We added a new User Management privilege to the system. Now, you can give your users the ability to manage other user accounts without being an administrator. As YGL add more functions to the system, such as the ability to export data from the system, you may not want to give full administrator access. This new privilege will now give you better control on user access.
Account Privileges in Add Agent Page
Click on the link below for more information on user privileges:
We understand that it is very important to keep in touch with your clients and leads. It is a good idea to keep track of your leads in the system, so you can get in touch with them later. We just added the ability for you to export your leads into a csv file, which you can then import the csv file into email programs like Constant Contact. This option is only available to administrators.
If you are an admin, you will see a new Export link on the Leads page, which will open to a new Leads Export page. From there, you can download a copy of your leads’ emails and name. If you need assistence with using this new feautre, please give us a call.
Export Link on the Leads Page
Leads Export Page
In a continued effort to give our clients the most flexible and functional database, we are proud to introduce our Listings API.
Our Listings API gives you access to your data programmatically. It allows you to use YGL as your backend and open the possiblity for you to build your own applications and websites with listings data in your YGL account. You don’t have to use YGL to build your websites, you can build your own! We will give you access to your data.
An API is a set of programming rules defining how to get your data from our system. You will need some programming knowledge to be able to use it. If you already have a programmer/developer you work with, he/she should be able to assit you with it.
For more information on how to use the Listings API, please click on the link below:
Dear Admins, we made a minor improvement to the system to give you more control over landlord access in the system. Originally, there is only one Landlords privilege, which gives access to the Landlords Tab and Landlords Details pages. But landlords info always show up in the Listing Details page and the listings search results, which you cannot change.
With this new improvement, we broke down the Landlords privilege into 4 different privileges which give you more detailed access control. Now, you can control if any landlord info show up at all in the system or where do you want landlord info show up.
Account Privileges Screenshot
For more information on how user privileges work, please follow the link below to read more about User Privileges:
By client request, we added the ability to override the available date when posting ads to Craigslist. Sometimes you want to the clients to call you about availability and not discourage them with the available date shown in the ad. This is especially true for the luxury buildings. Now you can change the avail. date or hide it depending on your particular needs.
There is a new override field in the ad posting page called Override Avail. Date and a checkbox Hide Avail. Date. Changing the Override Avail. Date field will override the available date with your new value, while checking off the Hide Avail. Date checkbox will hide the available from ads completely.
You have probably all heard of Facebook, and I bet the majority of you already have Facebook accounts, and maybe you even tried our Facebook application. If you haven’t, click here to try it. Facebook has 307 MILLION users and growing strong, are you thinking about how to reach them? If you haven’t looked into Facebook, we strongly encourage you to do so.
We recently looked into the Facebook ads platform, and we want to give you a breif introduction on how it works and how much does it cost. We were very impressed with what we saw, and we think it is an untapped gold mine that has great potential for your business.
The Facebook ad platform allows you to advertise your website, you and your company’s Facebook page. You can add a short title, a breif description and a picture for your ad. Basically, when a user uses Facebook to connect with their friends, your ads will show up on the right column.
sample facebook ad
The Facebook ad platform works very similar to Google AdWords. You can either pay by each click on your ad or pay by each 1000 ad views (they call it Impression Advertising). In your case, we think it makes more sense to pay by click. Like Google, it is also a bidding system, which means the highest bid wins the ad space.
We were most impressed with how you can target your ad audiences. Facebook ads allows your to target your audience in the following areas:
It is very rare that you can create such targeted ads so easily, if done right, we think it could be very very benefitical to attract clients.
As we mentioned, it is a bidding system. You can set a budget on how much to spend each day and the maximum you want to pay per click. For example, you can have a daily budget of $5.00, and bid 50¢ per click. This means that each day, you can get up to 10 clicks on your ad until your funds run out. Since it is a bidding system, the highest bidder’s ad will show up first, so if you bid too low, your ad might not show up at all. The good thing is, at least you won’t get charged.
Currently, the recommended bid is 45¢ to 55¢ per click. This is about 1/3 of the cost on Google.
So why should you care? We haven’t seen many Facebook advertising on apartment rentals and real estate services. While their ad platform is still under priced (comparatively speaking) and under utilized, we believe if done right, it could prove to be a gold mine for your business. This is especially true in the Boston area, where a great number of renters are college students who are on Facebook daily.
What we think really drives the point is how you can target your audiences so precisely, which means that you are not wasting your advertisging dolloars on leads that do not matter to you. For example, let’s assume that you run an agency in Allston and you rent to Boston University and Boston College students primiarly. Then you can create a Facebook ad to target only Boston University, Boston College students between the age of 18 – 22, who are only in Boston. Anyone else that doesn’t fit those criterias won’t even see your ad.
There are many aspects to create a effective Advertising Campaign, like the wording you choose, your target audiences, and your budget. One very important, but often neglected aspect is that once someone clicks on your ad and you get their attention (however brief), can your website keep them there and make them a lead? If your website cannot keep them interested, then you are just wasting your advertising dollars.
Feel free to give us a call, we’d love to provide you with more information and point you in the right direction.
We are happy to announce that starting now, YGL will be using WordPress as our officical Blog and CMS system.
Blog:
WordPress is the industry leader of blogging platforms offering both power and flexibility. It is very easy to start a blog and customize it to match your current site design. A blog is an essential part of Web 2.0. It is great for updating your website with fresh content, build a following, and giving your company a professional image.
If you are interested in starting a new blog or transferring your existing blog to our WordPress system. Please contact us for more information.
CMS:
CMS stands for Content Management System. A CMS system powers your website and allows you to manage your website content without the need to have any programming knowledge. WordPress can also be used as a CMS system powering your entire website. We will be using WordPress from now on as our CMS system for any websites we create.
If you would like to learn more about how you can take advantage of WordPress and our Blogging and CMS services, please contact us for more information.
Hi everyone. Seems like Craigslist has removed the required phone authentication for their accounts. It could have been that Craiglist was testing this new change in the Boston apartment boards. Be on the lookout in the near future for a full implementation of the account phone authentication system.
Started today, Craigslist seems to require all Craigslist accounts posting to the Boston apartment boards to be phone verified. This is yet another Craigslist change to make posting harder and to prevent agents using too many different Craigslist accounts.
* Information provided by Penny Posting.
Click Here to Visit Penny Posting
Click Here to Learn More About Penny Posting, YGL Integration
We updated our Craigslist Watch page with these new changes. Visit our Craigslist Watch page for posting tips.
To help our new users get familiar with the YGL system in the shortest amount of time possible, we created a start up guide that covers the basics on how to get started. Even if you are already familiar with our system, it is a good idea to visit the “Going Beyond” section to learn what are some of the advanced tools we offer, to take full advantage of our system.
Visit YGL Start Up Guide
* The start up guide is only accessible to YGL users who are currently logged into the system.
We also added a “Help” menu onto the upper right hand in the system, where you can easily access our start up guide, visit the knowledge base and create a ticket.
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