Happy Friday! This week’s custom theme is from Richie Caliendo at Caliendo Automotive. I love the header image in this theme, with its classic-car look and elegant black background. This is one of the best auto dealer custom themes I’ve seen yet! Also, Richie takes advantage of our Showcase layout for Craigslist (see picture below), which has a nice big photo at the top of the Flyer to give the prospective buyer a better view of the car. The Showcase layout is one of 9 Craigslist layouts available to business subscribers when they use a custom theme. Other information and photos of the vehicles are displayed below the huge photo at the top.

Great custom theme, Richie!

Once again, for a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com.

We’re introducing a new blog feature, the “Custom Theme of the Week”. We have so many great custom themes that our members have created using the Theme Editor and their own creativity and resourcefulness, we decided we had to show them off to the rest of the world. This week’s custom theme is from Ryan Hinricher at InvestorNation. Ryan made great use of an uploaded background image and a header image that’s seamlessly integrated with the background. I especially like the upward-pointing arrow in the logo and the contrast of white and blue between the header and background; it gives me a whole new way of thinking about what’s possible with the Theme Editor. Everyone on my team is quite impressed by this custom theme. Nice work, Ryan!

vFlyer’s Theme Editor enables any user to create his or her own custom theme and any business subscriber to upload a branded header image to a theme. It’s a great way of making your Flyers stand out from the rest, and the branding capabilities for business subscribers provide a vehicle for putting your brand front and center on your Flyers. For a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We expect to post a new theme every Friday, so keep an eye out for more fantastic custom themes. And if you’ve created a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com!

After many late nights over the last week, we completed our latest round of computer system upgrades. The biggest part of the recent upgrade was the addition of a new storage server. This new storage server will enable us to add storage as needed without having to reboot our servers. Now that this is behind us, we can be focused on adding support for more Marketplaces, more Widgets, and other cool marketing tools.

We had a fantastic time exhibiting at Inman Real Estate Connect last week. The show gave us a chance to share with real estate agents and brokers, technology managers, and other attendees all about the benefits of using vFlyer and gave us the opportunity to catch up with some longtime vFlyer members and meet other members for the first time. vFlyer members who stopped by our booth included:

Also, the winner of our vFlyer Basic Annual Subscription Giveaway was vFlyer member Tom Plant of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Wildomar, CA. Congratulations Tom!

Thanks to all of you for stopping by and saying hello!

Also, our very own Oliver Muoto was a panelist on a panel discussion titled, “The Hottest Productivity Tools.” Way to represent, Oliver!

The Inman show is a great chance to learn about, discuss, and debate the most important trends in real estate technology and marketing. We’re delighted to have had the opportunity to participate in the conference again and look forward to future Inman Real Estate Connects.

Here is a great marketing idea that involves images enhanced with Watermark Plus and flyers: Creating a set of before and after images and including them in your vFlyers as an effective way to show-off your business skills.

A growing number of small business owners are using vFlyer to promote their businesses. Whether you are in the construction, home staging, health care, landscaping or provide other professional services to consumers or business, using before and after pictures helps communicate qualities that are otherwise difficult to “illustrate”, things like attention to detail, quality of work and the ability to deliver great results to prospective customers – try it today.

Tags: small+business, marketing, watermarks

This week’s vFlyer of the Week is this Hyper Blue 2006 Mini Cooper. Jeff does a great job with using both his great photos and the premium layout to give prospective buyers a complete “360 degree view” of his extra clean beauty!

Tags: vflyer, mini+cooper

I have written about the flexibility of vFlyer many times! With our support for custom attributes and fields you can use vFlyer to pretty much sell anything! The other day I noticed a company using vFlyer to sell cargo containers of all things! Their vFlyers do a great job of promoting 20’ and 40’ cargo containers for Safe & Secured Storage! You can pick up a container for as little as $1,950 and have it shipped overnight by FedEx! I wonder what it costs to FedEx a forty foot cargo container these days?

