A few brokers have contacted us lately to ask if we 'assist with lead generation', and the confusion is one that is easy given we invest quite a lot into a leading website experience. The reason we apply effort to your website because it leverages your promoted (and organic) funnels enormously. You cannot and will not enjoy digital success without a compelling digital presence. This article introduces the Instagram Post Slider - another feature that'll support a more engaging website experience.
The Result
An Instagram Post Slider will show the latest Instagram posts from one or more accounts in a fully customisable rotating carousel. Each carousel shown on your page can be unique in terms of the posts displayed and the hashtag filtering applied, and each may inherit its own style.
We Don't Like Sliders: First, we're not particular fans of 'sliders'. However, this applies when your primary and clear Call-to-Action message is obfuscated by multiple messages... so our distance from sliders doesn't apply to lower-tier content such as social media and videos. When it comes to social media articles, the carousal is a highly effective way in which to render large amounts of content.
For the purpose of our in-post examples, we'll use shortcode to return a result, but it's expected that clients will use the drag-and-drop Elementor block introduced shortly.
For the first example we'll return a 'default' carousel with the shortcode of [bm_instagram]. The result isn't ideal because we're limited to just two results in a post-style format when the intended purpose is for usage on a wide page (if you're on a mobile, you will only see one single panel).
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This is how a group returned 200m in monthly volume for less than 7k.364 paid leads. Around 35% of their monthly lead expectation. Around $17 per SMS-verified lead. A little high, but verification will do that (it also reduces lead quality by about 20%). Leads typically cost less than $7, so this was an expensive gig. Around 243 converted clients based on results measured to the 14th December. Expected monthly return is over $200m.About 77% of leads visited the group website, and about the same number visited more than 5 pages. Half of that group visited the site again to review bookmarked or other pages.Digital done right gets results.You shouldn't expect to break a speed record in your Corolla, and you shouldn't expect good online results with a poor customer journey. We've still got website spots left for 80% off.Call me. 0400 777 300.
Rate data on your website is important. I've discussed it over and over, and I've talked about how those that are misinformed will erroneously associate information and education as a rate-driven broker culture. It's BS.From a performance point of view, I've attached some stats from a broker getting good results. The graph shows only lender product pages (stacked by lender). It also shows the lever views measured against all pages views, and conversion numbers (as line graphs). In this case, Mick's getting at least 200 views a day to lender product pages - and on some days over 400 - but the important part is that he's attracted at least a single calendar lead every day... and in this case he's attracted around 100 *quality* leads over the month.If you don't provide the information that is important to borrowers, others will.Not all our guys convert off these pages, and there's clear reasons for this. First, you need the right promotion on social, paid ads, promotion etc., and video (assigned in Yabber) explodes conversions. I see some with more page views and less conversions, and that's because the video or conversion facility isn't relevant.The gamified lender data plays an important role in your email and other funnels. Not unlike the Streets module, it engages and covers your audience very quickly.There are very clear reasons why our digital experience converts in far, far, higher numbers.Over 1.4 billion in monthly volume. Claim your share. The price is absolute peanuts when compared against the value of delivers. Includes our Facebook and Partner webinar series (to be held when we have the numbers).
This statistic is very revealing. 100 million page pairings over a single year (from one of our own sites). It's why we built the same features into your website.Think of the conversion possibilities hiding in those numbers.Every page on your website is a type of landing page. Treat it as such and your life will change.
Stats from typical calculator views on a 'typical' site.You need to have calculators on your site to satisfy broad E+AT expectations, but they're only something you need to have, not something that'll actually be used.For a lot of brokers, 10-20 page views a day on just calculator pages might be a lot, but for our guys - while the pages should be design to convert (a whole other discussion), and should have purpose - they represent around 0.05% of all daily visits.It's staggering how much of an improvement can be introduced to your operation by way of out website for such a ridiculously small outlay. Call me. 0400 777 300.
