Blogger Spotlight: Diane Cipa
I decided that I wanted a title professional as a contributor for lenderama, so I went on a scouting trip around the blogosphere.
My search ended at Dina Cipa. I only had to read two of her posts off of Radical Title Talk to realize she was one of the most interesting voices in our industry.
Oh, and if you’re wondering about the haircut…
Hi Diane, what made you decide to start a blog?
I started blogging to defend title insurance as a product. The proliferation of lawsuits and penalties being imposed on the title insurance underwriters and many agents had, in my mind, caused the media and the public to blame the product rather than the bad actors who had corrupted the title insurance delivery system. Before even thinking of blogging, I followed the normal routes. I talked with my underwriters. I offered to teach some classes for title agents who might need help reaching consumers without paying referral fees. In desperation, I wrote an open letter to title agents and attempted to get it published in ALTA’s Title News magazine and/or PLTAs newsletter. Both trade associations refused to publish it because they said it was anti-affiliated business. In frustration, I faxed and e-mailed the letter to everyone in the PLTA and ALTA directories. It took a lot of time. I got a few responses from people who felt just like I did but who were terrified of saying anything in the open.
My niece and sister had been blogging so I was familiar with the medium. I decided to give it a go and created two blogs. Title Insurance Talk was designed as a consumer facing blog meant to help consumers understand title insurance and also to provide words and explanations for industry insiders who needed help. Radical was meant to be a forum for insiders to discuss what was going on the industry.
Radical Title Talk is hardly a, let’s be friends, smiley face, everything is keen, marketing blog. How do other professionals in your market react to it?
When I first starting writing Radical, I tried to get other professionals in my market to read it and participate. Most just could not grasp what I was talking about. They had never heard of a blog. Setting that aside, I’ve been in the business for long time. Those who know me know that I am passionate. The “radical” handle was first bestowed upon me by a group of attorneys from eastern Pennsylvania who had tried to change the mortgage banking laws in a way that would have forced many existing small companies out of business. Over that effort I ended up as president of the Western Pennsylvania MBA and lobbied strongly in defense of our smaller mortgage companies. We won. In the process, I was know as “that radical women from Western Pennsylvania.” So, old timers in the business who know about Radical, take it in stride.
While some blogs fade away and die on their own, you actually tried to kill Radical Title Talk. I have to honest, I never really understood why. Care to explain?
Radical Title Talk was born in anger. Every post was passionate and most people reading and commenting did so with passion. That takes a tremendous amount of energy. I am not a personal who walks in anger. I get angry, I deal with the issue and be done with it. I love to laugh and be a goof and have fun. Once Radical found its voice and its mission, I had to commit and follow it through which meant writing every day in a voice defining the argument against corruption. You have to understand that Radical was never meant to be a sales generating blog. It was a declaration of independence and the beginning of a war that only title insurance people can really understand. I carried the mantle until I felt that I had said everything that could possibly be said on all the various subjects. The stats showed me the readership and I knew Radical had been a bully pulpit the likes of which I had never envisioned. Once I felt the entire of what needed saying was said, I figured I could leave it up there for folks to use. They could continue to comment if they wanted but I felt that I need to walk away. So I said thank you, posted Desiderata and let it go.
I think that was in May of 2007. In July I started to notice odd transformation in what was then the subprime crisis. It seemed to me that it was leaking into prime lending and I just couldn’t trust that the “powers that be” would recognize that. I know that might sound egotistical but I never assume that people will see something. If my warning is redundant that’s okay but at least I did my part.
I knew there might still be some readership out there with feeds who would pick up posts so I shared my concerns. The Coalition Petition [a third and temporary blog] was followed by some federal folks because the petition had been directed to those offices. I started with a post or two on Coalition but decided almost immediately to start posting on Radical just to make certain someone who could help might see the message. The mortgage credit crisis then became the second life cycle for Radical. It regained its readership two-fold and then got caught in a sort of negative energy and I decided I really just need to get out so I deleted the entire blog, completely with no back up. [You can still find old Radical posts in search engines if you look for cached posts.]
