I write this for home owners and home buyers in Western MA to help them with their real estate decisions. I work hard at this effort and deserve attribution and credit for what I deliver.

Tonight I discovered that someone has been using an RSS feed of my blog to pretty much build his own website.  This kind of dirty pool makes me really PO’ed.  You like what I write?  You want to use it?  That is great, just give credit where it is due.

This tool is taking everything I work so hard on and poising it as his own content with no attribution or back linking to my site.

So you may ask yourself, why is Lesley writing this blog post?  WELL….

It is going to show up on his site, too.  SO…

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY BLOG SCRAPERS SUCK

#1- they are robbers.  Just ask:  nickmrandal@gmail.com

Today I want to share my favorites with you and I hope you will peruse their posts and enjoy as much as I do.

#1- Exploring Western Massachusetts.
This blog is an everything Western MA site with wonderful posts about events, places and history of this great part of the world.

#2- The Jump, WriterJax
The musings of the eclectic and entertaining Jaclyn Stevenson. You just never know what you will find when you visit this blog, but it is always fun!

#3- Holyoke Home
from their about section: One couple. One dog. One garden. One achingly lovely historic brick row house in Holyoke, Massachusetts. One very cool city. One VERY LONG renovation ‘wish list.’ One project at a time? We’ll see. I love antique homes and can appreciate what they are sharing through their process. Also a very positive view of the city of Holyoke.

#4- Berkshire Country Homes
Even though my town of Westfield is just at the foothills of the Berkshires, every time I visit those lovely mountains I feel that I am a world away. Marlene’s posts take me there when I don’t have time to drive.

#5- Cooper Green Design
While I don’t know this designer personally, I enjoy learning about Green living architecture and find this blog to be a great resource and food for thought.

BONUS

#6- Wooing Your TQ
This one is really #1 for me, but since it is ABOUT me, I thought I should share it as a bonus. Morriss has created this lovely homage to our romance and I find it very sweet and inspirational!

I am always on the lookout for new local blogs to peruse…what do you recommend?

Recently I wrote a post for my column at Agent Genius Magazine that shared the truth, that most of my closed real estate transactions in 2010 came to me through social media in one form or another. The post got some attention within real estate circles, but I was floored last week when out of the blue Mike Myatt of N2Growth sent this tweet:

The link provided led to a blog post about people who have social media influence and included the likes of Chris Brogan, Gary Vaynerchuck and Dell Computers. Within the post was a video which included a highlighted quote from the Agent Genius post mentioned above. Watch this short and entertaining video which highlights Social Media Influence and includes yours truly:

This week I was featured in another blog about QR (quick read) Codes. The post was describing the multitude of applications for using a QR Code and featured this video about my use of QR Codes for marketing real estate in Western MA made for me by my talented and wonderful boyfriend, Morriss Partee. I learned about QR code technology at PodCamp Western MA and have been incorporating it into the marketing of my homes for sale in Westfield, Ma and the surrounding Pioneer Valley towns. This video crafted by Morriss explains what a QR code is and how I am using it to help my homes for sale stand out and get homes sold.

I am proud, excited and thrilled to see that my use of social media isn’t just improving my life, but I am able to share some of my hard earned knowledge to help other people working to use these tools.

If you are a fellow real estate agent looking to use social media as a tool in your marketing and prospecting you can read my contributions to Agent Genius Magazine.

If you are a consumer looking for real estate news and advice you can visit:

My personal blog
My real estate blog
My Masslive blog

Wow, what a year 2010 has been in Western Massachusetts real estate!

Not long into January I started to meet a lot of new first time buyers who found me mostly on the internet. Some were friends that I stay in touch with on Facebook, others I met through social media events and the rest found me through my blog posts and videos. I was soon working with over eight sets of first time home buyers who were trying to take advantage of the tax credit, low interest rates and low purchase prices.

That’s A LOT of showings!

I wish I kept track of how many houses I showed these buyers in total, but I am going to have to guess that it was well over 150 houses between all of them. Five months later six of these buyers are closed or will close this month on their new homes and the others continue to look even with the expiration of the tax credit.

While at the office yesterday my manager handed me a printout with the office standings and was I ever floored! I was listed as the #1 real estate agent at Park Square Realty’s Westfield office for the year to date!

Too Busy to Notice!

I have been so busy taking care of all of these buyers that I didn’t pay attention to my sales statistics and hadn’t realized exactly where I stood.

Real estate is my career, but I don’t work this hard for the paycheck. I work like this because I want to help my home buyers and sellers realize their real estate dreams and goals. I work this hard because I know that each of these transactions deeply affects their lives and is one of the most important decisions of their life.

That is what makes me so proud…that I have helped so many amazing first time buyers realize their dream of home ownership. The rest is just gravy. Really good, yummy gravy, but still just the top dressing.

Thank you to my clients and customers for your faith in me. Thank you for your trust and for your business. I appreciate you more than you know!

Now all that door opening has tuckered me out, but I after a little restorative cat nap I will be ready for the next bit of business. Who wants to move?

A lot happens in a year (or ten months) and since that first un-conference experience I have attended several other camp style events and hosted TwitterQueens Social Media Bootcamp in NYC.  With all of that crammed into the past year, I wondered how PodCamp Western MA 2 would be for me.

