Gmail has so many time-saving features.  The more I study it the more I like it!   Here's a quick list, read it over and let me know if you knew Gmail could do:

• UnDoSend ~ After composing and sending an email, you realize you shouldn't have sent it?  Or are you famous for sending an attachment, but forgetting to attach the attachment? Well now you can "unsend" an email that was sent.  You must turn this feature on.  You will find it in Google Labs>Settings>Undo Send
• Canned Responses ~ We all have repetious messages we send, answering the same old question.  For me it's typically a rental inquest.  To speed up this process I have created a "rental response" canned message, which makes the whole process easy to complete in a few seconds.  This to, must be turned on in Google Labs>Settings>Canned Responses, click Enable box.
• Nested Labels ~ Used when you want to Nest (or tier) a label under a Heading.  i.e.  Closings then have all your closing client files under it.  It would look like this:
  Closing
       Client Name
       Client Name
  Step 1. This needs to be set up in Google Labs>Settings>Nested Labels
  step 2.  IN Gmail>Settings>Labels
  Step 3.  Create Head label "Closing"  Then "Closing/Client Name1" repeat for each Client Name
  
  At first it might seem as though the "Closing/Client name1" will be too long, but the system drops the txt in front of the "/"  so it will look like this:
                  Closing
                       Client Name
• Google Docs Preview in Gmail ~ For those who are using Google Docs, this app is a speedy way to get to your Google Docs right from your Gmail.  Turn it on in Labs.
• Google Calendar Gadget ~ just like the Docs Preveiw, this priview will allow you to see your Google Calendar in a smaller format right in your Gmail screen.  Turn it on in Labs.
• 
  

Other posts about the joys of Google.

Gmail Offers a Passport to Many FREE Services

Google has a Voice and I Love It!

Relocate to Gmail - A Step by Step Story

Funnel Your Email Address Through Gmail

Gmail is brought to us by Google, with it is a packed-full warehouse of goodies in the form of apps.  In my continuing saga of touting the benefits of working in The Cloud and at the same time minimizing expenses, I've now written this step by step tutorial on how to make the move.

In a previous post Funnel Your Email Address Through Gmail I spoke of how to send all your email accounts to Gmail, thus consolidating them in one handy IN THE CLOUD spot.  I repeat for those who didn't catch the point, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO LOSE (or stop using) YOUR OLD EMAIL ADDRESS when using Gmail.

So, the answer is YES! You can route all your email addresses to Gmail and no one will know the difference (just you!).  Of course if you want to eventually simplify your life you can first migrate your addresses to Gmail and then later on close out other accounts.  Either way, the choose is yours, you decide what to do.

Which comes first the Chicken or the Egg?  Or how to I migrate to Gmail without losing my brand email...Step by Step read on.

For those who are Gmail newbies, or have a Gmail account but it's sitting dormant, this tutorial should help get you started.

First you will need a Gmail account.  Go to Google.com and get one.  Look for the Create an account link.

You will be asked your name and desired Login name.  When picking your login name, this is the part that will appear before the "@" in your new gmail address.

If you are lucky you might get your name, or you can use a "." (dot)  a number (1-9) or location in conjunction with it.

Mine is Kristal.Kraft@gmail.com, I got lucky, first there aren't too many Kristal Krafts and I also joined in the beginning when they first opened the beta.  I also have KraftyKristal@gmail.com an address that I don't use often but is fun.

Once you have chosen a name you like and one you won't mind having to type again and again, finish answering the questions and submit.  Google will create your gmail account.

Visit your account.  You will probably have a few welcome and how-to emails from Gmail.  It's a good idea to take a few moments and read them just incase my instructions differ from theirs!

The first thing you will want to do is import your mail and contacts from your existing accounts.  Look in the top upper right of your screen.  You will see a navigation bar that looks like this:

Click on the SETTINGS and then once again search on the navigation bar for ACCOUNTS and IMPORT, click on it and you will see a screen that resembles this:

 

Most people will have an email account with one of these; Yahoo!, Htomail, AOL, or other webmail or POP3 accounts.  Click on the Import mail and contacts button if you do.  (See above arrow)

You will need to know your other email addresses and the passwords.  Once that is inputted, Google will present a box for you to check the options you would like.  It looks like this:

 

In this instance I see no need to leave messages on the server. You may find it wise to do so until you are fully committed to using Gmail.  I add the LABEL of my other email address as it will show up on all my messages.  Now I can easily determine where the message came from.