I talked about it on Lenderama [blew my blog brains out] and the feedback I got was a great help. I kept Radical dead for a week then decided to put in into a virtual beauty sleep mode. Radical woke up as a sort of personal business space for me. I can still talk about hard issues but I don’t feel compelled to be at war. I am purposefully keeping it casual. I like it. I’ve lost some readership but that’s A-OK with me. In the meantime the readership of Title Insurance Talk has grown and I’ve been able to focus on the day to day business of selling title insurance.
I never ask when I’m recruiting people to join, but I’m always curious as to other’s motives. Why do you contribute to Lenderama?
I love Lenderama because it’s a lender community. Close to half of my career was spent as a lender. I am at home there. Being a part of Lenderama keeps me in touch with what’s on the minds of lenders, allows me to share the “title” voice with lenders and it’s part of the original crusade which was helping people to understand title insurance.
Recently, you started a new blog. Ligonier Living. I’m ecstatic that you’ve played off my idea that real estate/mortgage/title blogging does not have to be about the real estate, mortgage, or title business. Please share with us you goal for this blog, and how it’s going so far.
Ed Rybczynski on Title-opoly was really pushing personal - almost voyeuristic - blogging at the same time you posted Denver Modern Homes and a sales tool. Ligonier Living was born as a morph of both ideas. It’s less than a month old and is still finding its voice BUT community reaction is great. People are getting a big kick out of it and we’re about to teach Ligonier to blog. My plan for the community is to create a solid web presence for Ligonier as a destination and a great place to live. I plan to launch a sister blog, Ligonier Homes. Our company web site featuring the Choose and Save program, Title Insurance Talk, Ligonier Living, and Ligonier Homes - all linked together will be a solid marketing platform. We’ve always be consumer facing in marketing but I think these two blogs will bring a synergy we’ve not found before. I am very excited. It’s a whole new way of selling title insurance and it’s free and it’s fun.
What are some of your favorite blogs?
I visit some blogs everyday and some every once in a while. Rather than say I have favorite blogs, I should say I have favorite bloggers. My current favorite bloggers are Ed Rybczynski at Title-opoly, Tanta at Calculated Risk, Wine Dog at Pink Bunny Ears, Greg Swann at Bloodhound, Brian Brady at “everywhere”, Jillayne Schlicke at Rain City.
What advice do you have for prospective bloggers who are sitting on the fence.
Jump right in a start blogging. You’ll find out pretty quickly if you like doing it. It’s not that hard to learn. There are lots of people like you, Todd, who are offering assistance. Whether you’re blogging for business or blogging for fun or both, beware……it’s addicting. My name is Diane Cipa and I’m a blogoholic.
Blogger Spotlight: Cheryl Allin
I’m really glad Cheryl was interested in doing an interview. As I’ve said in the past, I think the vendors who serve real estate professionals offer a unique perspective that’s worth looking at.
Hi Cheryl, what made you decide to start a blog?
As is the case with many, it seemed that blogging was fast becoming de rigueur for effectively marketing online. I was already providing extensive content articles on my site describing the services I offered along with my methodologies and blogging seemed the perfect solution to further build the stickiness of my website as well as a means to provide fodder for the search engine spiders to eat. It’s hard to believe I took the plunge into blogging over three years ago. I may not blog as often as many others, but I do strive to create value with what I do post.
Your blog, and entire website is built on Joomla. How does this platform compare to more common blogging platforms like WordPress or TypePad?
I adore Joomla. I started with Mambo in 2005 and made the switch when Mambo forked off into what’s now known as Joomla. I was the first Virtual Assistant to implement a content management system of any kind, now you find a great many VAs implementing Joomla. I considered WordPress, TypePad and a few others before deciding on Joomla for my website. I was even an early adopter of blogger.com prior to starting my business in 2001. I looked at it from an SEO angle as well as an ownership angle. I wanted to own my marketing and promote my own URL and I wanted the most powerful system that would make my job as easy as possible. WordPress at the time didn’t have the URL structure I wanted, I needed my article keywords in the URL as well as the meta tags, header tags and I also loved the richness of the admin interface of Joomla. While many may be a bit daunted, once you’re past the initial learning curve in running the backend of Joomla you quickly see the power and richness of the interface. Also, as a designer I found Joomla templates a breeze while the WordPress templates were a bit clunky to implement. Blogging on Joomla gives me tons of power – the ability to have certain ‘modules’ that display only on my blog pages and other ‘modules’ display on alternate areas of my website, the ability to use CSS to vary the styling (colors, graphics) of those modules for increased variety. I also love that with Joomla, you can create or purchase a template that will make your Joomla site look totally custom whereas many WordPress templates all look very similar. Again, that’s my designer peeking through.
