Are your social media marketing efforts infringing on a corporate trademark? If your marketing efforts are confusing customers—if they are misled to believe that you are affiliated with a known brand because of your URL, Twitter or Facebook name—then you could be liable. At the heart of the matter is an effort to fool customers.

Start by looking at your URL. If you have chosen a URL for your Web site or your blog that is similar to a large corporation, you could be infringing on a trademark—and you could lose your domain name. Continue reading ‘Does Your Social Media Mislead?’

Google may have emerged victorious in Viacom’s landmark $1 billion copyright case over infringing YouTube videos, but don’t misinterpret the ruling. YouTube was under a Safe Harbor provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

FACT: Cutting and pasting articles for use in your real estate marketing efforts don’t fall under that Safe Harbor—and it could get you sued. Recently, there had been an onslaught of lawsuits filed against individual bloggers and companies with websites that copy material from newspapers.

To protect yourself and your company from liability, never display, reproduce or distribute copyright protected works. This rule applies as equally to blogs, website articles, and social media postings, as it does to good, old-fashioned written and printed material.

Continue reading ‘Caution: Cutting and Pasting Could Get You Sued’

Are your drip campaigns leaky? If your e-mails get classified as spam, it could kill your lead generation campaign before it ever gets started.

That’s because e-mails marked as spam usually land in your would-be buyer’s spam folder or, even worse, drive recipients to file complaints. The bottom line: Spamming is illegal.

At the very least, consumers can complain to their Internet Service Provider (ISP) and blacklist your e-mail address. Web-based e-mail programs like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail and Gmail make it particularly easy to report spam. Worse, consumers can also file a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission via the CAN-SPAM Act of 2004, where consequences could potentially be greater.

Follow E-Mail Best Practices

People are hypersensitive to spam because it costs them time and money. In order to avoid spam complaints – and get your e-mail message in front of homebuyers – you should educate yourself about e-mail marketing industry standards. Groups like the Email Sender and Provider Coalition and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) offer best practices for sending e-mail. Here are some of those best practices from the DMA: Continue reading ‘Launching Complaint-Free Drip Campaigns’

Many believe mortgage fraud is partly to blame for the wave of foreclosures that are swamping many housing markets. And a quick scan at national headlines speaks to the depth of the issue.

In early January alone, there were several high profile convictions:

• Six people in Boston were arraigned in a $2 million mortgage fraud scheme.
• A Naples, Fla. man was sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay more than $11 million in restitution for setting up straw deals to obtain inflated mortgages.
• A Colorado man was sentenced to 31 years in prison after a mortgage fraud scheme.
• Two North Carolina men were sentenced for their part in a $6 million mortgage fraud scam.
• Two New Jersey men were convicted in a multimillion-dollar mortgage fraud and property flipping scheme.

Those are just a few of the many early January mortgage fraud headlines from coast to coast. Indeed, prosecution of mortgage fraud is on the rise as the U.S. Justice Department makes the issue a priority. U.S. Attorney A. Brian Albritton has publicly declared that “Mortgage fraud will not be tolerated.” Continue reading ‘Calculating the Real Cost of Mortgage Fraud’