I knew it would be a ton of fun, I knew I would see friends that I made last year and have fostered in the months since.  The day began early for me as I arrived at Westfield State College before 8am to assist with the set up and registration desk.  I was very excited to greet so many members of the #twitterqueens at the registration table. I enjoyed myself as the attendees poured in and I encouraged everyone to fill in their tag stickers:  three descriptive words about themselves that could be conversation starters during the course of the day.  I chose “REALTOR”, “MOM”, and “DANCER” for my tags.  Almost instantly a conversation started with Stephanie Oats about yoga dance, which I plan on investigating. As the day progressed I was engaged in other conversations about real estate in Western Massachusetts, dance and parenting that were a delightful part of the event.

After Morriss Partee, one of the organizers (and my boyfriend) explained how the camp would work, the campers filtered toward the schedule board to fill in the sessions that were still available and make their selections for the first hour.

I started with Christine Pilch’s advanced LinkedIn, which is the social media platform where I can most improve.  Some of the great information and reminders that I took from her teachings were: create your custom profile URL, use only a photo that represents you as a professional, fill your bio brief with skill descriptions and keywords, create and participate in groups and use the Answers section to display your knowledge in your field.

Next up was the session I had been most looking forward to: Steve Garfield speaking on video.  I found his session to be filled with a lot of easily implemented changes and additions that I can use to improve my use of video.  I had already been somewhat frustrated with the limitations of my Flip camera and will take his advisement for the Kodak Zi8  into serious consideration.  He shared preferred accessories and websites such as www.animoto.com, www.blip.tv and www.iodapromonet.com.  An hour wasn’t nearly enough time to glean all of his expertise, so I purchased his book, “Get Seen”, to continue my learning in this medium.

Lunch was a great opportunity to bring the social into social media.  I enjoyed a very interesting conversation with Bill Weye about a real estate blog blowout on Agent Genius (where I am a featured writer) that happened last week and was surprised to learn that the topic had bled out of real estate circles.  I cut my lunch a bit short to prepare for the third session, of which I was leading “Tweetdeck to the Rescue”

I had a great time leading this session which was filled with lots of great new faces and interesting questions.  Last year I was a strict observer and it was exciting for me to be able to bring a topic to the camp to share and help others to grow in their use of social media.

Following my Tweetdeck session was a panel, which  included me alongside my good friends, Christine Pilch, Jason Turcotte, Kelly Galanis, Val Nelson and Jaclyn Stevenson.  We were given the task of sharing some real life examples of how social media has impacted our lives, both professionally and personally. Kelly Galanis, went just before me and graciously shared the story of how I met her husband and she at the first PodCamp WesternMA and how they went on to hire me as their real estate agent and become friends of mine.  I mentioned a blog post that I write last year “The Gifts that Social Media Brought Me” and before we even left the session my friend, Jason Turcotte had tweeted the link for me.   While each of us on the panel spoke of different experiences our message was unified in the positive growth we have all found through our use of new media tools.

The day wouldn’t be complete without an after party and so we left Westfield State College and headed to The Tavern in downtown Westfield.   I was excited to be able to extend the conversations with many people that I hadn’t had the opportunity to chat with during the Camp, including many members of the TwitterQueens network.

I spent today, the day after PodCamp, basking in a bit of R&R with my family and collecting my thoughts for this post.  PodCamp Western MA 2 was just as exciting, educational and energizing as the first PodCamp WesternMA and reinforced my pride in being a member of this amazing group of Western Massachusetts social media rockstars!

Heartfelt thanks to Morriss Partee, Jaclyn Stevenson and Kelly Galanis for putting on this most excellent event!

I am very excited that this weekend I will be attending PodCamp Western MA 2.  A little less than a year ago I attended the first PodCamp Western MA, which was also my first social media camp of any kind.

What a difference a year (or a bit less) can make!  Since that first camp experience I have attended and taught at many more around the country.

These social media camps provide an energized environment of peer to peer sharing and teaching.  They are the best way I  have found to learn to utilize new media for my real estate business.  The things I have learned at these camps have provided me with tools and strategies to offer my home sellers added marketing that other agents don’t offer.  I have been able to reach out to the residents of Western Massachusetts and share my real estate expertise with home buyers and sellers.

I have met some of the most important people in my life including my boyfriend (Morriss Partee co-organizer of PodCamp Western MA), my business partners in social media training, clients and friends.  I have grown my sphere and become knowledgeable in the use of new media tools…people now turn to me for information and advice.  I wrote this past fall about the gifts that social media has brought me…I am so grateful!

Last year I was nervous walking into PodCamp.  I didn’t know anyone and I wasn’t sure what to expect.   This year I will be surrounded by some of the people I like most, talking about topics that excite me and leading a session:  “Tweetdeck to the Rescue!”.

I left last year’s event so excited and full of new ideas, I practiced my new found skills in a video blog :”A PodCamp Virgin Tells All” about the event.  I know I will leave this year with even more new tools and new friends….I just can’t wait!

If you are attending PodCamp WesternMA 2 and we haven’t met yet, be sure to introduce yourself and feel free to ask me about real estate, Twitter, Facebook, blogging, video blogging, the weather….whatever you want to talk about! I can’t wait!

If you want to start connecting before the event, here are my profiles: