We hope you have enjoyed our blog so far and are looking towards the future – always trying to think of new and exciting topics to cover. I just thought I would take a moment to ask our readers if we are missing anything you desparately want to know?

What would you like us to cover more on? What do you love? What do you hate? Do you have a real estate question that has been bugging you for ages? Please feel free to email us on info@beachandbay.com.au or comment directly on this blog with questions or feedback.

Over the last 6 weeks I received $5500 worth of online donations – thanks heavily to my Facebook group ‘Rachael Gets Naked For Leukaemia Foundation’. This social networking group was a fantastic way to spread my message far and wide and send out group updates on my progress. On the actual night of the shave I raised another $1500 through donations and raffle ticket sales & since then have received about $300 more from strangers when I am out and about!

It has been a wonderfully positive experience and I want to thank everyone who got involved. The Leukaemia Foundation does a brilliant job in supporting patients with Leukaemia – through counselling, providing free home-away from homes during treatment and undertaking extensive medical research.

If you would still like to donate – please do! My sponsor page is here and I am collecting donations until the end of March 2010. For more photos of the night please see Beach & Bay’s Flickr site.

The show sold out within minutes and I have since found out that there was an exclusive presale for Mastercard employees the night before. True fans were left scrambling come 9am the next morning and thousands missed out. On top of this tickets are now available on ebay for over $2000 with the lister claiming their “friends couldn’t make it on the night” – only to post 2 more tickets once those had sold.

People are pretty angry to say the least and there is already a huge online debate. The power of social media is not something to ignore and Mastercard may be quite surprised about the backlash that will come because of this. There are already 129 comments of complaint on one website alone, with many referring to reporting it to Office of Fair Trading, A Current Affair and 2BG. Fans are banding together and suggesting ways to really kick up a stink about this.

Some diehard fans had already booked flights and accommodation (a bit extreme) but it does go to show that perhaps the fans should have had the presale, and the Mastercard employees, the general public date.

What do you think about it all? Did you miss out on tickets?

Mastercard you have really botched this one up!

Smart Art Cronulla is now called Artwork2u. The name was chosen to better reflect the core of the business, i.e. we bring the art to the customer.

We specialise in affordable decorative art and no matter what your artwork requirements are, we have a solution;

Real Estate – If you are selling your house, try our short term leasing option to add to the visual impact of your property

Corporate – We offer a free Business Consultation and provide the option of rotating your artwork every 6 months

Residential – Purchase direct from the showroom or book a free, no obligation Home consultation

Interior Designers – We offer free viewing of artwork on site for you and your client

To learn more about our services and how we do all the work for you, visit our new website – www.artwork2u.com.au

Beach & Bay Realty: If you would like your Sutherland Shire business to be featured on our blog please contact info@beachandbay.com.au

The seminar was well attended by local business owners in The Sutherland Shire where talk was of Google robots, search engines, changing consumer behaviour and Youtube.

Some interesting statistics were mentioned:

• 95% of people use the internet
• Hours per week we spend watching TV has decreased (hours per week spent exercising is also down!)
• Internet per week has increased dramatically
• More specifically, Yellow pages readership and usage of this print publication is down 54% since 2002 till now
• Google geographical based searches in last 6 months have increased dramatically
• On average, users of Google key in 4 words for searches
• 46% increase in cost of pay per click Google clicks because of companies competing for paid top spot
• Consumers are interacting with businesses more and more

After the course I checked out our listing on Truelocal and our office hours were very wrong but I noticed we had a review from a happy client!

I will watch this website with interest, I am not sure how it will compete with whitepages.com.au, a lot of advertising will be needed.

In the meantime check out your listing on the true local site and make sure your details are correct, apparently this is Australia’s fastest growing online directory.

Please press play button.

Kevin Turner from REUNCUT asked Kylie to summarise the business Beach & Bay Realty has been doing since going from print media to online… Clients are saving money, sales are quicker, Beach & Bay is doing more business. Everyone is happier. We love online marketing!

Kylie Emans REUNCUT interview Part 4:
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From press to online, today I spoke with Kevin Turner about Beach & Bay’s google ranking, twitter, facebook and my blackberry. Basically how all these social media tools are making us more efficient real estate agents and giving our clients immediate access to all the latest sales information in our area!

I was interviewed by Kevin Turner again this morning regarding online marketing. Check out the podcast today which focusses on our unique online auction tracking system designed by housebook.com.au . The auction tracking system has been running since February, 2008 and has the most up-to-date, detailed information on auctions by all agents in the suburbs of Cronulla, Burraneer, Woolooware, Caringbah, Caringbah South, Dolans Bay and Lilli Pilli.