The Archive box is a good thing to use if you want to ARCHIVE ALL your messages from this email.  In some cases I do that, but not in this one.  Where I do archive all messages from one email is in the event of using a particular email like my Secretary of Lone Tree Photo Club email. 

When everything looks good, click START IMPORT.  The next box you see might be a little puzzling...here it is:

I've never noticed it taking up to 2 days for my email to be imported but I guess if they say it is so it must be!

Now that you've begun the process to import your email the next steps are to create filters and to import and categorized your contacts.

Before we leave this screen, remember you can add MULTIPLE email accounts by using the SEND MAIL As:  Just click on that button and add information about your other email address.  Each time you do this you configure that email address to reply either from your gmail address or whatever address it is.  (I have 6 email addresses funneled through my gmail account! It's so nice to have them all in one place.)

So now you have created a central location to store and read your email on Gmail.  You still have your other email active so you can check to see if Gmail is pulling all your mail before you cut it off.  Now, by cutting it off I mean changing where you go to SEE your email and SEND it.

Now instead of going to OUTLOOK on your computer you will log on to Google, click on Gmail and there you will find your email.  If you are like me, this habit maybe hard to break.  It will take some patience, persistence and probably practice before you are totally 100% a Gmail person!

Next time I will write a tutorial on using Filters to organize.

 

Previous posts about Google:

Funnel Your Email Addresses Through Gmail

Gmail Offers a Passport to Many FREE Services

Google Has a Voice and I Love It!

 

Recently I wrote a post about how much I like using Gmail.  Like many people in the real estate business I've had an email address for a long time.  In fact my original email address attached to my domain of Denver Real Estate and Relocation had to be "retired" because I was getting so much spam from it all I did all day long was delete and delete some  more.

I was so sad to lose my original "branded email" but the work involved with keeping it just was worth it anymore.

But now I have a solution.  Gmail.

Gmail has been around for quite awhile now.  At first one only got an account via personal invitation.  Now anyone can have an account (or more) just for the asking!

Gmail has improved  from the beginning.  If you haven't taken a look at it lately perhaps you should! After my last post on this topic, many were concerned about "giving up" their long loved email addresses.  This is nothing further from the truth!

Gmail settings allow for multiple email accounts to be processed through gmail, and one never has to even give out their gmail address.  You can continue using your old address but enjoy the benefits, features and power of gmail!

Here's how you can set up mulitple accounts to go through gmail.  Go to the gmail dashboard>Settings (found in the top navigation bar)>Accounts and Import>Send mail as:>

At this point all you need to do is add your current email accounts.  It is necessary to know your passwords for each account.

Be sure to check the box "Reply from the same address the message was sent to" under the heading "When receiving a message:"

By doing this you never have to worry about which account you are receiving mail, it will automatically respond with your correct email address.

It gets better.

Now you can create a different email signoff for each account.  For instance, I'm currently the secretary of the Lone Tree Photography Club.  Email for the club comes directly to my gmail account.  I can respond to it and have the proper email signature attach to the club emails.  Next year when I am no longer the secretary, this email account can be assumed by the new secretary without having to notify members of an email address change.  It's all very organized and professional.

Grasp a new concept - don't delete!

How many of us delete email all day long?  Not me, at least not anymore.  Now with gmail I ARCHIVE my email.  Why?  Because with gmail I have tons of storage space.  It's not necessary to delete an email that maybe I will want to find in a week or two! 

Ah you say, But the inbox swells to thousands...

No, it won't not if you create filters to organize important emails.  Filters are like "Creating a rule" in Outlook.  Filters will allow you to have files where your emails are filed rather than letting them pile up in your inbox.  For instance I like to create a file for each of my clients.  I create a filter that sends any email directed from them to me into this file.  I know I have an email from them because there will be a number next to the filter on the left column.

To organized like filters together, I begin them with a1-ClientsName  a1-Client2  a1-client3 etc.  Of course I use real names. 

