Have you tweeted today?
I have recently heard of the social networking site Twitter. The concept is asking the simple question “What are you doing?” Even right now my Twitter status says I’m writing this blog.
What is it about Twitter, or Facebook, or MySpace, that draws people to them? Is it something that’s fun? Does it help you connect with people? What makes people want to be a part of social networks?
My wife recently said to me that “Signing up for Facebook is like volunteering to be stalked.” An interesting perspective but I think she’s right. One thing social networking sites do is allows us to watch our friends as they go through their day. We can see how relationships start or end, what people do while they’re at work, or maybe what exciting events they have planned for the weekend.
According to Nielsen online, a company that monitors Internet traffic, social networking and blogging has become more popular than checking e-mail. “During December 2008, there were 242 million unique visitors to so-called member communities and 236 million to email sites around the world.” Source: www.telegraph.co.uk
I get more e-mails in my inbox everyday about status updates than I do actual business e-mails anymore. My friend Aaron recently told me that he doesn’t know peoples’ e-mail addresses anymore, as long as he has them as a contact on Facebook or MySpace, he can get a message to them.
In all reality, social networks have become the best and most reliable form of communication on the Internet.
So, Have you tweeted today?
ive been trying to use twitter - but for real estate i’m not sure I want my buyers and sellers are wanting to know what I’m doing all day?
Everyone uses twitter for different reasons. I’m not one to “tweet” that I’m at lunch eating a cheeseburger, but there is definitely value in keeping people following you up to date on what you have going on. For instance: Hundreds of Realtors that we speak to that are using twitter, are specifically using it to relay price adjustments, open houses, and changes to the status of their listings. If you have a virtual tour of the property you’re talking about, you could easily include a link to it in your tweet as well. Very useful!
I use facebook. But i just registered to Twitter.
I have just started using twitter
I like facebook most because it allows me to upload 200 pics in one album
They all are social networking sites.
But twitter doen’t have as much feature as Facebook
It’s true Twitter doesn’t have as much functionality as Facebook but it does offer some other methods of communication. Marty mentioned some ways Twitter can be useful for Realtors, here are a few others: News is the biggest thing on Twitter. In your industry you are the expert in local real estate, so provide the latest local real estate news to become the information source for the area. Do a search for "your city name" and follow people from your area. This way you will start to build a following in the community, building relationships, then sales.
You can find relevant news by doing a search at search.twitter.com for a term.
DemandSpot.com is an awesome lead generation source to find people looking for a home. The best part is that the site does a local search. Meaning you will find people in your area looking to buy/sell. Can’t beat that! If you have any additional questions feel free to post here or on our Twitter @jstweeting.
There is definitely a strategy that realtors & mortgage consultants can use to be more effective on Facebook & Twitter. Even if you provide tweets about your local community that residents would be interested in like upcoming community events, etc. You can get more ideas in my upcoming ebook http://NaomiTrower.com/ebook.