Twitter Micro-Blogging

If you’re not using Twitter yet, you may feel as if you’ve missed out. Twitter has not only tipped the tuna, but it has already jumped the shark. If it’s just not completely obvious how to get into the “club”, here’s a guide to this new platform and how as a real estate professional you can use it to your advantage.

Twitter is a free online tool for “micro-blogging” or posting very short updates, comments or thoughts.  In fact, since Twitter was designed to be very compatible with mobile phones through text messages, each update is limited to 140 characters. You can’t say much in 140 characters and that’s part of Twitter’s charm. Twitter enables you to broadcast your short messages to a group of people, better known as your “followers.” It also lets you specify which Twitter users you want to follow so you can read their messages in one place. If you follow your friends, and they follow each other, you can quickly communicate group-related items, such as: “A new 1+1 Condo coming for sale on 23 Hollywood for 296K. Open house on Saturday 2-4.”

Twitter is conceptually similar to Dodgeball but is simpler to use. So, do you need it? To fully understand the answer you would have to define your objectives. Like much of social media, it’s another ear to the ground, another “opportunity to build relationships”. Here’s a quick summary of some of the ways you can use Twitter for both your professional or personal life.

-         Personal Branding. Twitter has the primary benefit of developing a casual persona and establishes you as a social personality that is connected and approachable.

-         Get Feedback. Need an alternative perspective on how a listing looks or the right course of action to take? Blast out a message asking for advice and you’ll receive replies from other users. This collective intelligence can be used as fodder for projects.

-         Get traffic. Twitter can be used to get traffic to your websites. If you ask your friends to tweet about it, the message will spread faster and further as other active users pick it up. There is a viral nature to all types of news, even on a site like Twitter.

-         Read News. Twitter users often link to useful sites or articles and can be a source of scoops and alternative news.

-         Make New Friends. Like any other social network, Twitter has a built-in function for you to befriend and track the messages of other users. This is an easy way for you connect with people outside of your usual circle.

-         Business Management. Twitter can be used as a company intranet that connects agents to one another. Agents can liaise with each other.

-         Notify Your Clients. Set up a Twitter feed for the specific purpose of notifying clients when new listings come in. Your clients can subscribe via mobile or RSS for instant notification.

-         Event Updates. You can use Twitter as a means to inform event participants and latest event happenings/changes. This is a hassle-free way of disseminating information, especially when you don’t have the means to set up a direct mobile link between you and the audience

-         Find Prospects. Twitter can be used as a means to find potential clients online. Do a search for keywords related to your product on Twitter Search and then follow users. Tweet about topics parallel to your product and close prospects away from public channels by using direct messages or offline communications. Discretion and skill is needed in this area.

-         Provide live coverage. Twitter’s message size limit prevents detailed coverage of events but it can allow you to provide real-time commentary which may help to spark further discussion or interest on the event as other Twitter users spread the message.

-         Time Management and Analysis. Twitter can simply be used to keep a detailed record of what you are doing every daily. This might be boring for others but this type of usage is useful when you want to analyze how you spend and manage your time.

-         Set Up Meetings. Twitter can help you organize impromptu meetups. For example, you can twitter a message while at a cafe, event or art gallery and arrange to meet fellow users at a specific spot.

-         Acquire Votes. Send a link to your stories you’ve submitted in other social news sites like Digg. Sometimes your followers will vote up the stories because they agree with it. This allows you to acquire more support for your efforts on other social media websites.

Hopefully this article gave you ideas on how to use Twitter. And yes…please do follow me on Twitter via @gorgani, and say hi!  Good luck.

Printed in REM – January 2010

Category: Articles, Business