How To Make A FREE Mobile Website In Less Than 1 Minute!

By Jennifer Taylor, Director of Internet Marketing, New American Mortgage

Recently, eMarketer predicted that by the end of 2011, “38% of US mobile users will have a smartphone and 41% will use the mobile internet at least once each month.” That’s huge from where it was a few years ago, even last year. I remember being at a convention several years ago and one of the speakers mentioned that smartphones will soon be taking over the way we search and do business. I didn’t even have a smartphone back then and I honestly didn’t think the number of people surfing the web on a smartphone would escalate so fast. Now, I can’t imaging anyone not having a smartphone. People in their eighties have smartphones. You know it’s a different world when older people sitting next to you whip out their smartphone and start posting status updates on social networks. o.O

One of the most vital parts of your 2012 marketing plan should include your website being mobile. We’re currently having our website totally redone. It won’t be ready until several months from now, so I took New American Mortgage’s website and used it as an example today to show you the importance of a mobile website and how fast and easy it is to make one if you’re on a budget. I know several companies and people that make mobile websites and they are fantastic. They build them from the ground up. What I’m about to show you is completely different. It’s called DudaMobile. I discovered it about a month ago in Inc. Magazine. So, today I finally had some time to test it out. Well, I literally made our website mobile for free in less than 60 seconds. Yes, FREE. You know how much I love the freebies! And I know how much you love them too!

This is how our website currently looked on an iPhone earlier today. You have to enlarge the screen with your fingers just to navigate around the website. Yuck! No one wants to do that. So, you know what that means? It’s time to fix it FAST!

When I entered our website URL into DudaMobile’s website where it said, “Enter your site URL,” their magical frog went to work! He’s a hard and fast little worker. He examined our website; extracted navigation, colors, and content; built HTML and CSS; and then tested our mobile site in less than 60 seconds. Whoa! That’s one FAST frog!

When he was finished our website looked like this:

You can change the colors and the design of it all, which as I have stated before, color is extremely important in marketing. However, I actually liked the way DudaMobile first presented the mobile website to me. It looked business and professional like, so I ended up leaving it the way it was. I did play around with different colors and designs for it bit, which is extremely easy to switch out.

The free version does have an ad that will appear at the top of the mobile site, unless you upgrade to the premium mobile site, which is only $9 a month.

Once your mobile website is made, all you have to do is copy and paste the html code that it gives you into your regular website’s homepage. Once you do that, it will automatically redirect mobile visitors to your new mobile website!

And with all that said… Happy Holidays and Happy Browsing!

From your favorite blogger,

Jennifer Taylor

How Your Credit Score Can Affect Your Ability To Finance A Home

By Sam Chazanow, CMB, AMP, Reverse Mortgage Specialist & Trainer, New American Mortgage

Whether you are a first-time home buyer or you are planning to refinance your existing home loan, it is important to understand how your credit history influences the process. When you are being considered for a loan, the lender looks at your past payment history, the amount of credit you have outstanding and the amount of credit you have available.

Mortgage lenders rely either on a consumer’s credit score, such as a FICO score developed by Fair, Isaacs & Company or use a combination of FICO score and other factors to price a loan. Credit bureau information is used to obtain a number that represents how likely you are to make your loan payments on time. FICO scores range from approximately 300 to 850, and in general, the higher the score, the lower the risk you are to the lender.

Your credit history directly affects the interest rate and fees (risk based pricing) a lender charges. Consumers with the best credit generally pay the lowest amount for a home loan. Under the FACT Act amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act you are entitled to one free credit file disclosure, commonly referred to as credit report, in a 12 month period from AnnualCreditReport.com. This is a centralized service which was created by the three nationwide consumer credit reporting companies – Equifax, Experian and TransUnion and authorized by the government to provide free credit reports. To request your free annual report your can contact AnnualCreditReport.com. You can also call toll free at (877) FACTACT (322-8228) or send a written request to: Annual Credit Report Request Service, P.O. Box 105281, Atlanta, GA 30348-5281. Credit scores can be purchased from the three major bureaus for a small fee: Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion. Building and maintaining strong scores may be as simple as improving your credit profile. Recommendations for doing so include:

Making timely payments each month – The best way to increase a credit score is to pay bills on time.

Paying off outstanding debt and limiting the amount of credit you use – Lowering balances on credit cards and lines, and keeping them low, raises a credit score.

Requesting a lower credit limit on current credit cards to avoid high credit limits – High credit limits relative to income can adversely affect a score.

Closing credit accounts limit the number of credit lines – An obligation to pay multiple accounts lowers a credit score. By consolidating debt onto two or three credit lines, preferably those with long credit histories which have been managed well and canceling other accounts, scores can be raised.

Checking credit reports periodically – Incorrect information in a credit bureau file may lower a credit score. For information about credit disputes and credit repair, please visit the Federal Trade Commission Credit Repair Information site.

