external mic-ing. Shure or audiotechnics lavalier mics on Amazon. Lighting- Sears Craftsman work area lights, cover with wax paper, use indirectly; Software:  Windows movie maker, Sony Vegas;  Video hosting: Youtube, bright code, picasa, tubemogul.   Music-be careful about copyrights, no lyrics, musicbakery.com, royalty-freemusic.com.  Keep videos <3minutes; <2 minutes even better.
Nicole Nickolay – Nik-Nik – goal setting and planning,befriend-listen-engage-share, find your voice, embrace your uniqueness, every day is an opportunity, less is more, give your computer a break, listen and learn, use social media CRM- gist and batchbook.

Well, there you have it.  I am already looking forward to next year!

Everything was just peachy at RETSO