The second tier is my lead management filters.  b1-leadActivity b1-NewLead b1-ReloRequest

The third tier consists of people I communicate with daily, my assistant, broker, daughter who's in the business with me.  Basically tier 3 are the ones whos communications are directing me with items I need to act upon.

Why the tiers?  Well after first creating filters that would list in the sidebar in alpha order, I realized I wanted  more "order" to the sidebar, thus I created the tier concept.  Now when I look at my email I can glance down the sidebar to see who's sent me an email.  Clients, Prospects, Office, are my order of importance.

Yes, I have many more filters, newsletters, social media catagories, receipts, etc.  These all follow the tiers at the bottom of the sidebar.  These are filters I look at when I have the time.

If an email ends up in my box that needs to be associated with a filter, it's easy to "Move to" that filter and file the email in the appropriate place.  Now I have everything nice and neat where it belongs.

For a FREE program Gmail is very robust.  I'm strong on it of late because so much of our work is now in the cloud.  I can access my mail from any computer, not just the one sitting on my desk.

Once you start working with gmail you will see the convenience of not having to delete on multiple devices as I did for so long.  Now I do things once and I'm done with it!

Convenience and freedom are a great combination.  Give it a try and let me know what you think!

Other posts about the joys of Google.

Gmail Offers a Passport to Many FREE Services

Google has a Voice and I Love It!

Relocate to Gmail - A Step by Step Story

How To Improve your Video and Images for Higher Ranking in the Search Engines.

Acquiring SEO and traffic to your Blog or Website using great content, titles, descriptions, and keywords etc. has always been a subtle yet powerful strategy in the Blogging community.  Many new businesses and individuals don't start off blogging or creating websites with the understanding of how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works, or why it might be important to their success. In time... they learn. We all do.

In my travels around the country teaching SEO, Blogging, and Social Networking, the one thing that is least talked about or questioned is the power of video and images. You hear "Content is King" but you won't hear or learn that video and images are the most viewed and sought after items on the Internet.  Could this be one of the reasons Google has links to them at the top of every search results page?

How do you get YOUR Video and Images to show at the Top of the Search Engine Results?

Matt Cutts from Google explains a few ways you can accomplish this.  He shares some great ideas and tips on using and adding meta-data and user generated content.  The idea of using captioning in Video is brilliant!  You provide the transcripts and youtube will auto-align the text.

Creating captioning is easier than you may think, Matt and others do this on every video and I can show you how.

Matt also shares some great ideas on how to use flickr, he gives some great examples and says “it’s almost like crowd sourcing!”  Flickr has great SEO but you need to understand how to use tags, descriptions and some of the tips in this video will assist you in knowing how and why.

If you create and use your own pictures, images, or video, and you want to get views, traffic, and ultimately generate leads and business, it's important to know a few key things including the SEO tips Matt shares in this video. It's also important to know that SEO isn't the only key ingredient that gets your material found on the web. Apply the concept that "Content Is King" to images and video, along with these tips and you've won 90% of the battle.

The Google Wonder Wheel Keyword Research Tool

...is a keyword research utility that was created by Google Labs and allows users to discover keyword searches that are popular and built around certain specific keyword terms.

Google's wonder wheel could be a great tool for helping writers to find new topics. The wheel can also help you dominate specific keywords and phrases in the search engines because it helps you write about the things that are the most searched for on the web using the most popular keywords or terms.

Here's How It Works:

Create your search in the Google Search Engine, then click on the "Google Search" button:

The results displayed will include sponsored and organic links:

To Access "Google's Wonder Wheel" Click on the "+Show options" Link at the top of page:

Scroll down the left hand side of the page untill you come to the "Standard View" options and click on the link for "Google's Wonder Wheel"  Wait for just a moment and the Wonder Wheel will appear on the page.  The links coming off the Wonder Wheel are popular and similair keywords, terms, and phrases that you can now use as "Titles" and "Topics" to write or Blog about.

Each time you click on one of the spokes "Terms or Phrases" a new Wonder Wheel will load on the screen displaying even more "keywords" and popular "search terms" These can be used for creating great content and getting you closer to dominating your Blog with those specific keywords or phrases.  Go deeper and further into the possible options and opportunities to make your Blog's content the most likely to be searched and found.

