So I staged 2 La Mancha Millbrae on Monday and finally got a chance to process and upload all the photos and testing RealBird out!
It was really easy to upload all the photos and it's actually faster than uploading via VFlyer. I do wish both of these applications have a feature to post multiple photos concurrently. That will save me a lot of energy and time. When I uploaded the photos, it appeared to be distorted and fuzzy. But when I checked the done flyer, they all look fine. What I like about RealBird v. VFlyer is that RealBird has a slideshow feature, which I think I will start using on my own website (oy, more uploading!) for before & after photos. It is not as magical as RES of course where you can add music & captions, but I think it looks pretty darn good for its purpose. And it's FREE (music to my ears). You can also post it to your facebook account, in addition to craig's list.
But the great thing about vFlyer is that it's cross industries where RealBird is real estate industry specific.
Here is what the vFlyer ad looks like in Craig's list
Here is what the RealBird flyer looks like in Craig's list
Here is the embedded slide show via RealBird (or see on my blog menu on the right)
Here is the application of the RealBird Slide Show on my site www.staged4more.com
Have a chart here (let me know if it is incorrect or anything you want me to add)
| VFlyer free account | RealBird free account | |
| Ease of using | Yes | Yes |
| Limits on photos | 15 | None |
| Upload speed | Okay | Slightly faster |
| Multiple photos upload | None | None |
| Posting to facebook | No | Yes |
| Posting to Craig’s List | Yes | Yes |
| Slide show capabilities | No | Yes |
| Kijiji (ebay) | No | Yes |
| Backpage | Yes | Yes |
| Oodle | Yes | No |
| Edgeio | Yes | No |
| Google Base | Yes | No |
| Vast | Yes | No |
| Propsmart | Yes | No |
| Trulia | Yes | No |
| Widget | Yes | Yes |
| Visiting stats | Yes | Yes |
| Listing domain name | Yes | Yes |
| Social bookmark | Yes | Yes |
I have also been impressed by their customer services. Upon signing up, I actually received a real live person call to see if everything is working great. I also love them contacting us via AR directly to add a "home stager" category since we generally are like orphans in the industry and always have to check "the others" box. ;)
And thanks to David C's original post I Put My Listings on RealBird Tonight, So Should You!
And SUPER THANKS TO JULIET, because she was the one who got their attention to add stagers as a new category!
Here is a link to RealBird's AR post: RealBird flies free
Cindy Lin, Founder + General Manager
Staged4more Home Staging & Redesigns
www.staged4more.com
Direct: 650-293-7458
Office: 650-589-8875
As featured and seen on HGTV, San Francisco Chronicle, San Mateo County Times, CBS 5 News, Forbes.com, Examiner.com and many other notable presses and publications.
Proud winner of Sam Walton Emerging Entrepreneur Award, Make Mine A Million, CSP Green Business of the Year and finalists to Innovator of the Year, Stager of the Year Awards from Real Estate Staging Association.
*PSSSS... Want a little saintly help? Check out our sister company EcoJoe, the Original Eco-Friendly St Joseph Home Selling Kit www.ecojoekits.com ; www.facebook.com/ecojoe
We actually do have slidehow capability see:
http://getaways.vflyer.com/home/SlideShow.jsp?prodInstId=909130
Other categories that might be helpful to include to are (for vFlyer at least) are:
1. PDF Output
2. Email Support
3. Mobile Support/Access
4. SMS Distribution
5. Image Enhancement and Hosting (Watermark Plus)
Available to Subscribers we also have:
1. Video Support
2. Bulk Upload Capabilities
vFlyer,
But is slide show included in the free account? I try to search through your wiki but it yielded no result. I also just double checked, mobile access & SMS are not included for free account.
cindy
I also got an email from RealBird:
Cindy,
Thank you very much for writing about us. We appreciate blog coverage a lot.
If you don't mind I may mention, that we support all those syndication destination what you marked as supported by VFlyer only (Trulia, Oodle etc.). I did not want to leave a comment as it is no place for us to sound commercial. We do not syndicate stage homes as those portals are for sale properties listed by agents (with broker authorization) If VFlyer posts staged home as for sale properties, there may be some problem with the overall user experience as those sites expect for sale properties. They may have staged homes category, which I do not know about. If so, we'll implement ourselves also of course. I though I just mention this, but in any case, we are very glad that you wrote about us.
Also, I just learned about this service: http://www.designmyroom.com/
This might be something very useful for stagers.
Best regards,
Thank you,
-- Zoltan Szendro
RealBird Inc.
http://www.realbird.com
http://realbird.typepad.com
Cindy, They both look nice, and I prefer to manually post to those sites (just my preference)
I did notice (or miss) the Equal Housing Opportunity wording or logo for RB. Might have been my error. Of course this can be manually entered into the HTML.
Again, just my opinion, but the website in each photo of a million dollar home, not a fan. Perhaps smaller or 50 percent translucent
Hi Gary
I appreciate your feedback. But people do lift photos, it's a protective measure of my work.
Cheers,
Cindy
Hey Janice
Both of them are super easy to use! You should have no problems at all!
Cheers,
Cindyeddo
Hey Janice
Both of them are super easy to use! You should have no problems at all!
Cheers,
Cindyeddo
Cindy thank you so much for the breakdown of the two offerings. I don't know how you find the time!
You've saved me a lot of time and frustration...thank you!
Very helpful, Cindy! I'm going to go give RealBird a test drive.
Just an FYI -- I think that the Craigslist ads expire every 45 to 60 days, so just an FYI, but your VFlyer vs RealBird links are not currently working.
Cindy- after being a vflyer customer buying over 50 listing flyers per year I switched to the free realbird flyers. I am so impressed with the customer service, the ease of use, the amazing free single property sites that are so superior to anything else on the market, and of course their awesome search widgets. One stop shop for all your listing needs. I was so impressed and on our first search widget that I embedded in a blog post for a highly searched subdivision in my town, we got 4 leads for our buyers agents within 24 hours! I was SOOOOO impressed that I, as a coach, an agent and as one of the top bloggers on Active Rain made the decision to promote Real Bird along with Active Rain and now running webinars for showing agents how to use these two platforms together. I pay $99 a year with Real Bird to remove all the ads from my search widgets. What a deal! Katerina
Hey Katerina
THANKS SO MUCH for commenting! It's great to see you on AR and thanks for always commenting on my tweets ;) I actually wrote a post featuring your comment http://www.smallbizgurltalkstech.com/2009/06/08/real-bird-vs-vflyer-part-deux/
cheers,
cindy
thanks to both of you for diligently bringing us up to date information on great tools - I need to go and revisit Real Bird. I started out with them some time ago but haven't been keeping up.
Thanks Cindy. I think it's wise to use both for now. Real Bird may eventually eclipse V-flyer with it's contact management function when they get it up and running. Oh, and the IDX companies are really going to have to catch up, too.