We have updated our Facebook app for the recent changes made by Facebook for the new Timeline feature. The update includes making it easier to add the app into your own Facebook business page, but also a wider page view. See our video for how to add our app to your Facebook business page.
Archive for Real Estate Info
We recently launched our iPad tour design that is a complete re-write of our code, specifically for the iPad. It utilizes what is called HTML5 and features a complete interactive floor plan where you can point and click your way through the property using your iPad. If you have an iPad, just type in one of your tour links into Safari and see how it looks. Or just use our demo house address of www.111anystreet.com.
Now, we are pleased to announce you can also use this same design as your PC/laptop tour viewer! To select this as your tour template, just select the Tabbed Tour as your tour frame type on the form as you create a new 
tour, or on Edit Details for existing tours. If you want this as your default tour frame going forward, just edit your profile and select the Tabbed Tour as your default tour frame.
To get a peak at the Tabbed Tour, click the screen shot below or click here to see how it will look. It is similar to the iPad tour with a clean design, but for the PC, it does feature a header at the top of the tour that always shows your contact info, as well as the tour tile and address. In addition, the content area adjusts for the user’s screen. For example, if someone has a laptop that has a typical resolution of 1280×800, the tour adjusts to fit it. If a user has a 23 inch 1920×1080 monitor, the tour adjusts for that size as well! If the user’s computer or device supports Adobe’s Flash, we still show the content in flash, otherwise it does use HTML5 (like for the iPad).
Not only is the design clean and simple, it is a great solution for listings with very large floor plans as well! The floor plan area is much larger, and because it does adjust to the screen resolution, it can make the floor plan look very large. In addition, we are working to add another way to look at the floor plan to show it in the whole content area, with the photos popping on top of the plan, just by clicking a button on the tour. We call this the embedded view, and we hope to add it to this view in the next month or so.
We hope you enjoy these enhancements. As always, this view is available for all active tours.
New help videos have been added to our help video library. Click here to see our Help Videos. I would like to highlight two videos that are very common customer care issues. We hope the videos will help!
First, how to download and save photos to your computer, for use on your MLS or for your own marketing brochures. Click to see this video. Note, we are very interested in helping make your life easier…we do automated tour linking, and in a few cases, we upload photos, to the local MLS. If you would like us to pursue this with your MLS, we are more than happy to do that, but you first need to contact your MLS and see if they allow it. If not, ask them if they would be willing to work with us to do automated tour linking and photo uploads. If they say “NO,” go higher up the chain…. 
Second, how to customize your tour and flyer colors to match your branding. We suggest using the browsers Firefox or Chrome because both of these have free plugins you can install that will tell you the color code of anything on a web page. Just click the video to see how you can customize the colors to exactly match!
FloorPlanOnline has been producing free YouTube videos for all your FPO tours for quite some time now. You might be thinking to yourself that YouTube is of little value since there aren’t many people going to YouTube to look for their next home. Think again. The real value of having a video of your listing on YouTube is it has tremendous Search Engine Optimization benefits.
FloorPlanOnline YouTube videos get your property (with the branded tour link back to your listing) listed typically on page 1 of search engine returns when you type in the address. And unlike being on Trulia or Zillow, the viewers are directed directly back to you and your tour where you can engage directly in lead capture, not to some page where there might be 3 other agents waiting to take your lead.
If you pay Zillow to enhance your account, you still benefit…but if you do not, there is no way you can get the lead.
Plus, the tour will show up with the YouTube video icon (like at left), and video we know is one thing that attracts users to click. So you have a higher chance of people clicking on your YouTube video listing and ultimately getting back to you, vs a large real estate portal site.
Adding the new voice over tool (just launched this year) to FloorPlanOnline Videos, further adds to the seo power. Google now listens to the voice overs, traslates and indexes the content!
So, if you want the potential to capture the lead yourself and your listing noticed, just add YouTube to your profile. We will automatically upload the video to either your YouTube channel, or ours. If you do not have a YouTube Channel, you can create one, or we have a Get Social service where we create the YouTube Channel and Facebook business page for you, can connect all of your tours into your accounts. Yes, we also have a Facebook app where your featured listings show in your Facebook business page.
All of this is free, so give it a try.
