http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamediaOur monthly newsletter, marketing, seo, social networking and blogging tips!Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:00:41 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/I0qn./h/Virtual_Tours_Not_on_TAAR_.htm Two Important Notices From BlueLaVaMedia Hello and good afternoon Please read both important notices below.1 - It has come to our attention that ALL virtual tours have been removed from TAAR during the new MLS integration. This includes virtual tours from BlueLaVaMedia as well as all other tour providers. We want to let you know that we're working directly with Paragon to get us a fix for this as soon as possible. We're programming a direct feed to Paragon which will allow us to automatically push your non branded virtual tours to the new system with the click of a button. I'm hoping that this can be setup within the next seven to ten days if all goes well. Once in place, we'll do a big push to recover all of your lost virtual tours in one swoop. Again, please allow seven to ten days for us to get this programmed and implemented for you. 2- Effective immediately, BlueLaVaMedia is no longer able to post your listings to craigslist. This is now in violation of their terms and conditions. As you purchase our Exposure Engine Add-On moving forward, Jim and I will continue to provide to you with all of the amenities that are included in our Exposure Engine (Read More ). In lieu of us posting directly to craigslist on your behalf, we'll now be creating two versions of your Craigslist flyers for you and sending them to you via email. It will be up to you to post and renew your listings. The process is quite simple and for those of you who are new to Craigslist, I'll include video instructions with each order. If you have ordered an Exposure Engine from us in the last year, I'll be sending you both copies of your Craigslist ads shortly via email.If you have any questions please feel free to contact either Jim or myself.Thanks for your continued support.Sincerely,Jim Blue, Jason, Heather and Little Emersonwww.BlueLaVaMedia.comLocal - 231-946-1360 info@BlueLaVaMedia.com Sun, 07 Apr 2013 12:00:41 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/C9qlA/h/BlueLaVa_Unveils_AstroZoom.htm A Powerful New Feature For Your Virtual Tours Looking for a way to WOW visitors and customers with your BlueLaVaMedia virtual tours? The latest and greatest feature found in the BlueLaVaMedia Fusion virtual tour system is designed to grab attention by offering viewers something they've never seen before. An outer space fly in!Check it out: http://tours.bluelavamedia.com/72453AstroZoom lets you zoom in from outer space, directly to your property or business. We'll create a powerful, visually stunning video that starts with a view of Earth from space, and then slowly zeroes in on your listing or business. This powerful technology creates the visual experience of flying to your property. The planet image rotates to center your geographic location, and then the video zooms down toward the surface and through the atmosphere. The closer the view, the more detailed the landscape, until the camera finally focuses on your listing or business.See more examples of our new AstroZoom technology in our virtual tour gallery: http://www.bluelavamedia.com/residential-samples.htmlDraw your viewers in-literally! Adding AstroZoom to your BlueLaVaMedia Fusion virtual tour is a dramatic and exciting way to spark interest among your visitors. For only $25.00 (Real Estate Tour Cost), Jim and I will create a crisp and visually enticing, high-quality AstroZoom video with your exact address, for use in your Fusion interactive virtual media presentations, online advertising, and more.Give Jim and I a call today to get started with AstroZoom, and turn your virtual tour into an irresistible magnet for buyers and of course an even more powerful listing tool!Thanks for your support!Sincerely,Jim, Jason, Heather and Little EmersonBlueLaVaMedia, LLChttp://www.BlueLaVaMedia.comLocal - 231-946-1360Love us on Facebook! http://www.facebook.com/tcvirtualtours Wed, 30 Jan 2013 15:31:31 -0500http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/Dr5zA/h/Get_Ready_BlueLaVa_Fusion_is.htm 2011 was an amazing year here at BlueLaVaMedia. Jim and I produced nearly 400 virtual tours in the Northern Michigan market helping homes sell faster. We were pleased to see that many of you noticed several enhancements Jim and I implemented throughout the year including significantly widening our still shots with a hardware upgrade, increasing the quality of our still images with our TrueBlue technology, delivering your listing images to you in a much cleaner and faster way, and finally, we increased the size of your virtual tour window to take full advantage of our High Definition images. What most of you don't know, is that behind the scenes we've also been working on a brand new virtual tour software engine and back end management system that we'll be releasing to you here real soon. Our BlueLaVa Fusion system is a one of a kind that's loaded with more bells and whistles than you can imagine. We've been listening to you over the last four years and we know the feature sets you're looking for. Get ready to enjoy the following new enhancements on our BlueLaVa Fusion