Some agents have different independent blogs and traditional web sites. Others are combining them. What do you recommend?
Mostly it’s just a matter of preference. I adopt the KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid methodology for my own site/blog mainly since I get so busy with client work, I seldom have the time to manage multiple sites. If an agent feels there’s value in keeping his opinions (blog) away from his storefront (website) and has the time and budget to implement and optimize both, (s)he should go for it. However, if you like the idea of having just one spot on the web to manage (aside from your Twitter, Facebook, FriendFeed…), then Joomla gives you the ability to do so easily.
One of the services you provide is to help agents manage their presence on social networks like MySpace or Facebook. It seems to me that these sights depend largely on the personality of the agent themselves. How can one outsource social networking and retain authenticity at the same time?
Certainly, I’d never recommend fully outsourcing your social networking as that defeats the purpose of being social. While I have yet to have a client take me up on the service (it’s there more as a concept to encourage folks to consider social networking in the first place) I can offer some benefit by managing settings, accepting or rejecting comments/pokes/requests, finding more friends or associates for you on Linkedin or Facebook. If I can access your PC remotely, setup some basic social networking tools, create you a protopage.com browser homepage with links to all your new networks, create your MyBlogLog account and tie in your blog – basically get you started and advise you a bit as you get your feet wet, then I’ve done my job. It’s that initial inertia or fear to jump in that plagues many folks and I’m the ‘hand holder,’ if you will.
You market you services through these same social networks. In your experience, what is the most effective social network for connecting with real estate agents?
Hands down, Twitter. As a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, I work 100% from my home office staring at the same four walls all day and having a resource like Twitter where I can socialize and network with my peers and defeat the isolation – that is priceless. I’ve made fantastic connections - @gotbob Bob Carney was kind enough to allow me to save his website from Advanced Access, we converted it to Joomla www.gotbob4homes.com, I’ve found several new clients who need help with this or that and I’ve connected also to several wonderful Virtual Assistants with whom we share ideas and referrals. Every other social networking platform pales by comparison. What’s also fantastic is the ability to have clients stay connected and aware of my daily grind – they now can rest assured that I’m *real* and in the trenches working on their projects. I look forward to the time when social media will be more distributed – sites like FriendFeed and SocialThing are headed in the right direction, but the ability to pull all these great services into my website so you get the ‘big picture’ would be amazing.
What are some of your favorite blogs?
Oooh, that’s hard – there are so many! Here are several that I read regularly and why:
Agent Genius – If it’s tech and real estate, I love it and these folks *are* genius!
Chris Brogan – He never fails to leave an impression and topics are always spot on.
Freelance Switch – Terrific for entrepreneurs of all kinds, often they make me feel like they’re writing about me, very relatable
Future of Real Estate Marketing – always has the news you need to know first
Geek Estate Blog – They speak geek and they’re in real estate, brethren!Problogger – Darren is a wealth of blog knowledge and his style is clean, love it.
Tech Crunch – I always want to know about the hot new toys
What advice do you have for prospective bloggers who are sitting on the fence?
Build it now! Even if you only post once per month to start, get that blog domain name into Google today so when/if you do decide to go full force into blogging, you won’t suffer the Google sandbox aging delay. Look at your local market – is anyone else blogging? You could build relationships with RE.net bloggers and perhaps grow friendships and referrals – you could become the authority on your market and have the local network affiliates calling you for your opinion. Carpe Diem, as Robin Williams said in Dead Poets Society. How will you know the amount of benefit unless you try?