What would you pay to have an extra 25'000 visitors to your website every day?Is you were throwing money at Facebook, you would expect to pay around 300k. The broker associated with the pictured graph is attracting an average of 15k child visits to his website *every day* on the back of *just* the Geographic and Streets module. He plays this traffic well with high-intent offers via targeted forms and videos, and he attracts triple-digit leads every month. It's made him one of the highest-volume brokers in the country. SEO is made up of a number of parts. The first is the Object Graph and Markup (how your page is presented to Search/Crawlers), and the second is User Engagement Optimisation. It's the latter that is supported by this feature. It doesn't matter how you start a conversation... but it does matter how it ends.Before I continue, I should remind you that every page on your website is a type of landing page. Traffic comes from anywhere for any reason (in this case, your Geo modules), so we're compelled to provide appropriate conversion facilities on every page.If you're conversion doorway fails, you won't see any conversions... and I know of brokers that don't convert off these pages.If you're chatting to a girl at the bar and your opening line is how much you enjoy Vegemite-soaked asparagus, or how you've decorated your parent's basement with Satanic Unicorns, you can't expect to walk away with a number. Your conversation has to be *relevant* - the key funnel commodity that drives conversions.These pages (as indicated by the graph) represents up to 99% of all pages views on certain days, but that's uncommon - the engagement is usually spread across all modules.This is why our dozen-or-so search tools and information pages exist.Almost all broker websites are designed to do nothing. You don't win friends with salad.But your website today. Pricing is crazy low so I don't have to deal with this after Christmas.Call me. 0400 777 300. Anytime.
As I work through and update the vast array of advanced statistics in Yabber, I'm coming across some images I think are worth sharing.Pictured center are stats for a Sydney broker. He's averaging just 10 page views a day on his 'cornerstone' finance pages which isn't too bad given he's had his site for about a month (he previously averaged close to zero). However, he's averaging 17k views a day to his Streets module.17k views a day!In fairness, the results aren't typical because he's promoted heavily through email campaigns and organic social, but the moderate effort has returned more leads in a month than he's seen in 3 years.You don't make friends with salad.Call me. 0400 777 300.
Our RAM module is worth taking about. Via `Shared Contacts' of lender BDMs, RMs, and others (that may optionally be synced to Outlook), you may send a single email to groups of support people that might be able to assist with a scenario or question.With the introduction of Nexus (email), all emails will now carry a reference ID in the title, and they'll be sent as an email campaign. This means that replies can be sent to your CRM, archived and aggregated, or used for other purposes.This module will be made available to (mostly) all in January. It is currently used by our managed groups to send several thousand emails a month.It's worth mentioning that emails are sent through your MS365 email account, optionally included in 'Sent Items', fully tracked, and completely compliant. Once you use it once you'll use it every day. It's no wonder our guys simply get better results.(Pictured image is before the update).
Our first version of Edge, a post-settlement and repricing system, was created around 2010. It has seen a number of changes over the years, and with the introduction of the new Nexus mail system, it'll be updated again.There's dozens of copycats now, and the industry finally caught up with the concepts, ideas, and methods that were the backbone of my own brokerage, and part of my course messaging when I was coaching.Our Edge system isn't currently available to all brokers, but it will be released to (mostly) everybody in early January after we've applied the email updates. I did a 2am Web demo this morning with a broker that was using High Level for this task. As an auditor, this terrifies me, and as a marketer, it makes me laugh. If High Level is part of your business stack, it's time to re-think you're life choices! From a functional perspective, It doesn't even create CRM notes. Just crazy. Don't use High Level for anything!By the way, I've even heard of a coach (that should know better) introducing High Level for this post settlement purpose. Apart from *massive* compliance issues, it doesn't and can't perform 10% of the tasks necessary to build the post-settlement sequence.Edge is fired off manually or automatically on the basis of Apply Online emails. It's also actioned via CRM notifications and other means. The CRM and MS-integrated contact is managed via Triggerly, so actions have actions assigned, and it evolves around the state of the deal. It should be and is automated.Of course, real-world phone calls are the basis of a relationship, and Edge sumply supports your efforts. Our updated system is ridiculously good... and it's crazy easy to use. A couple of coaches that I'm coaching (yeah, I know) are integrating the tool as a core component of 'their' program.
