If you don't ask, you'll never know...

Have you checked out the "Community" page of the new Inman site yet? You can join a group (or create one) and start discussions or pose questions on topics you're interested in learning more about.

Here's a good example of how it can work.

Stacey Pfeifer, posting in the "Technology, Tools and Tidbits" group, asks "Do you Twitter and how is that working for you?"

The practical uses of Twitter -- which allows you to keep tabs on other users who post text messages about their everyday activities and thoughts -- might not seem obvious at first. You could probably a few days monkeying around with it and not see much of a point to it. It's fun, but what else can you do with it?

Stacey wanted to know how real estate agents might use Twitter, so she put the question to fellow members of the "Technology, Tools and Tidbits" group.

She got some good feedback -- and a link to a detailed blog post on the topic by Victor Lund.

Lund suggests that brokers use Twitter to "communicate en masse to all of your agents" in real time, announcing "important reminders, price changes, rate changes, new listings, sold listings, trainings, meetings, events, etc to all of your agents with one message. It can, in effect, act like a company 'Intranet' that delivers messages to each of your agent's phones in real time using text messaging."

Stacey also found another blog post by Joel Burslem, who suggests using Twitter to listen to your customers. Burslem shows how you can use another site, TweetScan, to do keyword searches and see what Twitter users are saying about Redfin, Zillow, or whatever you're curious about.

If Twitter is "a real-time, real-world glimpse into the minds of your customers," as Burslem says, the Community page of the new Inman site lets you pick the brains of your colleagues.

If you decide to Twitter, here's some help in figuring out what to do if people ask you whether you've joined blueteam or greenteam.

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