Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Keith Levine on November 13, 2010 at 12:11pm

Hi Hamish! I don't know the discussion of which you speak. If a listing is in a paper use the QR code and tour link in the print. It is the newest technology and i hear it referred to as "scanning". I have had no know success with Neybor. Quite the opposite in fact. The setup out of the tourbuzz site gets you in position to pay money for the syndication. That is where people balk and get mad. Then without paying your stats are one hit wonder stats and that looks really bad! So it really depends on how you measure success. For me time off is! K

Permalink Reply by Alan Pinstein on November 13, 2010 at 12:49pm

For a long time TourBuzz customers begged us for syndication, claiming that customers in your market were asking about it. Maybe it's a market-by-market thing?

The funny thing with Syndication is that everyone wants it, but truth-be-told it isn't that valuable. Being 1 of 6 million listings on Trulia doesn't generate a ton of clicks.

But of course to the seller, it's important that their listing be "out there" on every site.

Neybor also allows you to input many more details about the property, including Neighborhood information.

We just released a big upgrade to the integration between Neybor and TourBuzz, and we hope that you try it out a bit so we can get more feedback on the program.

We will also be adding in the capability to show both Property information and Neighborhood information from Neybor right on the TourBuzz tour as well, which I think will be useful. Many of you have asked for more property details on TourBuzz.

Permalink Reply by Shelby Green on November 14, 2010 at 9:18am

Hamish,

Where I am, if I cannot not syndicate the listing like all of my competitors are doing I would not be able to generate business. Why should an agent use my services when the national competitors, whose names they all know, will put the listing out to all the aggregating sites like Trulia etc. to create perceived extra exposure. Here, if I do a tour and the listing does not get posted to those sites very quickly by the listing agent, another agent will pick up the listing with the nice tour and post it to Trulia, Google Base, etc. under their own name using the IDX version and a tiny credit to the listing agent that no one can find. There are many agents who think there is some value in being on those sites.

Alan is right those sites don't generate a lot of clicks, but the seller wants to know everything possible is being done to market their property. I have had agents say to me "The seller tells me that his neighbors listing with a tour done by so and so is up on Yahoo or Homefinder. He wants to know why his property is not up on those sites since I had a virtual tour done." The agents I talk to are aware of the syndication sites on the Neybor list and they are very aware of what the competitor is offering.

Neybor is an extra tool you can use. I am not charging anything "extra" for the syndication. It is built into my price. And I will say that two of the national competitors have recently started charging extra for syndication. They did not lower their price when they did this.

Permalink Reply by Hamish Tear on November 14, 2010 at 2:40pm

Shelby and Alan,

I agree with all of this - I was just wondering if somehow what TourBuzz offers has any more value to it than what competitors are offering. I am also aware that Realtors are perfectly capable of syndicating to those sites themselves - so it's really no big deal to them right now as they have time on their hands.

However, I am currently offering my services much more to rental companies and private rental owners. They generally don't know anything about those real-estate-centric sites. I have been trying to establish a 'value' for syndicating rentals out to those sites - because they are largely connected to the MLS listing - which is of course not relevant to rentals.

So - yes - I am trying hard to show any added value to using TourBuzz over others and unfortunately not finding it.

Incidentally - Hotpads inquiries come in to MY e-mail account and not the realtor or home owner. That's a bit of a pain - can that be corrected.

Thanks,

Hamish.

Permalink Reply by Alan Pinstein on November 14, 2010 at 4:31pm

If hotpads emails are coming to you it's likely b/c you have it set up wrong. Can you send me the links to both the hotpads and neybor listing that this is occurring on and I will look into it?

Admittedly until this week it was very tricky to set it up *right*. Should be much easier, if not automatic, now. Make sure the "Role" on your account profile is set to "Photographer" and not "Agent".

Permalink Reply by Tim Ray on November 10, 2011 at 8:01pm

I would like more information on this as well.  Not many people here ask about it, and it seems that simply getting the tour submitted to our local MLS' makes the tours show up all over the internet.  Is there a place to find out where your local MLS will "syndicate" to vs. where Neybor sydndicates?

Tim

 

Permalink Reply by Alan Pinstein on November 10, 2011 at 9:10pm

You'd have to ask the local MLS.

Syndication used to be a much bigger deal, but most MLS's and even most large brokerages (especially major national brands) are already syndicating and their feeds "win" over anything tour providers can send.

Permalink Reply by Nina Everitt on February 9, 2012 at 10:47am

Do the automatically generated statistics of "views" sent by Tourbuzz to the Agent include viewings of the unbranded MLS listing when the Agent uploads the tour to their local MLS or are the statistics only of Neybor & associated links? 

I have been assuming that anybody who looks at the Tourbuzz tour from anywhere (branded, unbranded, mobile) gets counted, but an agent asked and I want to be sure of my answer.  I also assume that if the Agent only uploads photos, not the tour, no statistics will be counted from those.

Permalink Reply by Nathan Strauch on November 15, 2011 at 11:47pm

I agree completely with Alan.

Most MLS systems are syndicating to the major RE portals as part of their normal offering to Agents for using their service.  One of the companies that MLS's use is called "Listhub - Listing Management." 

Most of our competitors, while they may syndicate listings without the help of the MLS, they are duplicating the efforts that the MLS is already doing.

The other thing to mention about this type of syndication is that, for the most part, the sites that your listings are submitted to are fairly obscure.  This being said, it's highly unlikely that the agent is going to get a lead from the vast majority of these sites.  The main benefit of having your listing on these sites is the SEO value for that listing... and of course any links that are attached to it.  (i.e. your virtual tour)

The real value is by showing your clients how valuable Social Media can be by learning it yourself and then showing your clients what to do and how to use it.  This is the type of syndication that generates the most qualified and sincere leads and will put you in the lead as a resource that they can't live without.