It's all about saying it in 140 or fewer characters:
Largely because it was designed to be posted from cell phones with text messages, as well as from computers, Twitter limits a post, or "tweet," to 140 characters. It started out as a "what are you doing" type of service, with people telling their friends where they were having breakfast, or what they were watching on TV. But, it's evolved into a really good tool for business.
Micro-blogging for real estate with Twitter:
Micro-blogging has been defined as posting up breaking news items, very current, almost up-to-the-minute posts of what's happening. There are plenty of this type of breaking news items for you to tweet as a real estate professional. It could be today's average Days On Market number, or current inventory levels. It could be the results of a town or county zoning proposal vote. There are all kinds of short tidbits that interest people about real estate in your area.
Shortened URLs allow you to link to your blog or site content:
If you're posting a blog or putting up good real estate website content, you can tweet a headline about a page or post, and Twitter will shrink the URL to make it shorter and better fit into your 140 character limit. You can then tweet a headline that takes the reader to your site or blog.
Daily closings and other breaking news ideas:
I don't have time to do it every day, but a few times each week, especially if there is some out of the ordinary MLS statistic, I'll tweet about it. Maybe in a given week, closings were up, or more homes than usual went under contract. I've also tweeted about multiple price drops in condo projects. It's all stuff that shows you're on top of your market. Just use items from your daily hotsheet reports.
Hundreds of third party applications to make it faster and easier:
Twitter has already spawned hundreds of apps to extend its capabilities. I like Hootsuite for many of my alerts. It has a "hootlet" button that is in my browser bar. When I find something interesting on the Web, I can just hit that button and it prepares a shortened link and box to enter my tweet text for a breaking news release. This is just one example of the many apps that extend the value of Twitter.
Use different accounts for general business, personal and listings tweets:
You want to build followers with Twitter, so it's probably not a good idea to set up one account and tweet everything to it, such as your latest new listing, what you're doing this weekend, and breaking real estate news. Each of these type of posts are likely to appeal to a different segment of your followers. You risk alienating and losing followers unless you separate these into accounts they can follow for what they want to see.
If you're ignoring Twitter, you may be missing a great opportunity:
Major corporations like Dell and Best Buy have embraced Twitter. They advertise it on TV, provide customer support with Twitter, and sell product with tweets as well. It's a great tool for real estate professionals as well.
By tweeting news about your market area, price trends, community news and events, and more, you become a destination to follow for the latest in community and real estate information. It all links back to your website or blog, and builds some SEO along the way.
By taking advantage of third party apps, tying Twitter to your Facebook account, and using the content in multiple places, you can leverage your time and content for more exposure. It's free, so you only have some time to risk in giving it a try.
