Posted by Kevin Doell

I’ve got my miner’s cap on as I dig through depths of WordPress to prepare the site of our corporate blog. The task falls to me as the communications guy for the new Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate brand launched by Realogy in October. Since there are more than 110 million other blogs out there, (at least those tracked by Technorati) we figured it couldn’t hurt to pile on just one more for the fun of it.

The intent of our blog is to engage the online real estate community and relate our experiences as we build a “new and improved” real estate franchise system. From these pages, we’ll explore the construction of the new brand, the services we’re thinking of developing, what the consumer is looking for, among a whole range of other issues. With that, we hope to share ideas, build relationships to learn directly from the community as to whether our ideas for a better mousetrap are compelling or not.

We’re also going to tackle the blog as a group, each contributor weighing in on their own experiences with their own tasks. Personally, I find my role as “communicator” for this start-up endeavor pretty interesting. Having worked with Realogy for the past three years and watched the real estate industry from 30,000 feet, now I’ll be able to work a lot closer to the action, while leveraging the same social media platforms I’ve been talking to others about for some time.

Most of my inspiration to do social media has been driven by PR and communications podcasts. My current favs are “For Immediate Release – the Hobson and Holtz Report,” and “Inside PR,” two great shows that actually have some staying power and consistency. The shows are packed with info and make an easy lift of a long daily commute. I was also able to make the trip to Vegas earlier this year for the New Communications Forum conference sponsored by the Society for New Communications Research. This year’s event takes place in April in CA. I’m hoping to make it to the upcoming conference as last year’s event was totally worth the trip for anyone trying to get their hands around just how the worlds of communications, marketing and technology are melding into one big goo.

So we’ll see how it goes as I do my best to implement a communications plan that leverages social media in addition to traditional media to get some traction for what is a really cool brand. It should prove an interesting row to hoe.