Michael Friedenberg of Frank Howard Allen Realtors uses the new premium flyer layout to market the Perfect Small Farm! I like Michael’s choice of layout and I like the “completeness” of his flyers including a great photo, large galleries, and a good company logo!

This week’s Watermark Plus image of the week comes from John Baker of the Lithia Internet Sales Center. Like other Internet-savvy auto dealership marketers, John uses Watermark Plus to add sales information to images that could help take them off the lot! It’s no surprise that Watermark Plus is so popular with auto dealers! Image merchandising has been used by auto dealers in automotive classified advertising magazines such as AutoTrader, Trade Magazine, Dupont Registry and Zoom Photo Ads. Watermark Plus takes the process online and allows car dealers to merchandise photos for free in a few simple clicks and then use them in online classifieds!

This week’s vFlyer of the Week for a 2005 Honda Accord EX Sedan comes from the very web savvy vFlyer professional subscriber Sonny Baird at Anderson Honda direct. Sonny’s use of the new premium flyer layout really set’s all of his listings apart!  Sonny’s elegant use of vFlyer also set’s him apart from other auto dealers when it comes to online marketing!

Some real estate agents have put Watermark Plus to particularly good use! By simply combining the photo of their property being listed with their own personal photo and an eye-catching message (Just Listed, Price Reduced, i.e.), they can make their property photos really stand out!

This month’s vFlyer Star is John Lockwood, broker/owner of Sacramento, CA based Elite Properties. The vFlyer Star program identifies and recognizes our biggest and most active users, supporters and advocates. (See Previous vFlyer Stars)

Elite Properties does a great job of marketing its client listings and the company itself. John and his company are actively involved in many forms of online and social media marketing including blogging and ActiveRain.

John Lockwood is truly a “power-user” and one of a growing group of users that take vFlyer to the max! John has the following advice:

A special thank you from vFlyer to John Lockwood and Elite Properties.

	Name: John Lockwood Company: Elite Properties See vFlyer | See Blog About Company: Elite Properties is a company that has been a leader in using of Internet marketing in the Sacramento area for several years. When we saw vFlyer, we knew that this would be an outstanding addition to our service offerings. How I use vFlyer: For the past several months, I have used vFlyer for all my company’s listings and provide it for my agent’s listings as well. I create thumbnail ads which link to the on-line flier on all my websites. I also use the flyer widget on my blog. I like the fact that vFlyer ads can be pasted into my main blog as well as my ActiveRain Blog, and I especially like that with about ten minutes of effort. I have a flyer that can also be used not only on my blogs, but on Craigslist, Sacramento News and Review (a Backpage sites that vFlyer supports), and that automatically gets syndicated to several other sites as well. What I Like Best: I like vFlyer so much that I recently used it in my online “listing presentation” video, which shows how vFlyer is an integral part of an overall online marketing strategy (Example) One of the interesting statistics from that movie is that during a particular period for one listing of mine, I had 91 hits in the MLS, 230 hits on Realtor.com, and over 1,000 hits on my vFlyer page for that listing. The statistics reports you can get make a great addition to any listing presentation. Usage: vFlyer Star Badge

If you think you or someone else you know should be recognized as a vFlyer Star, let us know by sending an email to blog@vflyer.com

Last week Inman New released a list of the 25 Most Influential Real Estate Bloggers. Our good friends at Sellsius Real Estate, the thought leaders that they are, have put out an equally important list of top bloggers - 12 Top Women bloggers in Real Estate! (They did one in 2006 as well). Actually ran into the latest list while visiting the Real Estate Tomato!

I was very pleasantly surprised that I recognized at least half of the folks on the list as being as vFlyer “all star” users, including Missy Caulk, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Kristal Kraft, Teresa Boardman, Laurie Manny and Maureen Francis. As I started speaking with some of them and listening to their great insight, I decided to turn my conversations into a podcast and to reach out to everyone on the list.

