@tcar can you link me to the # of buyers who started their search online in 2006? Thanks!

— Chris Smith (@Chris_Smth) February 1, 2012

NAR creates a yearly Profile of Homebuyers & Sellers with this information. If you’ve ever heard an industry pundit saying something to the effect of “90% of all homebuyers use the Internet in their home search” it’s thanks to this question asked in the report:

So Chris, in 2006, the number was 80%. Now it’s closer to 90%. However, I think this is a more interesting stat:

2011 is the first year where those surveyed did not choose the real estate agent as the source for where they found the home they purchased. The Internet is now the top spot.

Joshua Dorkin – @jrdorkin
@tcar Your Twitter account is going insane posting old blog posts . . .

Chad Huck  – @ChadHuck
.@tcar is blowing up the timeline!

Drew Meyers – @drewmeyers
@tcar what is going on with your feed?

Bob Wilson – @bob_wilson
@tcar polluting my stream with ancient posts

innahamedia – @innahamedia
@tcar holy cow you are prolific today:-) Jacked?

Maya figured it out…

Maya Sabot Paveza – @mayaREguru
Guessing @tcar is moving his wordpress blog… Lol someones gonna be locked outta twitter #igotthetshirt

Yep. I was moving a bunch of old posts from a site I created way back in 2007. Unfortunately, I had a plugin activated called Twitter Tools that autotweets all my new posts. My Twitter stream blew up. for a couple minutes, then Twitter locked me out. I’m very sorry about that folks. My bad.

Meanwhile, my  friend Mary Pope Handy reminded me how great a lot of those old posts were. There’s more than 50 interviews with some of the best real estate bloggers around. Check them out. Most  of their advice and perspectives still apply today.

Ric Dizon – @RicDizon
@nik_nik What hashtag is being used for NAR? #NAR #Narpediem #NARAnnual #NARAnaheim #NAR2011

I’ve also heard #aNARheim, but that’s a good list.

Nicole Nicolay – @nik_nik
@RicDizon I believe the hashtag is #NARannual…but we could check with @tcar and see what he prefers.

@nik_nik is correct! Follow the conference on Twitter by searching for #narannual. Or better yet, stay tuned to narconferencelive.com for more.

During my trip to DC this month, I was lucky enough to meet with the FTC and discuss proper disclosure practices in social media with several Fortune 1000 companies. Simply enough, if there’s a quid pro quo between two parties, it’s perfectly fine, as long as it is disclosed.

These rules don’t apply to a single entity’s quid pro quo with it’s own agenda. Not legally anyway. And maybe not even morally. But I’ve always believed in showing people where you sit before you tell them where you stand. If you have a bias, disclose it.

If you’re a real estate agent, and find an online discussion abut the housing market, disclose it. It makes your argument stronger, not weaker. It makes you genuine. It’s the first step to regaining our credibility as an industry. People that don’t agree with you will still respect you for being frank.

In conversations about real estate, I feel it’s important to disclose my bias. I work for NAR. That doesn’t mean I speak for NAR, or agree with everything NAR does. It means I have a bias, and I’m disclosing it. Now let’s talk about the issues.

When real estate agents ask me for examples of other agents killing it online, I give them Mariana’s name. But the thing is, there’s really nothing all that remarkable about the things Mariana is doing online. It’s HOW she does them.

What Mariana does, is not 100% repeatable. You may not be as good a writer, as persistant, as smart, as personable or as funny. Or, you may be smarter, or more persistant… you’re probably not as funny though, sorry. My point is, we’re all beautiful snowflakes and whatnot. Mariana’s (or anyone’s for that matter) path to success holds no guarantees for you, and her failures may not be roadblocks for anyone but her.

I see a lot of social media experts/bloggers/futurists or whatever out there telling people that Plan A is the only way skin a cat and that Plan B can’t work because it failed for them. Hogwash. I’ve met agents that get business from Yelp, or attending Tweetups, or shhhh… hosting open houses! Are these the roads to a successful career for everyone? No way. But don’t spend to much time blindly following one person, or discounting the other. Good ideas come from every nook and cranny.

“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”

One of Ford’s original goals was to build a car his employees could afford to buy. A good deal of his success came from trying to motivate other people by looking for ways to help them as much or more than they could ever help him in return. He even went so far as to say,

“An idealist is a person who helps other people to be prosperous”.

Henry Ford was amazing. Frankly, most blog leaders are not.

I have hosted two group blogs myself, but I’ve also written for other group blogs. I currently write for REALTOR@ Magazine, and I wrote for Inman News for about a year. I write for REALTOR® Magazine because they pay me to (I work for NAR). But most blogs don’t pay money, because they don’t have too.

When Inman invited me to write for them, they only offered influence as payment. That was enough for me. Influence opened other doors of opportunity. Influence introduced me to other influential people. Influence lead me to where I am today. My experience at Inman was worth every minute. The influence they paid me probably earned me far more than any monetary payment ever could have. But even then, influence payments have diminishing returns. A year with Inman was awesome. Another year? Nah. Not for me. Even with Inman, one of the most influential voices in the industry, other opportunities awaited.

Most leaders of blogs only pay in influence. For an upstart blogger, writing for another, more influential blog, is a good way to earn some of that influence. But eventually, that blogger comes to the realization that they are a big part of the reason why the group blog is influential. The influence transitions from a payment to a tax. Each writers influence, helping the blog, more than the blog helps them. At that point, the contributing blogger only has one reason to stay. It’s their willingness to be amazing. To help the group blog prosper, knowing that a pay it forward attitude can be good for them in the long run.

The only problem (and I was guilty of this myself running lenderama) is that the blog owner tends to let the success of the blog boost their ego. They believe the success of the blog has more to do with them then the people writing on the blog. They are not amazing. They don’t wake up every day thinking of ways to thank their writers. They don’t look for ways to help them. And eventually, most of the bloggers that make a group blog great… leave.

I’ve found that even if you do everything right (like Inman did), many of your writers will still want to leave. The thing to do then is to THANK them, again and again. Hope that they look at their experience on your blog as a positive experience.  Hope they will tell a promising, up and coming blogger about it. Because, if you can’t replenish your blog with writers that are just as great as the ones who inevitably leave, then not even Fonzie can save you.

You should never think of the people who write for you as contributors. They are your guest, and when the wedding is over, at least send them a thank you card. You owe them far more.

Ferrari uses a transparent engine cover on many of its cars. What they are saying is that the car is so beautiful in every aspect that we’ll show you the inside. In fact, we’ll showcase the inside. It’s a bold styling exercise, and a smart execution of “transparency”.

The reason I like it so much is the controlled fashion in which this transparency takes place. You see, I bet the radiator, transaxle, and other assorted parts aren’t nearly as sexy as those induction manifolds. So Ferrari wraps them in a beautiful cover. While the best of what’s below shines through.

Transparency is not the naked truth. It’s the little bit of what’s inside of you that you want to share with the world. Showcase what makes you great and spare your followers the boring, the mediocre, and the downright ugly stuff.