My parting shot is actually to shoot myself – I promised myself I would work on blog posts over the weekend and got caught doing client work instead – thus, I’m the shoemaker whose children run around barefoot! I’ve improved, but I often blog in bursts when some bit of amazing news or creative idea strikes. My saving grace has been the book ‘Getting Things Done’ by David Allen which is a fantastic system of organizing your life in order to alleviate stress. Many other netizens agree as it has an almost cult status online.
How do you know you’ve won an argument with Mary McKnight?
I think her resulting to petty insults would be a pretty good indication. This one was particularly amusing, so I couldn’t pass up her offer.
Blogger Spotlight: Rob Hahn
It hardly seems fair that many of us have toiled for years to build great real estate industry blogs, only to have Rob Hahn come along and pretty much shame us all in a matter of months. If you’re a real estate professional who does not read Notorious R.O.B. yet, then you’re missing out. He understands marketing in our vertical like very few others. Forget Seth Godin, you need to be reading Rob Hahn.
Hi Rob, what made you decide to start a blog?
I’ve wanted to do a blog for quite some time, when I started in the real estate industry, first at Kinesis Marketing working with Coldwell Banker, and then at Realogy overseeing interactive marketing at Coldwell Banker Commercial. As a real-estate industry outsider (well, I guess I’m more and more an insider more time I spend in this industry) I find it absolutely fascinating. It’s an incredibly important segment of the economy, but there’s just so much to talk about and discuss as it comes to marketing, technology, the Web, and business practices. While I was at Realogy, blogging was more or less strictly forbidden by the legal department, so while I had my own personal blog on politics, I couldn’t really write or talk about the things in real estate, marketing and technology. Now that I’m at OnBoard, I can do just that. Within reason, of course. J
One reason why I wanted to interview you was your unique position in RE.net. You have a personal blog, while serving as Vice President of Marketing at OnBoard LLC. How do you balance your personal opinions with your responsibilities as a public face for this company?
I’m sort of making it up as I go. J It’s actually a difficult balancing act, because I have responsibilities to OnBoard that ultimately supersede my own personal preference for blogging. I balance it by asking myself, “Does what I wrote hurt OnBoard in any way? Does it hut our client in any way?” Because of OnBoard’s position in the marketplace as the premier provider of data and geography solutions to some of the top companies and brands, it’s impossible to comment on the real estate industry without in some way commenting on one or more of our clients. Even if such comments were to be critical, I try very hard not to have them be hurtful. Not all criticism is not malicious, and I do strongly believe that criticism from friends who want the best for you is one of the greatest gifts in a relationship.
My colleagues and I have actually discussed this in some depth after one of my posts was seen as possibly crossing that line. I think what works is to be as frank, honest, and authentic as possible on my blog – and if I see a conflict, I’ll simply state that conflict, and refuse to write about it.
Then in my day job, I simply focus on telling the OnBoard story, following the principles I am preaching on the blog as much as possible. I think OnBoard is the best data company in the industry; therefore, it is no bullshit to say so. I really believe that we have the best data, the best technology, and the best customer service – it’s actually a joy to market that which I believe to be true. So it’s a wonderful opportunity.
Have you ever felt that you needed to withhold an opinion because of your job?
Of course – that’s part of the balancing act. But it happens only very, very rarely. I’m not a shill for our clients in my personal blog, nor am I a shill for OnBoard. I will refrain from commenting if I think it would actively hurt either OnBoard or a client without cause, without reason, and without benefit. In other words, criticism has to be constructive – point the way towards an improvement of the situation. Simply flaming someone, or some company, serves no purpose.
How has the OnBoard brass reacted to your blog?
Well, I’m part of the brass, so… J No, seriously, they’ve been great. Marc, our CEO, is anxious for the day when we relaunch our official blog. So am I, frankly. I’m hoping to get the rest of the brass into more blogging. We have certain views here on business, on real estate, on data, and on technology that result from having had the privilege to work with all kinds of companies in the industry, from brokers to web portals to media companies. I think some of what we know is of enormous value to others in the industry, and I’m eager to start the sharing. But first, I have to redesign and relaunch the website, with the blog – which is one project I’m working on now.
What is OnBoard anyway?
