RISMEDIA, March 8, 2011—Brokers, agents and mortgage professionals who met in Austin, Texas last month for the very first Xplode Real Estate Technology Conference, received $35,000 worth of free mobile technology from leading mobile solutions provider, Mobile Real Estate ID™. Xplode is a conference series created to deliver a unique marketing opportunity for real estate-technology decision makers at all levels within the industry.
Each individual attendee will receive one full year of complete mobile solutions from the New York-based firm. This free mobile package includes SMS lead generation, QR codes, and single-property mobile websites all converted to work correctly on all mobile devices. Attendees will also have the opportunity to mobilize their traditional website with MLS listings.
According to company Founder John Lim, Mobile Real Estate ID applies today’s latest mobile technology to traditional marketing and advertising regimens. Lim’s system allows buyers to access property information and pictures in the fastest and most direct way possible—by putting information directly into the buyer’s hands and enabling them to make more informed decisions.
Held in association with the Texas Association of REALTORS®, the Xplode conference offered a full-day program designed to educate real estate professionals on how to better their business through the latest cutting-edge technology available. The event covered a vast range of topics, including mobile technology, video, social media and other aspects of digital business such as electronic signatures, CRM, and more.
“We realized there’s a huge demand for great technology training all across the country,” says Matt Fagioli, Founder of the Xplode Technology Conference series. “What we do is tech-savvy training delivered by tech-savvy agents and brokers who are really in the trenches and who deeply understand the technology.”
According to speaker Amy Smythe-Harris, a REALTOR® for Realty Associates in Houston and also the Technology Chair for the Texas Association of REALTORS®, the Xplode conference provided a one-of-a-kind, high-speed experience for its attendees. “The fast pace of it was very unique. The stage was very close to the crowd; this had a very intimate feeling whereas other conferences feel like lectures,” she explains. Smythe-Harris met Fagioli at an industry conference last year and soon, the two were tossing ideas around for a new type of real estate conference. She helped market Xplode via Facebook, promoting to her 2,700+ Facebook friends, while also utilizing video marketing to help make the event a success.
Krisstina Wise, Broker/Principal of The Good Life Team in Austin, Texas and Xplode speaker, says that limiting speakers to 12 minutes each benefited the overall experience, presenting usable and timely information in bite-sized portions. “The requirement was to give information, but make it actionable,” says Wise. “The speakers were all experts in the domain they spoke. It was really exciting—a very intense, high energy, content-packed day.”
To help attendees navigate the swift pace of the conference, Mobile Real Estate ID™ also provided a mobile site for the official conference, www.xplodethis.com. The mobile site included all the information attendees would need, says Fagioli. “We updated it daily before the event. It is just a requirement now for mobile users. In fact, we did not produce a printed schedule and pushed people exclusively to the Web and mobile schedules.”
With technology unraveling and dominating the real estate space, REALTORS® can only benefit from modifying their business practices; failing to do so may leave some behind. “Video is becoming so easy to produce and so ubiquitous that you’re falling behind if you’re not doing this,” says Fagioli.
“You have to get very comfortable with Facebook,” adds Smythe-Harris. “You have to engage differently and learn how to use your Facebook profile the right way.”
“My advice is that you have to learn new technology and new ways of doing business,” says Wise. “Go to conferences, find businesses that are doing it well, and change habits and practices. Buyers and sellers are on the Web and it’s a new game. We have to learn it.”
Xplode will continue educating real estate professionals across the country with events taking place in Orlando, Destin, Fla., Rye, N.Y., Dallas, Tucson, and more. For more information, visit http://xplodethis.com/. For more information on Mobile Real Estate ID, please visit mobilerealestateid.com.