We are pleased to announce several new enhancements to the FloorPlanOnline marketing system:
1. Enhanced iPad Tour Viewer
2. Separate Photo & Video Editing
3. Voice Over | Custom Audio Upload capability
Details for each enhancement are below.
Enhanced iPad Viewer.
We have completely re-written our tour viewer for the iPad which features your tour content in a very clean user interface. Now, you can get a fully functional tour experience, including the video and the interactive floorplan tour on your ipad! Just point and click your way around the floor plan with ease, just like the regular PC experience. It is also optimized for the screen orientation. Hold your iPad in landscape mode, and the content tabs are on top and the content layout is optimized for that view. Rotate the iPad to portrait mode, and the tabs move to the side and content shifts for that orientation as well. We believe it is the most advanced and useful tour viewer for the iPad. Plus, if you have an Apple TV device, you can even play the video on your TV! How cool is that?
Suggestions. In order to make the iPad tour look its best, we suggest you add a marketing description, complete the property details, and add features. We have a details tab that really showcases the property details. We even include the PDF of your flyer and printable floor plans. For older tours, video might not be viewable on your iPad tour due to a different format needed to display the video on the iPad. This can easily be added by just going into your account to the Manage Tour page, then click Edit Tour, then Edit Photos/Video. Hit Save and Close, and your video will get processed by our video server. We have already recreated over 1000 videos for tours going back to the end of October. So if your tour does not have a Video tab on the tour, just go in and edit it, or email us and we can re-queue all of your videos. One other point. There is no RoomPlanner tab on the iPad. This tool is built using flash, and there is a lot of development work to port it over to the iPad….so until that happens (or flash comes to the iPad (likely never)), the RoomPlanner will not be on the iPad version.
This enhancement is included at no additional cost for any active tour, and one reason it took us awhile to implement, so it works on all older tours! Try it – just go to www.111anystreet.com on your iPad. Note…this tour also works on any computer. There are a few tweaks we want to do, but eventually, it can also be your default tour template for the PC as well. Click here to see the PC version on your laptop or desktop.
Separate Photo & Video Editing.
We now have a way for you to separately edit which photos show on the Photo Gallery and WalkThru Video views. It is all done through the same edit page – we just added another check box to show a photo on the Photo View or Video view, or both. When you upload, all photos are added to both by default, but you can adjust what shows by going to the Edit Tour option on the Manage Tours page. With this (and the custom audio tool mentioned below), you can further differentiate the photo and video views.
Suggestions. We highly recommend you keep your video between 1 to 2 minutes in length. Most users will not sit through a 5 minute long video…but if you highlight the best photos taken, add descriptive text, and now, even add a voice over, you can really make your video a multi-media marketing piece that makes you and your listing stand out. And don’t forget, you can easily and automatically add your listing video to either your own custom YouTube channel (or your company’s channel provided you give us the login info) or just upload it to our YouTube channel. It is FREE, and it is a great way to get additional search engine (“SEO”) benefits. For example, once your video has been uploaded and indexed by Google, the listing video typically shows towards the top on page 1 of the search results. Just this little feature can show your seller that you are working hard to sell their home and differentiate it from all of the others.
If you like the Dashboard view on your tour, pick a different photo to start the photo or video view, and now you have 2 different images on the Dashboard view in the 2.0 tour.
Voice Over | Custom Audio Upload.
This is something that has been asked for over the years…and we now have brought it to fruition! You can now upload your own voiceover to the video so you can describe the property in your own way. Google is now indexing video text, so this also helps with the SEO of your tours, and you. Plus, since we upload your video for free to YouTube, it gets better indexed by Google, since they own YouTube. Read more on that here. You can also upload a file with your own music. Just go to Manage Tours, select Edit Tour and then Edit Video. You will see the button to upload the custom audio file. Right now, we ONLY accept MP3 file types. There are lots of free converters online if you have the file in a different type.
A word of caution: While you in theory can upload your own music with a voiceover, the music industry is on a war path about copyright violations. Using music on a virtual tour is for a commercial purpose that requires a license from the copyright holder. All of our music is validly licensed by companies the create or manage the music. Therefore, if you have your own music you want to use, just make sure you have a valid license to use it. Real songs from real artists generally mean big money for a right to use – like thousands of dollars….so if we do find “brand-name artist” music being used, we will be forced to remove the file. They have ways of electronically monitoring websites, and you do not want to have to pay fines or get sued…Neither do we….