The result is 12 podcast interviews in which the 12 Top Women bloggers in Real Estate share their backgrounds, their intro to blogging, and their advice to fellow bloggers! All of these interviews were unrehearsed and most happened “on the spot”, some while busy agents where driving from a closing, or at a conference - so please excuse any inconsistency in sound quality and understand that some of the interviewees had time and other constraints working against them.

I will confess that I had a blast speaking with all of them and they all share great insight and advice in their interviews so I would strongly recommend listening to as many of them as possible!

Podcast Interviews:

	Diane Cohn (Chase International) Play: or Diane has developed a great business slant on blogging after she discovered the lead generation potential of the Internet. Diane talks about valuable learning resources for bloggers, the need to develop focus, and other cornerstones of real estate blogging. Links: Blog | ActiveRain
	Frances Flynn-Thorsen (RealTown/Realty World) Play: or I was impressed that Frances is currently involved with over four different blogs and is quite the blogoholic. Frances talks about the need to take a risk and really connect when having a conversation and worry less about SEO. Links: Blog | ActiveRain
	Ines Hegedus-Garcia (Coldwell Banker) Play: or Ines got involved in blogging a little over a year ago after hearing about blogging from a professional photographer. She then joined ActiveRain before launching her own blog. Ines also recently did a great post on real estate blogging and stresses the importance of persistence and reading other people’s blogs. Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery | ActiveRain
	Kris Berg (Prudential California Realty) Play: or Kris and her husband got involved in blogging after seeing the success of Rain City Guide, which according to Kris is the “gold standard” of real estate blogs! She was also determined not to be “left behind”. Kris shares a lot about the less tangible benefits of real estate blogging and the need to be “true to yourself”. She is also a contributor to the BlogHoundBlog. Links: Blog
	Kristal Kraft (The Berkshire Group) Play: or I talked to Kristal as she drove around the city and she shared with me how she developed her blogging skills over the last 4 years. Kristal also makes a couple of great suggestions on being hyperlocal and keeping a journal of your blog ideas! Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery | ActiveRain
	Laurie Manny (Prudential California Realty) Play: or After playing a little phone tag, I was glad I got a hold of Laurie. Laurie has some great advice on getting started, the role social networks can play in blogging, the importance of SEO as well as the need to go local! Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery | ActiveRain
	Maureen Francis (SKB Sotheby’s International) Play: or Maureen has been blogging over two years and got first involved in blogging about 4 years ago when trying to create for her daughter’s baby book and got hooked! Maureen makes a great point about “finding your own voice” and using blogging as a social networking too. Maureen was one of our early users. Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery | ActiveRain
	Missy Caulk (RE/MAX Platinum) Play: or Missy shares her background and tells us now she got started in blogging. Like many others, Missy talks about the important role ActiveRain has playing in her blogging as well as her plans to add a local real estate blog to her list of blogs. Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery
	Rhonda Porter (Mortgage Master Service) Play: or Rhonda was almost “forced to blog” less than a year ago and suggests “not thinking about it” too much and being committed to the process. Links: Blog | ActiveRain
	Roberta Murphy (Murphy Group) Play: or Roberta got into blogging on ActiveRain but soon with the help of Jim Cronin of Real Estate Tomato expanded into additional online properties and is now blogging on 3 platforms - wow! Roberta stresses the need for commitment and finding a honest voice - after all, blogging is about “having a conversation” with your audience. Links: Blog | ActiveRain
	Sharon Simms (RE/MAX Metro) Play: or I spoke with Sharon late Friday (both of us where on our cellphones) about how she got started in blogging. Sharon learned about the success of blogging from one of the organizations she was involved in. Among other things, Sharon recommends getting involved in ActiveRain and Localism as part of the learning process. Links: Blog | ActiveRain
	Teresa Boardman (Keller Williams Integrity Realty) Play: or Teresa has the additional distinction of being selected as one of Inman’s Top 25 Bloggers in Real Estate. Her blog is known for its tangible results and Teresa explains how she got involved in blogging as an experiment and gives some good advice to prospective bloggers. Links: Blog | vFlyer Gallery | ActiveRain

Click here for page 2 of this post that contains a summary of some of the great insight these bloggers where able to share with me about real estate blogging.