This is like having a road map or blue print for your Blog.  If you use Google's Wonder Wheel for a variety of search terms and keywords that you want to be found with, this should save you time and headaches "Wondering" what those "Words" and "Phrases" are.  There's always going to be great tools out there, and promises to help get you the best SEO results, but in my opinion, this is one of the best and most powerful I have seen yet.  Thanks to Google and Google Labs for making the "Wonder Wheel" available, and for hiding it so well, it gave me a reason to write this post.

ActiveRain University - How to Use Video and Youtube to Enhance Your Blog and Business

How are you using Video in Real Estate and on your ActiveRain Blog?
Are you creating or using Video Listings, Virtual Property and Community tours?  Does your video show up on Google Earth? Can your videos make you money?  Want to generate more traffic to your videos and visitors to your Blog?  This week at ARU, we are going to be sharing some things about video and Youtube that will be very beneficial to your Video library on Youtube and your Blog on ActiveRain.

Here's a few videos I had fun creating, Can you guess which one had over 2.2 million views?
(It probably won't be the one you think...)

Video Is important to your Real Estate Business
We're going to show you some Youtube video secrets and tips and how to use some of the tools that are available.  Youtube just changed their format and the look and feel of their site.  They've added a few things and moved some stuff around.  These are just some of the ways you can now optimize your video and channel, and we'll show you how.

7 Tips You'll Need To Know and Use

•   Creating Outstanding and Unique Content

• 

    Optimizing Your Youtube Channel and Profile

•   Using Keywords Cleverly In the right places

•   Adding URLS and Proper Hyperlinks 

•   Linking and Embedding Videos Everywhere

•   Video Sharing and Youtube Settings

•   Ping Your Youtube Channel
  

•   Do's and Don'ts of Embedding Video

•   Getting Beyond The 10 Minute Video Limitation

•   Getting More Visibility, Traffic, and Views
  

Learn useful techniques on how to use Youtube, one of the Top 3 most searched sites in the world.  Grow and promote your Blogs, Websites, and Local Business using video strategies that have worked successfully for others and have resulted in increased traffic, customers, and paychecks. 

Embedding video into your Blogs and sites is just one small key ingredient to using video and Youtube.  You don't need to be an expert at this stuff, but you should know what things work and which ones won't.  Come join us for a FREE "power-hour" of creating and using Video and Youtube for your Business, this will be one of our best video training and support classes at ARU.

Register For The Youtube Video Training Class

With all the blogging that's going on around here, the photo bloggers might find this information helpful.  After posting a few Localism write ups, where I used Photobucket to make a slide show, several Active Rainers contacted me asking for instructions.

Well due to popular demand, I have prepared this tutorial on how to create and embed a Photobucket Slide Show into your Active Rain posts.

Begin by taking photos of your subject.  Process them and place them in a folder on your hard drive.  Typically I create a special folder so I can easily find it.

Login into Photobucket, it has both a free and Pro version.  At this point I only use the free version.

If you aren't a registered member, go ahead and register.

Follow these steps:

1. Upload they photos from your hard drive, click the radial box "my computer" click "Upload Images & video
2. Surf to the file on your computer
3. Pick all the photos at once by highlighting them. Upload
4. Once uploaded you need to "organize your uploads" you can move to an existing album or "add new" one
5. If you wish, you can tag and title each photo.  Tags are useful to the search engines, titles actually show in the slideshow.  It's recommended to do this but not required.
6. click "Share This" in the upper right corner.
7. The next pop up box will give you a choice to Share on the various social networks.  What you are looking for is the "GET LINK CODE" tab on the top right side.  click it

1. The next pop up window will give you a choice for the link code or EMBED Album slideshow.
2. Cut and past (CTRL C) the EMBED Album Slideshow code
3. It looks like this
   

With the code save to your clip board, place your cursor where you would like the Slide Show to be positioned.

I have found it is easier to write your copy first, when it's done then go get the code and place the slide show between your copy. (with cursor in place CTRL V)

You may not actually "see" the show until you Post blog entry as a draft or a public entry.