Hope you enjoy the enhancements!
Kris Cone
AIA|LA Office Exhibition: The Architecture of Los Angeles – Through the Lens of Luke Gibson – AIA / Los Angeles.
FloorPlanOnline’s LA Service Provider, Luke Gibson, is showcasing his photographic passion for Los Angeles architecture at a special exhibition at the AIA office from October 11-28th. Luke’s collection will showcase both the historic and contemporary buildings of the city in this special exhibit. Luke passion for photography can also be seen in his work as a Service Provider with FloorPlanOnline. Since coming on board a year ago, he has developed a strong following with many residential real estate agents who appreciate his keen eye for detail. For more information, http://aialosangeles.org/event/aia-la-office-exhibition-the-architecture-of-los-angeles-through-the-lens-of-luke-gibson
2011-10-19
Categories Real Estate Info, Real Estate News, Service Provider, Technology, What's New
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As real estate agents, you probably have felt this impact in the drop of your bank account balance…but a picture says a thousand words…
FloorPlanOnline is proud to announce another cool tool for your FloorPlanOnline tours.
QR codes are square barcode like boxes that are included on your flier with one click.
Buyers scan the code with their smart phone and go directly to the Free Mobile Tour of your single property website.
Its Easy to add this Free Upgrade to your fliers and mobile tours.
Here are the step by step directions
How to add QR codes to your FloorPlan Tours:
Log in to FloorPlanOnline and Click Manage Tours
Find the correct listing Click Edit tour
From the Tour Editor / Tour Preview screen click EDIT FLYER at the top
From the Edit Flyer Flyer page, click EDIT TEXT
Scroll down and click the check box next to the QR code.
Click save and you are done.
Extra Credit:
Tech Savvy folks may choose to download the QR code from the Marketing materials page for use in other applications.
Now you have QR codes! To view or print click on the flyer in the tour or download it from Marketing Materials.
More cool tools like this are in the pipeline as we continue to innovate.
Thanks for working with Floor Plan Online.
We are pleased to announce the support of basic tour functionality for the Apple iPad! This complements the existing support for iPhones, Androids and most other smart phones. This is version 1.0. It is not an exact replica of the web based tour because the iPad (or iPhone) does not support Adobe’s Flash, which is the technology our web tour currently uses to display content. We are working on re-coding our tours to work completely on the iPad in the next few months, so stay tuned! The content that is visible for Apple-based devices include photos (slide-show with swipe enabled), floor plan images, YouTube video, printable materials (the same PDFs that are on the tour, so anyone can print them with a print app installed), area map, and agent contact info. A screen shot is below, or just go to www.111anystreet.com on a mobile device to see the functionality.
Over the next month or so, we are working to add complete tour support. For Android devices that support flash (most newer devices, including most tablets based on the Android operating system), you can actually get full tour support today. We hope you enjoy the enhancement, and as always, we welcome your comments!
Live near a military base?
For Realtors, military members are in high demand because they move often and the home buyer tax credit has been extended to April 30, 2011 for military personnel. On average, one-third of those who live off-base are homeowners. If your market is within 60 miles around a military base, you can now advertise your active listings free of charge to this highly desirable audience through a new military classifieds site (SargesList.com). FloorPlanOnline has partnered with SargesList.com, which has been heralded as the “Craigslist for Military.” While it is similar to craigslist, it has more functionality and helps military identify who is in their network for a more trusted interaction.
Reaching moving military BEFORE they move can be challenging. Since move season is just heating up and word is getting out about SargesList, make sure you get your listings posted soon (and automatically enter to win an iPad this month). Registration and basic listings are free but there are upgraded features you can purchase. If you are interested in being an exclusive advertiser for your military area, contact info@sargeslist.com for more information. With over 500 installations around the world, check and see if the installation near your market is available.
Visit www.sargeslist.com today!
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Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved. This website, content and all tour content is protected by US and International Copyright law. FloorPlanOnline is a registered trademark of Floor Plan-Online, LLC
Copyright © 2012 All Rights Reserved. This website, content and all tour content is protected by US and International Copyright law. FloorPlanOnline is a registered trademark of Floor Plan-Online, LLC