Awesome TED Talk on the Hidden Influence of Social Media

Wondering if investing in social media marketing is valuable? This video may influence your thinking. You see, social media has proven to be far more complex than simply posting and hoping to get a lead. Social media, which facilitates social influence, is extremely powerful and here is why.

When we engage in social media, those we are connected to are our connections. Generally speaking, our connections are people we know, do business with or have some reason to be connected to – there is some common ground.

Our connections also have connections, those are our second connections. If we have common ground with our connections then it is likely that there is some common ground with a large percentage of our connections’ connections. Now the connections of our second connections are our third connections and, while the bridge is now wider, these connections are still relevant.

Someone who likes something you have shared may influence and thus expose someone in their network to you. Look at new linking abilities on Facebook - now when you post a listing to a real estate group for example, another person who thinks one of their connections may be interested can type their friend’s name into the comment, raising awareness of the listing to their friend.

This TED video is a very cool share that discusses, at a very high level, just how much influence exists through social media. We hope you enjoy.

Interested in looking at new ways to market your listing digitally? Check out ViMO www.myvimo.ca 

2015 Top Mobile Apps for Real Estate Sales Professionals

One of the most exciting thing about mobile apps is that they turn our tablets and smartphones into veritable control panels where there are literally limitless things that you can do on the go. Since the explosion of mobile apps, developers and companies have come out with so many amazing industry specific apps that do so many different things. In this spirit we have compiled our list of Top Mobile Apps for 2015. 

Mortgage Calculator – As a real estate sales professional, if a client is serious about making an offer on a property they many need you to quickly crunch the numbers – not only what the closing costs and terms of the offer will look like but also what kind of mortgage payment they will be looking at.

CamScanner – In the ongoing plight to go paperless, the CamScanner app turns your smartphone or tablet’s camera into a scanner. You can use this app to quickly scan and transmit documents on the go.

Dropbox continues to be a favourite app of professionals across industries because it enables you to store your documents in the cloud, and to send and receive large files. This app is also really easy to use.

Magic Plan, this app is currently only available on Apple products like the iPhone and iPad. Using this app you can take snapshots of rooms using a digital guide which can later enable you to produce floor plans that even include dimensions. http://www.mevvy.com/articles/must-have-apps-for-real-estate-agents-and-brokers/#sthash.fgZEMcZ6.dpuf.

Now, there were a number of favoured apps for doing things like accessing neighbourhood demographics, electronically signing documents, collaborating on documents, maps tools, etc… but each performs limited tasks and last year ViMO was launched which eliminates the need to clutter up your tablet with all these apps when you can do all of this and more in ViMO.

ViMO was launched in 2014 and is a mobile app for real estate sales professionals that enables real estate sales professionals to: market listings, access property and neighbourhood information, create electronic documents, send and receive documents and collaborate with clients, colleagues and other professionals and more – it is a complete tool for real estate sales professionals who want to drive new business and wow their current clients.

We hope you have found our review of 2015’s top mobile apps for real estate sales professionals helpful! Haven’t tried out ViMO yet? You can take it for a test drive by visiting www.myvimo.ca. 

Is Your Year Shaping Up Like What Was Predicted in this Globe and Mail Video?

This Global News video was released on the eve of 2015. In the video, Mark Savalle, real estate blogger and sales professional and Preet Banejee debate whether renting is better than owning in the current market and then later make predictions about what the real estate market in Toronto will look like.

Mark predicted that the year would start strong and that if there was no increase to the lending rate that it could continue that way, making 2015 another huge year for Toronto real estate. Preet concurred and was of the opinion that, with no major disruption in the economy, 2015 would be a strong year for the Toronto housing market.

Now, these predictions were made before the price of oil dropped to all-time lows, along with the Canadian dollar and before anyone knew that the Bank of Canada would then react by dropping Canada’s lending rate – with the big banks following suit shortly thereafter.

It is now May and we are almost halfway through the year – we ask you, how is your year shaping up?

For more on the Toronto housing market please visit www.myvimo.ca.