platform Full Motion Video Support Fully Integrated Floor Plans Better Hit Reporting Built in Lead Generation Agent Toolbox - Login, make changes, grab your leads New Mobile Tour Better Looking Flyers Cleaner Craigslist Ads Much More! Jim, Heather and I would like to thank you so much for your continued support and we're looking forward to wowing you and your team here in 2012. When we launch the new system, Jim will be setting up office presentations to demonstrate our new platform, features and how to fully utilize the agent toolbox. Yours Sincerely, Jason, Jim and Heather Traverse City Virtual Tours and Property Marketing Order a virtual tour: 231-946-1360 http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com BlueLaVaMedia, LLC Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:00:48 -0500http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/9Yrq6/h/Billions_of_Emails_.htmFirst off sorry for getting so many emails from Jim and I today. By the time we saw what was happening it was simply too late. "What the heck happened guys?" We recently went live with our new SuperSize tour links. The email system we use through www.aweber.com recognized all 1000+ virtual tours that we've shot for everyone over the last three years as brand new tours. YEIKES! Since our HotSheet from aweber emails you new area virtual tours every time Jim makes 7 new tours it basically divided all of our 1000+ old tours into lots of 7 and sent each of you over a hundred emails. YUCK! I have just spent the last hour yelling at the Aweber support team and giving them 1001 reasons this should not have happened. Jim and I are discussing if we're going to continue using this medium to communicate with you. We really like the HoSheet but this should have never happened. All in all, please know that this will never happen again. Jim and I appreciate your business and hope you understand that sometimes even the Internet Cowboys screw things up. Thanks for your support! Yours sincerely, Jason and Jim Thu, 27 Oct 2011 15:22:26 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/1VN2E/h/Did_You_Hear_The_News_.htm BlueLaVaMedia, is pleased to announce our new mobile tour for iPad, iPhone, iPod, BlackBerry, Android, and other web enabled portable devices. This new virtual tour is specially formatted for mobile devices so literally anyone can browse your virtual tour gallery and online tours giving you MAXIMUM EXPOSURE! The mobile tour remains interactive which means users with touch screens can actually scroll through the 360 panoramas and still images while enjoying an elegant fade from image to image. It has been enabled on both of our core products, the HD V-Slides and HD V-Tours, insuring that all BlueLaVaMedia customers can enjoy these new developments. What is your cost? There is no additional cost to our customers. The new technology is ready for you to take advantage of on all previous and new virtual tours. What do you need to do to start taking advantage of this? Nothing. Simply let your customers know their virtual tours can now be viewed on all computers, Smart Phones and devices 24/7. How can you see a sample mobile tour? Simply point your phone browser to one of your virtual tours links and enjoy. It's really that simple! This mobile exposure provides the perfect opportunity for you to start using the QR Codes that are now coming with your BlueLaVaMedia Exposure Engine. Simply print the QR Code that we give you on a sticker so it can be attached to your yard sign or have it included with any print advertising, or with listing flyers that you create. Users with Smart Phones will scan your QR Code and instantly view your online virtual tour. The total number of scans will appear on your weekly virtual tour hit reports! You're able to literally track the number of times your virtual tours are accessed by the scanning of a QR Code allowing you to measure your marketing efforts like never before. Listen, if you aren't already using QR codes, now is the time to start. QR codes are the latest advertising darling. They're neat, they're new, they're cool looking, VERY tech savvy, and they allow you to measure your marketing efforts so you can see what works and what does not. This technology will wow prospective home sellers during listing presentations and win over anyone interested in cool technology. For more information on marketing with QR Codes and getting the most out of your BlueLaVaMedia virtual tours and other digital marketing tools contact Jim Blue today and setup an office presentation. Breakfast is on us! Thanks for your support! Jim Blue, Jason, Heather, and Baby Emerson LaVanture http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com Local - 231-946-1360 Mobile - 231-357-4803Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:26:47 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/1J9pJ/h/Regarding_Your_Virtual_Tours.htm Dear , First off thanks in advance for reading this email concerning your virtual tours and a few changes were making here at http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com. By now most of you have all purchased our virtual tour Exposure Engine. In fact our Exposure Engine has become so popular that 95% of all of our clients purchase an exposure engine along with one of our virtual tour packages. As you also know, virtual tours with our