We expect to compete the Statistics migration by this week, or at least the bigger-ticket components. As we introduce the new stats and graphs for each module, we're deprecating the old graphs and redirecting the pages.I hope to have the heatmaps returned to all users tonight (older websites were missing the API). The heat making functionality is a seriously great tool, and an essential piece of kit if you send traffic to landing pages. Some charge up to $200 a month for the level of statistical integration we provide. Our cost: nothing.Call me. 0400 777 300.
I shared a BSB website example the other day and talked briefly about why it existed, and how a conversion facility was necessary. The broker in question didn't have a sound conversion funnel in place, so I built one with her.The net result of up to 280 cold views each hour? Four new bookings in a single day, which is more than acceptable for completely cold traffic. Again, the traffic was completely cold, so they were directed to her site for reasons other than home loans.I genuinely hate seeing brokers throw a budget into bad leads before they've optimised their website. Most business owners have no idea of the traffic that bounces elsewhere because their experience was underwhelming.
Salestrekker is a better CRM, but Mercury comes in at a close second. Certainly, if you're looking for API integration in order to automated your operation, Mercury is more reliable.Everything else comes in various shades of 'not as good'.I'd love to know how we could convert ST guys into (our) Nexus?!? The cost, perhaps?
I took this screenshot a few hours ago while I was reviewing and updating various stats modules. It reinforces a point I've made 100 times... yet I'm constantly challenged.First, the screenshot comes from a broker that attracts thousands of views a day and over 100 organic leads a month. He'd be a top-10 broker if he chose to nominate himself for the recognition. The screenshot shows popularity of top posts through the day, and it's the blue line that dominates. What page is it? It's the BSB search page, with up to 190 visits an hour.(Note: Streets are excluded from most results because the page count is far higher than any other - their inclusion messes up the stats).I'm asked all the time why we have a BSB Search Engine on a broker website... and the same question is asked of a dozen modules that perform similar searches.The answer is simple: it converts.The reason most websites don't convert is because they're not any good.If you want to grow your business, get in quick and call me on 0400 777 300.
I had reason to update some statistics for a client today, which included migration into Xena (I think they're the only group that was on old stats). I bounced around certain users for a cursory look and noticed what we've always known - some modules attract a ton of traffic. The Streets module in this case attracted nearly 2k views in an hour (probably 20% of which was motivated traffic), and then I looked at their site to see what they'd activated to convert traffic. I was expecting a form, property report form, or similar, but there was nothing there.A reminder: ensure you have a form assigned to high-trafficked modules on your website, regardless of what they are.I can't wrap my head around why some brokers don't invest into the one single resource that'll organically convert more than any other. Having a website that doesn't perform core functions, or doesn't support your landing pages, is a clear act of self-sabotage.If you're not doing double-digit leads off your website every month, then we need to talk. We now have have a large number doing over 100 free organic leads every month... and this is the quality traffic that converts in very high numbers. Our website is still available at next to nothing before the price becomes prohibitive for most. Call me on 0400 777 300.(Note: Statistics will be updated in the next 24 hours to include more useful data).
A few months ago I picked up a bunch of business/equipment guys by accident. They're not our usual market and I usually steer clear, but a single post I made on LinkedIn had a few dozen guys reach out. We ran a few free webinars early on, and only a couple since. All I asked of the group is that they consider one of our brokers for referrals.First, this time last year, clients were paying as much as $15 for a weekend lead (and a little more on weekdays), and conversions in this nonconforming business space hovered around 15% - very low.We had the year to work on this specific program, and we intentionally worked with a few highly-motivated and well-respected groups, and we narrowed in on messaging that we hadn't previously considered. We introduced these new ideas to our freebie group, and despite November - January always returning good results in this space, what I'm seeing in terms of conversions right now is a first for me. SMS-verified lead cost sits between $6 - $8 for virtually all business leads, but it's the conversions of 22% that is kind of crazy. I expected to see $12-$15 lead cost with <15% conversion.A few of these freebie biz guys were seeing (average) $15 results before we met them, but some were paying as much as $90. All have tripled their conversions.I have to be clear. Those guys in the industry that know what they're doing may be seeing similar results, but our guys are using *generic* ads and conditional landing pages that were installed on their website in about a minute. Those that put more effort in are setting better results.The other surprising result is that auto leads are consistently returned for less than $4 across all business/equipment brokers.If you called me now, I'd refer you elsewhere as our focus is mortgage brokers, but I will hold another free webinar in late January. I'm not selling anything - I don't even need to know your name. Stay tuned.Mortgage brokers are obviously killing it right now.Mortgage brokers: We're still selling the last of our 10 website/leadgen packages for $3400. Call me. 0400 777 300.