Not applying for credit you don’t need –Whenever you apply for credit, the creditor will obtain a credit report from one or more of the three credit bureaus. Each such inquiry stays on your record and affects your score. The reason is because each inquiry suggests that you are increasing the amount of credit available to you. You may request that consumer credit reporting companies exclude your name from lists for pre-approved, unsolicited credit and insurance offers. To find out more, please call 1-888-5OPTOUT (567-8688). You can also opt-out online.

African American man clicking his heels.

While it may seem intimidating at first, understanding and improving your credit score is easier than you might think. The time and effort you invest can pay off handsomely in lower home loan rates, lower monthly housing payments and better loan terms.

Call your home loan representative at New American Mortgage for more information at 757-227-3385.

When Was The Last Time You Backed Up Your Computer?

By Jennifer Taylor, Director of Internet Marketing, New American Mortgage

If you read New American Mortgage’s blog, you’ve probably discovered that many times I use my life stories in our blog posts. Well… I’m sure you can figure out from the title of this particular blog post that someone’s computer recently crashed.

Do I back up? YES, however, when you’re always on the go and busy 24/7 for the company you work for, it’s a little more than time consuming to back up your computer. I had backed up some of my files, but I hadn’t recently backed up my newest & updated files. I lost A LOT of my presentations, documents, videos, photos, etc.

When was the last time you backed up your computer? Check out this clip from Sex and the City / Season 4 / Episode 56 / called My Motherboard, My Self. Carry learns what “backing up” means and that she needs her motherboard replaced.

This clip is almost exactly how I felt yesterday when my computer & external hard drive crashed. In my case I WAS backing up my laptop, because I had maxed out the space on it. See below?! Yikes!!

First off, I deleted some things from my external hard drive in order to back up my laptop and to free up some space. My “well thought out plan” didn’t happen as smoothly as expected. Somewhere in-between the transfer I lost everything. I’m not exactly sure what went wrong. I just know that our IT department told me this morning that they couldn’t retrieve ANYTHING from my computer, but they would continue to try. EVERYTHING on of my computer is gone and I mean EVERYTHING.

I wish I would have listened to my father. He’s an extremely tech savvy man and has worked in the IT field for many years. He called me a while back and said, “I know how long and hard you work on your projects and I would hate for you to lose everything. You need Carbonite.” Then he proceeded to inform me what Carbonite is.

I didn’t feel like asking New American Mortgage if I could get it and I didn’t feel like using my own money and expensing it later. Boy, am I now wishing that I had listened to my father… gutted.

The famous Kim Komando from The Kim Komando Show highly recommends the product. If you haven’t heard of her, she hosts America’s largest weekend talk radio show on over 450 stations in the United States. She discusses anything digital. I’ve listened to her radio show since I was a little girl. I have my dad to thank for that . She’s stated before that she uses Carbonite to back up her own computers. That speaks volumes coming from “America’s Digital Goddess.”

So, what is Carbonite? Just install the Carbonite application on your PC or Mac and your files will be backed up automatically. If you ever lose your files, the Carbonite software will guide you through the entire process of restoring your data. You also have remote access, so you can download, view, or share your files from any web browser or from their smartphone application.

You can try Carbonite for free through Kim Komando’s website. I also searched around the Internet a bit and found some excellent prices on Carbonite.

Over a year ago, I backed up my computer with an external hard drive and the external hard drive itself crashed and wouldn’t respond. Luckly, our IT department was able to transfer my files over to another external hard drive. Most people don’t have an IT department at their beck and call though. Carbonite is simple, secure, and affordable. All to say, I definitely plan on getting it soon.

If you’re concerned about the safety of using Carbonite, you can check out Kim Komando’s tips on it.

New Reverse Mortgage Programs Helps Seniors Save Even More!

By Sam Chazanow, CMB, AMP, Reverse Mortgage Specialist & Trainer, New American Mortgage

Reverse mortgage are becoming very popular in America. The Reverse mortgage also known as a HECM (Home Equity Conversion Mortgage) is a federally insured loan that enables senior to withdraw some of the equity in their home or use the loan proceeds to buy a new primary residence that they will occupy. The HECM is a safe alternative resource that can provide seniors with greater financial security and independence. Seniors are able to borrower against the equity in their home and receive regular tax-free payments. Many seniors use it to supplement social security, meet unexpected medical expenses, make home improvements and more. In the fiscal year ending September 30^th, 2011 HUD endorsed over 73,000 Reverse Mortgages nationally of which 2500 were endorsed in Virginia:

The information below describes some facts about the socioeconomic groups envisioned as the market for reverse mortgage loans:*

12 million senior households are owned free and clear.
78 million baby boomers are entering their 60’s over the next 17 years.
$4.3 trillion home equity controlled by seniors homeowners.
The over 85 years age group is the fastest growing segment of the population.
The over 60 years age group – 7,982 people will be turning 62 every day for the next 17 years

Recently, the federal government has introduced the FHA HECM Saver Program. This program differs from the traditional HECM Reverse Mortgage Program in that eligible borrower age 62 and older who access a smaller portion of their home equity will be charged significantly lower fees, usually adding up to several thousands of dollars. For instance, a borrower age 75 with a property valued at $250,000 would save approximately $5000 in closing costs by choosing the HECM Saver which will provide approximately 20% lower loan amount than the traditional HECM. As an added incentive, New American Mortgage will be waiving the HECM Saver Initial Mortgage Premium for a limited time.

