Name: Chris Griffith
Website: http://LifeInBonitaSprings.com
Bio: Chris is a thirty year resident of Southwest Florida and practices real estate in the Bonita Springs – Estero Florida area. When she’s not selling real state she’s probably lost in the woods or raising butterflies in the back yard and documenting every bit of it on her blog LifeInBonitaSprings.com and on social media.
Blogger Since: 2006
Getting the Word Out. As a blogger, writing is one thing. Content distribution is another. Do you follow a specific plan once the post is published to draw in more readers? Social media, newsletters, reposting…
Follow the press on social media and learn their hashtags of choice. Locally, #inthe239 (239 is our area code) and #swfl (which stands for southwest Florida) are examples of hashtags that newspapers started or followed. Readers surf the tags and the press follow those tags. It’s an easy way to gain followers and also get interviewed for real estate related news stories.
Thinking specifically about technology and tools – what is the one thing that has had a significant and positive impact on your success and in what way? This could be a tool like Dropbox, a smartphone, social media. Something you bought, something you subscribe to, or something that was free.
The smart phone. I can run my empire with a smart phone. While I would probably adapt to any phone, I am an android user and I use my phone to run just about every social app, my business and more. I’ve forgone my “big girl camera” for the smart phone on many occasions, the phone photos are great, I can pump out content or make a video and have it on youtube in minutes if needed. It is not uncommon to see an elastic pony tail band on my rear view mirror from having the phone on the mirror to make a quick “red light video”.
Who do you admire, look up to, or respect and why? Not looking for the “Abe Lincoln” answer, so Presidents, Candidates, Authors and Wayne Gretzky are out. Amongst your friends, coworkers, and others in your industry – who is it that you really admire? What is it about them (or their business)?
This is a hard question to answer without sounding anti-establishment but I’ll just say it – most of the people who real estate agents admire or look up to in real estate are shiny objects in social media who really never sold real estate. There, I said it. I once had a “shiny object” tell me about how they were a top producer in 2004. A corpse on a park bench was a top producer in ’04. Next, please.
Authentic real estate heroes are really hard to find because they’re busy actually working and they probably won’t make the “Who’s Who on [insert social media] Real Estate”.
One of the smartest people on the planet who has sold a boat load of real estate in her career and is a true innovator and implementer for best practices in social/online/2.0 real estate is Linda Davis from Ledyard, CT. She’s smart, funny, fearless and pays it forward by sharing. She talks the talk and walks the walk. I watch everything she does and it makes me a better real estate agent and person to know her and take her advise.
Few people blog just for the fun of it. Most have a very specific goal in mind. What’s the metric you use to determine if your blogging is reaching that goal?
My metric is my phone ringing, people referring my services, local city officials use my services and people recognizing me and stopping me in the street to continue a conversation or perspective they had to a story I wrote. It’s all of it, not one single thing.
Once upon a time, I proclaimed myself “the self appointed ambassador of Bonita Springs, Florida” and it just sort of stuck. I write more about my city and local events than I do about real estate. I don’t sell real estate online. I sell the city and that sells the real estate. I’m frequently referred to as Ms. Bonita and have taken phone calls on more than one occasion from a local real estate agent with their clients in the car to ask me a question about Bonita Springs.
What is the craziest, strangest moment you’ve had as a result of your blogging efforts?
About 10 years ago I wrote a smart-ass blog about the housing boom titled “When is enough, enough?”. An editor for a Scripps newspaper contacted me for a quote and I told him to go read my quote on that blog post. I ended up writing the real estate column for them for several years because they appreciated my filter-free attitude, I guess.
I now have an agreement to write for a local magazine about parks, nature and day trips. Let’s just say my “Parks” category on my blog is thoroughly fleshed out.
Read the Whole Series / Are you ready for your 5ive?
He's an avid hockey fan, rides a mountain bike, sometimes rides a road bike, has a few motorcycles (he had a really fast one, bought a cool orange one, rode a really slow one, and now,a perfect "BDR Weapon"). If that isn't enough, he makes cheese and sourdough bread, loves strong beer and good red wine, and poorly plays the Mandolin.
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