Our Facebook clients consistently return far better results than others. Throughout the entirety of 2025 we even provided a $1-million guarantee (on 300% return) when measured against the lower-performing Broker Grow, Biz Leads, Marketing Transformers, and other non-compliant 'products'. As of last month, we simply provide a 50k guarantee with the same 300% increase in conversions (this applies to all those copycat and very pedestrian FB programs).Our product is different, and our methods are different. Others try to copy us, but they don't and can't come close when trying to emulate our funnel-focused experience.The question is this: how do we do it? The answer is a long one, but one significant component is our broker website. Sure, the website outperforms others in the market in seriously significant ways, but it's also an organic tool that genuinely supports your business. Many talk about 'converting websites', and most of them are full of falafel.In a *real* funnel, the ad and landing page is like a pick up line (the tip of the iceberg). The journey that comes next is the relationship, and this is where your gamified website plays its part.While we fluff around with terms like 'trust' in marketing-speak, it really does matter, and the 14k conversions that pass through our client-only Yabber software each month supports the salesy rhetoric. We know - objectively and without any question - that our website experience plays out its role perfectly in the funnel and actually converts in far, far higher numbers.We've run our broker websites as a non-profit for years, but we'll be increasing to around 10k as soon as we've sold the last 10. You can get yours now for $3400. If you can't pay now, get in touch and we'll try and work something out.Once we have the numbers, we'll run our last 'Broker Growth' webinar before focusing on our lower-performing Funnels product.It should be a no-brainer.Call me. 0400 777 300. Anytime.
I'll visit 7 opens today and attend 6 auctions. It'll be just another 50m weekend for those brokers in the posse. What makes today a little different is that a couple of the auctions will be called by 'celebrity' or 'influencer' auctioneers. And these guys never get the best outcome.In a previous life, I'd be called upon to fly a little Italian fella around Sydney suburbs in a traffic helicopter. He'd call the live traffic and we'd point the camera around at congestion - almost always Pennant Hills Rd. It made this fella wildly popular at a time before social had evolved, and at time when TV was still a source of influence. In a sense, he was the first auctioneer to get celebrity status. On most weekends, he'd call auctions at an inflated rate, and I'd often tag along to lend a hand (we worked on his digital through his agent). He wouldn't get the best results, but because a lot of agents advertised his presence (as a celeb), we'd often see good numbers. Most agencies knew this, but they used the numbers as means to introduce themselves to a new market. In the 600+ auctions I've attended this year, it's the 'influencer' types that consistently deliver lower numbers. They often arrive late, don't have time to read the room, usually don't understand the buyer sentiment, rarely seem entirely present, and they'll often focus more on the phone that is streaming their efforts to Facebook than those in attendance... and then they'll leave seconds after a result so they have time to record a video in their car (I'm writing this in my own car with a well-known auctioneer in front of me streaming an update to her Facebook group).There are other auctioneers that call fewer auctions and perform significantly better than others, and they'll *always* get better results. If an agency doesn't have in-house expertise, it's these guys that I'll refer.If you're looking to support your sales team, give me a call and I'll refer you to somebody that'll return better numbers.(The photograph is the only aerial on my phone - taken by Dom pre Olympics in our first helicopter).
