Property4Media an online PR tool for property professionals

The Internet, the modern marvel of this century and an invention which it is fair to say has changed the way we live our lives, well, it’s changed mine for the better you might say… this property blog post comes to you, in live, full Technicolor dressing gown ! On a serious note, the WWW has changed the way we work, shop, research and keep in touch. Furthermore, it has sprawled a whole host of new ‘online’ jobs from daily bloggers (like my good self) to forum moderators as well as creating a plethora of new online industries offering services dedicated to improving your website’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO), web design & hosting to a new breed of online marketers aimed at imprinting your online experience on your memory. Over the last 10 years the Internet has been responsible for entirely changing for good, the dynamics of a number of traditional industries; consumers no longer search for and buy travel, insurance and property in quite the same way.

Online house hunting
In the US and UK today, around 80% of house hunters now use the Web to kick-start their search for a property, as demonstrated in our post about Realestate.com. In fact, according to traffic statistics expert Hitwise, around 1% of ALL internet traffic in the UK is property-related. Home hunters executing property searches on portals and contacting property agents account for the majority of this traffic and particularly so in the field of overseas property investments where distance makes online search the first port of call for many overseas buyers. Altogether, the top five UK property portals entertain 16+ million user sessions per month. These figures serve to show how enormously popular online property searching has become. As online house hunters and new sources of property information continues to grow: How do overseas property website owners in particular, market themselves online effectively?

With coverage of overseas property in both off-line and online media, on an upward trend, finding avenues to get YOUR international property offerings heard and mentioned above the crowd of real estate paraphernalia out there is getting harder and more important than ever. Unless you can:
a) count yourself among one of the big boys in the online property world
b) are friends with a very nice property journalist or
c) have a lottery grant style budget to buy the services of people who are friends with lots of nice property journalists
your property marketing options come down to trying to make friends with the said nice property journalists which could take some time or attempting to stage a PR event worthy of a mention on a shoestring budget.

Doing it for yourself with Property4Media
Now, I strongly subscribe to the ‘ I can make it at home’ theory, so if you write well and have a weekly slot of 30 minutes to spare, Property4Media may well be your shortcut to media-mention heaven.  Aimed at property industry members only, Property4Media is the home of press releases about all things property-related, including overseas property, home improvements, gardens, interiors, residential & commercial property, construction, mortgages and more. Subscription to the website is free to all property writers in TV, radio, broadsheet and internet media’s and is attracting wide interest from freelance journalists (currently 1600 signed up), not to mention those with regular mainstream property columns.

Forming part of the UK-based News4Media brand operating online news portals for the UK media via Finance4Media, Entertainment4Media and newbie Property4Media. Also affiliated to the brand, are TravMedia and Food4Media already established in the UK for some time. TravMedia was founded by CEO Nick Wayland in Australia in 2000, and along with Food4Media is now the leading free news-wire style service distributing breaking travel and food news, operating in multiple regions of the world, including the USA, the Far East and Australia. Over 200 NZ travel and tourism companies supplying releases, it is the ideal tool to for journalists to keep their finger on the pulse of breaking news stories via just one email.

Property4Media hopes to replicate this success here by offering UK property journalists with a single organized resource to filter the constant stream of property news. Property companies and organizations have a clear way to deliver relevant breaking news directly to media that needs industry information. Subscribers to the service have the following tools at their disposal:
E-mail Alerts – breaking property news emailed to journalists and can specify delivery timing and a preferred area of industry focus ensuring your PR release reaches the right person.
Journalist Alerts – A handy tool for property companies searching for relevant media coverage. Journalist pursuing a particular angle, submit a specific info request e.g. Dubai property, new golf developments, up and coming events such as the World Cup 2010 South Africa, London Olympics 2012. You get to respond to info requests relevant to your property product and keep track of changing property trends.
News Room – The latest news from real estate organizations worldwide.
Press Centre – All archived releases uploaded by property developers and real estate agents, searchable by topic, and company name for full contact details.

Property4Media are also planning a series of free London based networking events, which as we have mentioned before can be a goldmine of contacts with PR’s and journalists in attendance. At least 4 events are planned throughout the year, with the first in September 2006.

TravMedia and Food4Media have had great success and now charge approx a £250 annual membership fee and £80 for each media release though bulk discounts do apply. Property4Media are offering FREE membership to property companies for 3 Months before going commercial. Register for the service online at http://www.property4media.com/ or email Craig Sinclair here.

Property4Media is a direct route to property journalists, making it an ideal, cost-effective, do it yourself PR tool. Here at Nubricks.com, we have recently signed up for the service and look forward to seeing a flurry of press mentions in the very near future! Like Nubricks.com, Property4Media is yet another non traditional route to build PR for your property company, why not give it a go and try your hand at a spot of home-made PR property buzz.

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