About Twitter
Twitter is a proactive strategy to reach current clients and a new audience/community of potential clients. Twitter can be a facet of your existing "touch system" to stay relevant with your clients. Think of Twitter as an online magazine. My personal Twitter site (@ronfeir) is focused on fine living, real estate, and interior design. My audience (followers) see me as a local and regional expert. My content is re-tweeted (resent) to their followers, and so on. This is what I mean by proactive. My message is spread throughout the world 24/7. Twitter is a short message communication tool that allows you to send out messages (tweets) up to 140 characters long to people who subscribe to you (followers). Your tweets can include a link to any web content (blog post, website page, PDF document, etc.) or a photograph or video. If a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to a tweet greatly expands what you can share to beyond the 140-character limit for tweets. People follow (subscribe) to your Twitter account, and you follow other people. This allows you to read, reply to and easily share their tweets with your followers (retweet).
How Twitter Is Unique
In the social media world, Twitter falls into the category of microblogging tools because of the short, disconnected messages it distributes. Other microblogging tools include Tumble, Wordpress, and Squarespace Twitter shares some features with the most common social media tools such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, and Youtube. However, the differences really define Twitter.
- Facebook: A tweet is like a short Facebook status update. However, with Twitter, every tweet arrives at every follower’s feed, unlike the filter of Facebook’s EdgeRank.
- Pinterest: Twitter allows you to share photographs and provide commentary in your tweet. However, with Twitter, it’s much easier to have conversation around a shared image than with the comment feature on Pinterest.
- LinkedIn: A tweet is like a short LinkedIn status update. While LinkedIn is based on trust relationships (and two-way agreements), Twitter allows you to follow anyone, including strangers. This is helpful when you target potential customers.
- Google+: A tweet is like a short Google+ status update. Twitter also allows you to organize people into lists that organize conversations similar to Google+ groups.
- YouTube: A tweet can contain a link to a video. However, Twitter doesn’t allow you to create a channel or organize your videos for easy location and commentary.
- Instagram: A tweet is like a shared image. Instagram also uses hashtags and allows you to upload, edit, and caption your own photos.
Tips for Using Twitter for Real Estate
- Find leads: Using Twitter's search engine and other third party apps, you can find out when someONE is looking for a home in the area by setting up alerts. If Then That That is a tool that will set up an alert anytime someone tweets, "House hunting" for example. This way, you can directly reach out to potential clients.
- List your listings: Obtain more exposure for your listings by sharing them on Twitter. Most importantly, don't forget to use a picture. Tweets with pictures are much more likely to get attention.
- Keep it professional: Just like any public social media profile, share with caution. Don't delve into positions that are likely to annoy other Twitter users and be polite, always.
Written By: Ron Feir, Social Media Specialist Updated May 18,2016