Why, my good man, OnBoard is the best data and geography company in the real estate industry. We serve some of the largest brands, some of the most innovative companies, and help them create more compelling websites by leveraging data. I don’t know that I could do better than to just quote from our website’s About Us:
Three former executives of MonsterDaata regrouped after 9/11 in a tiny basement office in New York City’s East Village. Their dream was to create a new company focused on outstanding B2B solutions derived from local neighborhood information that would increase their clients’ ability to meet the needs of today’s consumer. OnBoard LLC is the fulfillment of that dream. The office pulses with creativity, intensity and a sense of community. From teams of solution specialists helping shape a client’s vision and the product team working with clients to optimize our solutions, to the occasional Guitar Hero duel between the CEO and the new Product Manager, OnBoard is really just a special group of people, each with a little bit of that basement vision.
OnBoard LLC provides innovative web tools, web services and comprehensive data that give your website the distinctive edge needed to compete in today’s market. Our client engagements begin with providing content and continue through delivery of strategic planning and integration expertise to support our clients’ business processes. We are experts in data aggregation, standardization, distribution and integration, allowing us to deliver critical decision support and content solutions for your website, back office, marketing and planning needs.
Do check us out at www.onboardllc.com. There, that’s my pitch of the day.
What are some of your favorite blogs?
Oh man… I read a LOT of blogs… There are some great blogs and bloggers in the RE.net. I can just list a few of those in my RSS reader right now:
- Center for REALTOR® Technology
- Future of Real Estate Marketing
- Sellsius
- Outside of real estate, I regularly read
- The Die Line (package design blog)
- And I read center-right political blogs:
- Redstate
- Of course, for fun, you can’t beat Stuff White People Like, Cracked, and Iowahawk.
What advice do you have for prospective bloggers who are sitting on the fence.
I think the number one thing is to do it for your own pleasure, or don’t do it at all. Blogging for business, as a lead generation tool, is still somewhat unproven. If you can blog and see it as at least partly entertainment, then go for it. Even if you get nothing out of your blog, you’ll have had fun.
Having said that, if you want to blog for commercial reasons, understand exactly what you’re getting into and what you want to get out of it. I’m advocating blogging for business at OnBoard, knowing exactly what that requires, but also knowing what I want to get out of it. Educating the real estate industry about data, technology, geography, and how people can use these things to empower their businesses is ultimately good for OnBoard’s business. I think of it as participating in the markets-as-conversation in a positive, expertise-driven way. That only serves to enlarge the market for us. If we can do that, then I’d be satisfied even if we got not a single lead off the blog.
Blogger Spotlight: Geno Petro
It will never earn him a dime, but Geno is one of my favorite real estate bloggers. I’m a huge fan of funny, but with Geno, it goes farther than that. He’s a great story teller.
Hi Gino, what made you decide to start a blog?
A couple years back our office, a boutique north side Chicago brokerage with less than 20 agents, changed names from Pinto Realty Group to Chicago Home Estates. These key real estate words, Chicago, Home, Estates, were chosen primarily for SEO (Google spidering) purposes as the new direction of our company shifted to almost 100% internet; no newspaper advertising, no direct mail, no flyers, balloons, etc. Our web guys suggested we agents start blogs for linkage and ‘organic’ purposes to augment the various pay per click campaigns that the main site had initiated. I chose my blog’s name, Chicago’s Home Weblog for recognition/association purposes to our main site. A few years later, I think I’m the only agent still posting on a regular basis.
I first started following you on Bloodhound Blog. I liked reading you stuff because, frankly, it was funny. This might sound weird, but… are you funny on purpose? Steve Martin is known to be a fairly serious person that works at being funny. Other people can’t help it. When you sit down to write a blog post, are you trying to be humorous, or does it just happen?