There are no additional eligibility requirements for the HECM Saver Program. Homeowners just need to meet existing HECM program requirements. The HECM Saver Program is available for both home purchases or refinances with fixed rate or adjustable rate options. Additional information about the HECM Saver Program can be obtained by calling New American Mortgage at 757-227-3385.

*Reverse Mortgage Webinar: “You paid for your home, Now let your Home Pay You!”, Sandra Wiley, 9/23/2008

How To Get Your Customers To Review You On Yelp

By Jennifer Taylor, Director of Internet Marketing, New American Mortgage

What Is Yelp?

“Yelp aims to connect people with great local businesses and Yelp Business Accounts allow businesses to share information with the Yelp Community. Simply put, it’s word of mouth — amplified.” via Yelp.

If your business is not listed in the Yelp search engine results, visit the Yelp Business Center and click “Create Your Free Account Now.” You will be guided through, step-by-step, on how to create an account. It’s super easy; I promise.

Okay, so people can review a company on Yelp. That’s great… but how can it help you and/or hurt you if you’re a business owner?

Yelp is very similar to Google Places. A while back when I was in California on business for New American Mortgage, a REALTOR® in La Jolla, CA that was in one of my Internet Marketing classes that I was teaching, basically said to me “There’s so many places to review a company out there. Which one (just one) should I zone in on?” My answer to him was this: “Before the new iPhone 4S hit the market, I would have said Google Places, however, the way the Apple iPhone’s technology, named Siri, works is that if a consumer says, “Real Estate Companies Near Me” or “Mortgage Companies Near Me,” the results are Yelp Reviews. Once you click on a company that it shows, it will then bring you a Google map of that one location and the other locations that it brought up. Interesting, aye?!

It’s always important to have good reviews on the most commonly used consumer review sites, but in all actuality asking a customer to review you on Yelp, Google Places, Foursquare, Yahoo Local, Citysearch, Linkedin, etc. is sometimes just a little too much.

Although I stressed him to promote Google Places and Yelp, I told him his customers could actually review him wherever they wanted, but he could use Faceified to promote his reviews. Faceified was made for real estate agents. Here’s a simple chart on how Faceified actually works:

Okay, let’s bring it back to Yelp, since that’s what this particual blog post is about.

Here are the Top Ten Ways To Get Your Customers To Review You On Yelp:

Put an icon on your website that says something along the lines of “Review Us On Yelp.”
Put your Yelp Business Page URL on your business cards. If the URL is too long, you can shorten and customize it with bitly.
Create a self inking stamp that has “Review Me On Yelp.com” to stamp on your business cards, envelopes, notepads, documents etc.
Put your Yelp Business Page link in your email signature.
Put your Yelp Business Page link in “Thank You” emails.
Put your Yelp Business Page link in at the end of a survey.
Have a laptop in your office that is designated for your customers to review you on Yelp after their transaction or service is completed.
Offer intensives, such as “Show us that you reviewed us on Yelp, and get x amount off of your next purchase/service.” (Notice: I didn’t say only if it’s a good review, but it covers good or bad).
Create a QR Code that links to your Yelp Business Page. This should be placed on most print marketing.
Ask!

If we’re located in your area, we would love for you to review us on Yelp.

Public Relations, Customer Service, and Social Media = Disaster or Success, It’s Up To YOU

By Jennifer Taylor, Director of Internet Marketing, New American Mortgage

Yesterday, I flew in on US Airways. It was their fault that I missed my connecting flight to another US Airways flight going into Norfolk, VA.

And the story begins… I had tweeted “I think they should pay for a taxi for me b/c I’m flying into Newport News, VA instead of Norfolk, VA. #USAirways.” One of my Twitter friends said to me on Twitter “psst.. Use their twitter handle @usairways. You’ll get better response.” My response to her was “If they know anything about #SocialMedia, they’ll check #USAirways. I shouldn’t have to dumb it down for them. We’ll see if they man up w/ out me having to ask at the airport. I’ll have to blog about this one. #USAirways. If #USAirways doesn’t respond in less than 15 hours, flying will be my new blog topic tomorrow for @NewAmericanMtg.”