Note: you can also modify the show size to fit the size of your blog.  Choices are large (640x480), medium (480x360) and small (320x240) and tiny (160x160)

It this example I used the medium (480x360 pixels)

 

 

 

 

Photobucket is a great program.  As you explore you will find it has many features, from fun and colorful templates to tracking analytics on your slide shows.

Hope this tutorial helps you improve the appeal of your posts!

Social Widgets have been popular for a long time.

  We have many that track our cookies from one end of cyber space to the next.

 

New people just tuning into social media may wonder how and where to start.  I know it took me ages to figure things out. 

First there's the social MyBlogLog widget.  It tracks your digital footprints and show your picture when you visit blogs that subscribe to it.  Cheeky you say?  Maybe.  But then sometimes it's nice to let people know you stopped by even though you didn't have any valuable comment to post.  I know I appreciate the visit! 

Next are what the Active Boys call "outside blogs".  Tee hee, we all know Active Rain is the center of the universe yes?  Well anyway the outside blogs are those like Wordpress.  Ever notice the avatars there sometimes have an actual photo while others are blank?

 

How's Come They Have a Photo and I Don't?

Well if you want to show up with your picture, all you need to do is register with Wordpress.  That would be at Wordpress.com (not .org!)  When you register here, fill out your profile and upload the photo you would like for your avatar and you are all set!

 

Email Espionage

 

That's enough of tracking you, what about tracking people who contact you via email?

OK, admit it. We all know we Google ourselves. Yes, it's true.  We will even admit to Googling others, particularly the people who want to do business with us.  Well maybe not from the git-go, but eventually a thought crosses our mind and we just have to know!

Well now collecting data from others has just gotten easier! 

Chrome users who also use Gmail for their mail client (and why not it's FREE!) will be happy to know about Rapportive.  It's a plugin for Gmail users on Chrome

Here's an example of an email I received tonight.  I choose it because the person sending it has done an excellent job with her online profiles.  OK so she's the "Senior Marketing Direcctor at Metrolist" might have something to do with the fact her profile is not only good, but complete!  She sets a very good example for us, so let's copy shall we?

Note how all her information comes across nice and neat. 

• Job description
• Twitter @ and her stream of Tweets
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Flickr
• MySpace
  

If I didn't know Melissa, I could easily investigate her and see what's on her mind of late.  What a great way to strike up common ground with a person you want to affiliate with correct?

Now some will say this is an invasion of privacy or spooky or whatever.  Take note, all of this information is out there, all Rapportive did was aggregate it for our convenience.

Look it over and let me know what you think.  The program was only released just recently and of course like everything new it has a few bugs.

What it's making me think about doing is revamping & updating all my profiles.  If I'm going let it all hang out there it might as well look good!

Active Rain came to town! 

The room was full of people last week when the Rain Gang showed up.  They came armed with T-shirts, goody bags and a ton of great technology tips and practical applications for them.

This day wasn’t for the weak of heart, the information came with the force of a fire hydrant unleashed on a hot summer’s day.  No one complained we just wrote as fast as we could taking notes and hoping against hope we could remember it next week!

The excitment of learning is not the only attraction at Rain Camp, it's about getting to meet people you've never met in real life before. 

Anyone who spends their time on social networks will know this to be a fact, when you finally meet for the first time someone you've been reading or chatting with, they hardly seem like a stranger.  It's more like a big, happy family reunion.  Everyone is hugging and laughing and having a good time. 

So Raincamp goes like this, you arrive, stake out a place to sit then go find people you want to meet.

When the session started there was hardly time to take a deep breath, there was so much information coming at you it was hard, really hard to keep up.

Most find the best way to deal with it is to grab what they can and let the rest pass.  There will be time to fill in the blanks later, as what we did catch will take plenty of time to impliment, so why stress!