exposure engine generate nearly 50% more traffic than those without. Unfortunately many of our customers have forgotten to let us know when MLS numbers change, listings expire and sell. The easiest way to do this is to simply hit reply on our weekly email hit report with any changes. By following this procedure it will assure that all exposure engine listings are correct and removed when no longer needed. In an effort to keep the data in our exposure engine up to date, valid and in accordance with the MLS boards we are no longer going to keep any Exposure Engines online after a period of one year. We are still working very hard to keep your listing refreshed every two weeks on Craigslist, and every 30 days on Postlets. We're also currently in an audit process and are checking all tours in our exposure engine for validity. Any virtual tour not found on the MLS is being removed from the system. We are going to be notifying you as we find any tours with discrepancies from what we find on TAAR, PaulBunyanMLS, Ira2000, and WaterWonderLand. Those who would like to keep their virtual tour in our exposure engine after a period of one year may renew for a fee of $20.00. Simply let us know. We kindly ask that if you experience any of the following changes on your listings with tours you inform us right away: Price Changes Listing Expiration Change of Agent MLS number change Other Thank you very much for your continued support and we appreciate your help in making our Exposure Engine as powerful as possible. Yours Sincerely, Jason and Jim PS. If you have not seen our new HD V-Slides you MUST CHECK THEM OUT! BlueLaVaMedia Property Marketing Services http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com Phone - 231-946-1360 info@bluelavamedia.com Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:48:55 -0500http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/zHH8/h/BlueLaVaMedia_News_Flash_.htm At BlueLaVaMedia, Your Image is EVERYTHING... BlueLaVaMedia News Flash In This Issue... New Mobile Agent Websites - **HOT** New BlueLaVa HD V-Slides **HOTTER** New iPad, iPhone and SmartPhone Support for your Virtual Tours! Got a Mobile Site Yet? How about one that captures leads??? These new mobile agent sites are extremely easy to setup, display an agents ENTIRE listing inventory and, unlike before, these mobile websites run off of ONE SIMPLE CODE! Try it now by sending text message BlueLaVa6 to 43766! We all know that sooner or later, every Realtor who has a web site will also need a mobile site. A mobile site is formatted to display and function properly on any smart phone. A mobile site means giving potential buyers direct access to ALL of your listings and having them displayed perfectly on their mobile phone. More users are discovering the power and convenience of using their mobile phones to surf the web and do everything they normally would do using a PC or laptop. According to a recent study of potential home sellers conducted by Philadelphia based research firm Devine and Powers, 49% of respondents said they would be more likely to use an agent who offered a mobile solution as part of their marketing plan, while 67% said it would be a major deciding factor in choosing a Realtor. With our new Mobile Websites, agents can raise their profile, promote their brand and appeal to more buyers, by making all of their listings conveniently and instantly available to any buyer out driving around looking at properties. Agents can display contact information including, phone number, website and email addresses. Additionally, all active listings, including photos, listing details, your BlueLaVaMedia Virtual Tours, and even maps to all existing listings are instantly available. Take a Test Drive Now!! Send Text Message BlueLava6 To Phone Number 43766 Reference Guide | Watch Our Video Agent Account Setup Enjoy the new technology Traverse City!! New High Def V-Slides We are excited to be able to offer this new service to our clients. Our HD V-Slide is certainly first in class. It is built using the very latest flash based engine; it loads at impressively timely speeds, and displays full screen HD images with grace and elegance. With the ever growing demand for professional photography the need to have those photos displayed in a uniquely impressive format has never been greater. Sample a few recent HD V-Slides Below: http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/2654 http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/1641 http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/3659 http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/3660 http://rtvpix.com/slideshow/3359 In the beginning of August we released our all new HD V-Slide, which is our second major release of new technology this year. As you know, we have always included a free slideshow with our virtual tours. But now with having the full screen virtual tours we felt the need for a newly improved slideshow product and the result is our HD V-Slide! We're very pleased to inform you that our new HD V-Slide comes at no additional cost to you when you order any of our new HD virtual tours!! In addition, we have also created it as stand-alone viewer for those wanting just an HD V-Slide. We have always been asked if we could do just still photos, but we did not have a stand-alone viewer to do this. Now we