This Week’s vFlyer makes creative use of an artist’s rendering of the property as part of the listing. Small House, Big Opportunity! features a starter home in Oakland, California and real estate agent Nicole Bailey does a great job in highlighting her listing! Its nice to see so much attention to quality in a flyer (logo, personal photo, main photo, i.e.).

So what in the world is a Blog Carnival? Basically is a type of blog event, dedicated to a particular topic, that comes out weekly (or monthly) that tries to summarize the best blog posts that week on that subject. In the past, we have been a contributor to the the Carnival of Real Estate, this is a real estate specific carnival aimed at bringing together the best real estate bloggers from around the country (and world). This week, vFlyer has the honor of hosting the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Real Estate on our blog!

Determining the best posts of the week is no easy task as my experience judging Project Blogger taught me, and guidelines aren’t always very helpful. First of all, you get a bucket load of submissions (30+) that really span a broad range of topics - so two factors tend to jump out at you - overall quality and area of interest. What was interesting about the posts I read was that they pretty much fell into one of nine comprehensive areas of interest (I felt too limited by the carnival’s 3 default categories), so decided to highlight what I thought were some of the best posts along those lines:

	Big Picture: Michael Price’s post Real Estate and The Social Network Effect was my favorite. This big picture pieces does a great job of examining how the real estate social networking landscape is evolving in light of recent development in the space. If you haven’t been keeping up with has been going on, you should read this piece.
	Technology: Larry Lohrman presents Photo Manipulation - Where Do You Draw The Line? Technology has always been a favorite topic area of mine, and Larry touches on a important and controversial trend that needs addressing. Technology is great, but too much of a good thing can be a bad thing.
	Hints and Tips: We all like hints, tips and how-to’s. The Silicon Valley Blogger presents Rent vs Buy A House: How To Evaluate Your Options which revisits the age-old question of renting vs buying, in the context of today’s economy. I also thought that Morgan Brown post titled 5 Things to Do Right Now if Your ARM is Going to Reset Soon was very applicable, given what is happening in the sub prime real estate market.
	News and Opinion: We all have our opinions, and Shailesh Ghimire definitely expresses his in Suze Orman’s Credit Advice Falls Flat. I also liked Matthew Paulson’s take on Why the Real Estate Market Slowdown is great for Consumers.
	Finances and Investing: Many times real estate is a numbers game and John Crenshaw does a good job of showing us the math when it comes to Pay Off Mortgage, Lose Tax Deduction? Honorable mention goes to John Barker’s call to action in FHA Bans Gift Down Payment Assistance Programs.
	Trend Watch: Trends, trends, trends. It seems everyone these days is trend spotter. Raymond of the Money Blue Book exposes some of The National Association of Realtor’s Wacky Predictions in his post.
	Humor: We all need a little humor and Cindy Lin’s post What Britney Spears Taught Me About Staging to Sell A Home shares some great insight with some funny, yet applicable, references to pop diva Britney Spears. I am sure you’ll love the photos!
	Regional Outlook: I had to choose from several great regional real estate outlook posts. In this category, I thoughts that Toby Boyce provided a fairly comprehensive look at what is going on in Downtown Delaware in this post Q&A: What is Happening to Downtown Delaware Ohio? Denny Oh’s look at the San Diego market is also worth checking out.
	International: The Carnival or Real Estate tries to cast a global net on real estate blogging, so I thought it was appropriate to include an international entry - Owning a condo in Thailand by Adam Bryan-Brown that makes a case for owning real estate in Thailand!
	My overall favorite (aka the winner) was Michael Price’s post on Real Estate and The Social Network Effect. Being an idea guy myself, I have a confessed weakness for big picture pieces. Overall the quality of the posts was great and as I have explained before the process of judging is always a subjective one - in my book, anyone who tries is a winner!