 

Here’s my Top TEN Tips from RainCamp:

1. Brad Andersohn’s presentation on the Top FREE Real Estate Tools 2009 http://slidesha.re/2rHprP
2. Find out what influencers are talking about on Twitter, use Klout
3. Active Rain now has a University where each day there is another interesting presentation you can tune into from the comfort of  your chair!
4. Agents are still using Archtelecom to capture leads with success
5. 74.1% of the population is  now online, 32% spent their spare time on the social web, 94% home buyers are between 24-44, 32% found their actual home online.  If you aren’t online you don’t exist. (I said that! So Google Me already!)
6. Ben Kinney is a real Pain you might want to friend him on Facebook and find out why. (hint, he sells a lot of real estate)  Ben likes to SaveAWorm  Facebook is really about building community and marketing your listings (not so much!).
7. Save time by syndicating your posts to go from one network to the next. Then all you need to do is show up and respond to the comments.
8. Twitter is a great way to prospect for leads, if you know how to set up searches. Geo chirp
9. Feed your website to Wordle, it not only gives you a cool looking graphic, but you can see what words you focus on. Hopefully the consumer and not egotistical you!
10. Build your brand, become and live the Purple Cow
    

Rain Camp will come back again soon.  They plan to branch off into other specialties so it's not always about social media.  The thought is next time we'll talk REO's or FSBO's or some current topic that will bring another fire hose of new ideas that come from actual practitioners and not some trumped up, sales trainer who never actually sold anything (at least in this millennium). 

Just bringing that up because I'm oh so tired getting fed the same old hash and rehash.  Give me fresh ideas, today's learning is about colaboration, community and sharing.  We know the business, now we want to learn how to leverage the tools of social media so we can provide better service to the consumer while keeping our sanity.

Raincamp was a good experience for me.  It exceeded my expectations, and I can tell you I've been to many industry events of the course of my years, I don't say that lightly.

Thanks to Jonathan, Bob, Brad, Lauren and Ben.  You out did yourselves, here's a pat on the back!

kk

P.S. After the session, @Mizzle was spotted taking the Purple Cow concept all the way! Go Mizzle!

How To Create and Use iFrames and Tables on Your Blog

Last week I promised to create a post explaining how to add iFrames and tables to your Blog posts.  Instead of making this a long drawn out technical "How To" tutorial, I decided to make it really easy for those of you interested in using this feature.  It is HTML based and does require a little HTML skill, but I think the way I'm about to show you will totally simplify the process and keep you from losing your sanity! lol~

The hardest thing you'll have to do is switch the tabs at the top of your New Blog Post from "WYSIWYG" to "HTML"  then you'll just need to copy the code onto the HTML page where you want your iFrame to appear, then save it.  Can't make it much easier than that. So let's start with the iFrame. The purpose of Adding an iFrame to a Blog post is so that you can share a large amount of information in a very small (customized) space.  Maybe a website, or an interactive page, or even an entire Blog for example.

Here's an iframe of a site I'm sure you'll all recognize. :-) (updated to show image only)

The size, color, width, height, URL, etc. can all be customized. Now for all you advanced HTML users and Bloggers, this is probably easy stuff, but for many of our members and friends, learning this type of stuff has been known to cause overdoses of Tylenol and in some extreme cases, even alcohol.  So here's a way for you to preserve your anxiety and stress for something a little more worthy.... I hope.

HTML Basics has setup what they call an iFrame generator.  You just enter in the information, and it creates the iFrame for you, then just copy and paste the code into the HTML tab of your new Blog post. It looks like this:

Just enter the URL of ANY page you want to appear in your iFrame, never make it wider than 550pixels if you don't want to Blow Out your Blogs sidebar, select any height you want, give it a name, set the alignment, maybe add a border with some color, setup how you want it to scroll, and generate the code for your Blog post.  This is much easier than trying to explain the HTML which you're about to see once you generate the code anyway. Once you become familiar with the iframe code, you won't need the generator anymore. Now try it yourself. 

Suggestions: Try using your MLS page, your IDX page, your Website, one of your Blog posts, maybe your AR Outside Blog, any page that's on the internet will work as long as you have the URL or website address.  You can use iFrames to add some additional value to your Blog if this is something you're interested in. Now just be creative and imagine all the ways your clients, visitors, and subscribers might benefit from your using custom iFrames in your Blog posts.

Are you ready for tables now? Here's a link to a table generator, you'll be a pro in no time at all!  :-)

Some Table Scraps	RE Video	RETechWorld
Goal Planner	ActiveBrads Blog	iDomain
TechKnowBabble	AR Manual	The REBlogger

HTML Tables