Our Yabber digital marketing and social media middleware supports over a billion in volume every month. While our focus, and that of Yabber, is supporting AI and leadgen, not everybody is ready for the changes and challenges that AI requires, so over the next week we'll progressively release full and complete (non-AI) integration with *all* Microsoft tools. Starting with Nexus - the only email marketing software driven by Microsoft Contacts - you'll see changes to about every Yabber module, and you'ill see significant updates to the Trigger module which now connects to CRM systems effortlessly. Bread-and-butter tasks like attaching emails and voice!/call recordings (with speech to text transcriptions) as notes are great, but we've built in the triggers that your CRM doesn't (and cannot) provide.If you want to grow your business, we need to talk. Our website is still just $3400 for a short time. It gives you access to everything for a full year with no more to pay. Get the 70% offf before we pull the pin, so call me anytime on 0400 777 300.
Each month we return we'll support over 1 billion in mortgage volume - nearly 5% of all resi business in the country. It took me a long time to build my own brokerage to that volume, and now we'll see multiple businesses achieve that in a single year.Our Facebook program alone returned over 740-million last month, and we did so because it's the only integrated solution in the industry. After over a decade of working with brokers exclusively, that's a record for us. Our focus next year will be our managed programs. We deliver a guaranteed 10m, 20m, or 30m to your business each and every month (with active partners). It costs a ton, but you pay to escrow, so if we don't deliver, you don't pay.We're selling the last of 10 'discounted' websites. Just $3400. All inclusive for a full year. Includes articles, social, Yabber tools and more. You'll also get access to our webinar and Facebook program - the last for a long time. From next year, our pricing for our website product increases to around 10k with monthly fees.The best website in the industy for next to nothing. Use it as your primary site or for leadgen. It's a no-brainier.Call me on 0400 777 300. If your website doesn't perform, neither will you.
Instagram is limiting the number of hashtags that may be included in a post to just 3. Adding additional tags returns an error.The change - if permanent and pushed to all users - marks a significant change in the way the platform works. Historically, tags were used to discover content, and limiting tag usage places much more of an emphasis on refining choices based on relevance and importance.Many businesses still rely heavily on using numerous hashtags to boost their reach, and others use them to paint a keyword picture or tag cloud. Limiting tags to just three makes any tag-related strategy far less effective, and far less reliable.There are other ways of garnishing traffic - not the least of which is creating great content - but there will likely be a shift towards TikTok-style post content and transcript summaries. In a sense, and if the change becomes global, you will no longer discover content - you'll be *fed* content. The focus will likely shift to contextual summaries and AI evaluations, meaning that Instagram will guide the feed more itself and lean on their algorithms to deliver content.Three hashtags isn't enough. Make it five!
With our updated Nexus email toolkit going live this week, we've updated the method for real-time syncing of your Microsoft Contacts (with all data, including the 'Categories' that are now used as lists) with Yabber and your CRM.The module works in the background and preforms flawlessly.The module is quite powerful, and we've built in a few seriously funky features we'll talk about in the next couple of days. You should avoid the module for a day or two while we iron out all the little bugs.
We made a few small updates to the email marketing module last week, and then had a related conversation with a Brissie-based broker that told us he was paying $500+ per month for ActivePipe with additional limits and costs based on the number of contacts, send limits, and users, and statistics were invalid for highly active users. We've worked on a brand new email system we call 'Nexus' for some time, and the conversation fast-tracked our development.The existing 'legacy' system dates back to the very first API made available from Microsoft, and given that we've bolted various features on over time it's become a little tired.The new system is fantastic.A few features of Nexus.* Yabber Contacts are entirely deprecated. Microsoft contacts are used for everything (synced in real time, and synced with your CRM).* Microsoft contact categories are now used for email lists. Unlimited lists may be created.* Autoresponder nurture sequences are now created in seconds. A simple intuitive interface applies.* Fully and completely integrated with your website.* A single panel is now used to create all emails from all modules.* Fully compliant (maybe the only system that is).* Fully integrated with managed email modules. * Full, simple, Trigger management. Fully integrated with Formly and every other module. I could go on and on.What's the contact limit? In theory, 50GB worth, so unlimited. What's the list limit? Unlimited. What's the send limit? That's limited by Microsoft, so 10k emails a day. What's the trigger limit? Unlimited.We've even created features for workflow triggers that you're CRM doesn't provide.Even those that buy into our current website promotion get this new system included in the low cost.I'm really looking forward to doing away with the old system. It served us extremely well, but after millions of emails sent, it's time to put a bullet in it.Timeframe? We're going to have the first version released by the weekend.It remains the only integrated email solution in the industry, and Nexus takes it to the next level.
