Beginning July 1, all California Realtors will need to include their CA DRE license number on any “solicitation materials intended to be the first point of contact with consumers,” as stated in a bill passed by the California State Senate (SB 1461). While the new amendment excludes electronic media, since vFlyer also provides print content for our users, we wanted to make sure that they had a way to include their DRE license number on their Flyers. That’s why we introduced an Additional Info field in the Account Profile, where you can enter not only your CA DRE license number but also other information, such as a mobile phone number. And given that different states have different laws regarding real estate advertising, the Additional Info field gives users more flexibility in terms of what information gets included in their Flyers and Account Profile.

You can find the Additional Info field on your Account page. Any text you enter in this field will appear in the Contact Information section of your Flyers (see images below).

Thanks to Chris Crane at Red Oak Realty, Kristine Johnson at Gallagher & Lindsey Realtors, and Jason Born of Signature Realty & Mortgage, Inc., for providing us with useful feedback on the new California law.

If you need assistance, call or email vFlyer Support.

This week’s custom theme comes to us from Otto Calta with Coldwell Banker Terrequity Realty in Toronto. What I really like about this theme is that it demonstrates how easy it can be to create a great-looking branded theme by taking a logo, uploading it as a header image, and then matching the header background color to the logo (see the second image below). The green/white/gray palette of the theme is really well-integrated with the look of the ThinkTorontoHomes.com logo.

For a fantastic example of a broker website, you should also check out ThinkTorontoHomes.com, the website of Otto and his team.

I also wanted to use this opportunity again to point out that vFlyer now supports Canadian listings. If you are an agent or broker in Canada, you can include the full address of your listings as well as the price in Canadian dollars.

I can’t stress enough the importance of getting your brand out there on the web. It’s the one thing that will distinguish your ads from your competitors’, and it lends a high degree of professionalism to your online listings. So create a vFlyer custom theme this weekend! For a useful introduction, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com.

Yesterday we made two additions to our arsenal of vFlyer Listing Widgets: a 100-pixel wide and a 200-pixel wide auto-scrolling multi-item Widget. Unfortunately, these images are not animated.

The two new Widgets give our users more and better options for integrating their vFlyer content into their websites, blogs, and social networks. The new Widgets are especially useful in blogs, where often the sidebar is the default location of widgets and other components. In particular, bloggers on ActiveRain should find the new narrow scrolling Widgets quite valuable.

Also, the new Widgets don’t include vFlyer branding on them, which makes it even better to incorporate them into your website, social network profile or blog.

The new Widgets are part of our line of Premium Widgets available only to vFlyer business subscribers. If you have a vFlyer Personal account and are interested in upgrading your account to take advantage of the new Widgets, you can do so by clicking here.

To preview these widgets, click to the vFlyer Widget Library.  Scroll down to the Scrolling 100px and Scrolling 200px widgets.

On a related note, we will be adding a new series of short video tutorials on vFlyer Widgets soon. We hope that with the introduction of the scrolling sidebar Widgets and new video tutorials, we see lots of fantastic vFlyer Widgets out there this summer!

This week’s custom theme comes to us from Vranas Properties in Chicago. They did a fantastic job integrating their logo into the theme, and I love the color palette they use. It looks as though it were created by a professional web designer! That’s what’s so great about vFlyer’s Theme Editor: it makes it very easy for any vFlyer member to create professional, branded marketing content without having to hire a designer to do it for you. (Although I should mention we have seen some amazing custom themes created for our members by graphic designers.)

Any vFlyer business subscriber can create a branded custom theme and use it in his or her Flyers and Account Profile. If you haven’t created a custom theme yet, now’s the time to try it! For a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com.

Happy Friday! This week’s custom theme is from Richie Caliendo at Caliendo Automotive. I love the header image in this theme, with its classic-car look and elegant black background. This is one of the best auto dealer custom themes I’ve seen yet! Also, Richie takes advantage of our Showcase layout for Craigslist (see picture below), which has a nice big photo at the top of the Flyer to give the prospective buyer a better view of the car. The Showcase layout is one of 9 Craigslist layouts available to business subscribers when they use a custom theme. Other information and photos of the vehicles are displayed below the huge photo at the top.

Great custom theme, Richie!

Once again, for a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We’ll be back next Friday with another Custom Theme of the Week, so if you’ve created or seen a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com.

We’re introducing a new blog feature, the “Custom Theme of the Week”. We have so many great custom themes that our members have created using the Theme Editor and their own creativity and resourcefulness, we decided we had to show them off to the rest of the world. This week’s custom theme is from Ryan Hinricher at InvestorNation. Ryan made great use of an uploaded background image and a header image that’s seamlessly integrated with the background. I especially like the upward-pointing arrow in the logo and the contrast of white and blue between the header and background; it gives me a whole new way of thinking about what’s possible with the Theme Editor. Everyone on my team is quite impressed by this custom theme. Nice work, Ryan!

vFlyer’s Theme Editor enables any user to create his or her own custom theme and any business subscriber to upload a branded header image to a theme. It’s a great way of making your Flyers stand out from the rest, and the branding capabilities for business subscribers provide a vehicle for putting your brand front and center on your Flyers. For a useful introduction to creating and using custom themes, take a look at this series of short video tutorials on our website.

We expect to post a new theme every Friday, so keep an eye out for more fantastic custom themes. And if you’ve created a custom theme and think it should be spotlighted, let us know by emailing support@vflyer.com!