Scott Stratten amuses me. There are plenty of social media stars out there, but in little old humble Canada the one they call “Guru” is Scott. A shoot-straight-from-the-hip-social-media-gun-slinger, Scott is not afraid to tell you when you need to stop!

Take for example his love-hate relationship with the real-estate sector. I think they love to hate him. He’s only trying to help, trust me. Whether it’s the sectors temptation to slap social media icons (sans address) on listings or the habit of adding false claims to ads, the gun is loaded and pointing at agents everywhere!

If it wasn’t bad enough, real estate agents discovered QR codes. The little square of code is meant to be scanned with mobile phones and linked to smart-phone friendly content!

In case you don’t understand “smart-phone friendly”, think of any website you view on your desktop or laptop. It looks fine on a large screen but on a device like an iPhone you suddenly find yourself squinting to read or view anything. The solution is for the developer of the site to create a mobile-friendly version of the site. Don’t even get Scott started on this one!

Happily following the lead of my guru Scott, I kept one eye open (my good eye) for real estate agents employing the QR codes. Here’s what I found and what went wrong in the newspaper ad I found:

• The agent had their website link in the ad (pass)
• The agent also added a QR code in the same space just above the link (pass)
• The QR scan took me to the website link (fail)
• The site looked so tiny on my iPhone that it wasn’t worth zooming in for a closer look! (fail)

This would be the wrong way to use the QR code. Check in next week when I’ll look at one more real estate blunder with the QR code, plus I’ll show you a very positive use of the technology. Do you love the code?

Both Scott and I apologize for the audio lag in the video!