The email marketing module is offline for a short period today while we push the first of over a hundred updates that'll fully migrate all (remaining) email functionality to Microsoft.All scheduled emails, autoresponders, and triggers, will contine to function.
I've shared a ton of screenshots lately, but I couldn't remember if I shared some images to support a discussion on our 'Switch' module. Either way, it works well enough to deserve a little more airtime.I expect to record a video or two tonight for YT and our Facebook groups, so keep an eye out to see this module in action. I'll keep this brief.Why have over 20 front pages? There's a long answer and a short answer - I'll opt for the short one.First, your website is conditional, so it responds to user interest, resolved borrowing objective, and behaviour, so we're able to swap a front page (or one of hundreds of other assets) over for another. Relevance and attention are a key funnel commodity, and a dynamic and personalised web experience is part of a funnel-centric digital two-way conversation. The pathway a user takes on your website should be preordained - also known as 'Choice Architecture'.The subject of a video I hope to very quickly record tonight demonstrates the above nicely. For example, a form on a 'nursing' landing page tells us a lot... and we can 'generally' assume that the user is a nurse, so we switch out *their* front page to one that positions us in a way that supports our claim. Other parts of your website change shape but that's best left for another time.What I've described above is the basis for a funnel, and if you're not using this simple method you need to rethink your strategy. Given that the method has such a seriously significant impact on conversions, you'd be nuts not to use it.Via a dedicated entry URL (via subdomain or simple slug), you can force a front page for specific groups. This allows you to position yourself in certain ways without multiple websites (although a sensible and ethical satellite network has advantages).There's just so, so much to be said about the tremendous impact this method has on your conversions. I'll be demonstrating via a few videos over the next day so make sure you're in one of our Facebook groups.
We've demoed our BeNet Broker AI to large numbers across the country, and the roadblock was always the cost of consumer-grade hardware that could self-host the open source agentic solutions.The mortgage industry has no idea what AI actually means, and their understanding is polluted by platforms that merely pretend to perform AI functions.What I'm describing here will change your life. And it'll be free.NVIDIA’s latest Grace-Blackwell architecture delivers enterprise-level artificial intelligence performance in a compact desktop system. This changes things considerably, and we were blessed with early access to a unit for testing.I initially posted specifications, but it's not really necessary. What is important to know is that the unit performs up to 50× faster than even high-end desktop solutions. It's capable of processing models exceeding 200 billion parameters, and the unified memory eliminates CPU-GPU transfer bottlenecks with data processing and analytics. The real-time multi-channel noise isolation and speech synthesis is extremely fast, making video production and real-time phone calls a breeze. The unit is also capable of on-device training and retrieval-augmented generation.Our focus was manufacturing a tool that completely replaced general support, but BeNet is more than that. All AI operations are performed locally and no data leaves the broker's environment. With low latency, BeNet can now more easily transcribe, summarise, and index client phone calls or video meetings (in seconds, and in real-time). It generates compliant notes and follow-up documentation automatically. It does everything you do... and does it faster with greater accuracy.What we really love is the real-time speech-to-text transcription with domain-specific vocabulary. It handles multi-speaker separation and sentiment tagging.BeNet provides a unified, on-premises AI environment that outperforms traditional or high-end PCs in compute density, data privacy, and latency. It enables mortgage professionals to perform advanced AI tasks using a fully owned and managed toolkit within their secure office network.
One day. Four partnership meetings. Two signed up immediately, and one is already sending deals. The secret is to ignore everything you were ever told and employ a real value-driven strategy.
In what is probably the last batch of website screenshots, I'll show you a valuable resource that you're unlikely to see anywhere else.The password-protected education, client, partner, and other resources can be used to build member or subscriber portals. You may not need them now, but when they're required they'll be waiting for you, and as your business grows, you'll invariably be drawn to the significant advantages in building on these components.Menus are shown to the left with drop down submenus, and child menus are shown in the right. Authentication is assigned via Microsoft contacts.
In what is probably the second-last group of screenshots I share, I'm going to show you one type of feature that every broker needs to have.We have three post types that showcase your downloads, videos, and social media content. It's the latter that I'll talk about.When you post to social, your content is quickly buried under hundreds of feed of offer content within seconds, so it has a very limited life. Even worse, you're giving ownership of your content to a social platform and relinquishing the (SEO and other) value that might be derived from having that content on your website. It's absurd.We share social media to a dedicated library on your website (in a format not unlike your blog). This gives you content control, a permanent and hashtag-based searchable library, funnel opportunities, and SEO authority.Any content sent via our Outlook social calendar, Instagram, or Yabber, may be scheduled to one or more websites in the same way we schedule to social media itself.Honestly, after 15-years of providing this functionality, I can't imagine a website or business having a high-performing website presence without it.The standalone video library is compromised of videos you send to YouTube and other services, and the download library includes selected downloads. The features are managed from within Yabber.
A module we've introduced to your website - and one that isn't commonly used - is your 'Employment' section. Managed from within Yabber, it provides a facility to advertise vacancies, but more importantly, it provides a channel through to your mentoring program (that you should consider if you're appropriately qualified).The mentoring backend has a lot of moving parts, but your website caters for the appropriate training modules.
Most websites need a 'Team' page, although it's often excluded if you have just one team member. Managed by users directly through Yabber, we first create locations and businesses before creating a team member profile. This method allows for any combination of business types, and it was designed to support franchisees or organisations with a mix of branded and unbranded credit reps. For most, a single location, business, and trading schedule is applied. The team page is surprisingly good for search with the pages often showing in results for specific brokers. From a user perspective, each profile validates your team, provides insight and direct contact details, and it highlights their direct support network.One thing is for sure. You don't want to log into your website to add a new broker, and you certainly don't want something as simple as text change to take more than a few seconds.This module was updated in seriously significant ways with the Framework-X series to support more robust business structures (so each location and business may be listed in virtually any way).Given the work we do with Partners, this team architecture was necessary and it has worked tremendously well.Other features relating to individual brokers apply, such as the global update of phone numbers and individual booking calendars. All these funky features will be fully documented in our FAQs.You'll appreciate this feature as your business starts to grow.
"What is Yabber?" In asked this all the time. Yabber is a digital marketing and social media system full of social, website, and marketing tools that supports your operation in various ways.Pictured is a couple of screenshots from the SMS module. The module supports all enterprise level SMS marketing features. With contacts integrated with Microsoft contacts, and the sending of SMS, MMS, media, and voicedrop messages sent through the Telstra gateway (the only service we determined provides a compliant service), it is probably one of those tools you will use more often than most.The service supports about every feature you'd expect it to support. Rather than change you a fee every month, messages are charged directly to you from Telstra, so the service is essentially free (on our end).This full suite will soon be migrated to one of the 'Team' modules on your website.
About Result: The default result shows the image, title, and description, in a vertical format. The title, introduced shortly under the title of 'Social Architecture', discusses broader Instagram features and how the title result is returned. If no title is found we'll show the date.
Instagram accounts are registered in Yabber, so we'll return all results from all Instagram accounts by default, although both the Elementor widget and shortcode provides for rendering of individual accounts. The expected usage is three panels in a vertical format, or up to two images in a horizontal format. The default usage as applied to any mortgage broker website on delivery is shown below.
Pictured: The Instagram slider as it might be shown on your website, and the default format in which the feature is provided to clients. Two or three panels are normally shown, and a single panel will normally be shown on mobile devices.
Pictured: The 'Horizontal' format shows the image to the left, and text to the right. The former version of our Instagram slider included this format so the style was carried over for compatibility.
An example slider showing just the image and panel 'frame' may be returned with the shortcode of [bm_instagram include_title="0" include_description="0" items="3"]. The result:
Pictured: Showing just an image and the image corners. The next update will show a tooltip or similar on mouseover to return the title, content, or publish date. The 'Naked' format includes only the image and removes all style - including the corners.
Note that clicking on the full screen icon () launches a modal returning more detailed post information. The nature of this modal is discussed shortly (as a 'known issue').
As you can tell, the use of shortcode can be rather clumsy - especially given there are around 30 optional attributes that alter the output - so the Elementor widget provides a more usable solution.
Elementor Widget
The Elementor Widget makes it a simple drag-and-drop experience to include the Instagram Slider onto any page. Simply select the widget, drag into your post or page, define the presentation options, and you're done.
Pictured: The Elementor Widget makes it a simple drag-and-drop experience to include the Instagram Slider onto any page. Simply select the widget, drag into your post or page, define the presentation options, and you're done. There are a large number of customisation options that allow for styling to emulate your own branding. Note that inclusion of social media accounts is via the multi-select menu. Select one or more of your Yabber-registered accounts to show that content. The 'hashtags' options is one that is currently only used by us in test, and it filters results based on the hashtags used in a post.
Social Architecture
The social media systems in Yabber are rather extensive, with the two primary posting systems being Vista and Instagratify. Vista is an Outlook calendar-based method of posting (meaning that you post articles directly from a dedicated outlook calendar), and the Instagratify tool evaluates those hashtags used in posts and filters before filtering content to assigned social networks. We generally encourage use of Instagratify since it's easy to use, and the content is broadly distributed (and content is shown on your website slider).
Part of Vista and Instagratify's distribution includes posting content to a dedicated social media archive on your website. This archival gives you complete ownership of your own content, assigns SEO value, and creates another organic resource. Since we manufacture a post from your Instagratify content, we're required to include a title in the post content, and this is the same title shown as the title in the Instagram slider. To create a title to be rendered in slider results, simply use the syntax of [title: This is a title] in your Instagram post (this content, including other content that isn't required, is removed from your Instagram post in shared content). If no title is found the posting date will be rendered instead. If you generally don't create titles you might consider removing the title option entirely.
Since the Yabber social architecture is rather extensive, and given that we provide dedicated archives for social media and your video content, we'll be creating a single slider for that combined content, with the videos returning a video link, and the social content returning content in a format not entirely dissimilar to what we've just introduced.
Known Issues
As a completely revised feature it's expected that there may be various errors these features introduce. If you encounter any bugs, please let us know. Clients can expect the feature in the next plugin updates, currently scheduled for Wednesday 18th January. Note that the styles applied in the following update will be based on client feedback.
There are certain issues that are known 'bugs'. An instagram post may contain up to 10 images and videos. At the moment these items are rendered individually. Additionally, clicking on the click returns the image in the modal as a single thumbnail. We'll obviously update this next week so there's a carousal of images within single slides, and the linked modal will show all media associated with this post. This limitation is one imposed on us simply because we're relying on some deprecated features, so an update next week will take care of this.
We're working on a more efficient way of returning videos, both from your website and the preview modal. Until then, some video results may not show.
Interactions statistics are maintained, although that data, along with customisation options, aren't available yet in Yabber. Options will be made available to create a full profile that'll negate the need for Elementor customisation, thus allowing global changes. Options will also be made available to alter the presentation of the 'Details' modal.
Because of the large number of changes that have to be made, you may choose not to include this feature for a few weeks.
Conclusion
The value of social media engagement is outside the scope of this article. However, it doesn't need to be said that you're often speaking into an echo chamber with most of your content... so we have to ensure it's found, and the slider is just another way of ensuring that happens.
Two additional sliders are forthcoming. The first slider renders videos in a slider, and the second returns content sourced from your social media and video archives.
Featured Image: E.S.& A. Bank Building, west side of King William Street, Adelaide, 1895. A single decker horse tram trundles past horse cabs standing in the centre of the street. These are wagonettes, which were popular as hire vehicles. The E.S.& A. building is in the centre, with the AMP building on the left. On the right is the premises of Robert A. Thompson & Company, Photographers. The extreme right of the photo is 22 yards south of North Terrace. [ View Image ]