Greg Swann and Teri Lussier found me back in October ‘07 and I joined Bloodhound then. I usually get an idea, sometimes it’s a very small idea, then start writing when I have a few extra moments throughout my day. It usually takes me 3 or 4 sittings to complete a single post over a period of a couple days. When I sit down and begin writing it just all comes out. When I sit down again to contiune, sometimes the voice is a little different and the piece takes off in another direction. The same with all subsequent sittings. I generally do a final rewrite to eliminate the clunkiness, tie everything together anecdotally then push the Publish button. As far as being funny; after I delete all the sad parts, the overly dramatic parts, the hyperbole and profanity…sometimes humor is all that remains. I like to leave the ’semi-serious stuff’ between the lines (and beneath the tongue in my cheek) and the ‘real serious stuff’ for my fellow real estate bloggers across the REnet. Yeah, the funny stuff just happens, I guess. Satire perhaps?
Has you humor ever backfired on you in a blog post?
Every so often I get a comment reprimanding me but no one has ever threatened bodily harm or legal action. One time Dan Green e-mailed me at midnight to let me know I wrote something inappropriate. I concurred, yanked the post, rewrote it and posted it a few weeks later on another blog. I spend most of my time trying to sell my listings and appease my buyers, not writing politically correct content that a million (possibly more) other bloggers can do much better than me. I make it a point to do at least one complete rewrite before publishing to CMAss.
With so much of your personality on display, I can only assume that many of the clients who find you through your blog already feel they “know” you. Have you ever had an unnerving experience where a client relationship was too close for comfort because of your blog?
Nothing ‘unnerving,’ per se. Not surprisingly, most of my clients come through the ChicagoHomeEstates.com website and not my Chicago’s Home Weblog. Most have no idea who I am or that I even write about real estate at all. It’s probably a 30-1 ratio in favor of the latter. Most people who become my clients initially Googled ‘Chicago real estate’ and found themselves on our website to look at properties. They then register to use our MLS search engine and the verified registrants get distributed randomly to us by the managing broker. Most of my readers, I think, are actually other REnet bloggers. I think Greg Swann refers to it as an ‘echo chamber’ and none of them have ever bought anything from me to date. I do probably connect with a client from my blog every month or so but no one yet has gotten too close for comfort although one crazy woman did email me off and on for months telling me how she was in the market for a 7 million condo at Trump’s new project. I Googled her quite unusual name and hometown and discovered she was on a couple Medicaid chat room forums complaining how her and her children were in dire need of public aid and the her bi-polar meds had been cut off. I couldn’t help but spend the commission dollars in my head, though.
Geno From Chicago is an idea worth mimicking for any blogger who spreads their content around the Internet. Please share with us the motivation behind this project.
Geno From Chicago is just a landing page for a collection of my most well received postings on Bloodhound Blog, Chicago’s Home Weblog, Active Rain, and the occasional guest spot on other sites. I use this trimmed down platform mostly as a hyperlink in my query letters to publishers. I usually disable the comment section and do a minor rewrite unlinking all the ‘unliterary’ extraneous sales stuff. This way they can read a variety of my content without getting sidetracked by all the sidebar linkage, widgets and SEO stuff. So far, not much has shaken from it although AARP The Magazine has taken a few looks, or so they’ve told me in an auto-reply.
What are some of your favorite blogs?
I always liked Bloodhound and Sellsius (ironic, isn’t it?) as well as Pat Kitano’s TransparaentRE and Hanan Levin’s Grow-a-Brain. They all ’sent the elevator back down’ as it were, when I was starting out and shared samples of my writing with their much larger respective readership bases, as well as took the time to comment favorably. I also check out the ‘bubble blogs’ for the same reason as I listen to NPR and occasionally Christian radio; to find out what the other half is saying about issues that may affect my destiny and to foresee how I might end up if I ever decide to; make a living trashing realtors, become more liberal, or get religion…and jump ship.
What advice do you have for prospective bloggers who are sitting on the fence.
Stay seated unless you’ve found your own voice. I find myself on such a fence most days with nothing to say and nothing to say it with.
A final note.
In ending I’d like to share with you my response to something Jay Thompson wrote in one of my comment sections a few years back. He wondered if I sold real estate as well as I wrote–to which I replied: “I closed 30 deals last year for over 16 million in volume but didn’t make a nickel from anything I wrote.” Glad (sad?) to report that while the sales numbers are around half that amount for this most recent fiscal year, the writing revenue has held steady at 0. Now I ask you, is that or is that not… funny?
Peace