have HD V-Slide to offer still image photography for our customer base. This amazing new product comes packed with many of the same features as our Interactive 360 Tours such as weekly hit reports and the ability to go to the MLS and Realtor.com. Visit our website today to learn more about the new BlueLaVaMedia HD V-Slide. iPad and SmartPhone Support What good is getting a virtual tour from anyone if it is not seen by the largest audience possible? A Big reason home sellers use a listing agent to sell their home is to get that maximum exposure only a listing agent can bring to the table. Our virtual tour and listing exposure is so far ahead of our competition that you will be amazed at the traffic you're getting when your weekly hit reports come in. We even send hot leads your way as your listings generate questions and comments from interested parties!! We're not done yet because our new 2011 Exposure Engine is fully compatible with iPhones, iPads, and any other web-based SmartPhone! We'll also toss in our E-Flyer so you can easily share listing details and your tour with prospects. The E-Flyer is an HTML email-ready flyer that our customers can easily send out to prospects anytime they wish. You can preview a sample E-FlyerHERE. The Exposure Engine allows real estate agents and local business owners to do what they do best and that is list homes, sell homes, and conduct everyday business while not getting their hands dirty with the online promotion of their listings and products. That's where we come in. When you order our new 2011 Exposure Engine your listing and tour will appear on Craigslist, Googlebase, Trulia, Zillow, YouTube, AOL Video,FaceBook, Google Video, Oodle, Lycos, Local, Hot Pads, Vast, Properazzi, Dot Homes and more! Listings pushed to our exposure engine receive on average 40% MORE viewings than those that are not. We even keep your listing refreshed and updated until your listing is sold! Sample some of our recent virtual tours here: http://www.TourGrandTraverse.com Follow us now on Twitter and Facebook: @BlueLaVaMedia - Twitter http://www.facebook.com/tcvirtualtours Also Check Out: Get indexed properly in Google Thanks for your support! Jason LaVanture and Jim Blue http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com Order property marketing Tools Today! 231-877-941-TOUR (8687) Share this email Did someone forward this to you? Subscribe Here! Subscribe via RSS Get live updates in your web browser window. Visit our new Blog! Our new Blog is a great way for you to see many new interactive 360 virtual tour listings as well as sample our new TrueBlue photo technology! Our Marketing Tools: 2011 Exposure Engine HD V-Slides Single Property Websites Panoramic Sign Riders Agent Virtual Tour Websites Virtual Tour Traffic Reports 40' Elevated Photos Night Shots Custom Flyers Virtual Tour Discs 3D Floor Plans Social Ignition System Email Template powered by AWeberWed, 22 Sep 2010 13:14:55 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/aPyO/h/Facebook_101_Webinar_Event.htm Hey there everyone! It's Jason from your neighborhood virtual tour and property marketing company, BlueLaVaMedia.com. I would like to give you a once in a lifetime opportunity here to come to one of my International Webinar Events on the 15th of this month. I will be interviewing No Games Nancy Bain from Nova Scotia. Nancy knows so much about social media marketing that she has just been nominated by the Nova Scotia Chamber of Commerce for an Entrepreneurial award from the Lunenburg Queens Business Excellence Awards. Nancy teaches social media classes for local real estate agents and has become a master of Facebook marketing. All of this started from her taking my online Social Ignition Course! Please join myself and Nancy Bain on Tuesday June 15th at 7:00 Eastern as we learn how to properly market yourself on Facebook, setup a fan page for your business, create a facebook badge for your website and more. Best of all, Facebook marketing is FREE! Sign up here: https://www.gotomeeting.com/register/779383339 See you on the show. Jason LaVanture and Jim Blue - BlueLaVaMedia.com http://twitter.com/BlueLaVaMedia http://facebook.com/VirtualTourGuru Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:37:24 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/1VA8j/h/High_Definition_Virtual_Tours.htm BlueLaVaMedia News Flash » High Definition Virtual Tours (HD) Could it really be High Definition Interactive Virtual Tours? Yes, times have changed drastically over the last two years and team BlueLaVaMedia is working hard to keep our technology at the forefront of virtual tour technology. Today we are proud to announce that we have upgraded our virtual tour viewer to support Full Screen High Definition images. Take a look at the virtual tours below and you will quickly see how our new HD full screen virtual tours transform the typical interactive virtual tour to something quite spectacular. Trust us that our new HD experience literally makes your audience feel like they are standing right in the room! With just a click of a button BlueLaVaMedia now delivers you a brand new amazing interactive virtual tour experience. Sample our new HD Virtual Tours: http://rtvpix.com/RE-3608-MEK2OV-01 http://rtvpix.com/RE-3273-5SCY8A-01 http://rtvpix.com/BU-2026-5KWOEM-01 Don't worry about load time. In