I usually don’t complain about companies via social media OR in person. If anything, I praise companies via social media AND in person if they do a good job (something my college taught me to do), because I know the last current statistic about how many people an unhappy customer will tell their unhappy experience to is from the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, Washington, DC “A dissatisfied consumer will tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience. About 13% of dissatisfied customers tell more than 20 people.”

In my case, I told my own personal 7,010 Twitter Followers, 2,438 Facebook Friends, and 950 Foursquare Friends, (coming in at a whopping, give or take, 10,398 people). Some of my friends are friends with me on all three social networks, however, I would say maybe 100 are on all three social networks and are connected with me across the board, so if that were the case the number of people I told about my US Airways experience was about 10,298. That’s A LOT of people.

The Public Relations and Customer Service game has CHANGED, not just a little bit over the past few years, but it has DRASTICALLY changed. It can mean disaster or success, it’s up to you!
So, let’s take a step back to make sure you guys know the ends and outs of Twitter, because apparently US Airways doesn’t. I have given them well over 15 hours to respond to me. I didn’t write this blog until after their time limit was up. I wanted to give them a fair chance. I think 15 hours is more than enough time to respond to me and I gave them well over 15 hours. I’m sure they have more than 1 person in their Internet Marketing department to address my concern and problem. Tisk Tisk…

Have you heard about United Airlines breaking someone’s guitar? I heard about it when it was first posted two years ago, and I’m sure most of you have seen it as well or have heard about. A woman sitting behind a musician named Dave Carroll, not aware that he was a musician, cried out: “My god they’re throwing guitars out there.” And so the United Breaks Guitars Trilogy began. To make a long story short, United Airlines wouldn’t compensate him for his broken guitar that they broke. It wasn’t until he made a video, uploaded it to YouTube, and got millions of views within a couple of days that they were ready to help him.

United Breaks Guitars 11,191,775 views – (since 2 years ago)
STATEMENT 734,067 views – (since 2 years ago )
United Breaks Guitars Song 2 1,378,257 – (since 2 years ago)
United Breaks Guitars Song 3 – “United We Stand” on the Right Side of Right 440,019 views – (since 1 year ago)

So, how can one that is in Public Relations, Customer Service, and/or Social Media learn from these stories?

Every customer counts, whether they can shout it to billions of people or just one. I’ve addressed concerns that customers have had about our company discreetly and quietly, because I know how to handle public relations and customer service, not only in person, but online. Not every single customer is going to be 100% happy. We (and other companies) would love to think that they’re always happy, but in reality, things happen and we’re all human.

Even though we’re the best mortgage company in the United States, we had a small social media crisis the morning of my Grandmother’s funeral last Thursday. You know what I did? I had less than 2 hours to get ready and leave. I jumped online at 6:30 a.m. and fixed the entire problem before 8:30 a.m. I was still able to address it, fix it, get dressed and be on time to the funeral at 9:30 a.m. Did I want to deal with something like that on a day like that? No, but that’s part of the job. If you’re in charge of a company’s online presence, you have be on call like a doctor and have a backup person in case you’re not available.

I need you guys to be able to walk away from this blog post and know how to properly tweet. I’ve come up with The Top 5 Things A Company Should Know About Twitter In Case Of A Social Media Crisis:

Use Hashtags. The pound sign, plus a word turns into a hashtag. A hashtag is essentially a hyperlink to a certain tweet topic. The one I used for US Airways was from their Twitter Handle @USAirways. I turned their Twitter name into a hashtag. I wasn’t the only one that used #USAirways. If people don’t know a certain hashtag that your company uses, they’ll hashtag your twitter name. I think all company hashtags should be the same as their Twitter name. What the hashtag allows one to do is to see a stream of tweets about a certain topic.

Use Advanced Twitter Search to search in-depth for particular tweets.

Use TweetBeep. TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter. You’ll get emails when someone is tweeting about you, your company, your product, or your website. It will save you from spending your whole day searching on the Advanced Twitter Search page.

Add Personalization To Company Tweets. Not a lot of people know this, but if you want to add personalization to company tweets, the official way to do it is to add the initial of the Tweeter at the end like this: ^JT

Many companies such as Coca-Cola and Walmart, tweet this way to add personalization. It helps the consumer to connect to the company in a personal way. It also helps to identify who said what to a customer that’s from your company. When you’re a large company like us, or even bigger like Walmart, it helps keep our customer’s inquiries and our response to them in a streamlined manner.

Follow Your Twitter Followers. This is the Twitter norm and the polite thing to do on Twitter. You obviously don’t have to follow spammers, but I’m here to tell you, if you don’t follow your customers on Twitter, they take it VERY personal. Trust me on this one.

And with that said, go forth and tweet your heart out! – @JenniferNTaylor

The Taylor Family Top Secret 7 Layer Salad Recipe: