Brokers blogging to get ahead

From the December issue: Douglas Heddings used to rely on direct mail to market himself as a real estate broker, but that was frustrating. Often his mailings would be returned, either because people didn’t want advertisements in their mailbox or because they had moved. He felt there had to be a better way to “stay in touch with my sphere of clients” and yet at the same time “not be in their faces.” A friend had started a blog about NBA basketball, and he suggested that Heddings, a senior vice president at Prudential Douglas Elliman, give blogging a try. The friend’s basketball blog became known as True Hoop, inspiring the name of Hedding’s blog, True Gotham, which he started two years ago.