fact, our virtual tours load faster than any of the other video or interactive virtual tour platforms out there! This is because we compress our images down to an amazingly small size before publishing them to our servers while maintaining strict standards in quality. No waiting for a huge video file to load only to get a tiny window. No more staring at a loading bar for two minutes only to end up viewing a simple full screen slide show. Now you can tell your customers that you're giving online shoppers a truly interactive HD virtual tour experience. Finally, our HD full screen virtual tours can also be easily converted into streaming video for YouTube deployment! It's truly amazing! We want you to experience this new feature on your listings, so from now through April, your first virtual tour you purchase from us will get a free HD full screen upgrade. Starting May 1st 2010 an upgrade to our HD viewer will cost $20.00 on our Real Estate Virtual Tours. Show your customers that your are on the cutting edge of technology with one of our NEW HD virtual tours today! Thanks! Team BlueLaVaMedia Visit our website today: BlueLaVaMedia Call us at 231-946-1360 Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/BlueLaVaMedia » Virtual Staging Home staging is frequently employed by homeowners and real estate agents to help show properties to their best advantage. We all know that a staged home shows better than an empty home. As wonderful as traditional home staging is there are some drawbacks. BlueLaVaMedia is very pleased to announce our all new virtual home staging product. We will take any unfurnished room and stage it to your taste and style for only $60.00. You're able to choose the furniture from our online furniture library. Ordering virtual staging for one of your properties can be done by giving us a call by placing an order online. Please follow the link below and start Virtually Staging today! Only $60.00 per room! Click below to see a demonstration of a virtually staged room. Read More Online Fri, 19 Mar 2010 12:51:46 -0400http://archive.aweber.com/bluelavamedia/22R49/h/TxT_Message_Marketing_Updates.htm As a leader in the Northern Michigan real estate market you have either started to use our new BlueLaVaMedia TxT Connect as an integral part of your marketing plan or you will be signing up for the program in the near future. As you are no doubt aware BlueLaVaMedia TxT Connect is both an inexpensive marketing tool, (as low as $2.95 per month per property), and one that allows you to join in the expediential growth of mobile marketing. To help you make full use of your TxT Connect service I have attached a 2 page place mat to this email. The first page is great for helping you setup your account and the 2nd page has some tips on using your account on an ongoing basis. As always if you have any questions on this or any other BlueLaVaMedia products just let us know. Some of the new features and benefits of the BlueLaVaMedia TxT Connect product include: Virtual Tour/Video Upload Link You can now upload a video or provide buyers with a video URL link such as YouTube. This is another great use for the video version of your virtual tour. This video is included with our Exposure Engine. Agent Photo Upload Your photo is now displayed in the new mobile website design - see below. Lots Added as a New Category Within real estate, we now have Homes, Rental Properties, Commercial Properties and Lots. Text Business Card Added as a New Category Why not use one of your keywords for a Text Business Card! ie: Text JBlue to 43766 to see how you could create your own Text Business Card. Now that's green! MLS Auto Fill Simply enter the MLS number and click auto fill. All of the property details, extra description and up to 10 photos are automatically populated into the listing fields. The more detailed property description and photos will appear on the mobile site. This is now a one step process! New Mobile Website (WAP) For those with a mobile data plan that can access the internet, we have re-designed our mobile website design. Our new design takes a buyer directly to the photos as the landing page, they can access a map of the listing, click on a video or virtual tour if uploaded, see the agent and their photo, click to SMS (or call or email) the agent, etc. Mapping Feature Buyers can now click an icon in the mobile site to see the property on a map! Photo Upload Enhancement Photo size is now larger (4MB) and you can see the upload progress and photo itself after each photo upload. Opt-In For Price Updates Through Mobile Site/Listing Buyers are all looking for an edge! Now they can simply click a button if viewing the listing on their mobile phone and enter their number to opt-in to receive SMS broadcasts for property listing info and updates. Remember, we also make it easy for any buyer to also opt-in simply by replying YES to the second text message they receive. Stats You can now view a number of various stats on your property listing and filter by date. Feel free to print the attached place mat document so you can keep it handy as a reference for using this important marketing tool. Pass this email to a friend and help them invigorate their property marketing program. Best regards, Jason BlueLaVaMedia Call: 231-946-1360 Browse: http://www.BlueLaVaMedia.com Mon, 08 Mar 2010 14:07:18 -0500