One of the things I do besides sell real estate is to help others out when it comes to online social media marketing and brand building. I was reading an article on one of my favorite sites Bloodhound Blog and Eric Blackwell was writing about a fellow Keller Williams Realtor® in Northern Virginia Carolyn Capalbo.

Why am I posting this here on Classic Homes Northwest? A site that is about real estate, buying and selling homes in Tacoma Washington? Well, because the topic should matter to all of us. See Carolyn Capalbo has the same name as the mother of Ashley Dupre. By simply having the same name as Ms. Dupre’s mom Carolyn has felt the effects of search engines gone bad.

Who has the same name as you? Are they doing anything that you would be ashamed of? Are they doing anything that the search engines are picking up? When someone types your name in a search engine what are the results? While we cannot control the actions of others no matter if they have the same name as we do. We can and should be monitoring our reputations online. If you spend any amount of time online and if you are concerned about your reputation you need to be taking time out to make sure you’re being represented correctly online.

The purpose of this article is to help Carolyn Capalbo someone I have never met but who from what I have read about her seems like a nice person in Northern Virginia regain her reputation on the search engines. If you’re looking to buy or sell in Northern Virginia give Carolyn Capalbo a call. Tell her Classic Homes Northwest said she was ok. If you’re looking to buy or sell a home in Tacoma? Well you know what to do. If by chance you’re not sure what to, call Classic Homes Northwest today we will be happy to help you buy or sell a home in Tacoma!

I was reading the Washington Post today and Arthur C. Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute wrote a brilliant piece. The title of the piece America’s new culture ware: Free enterprise vs. government control. You can read the entire article by following this link to the Washington Post.

Mr. Brooks states that we are facing a new culture war in America. He goes on to explain the new war is over free enterprise and limited government vs. European style statism. The roots of America are in free enterprise and this has been the cornerstone of our country sense before our founding fathers. Now we are faced with a minority that wants to change how our country is being run by allowing our government to take over more and more of the basic building blocks of our economy.

Please go and read the article. Educate yourself on what is happening around us. This is way too important of a topic to be ignored. No matter what side of the political aisle you favor you must realize that we need to keep our free enterprise system free.

While not a real estate related topic this is one that most everyone who visits this site will find appropriate.

Are you tired of Facebook sharing your personal information? Does the weekly changes to privacy settings seem a bit much to you? What can you do about it? I have 3 suggestions that will help you.

1. Stop using Facebook. That’s right go in and delete your account. You can find the instructions here to delete your account. This in my opinion is a silly solution there is no reason to commit social media suicide. However, after you delete your account you will no longer need to worry about what Facebook is doing with their security settings.
2. Accept that Facebook will continue to evolve and that you as a user will need to continue to evolve with it. You will need to simply go about the tasks of changing your personal privacy settings as necessary so that you feel secure with what information you are sharing on Facebook. Really it seems that it should be common sense that anything you share online will be saved somewhere out of your control. If you are not comfortable with this see suggestion 1. After you complete suggestion 1 remove your computer from whatever method you connect to the Internet and NEVER, EVER go online again. Everything you do online can potentially be saved and misused.
3. Here is the method that I feel will make Facebook sit up and take notice. First step. STOP clicking on any advertisements on the site. Simply put stop putting money in the advertisers pockets. Once they realize that Facebook is not a platform for their marketing they will stop giving Facebook money. Facebook not getting money will cause them to sit up and realize that we as users are voting with our pocketbooks. That will send a message loud and clear. Included in this is stop playing all games, stop taking all quizzes, stop doing anything but posting on your wall or the wall of others. We all need to remember that when we use a game or an application on Facebook that we are putting money in someones bank account. Part 2 of this step is to simply use Facebook less. If the traffic of the site drops off along with the drop in revenue the powers that be will take notice. They are smart people they will get the message.

Really folks it is time that everyone realizes that everything we do in our lives online is recorded and saved somewhere. It is not just Facebook that is sharing our information it can be every site. Think twice before you share your personal information here or anywhere.

I welcome your thoughts on this topic.

Please skip this post unless you want to read what a frustrated Realtor® has to say about changing the very software we use to find our clients homes.

Recently the NWMLS changed software providers for the multiple listing service. What does this have to do with being frustrated. Like many of us change can be challenging for me. I do however like to upgrade my software and I am always looking for something new to try out. That is when I am not trying to make a LIVING using the tool.

Yesterday I was holding an open house in Tacoma and someone stopped by to see the home. Well actually she stopped by to find directions to another home that was being held open. Being the helpful type of person I am I offered to find it “in the multiple” for her. She gave me the address and for 5 minutes I looked and looked and could not find the home. This lady thought I was an idiot for not being able to find the home that was advertised in the newspaper. She went to her car to get me the newspaper advertisement and sure enough there was the house. I plugged in the address and nothing. I put in the MLS number and the listing popped up and sure enough it had the exact address I typed. As the visitor walked out the door she mentioned something about me possibly finding a better job suited for my lack of computer skills…..

Immediately after that I tried to access the new software again and could not access the database. Simply timing out…. over and over… I actually called the tech support for the NWMLS where I was assured that everything was working correctly. The person on the other end of the phone allowed me to vent and assured me that in the next couple of weeks I would see some amazing changes and that everything would be working better than I could ever imagine.

Moral of the story. If you are working with a Realtor® right now and they are having troubles finding information for you. It’s not them it’s the system… give em 2 weeks.

I just hope my open house visitor stops by again in two weeks so I can dazzle her………