Chris Brogan's post about using Twitter Search has some basic but very important statements of the value of Twitter searches. It's all about setting up searches on all sorts of key phrases, your company, your name, and more in order to track what's being said in the Twitterverse about topics you should be following.
He mentions Hootsuite, which I love and use for my multiple topic-focused Twitter accounts, and it allows the setup of searches with their own columns that are updated all day for me. The article is all about using Twitter search for business, and the greatest value to me, cutting out the noise.
The problem with following hundreds of people who Tweet something of interest to me now and then, or even frequently, is that their other Tweets are flowing in as well. And, the ratio of noise to what I find of interest is usually pretty high. I'm not saying they're useless Tweets, just off my topic of interest. It's just too much noise in relation to the value received. So, I use searches. By using key phrases of interest to me, I will still get the gems of wisdom from those I could have followed, but I won't get their other Tweets that are off my topic.
I use multiple Twitter accounts to broadcast by topic or use, such as one account just to send out new listings every Friday. Another is for price changes. Another gets all of my real estate WordPress site posts. My goal is to tailor accounts and their Tweets to specific needs of future real estate clients. Then I use my searches to monitor the Twitterverse on a wide range of topics, and engage in those discussions or reply/retweet when appropriate. It's efficient, and amazing how much information I can keep up with spending minutes a day in Hootsuite.
I’ll have to check out hootsuite. It will be interesting to see how Twitter search will evolve because of its now massive use. Setting up separate accounts that are more targeted is smart and I may have to take that advice as it will lead to more targeted traffic.
Thanks for the comment. Twitter is evolving, but I know that I use it for research for writing, and having Twitter accounts that are focused in their subject matter is valuable to me. I think that there are people out there that appreciate my account just focused on daily price changes, and another on new listings, etc.
Hootsuite just makes it really easy to maintain and post to multiple accounts. Thanks again for the site visit and comment.
Jim
I am currently a Realtor in San Bernardino, CA and it seems almost every Realtor in the area is on twitter to market themselves and get their names out there. I have looked into hootsuite briefly and it seems like a great program to update multiple social networks simultaneously. It is so exciting to see where all of these programs lead us!
Thanks for the comment Karen. There’s a huge amount of useful information on Twitter, but there’s 1000 times that in stuff I don’t want or need. I’ve found searches to be the way to get what I want efficiently.
Jim