3 tips to get the most out of Twitter
From Future of Real Estate Marketing
By Katie Lance, Wednesday, March 10, 2010."I have nothing to say."
I have heard this over and over again, not just by real estate agents, but by many people who are trepidatious about getting involved in Twitter.
To many, Twitter has become more useful as a way to tap into what's "going on today" than to broadcast their own messages. And once you get acclimated to Twitter, you might just find you have something to say after all.
Biz Stone, Twitter co-founder, said, "Naysayers should simply log onto their Twitter home page and search for a topic they are interested in, whether it's their favorite sports team, the name of their company or a topic in the news." Within a minute, they understand the appeal, he said.
Here are three ways to make Twitter work for you:
1. Create a custom feed. Find people to follow by searching Twitter directories. My two favorites are WeFollow or Just Tweet It. Remember, to get followers at first you must follow others!
2. Create lists. Lists are fantastic -- and a GREAT way to organize people you follow. You could make lists for news sources, fellow (real estate agents), geographic areas, etc. This way you can click on that list to see what those specific people are talking about. I just created the Inman Team list as a place for people to contact the right person at Inman News (i.e., editorial, marketing, advertising, etc.) If you don't know who the best users are on a favorite topic, look for lists on sites like Listorious or by checking profiles. ...CONTINUED
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Submitted by Limeyboy on March 10, 2010 - 5:01am.
Another good article Katie!
I totally agree that just like blogging, and to some extent facebook, the knee-jerk reaction to these entities is..."No" or I don't have time for that", or "I am a very private person"...
I think much of this has to do with perception. The first thing we like to get out of the way, especially with twitter is that, you can in theory go there to figure out what Paris Hilton had (or perhaps didn't have) for breakfast. But that is twitter at its most vapid.
An example we use is, before you get in your car, search twitter for tweets pertaining to any of the major roads you are about to travel on to see tweets (or not) from folks stuck in a traffic jam. Then they get it.
It's also worth pointing out that though they may not be tweeting, their are customers out there who are. The fact they are not sending information in the way customers are looking for it is becoming hard to defend.
It's like offline mail marketing, they may not read junk mail themselves but they still do mailings!
And lastly, we point out that though they may feel that they have 'nothing to say', we respond with, "do you have nothing to say when you have a buyer in the car with you?".
Essentially twitter can get that same real estate wisdom out to an infinitely wider audience, for only the people who are searching for it.
It's like having a sign on your mailbox outside your house that says, "Please only bulk mail from real estate agents".
limeyboy
www.limeyboy.com
www.facebook.com/limeyboy
Submitted by Lisa Jennings on March 10, 2010 - 10:15am.
I love Twitter and use it constantly. Through Tweetlister, I'm able to schedule my listings to post on Twitter at a certain time of day, everyday if I want. My city has it's own hashtag so I'm constantly tweeting with locals about any and everything. It's about getting yourself involved and known. People check out your profile and see that you're in real estate so they're more likely to tweet you and ask questions. Conversely, you can send links in your tweets that would be of interest to househunters. Link your twitterfeed to your blog, linkedin, FB for even more exposure, which is really what it's about. I recommend a twitter client like Tweetlister to help you organize your groups.