It seems the whole world is buzzing about “Twitter”
,.. especially amongst bloggers, internet marketers, and social web2.0 enthusiasts, but really,- just how necessary or practical is it for a realty professional to put on their “must have” list of marketing tools?

So let’s just recap for a moment and give Twitter a brief and simple overview. What is it? Well, it’s basically an on line social community texting service (in the simplest of terms). I mean what’s all the fuss about posting multitudinous 1 and 2 line text messages that are limited to 140 characters or less?

Yep…who’d a thought it huh?… but none the less it’s here and it is immensely popular. In particular young folks between the ages of 18 and 30 make up one of the largest sectors of “Twitterers” although that demographic seems to be maturing daily and is widening and changing all the time as people get to understand that it can be very entertaining and quite useful to connect with other folks and business professionals in their Twitter community.

But let’s stay focused and get right back to how effective it really is for realty professionals. A lot of folks in the realty industry right now are really going wild over Twitter and claiming that it puts them in touch with other professionals in field such as fellow agents, brokers, financiers, etc, and also that it allows them to connect with their vendors and their local community and as such is a good source for prospective listings.

Hmmm,.. well I don’t know about that. I mean, sure it does do that and there are many reports of instances where an agent has reported getting a listing or appraisal request from someone that had been “following” them as a respected and noteworthy agent in their area. But I can only find a few instances of such reports and therefore they seem to be in the minority. For sure Twitter is a great tool for staying connected with people in your profession, and that boost to networking can pay dividends in terms of listings and sales to some notable degree, but what about the real practicalities of using Twitter as a worthwhile listing or selling tool?

Like any form of marketing it all depends on how much time your willing to invest to get the results you’re seeking. Now there are lots of folks that will tell you that it really doesn’t take much time at all to go over to Twitter.com and sign up, and from there just start “Tweeting” ,- i.e. leaving your concise little 140 character reports about what’s happening in your world, your office, your agency, your patch or whatever. That may be so but in fact I myself, like many other “Twitterers” have found that Twittering can suck up huge chunks of time throughout the day and across the week,- especially if you get hooked and start to develop an addiction. The key really is in having a purpose and a game plan in being on Twitter and then staying disciplined and focused to get the best out of it and then thus be able to achieve your goals in having it support you marketing and social networking objectives.

Shouldn’t there be some kind of ROI analysis that any real professional should be doing to gauge the actual tangible returns they’re getting (or likely to get) from the amount of time they put into their Twitter time investment? Usually, when some new form of marketing or communication medium comes out, professionals take a step back and make logical and relative assessments as to whether their resources (time & energy in this case) should be thrown into the latest thing available. But, as with most forms of new buzzworthy and fashionable attraction, practicality tends to get lost in the passion to be a part of the  scene and generally it isn’t until some time later that the reality dawns and we start to ask ourselves the question “why am I doing this and what do I get out of it really?”.

Presently, the fact of the matter is that only a small percentage of Internet users are using Twitter (an indeterminable 6% or less),.. many of which are located outside the US, and of those in the US,- over 55% are from the state of California! There are also other statistical factors to consider such as age demographics (which is shifting upwards into the 35 to 44 year old bracket from the original predominant demographic of 18 to 24 year olds in 2007) So,.. what real percentage of people (and your prospective market) does that leave as candidates that you’ll reach by using Twitter? Furthermore, it appears to me that too many real estate agents and associated realty professionals are simply using Twitter as a large ‘business card billboard’ in the hope or assumption  that they’ll be noticed or that that’s enough. I’d suggest to you that that’s probably about as valuable as leaving a bunch of your business cards on the counter top at McDonald’s (now someone for sure is going to tell me how they get a lot of business that way!).

Now,.. don’t get me wrong,- I think Twitter is good and I quite enjoy wasting spending some time over there at least once a day. Those percentage figures of folks using Twitter are likely to grow substantially and exponentially as the Internet expands and even more folks start blogging (currently 120,000 new blogs created daily, and 1.2 million daily new blog posts), therefore it could make sense to jump on the bandwagon (maybe “Twitternaught” is a better word!) early and get some experince and connectivity going so that you can swim with the stream instead of getting drowned in the flood?

In conclusion,.. I think Twitter is here to stay and that it can be used effectively by realty professionals to achieve more success, but first, you need to know how to use it (and I mean more so than just how to type text into a text box), and how to encourage and perhaps entice  and coach others how to use it to stay connected with you and what’s happening in your business or with property in your area of which they have some interest as an owner/propective seller or investor, and prospective purchaser, a landlord or a tenant. There’s also a way in which NOT to use it,.. for instance, primarily as a link posting station (folks will soon get tired of following you of all you do is incessantly post links everyday). Another thing,.. I’d suggest that having 11,672 “followers” isn’t any standard by which to judge Twittering exposure, success or tangible relevance. As with anything it’s the quality and focus that make the difference,- much better to have a couple of hundred interactive and keen “followers” than hoards of folks that really haven’t got enough time to properly follow even 5% of folks on their list!

My guess is that Twitter will be with us for some time to come and that it will continue to evolve. Who knows whether it will be a permanent Internet phenomenon or fizzle out, morph into something else or get replaced,.. but for now I think it pays to educate and arm oneself with a Twitter strategy as part of your web2.0 marketing arsenal.

There are numerous free e-books & reports floating around at present that do quite a good job of explaining the essentials of getting started and using Twitter. However, I’ve only seen one so far dedicated to realty professionals which covers some of the points I’ve raised in this post. Presently I’m working on a practical and more definitive guide for real estate professionals to use Twitter in relevant, cost effective and results focused ways. If you’re a realty professional that’s already using Twitter successfully in your business and you think you may have something to share in the report that I’ll be putting together then please feel welcome to contact me here or you can check out my profile and connect with me on Twitter. Once completed I’ll be sure to make certain that any contributors get a copy and an appropriate link to your Twitter address also.

Stay tuned…more to come soon!

Recently I’ve been following a thread on realestateforum.com about “Social Networking” which has raised some worthwhile comments. As you’d expect, the conversation has eventually turned to the topic of Twitter. The latest post today was basically commenting on how many real estate agents are now starting to use Twitter to ‘blast’ listing details repeatedly (as much as 20 times a day). I thought my reply was worth re-posting here for you to see,…

It never ceases to amaze me how supposedly intelligent sales professionals can’t figure out that ‘message blasting’ and adding URL’s to every Tweet is just going to lose you massive credibilty. It becomes very clear to your ‘followers’ that you’re not really interested in social networking at all,.. just getting more sales!

The problem with most web2.0 strategies is that they’re free and so they get abused as does email. If agents had to pay a premium for them then we’d see some creativity just as we have seen with conventional press and magazine advertising. In reality, there is a hidden cost;- the time & focus it takes to be engaging in such activities and the loss of credibility when clearly abusing the system.

I’ve just written a report on the whole Web2.0 scenario for realty professionals in which I dispel 15 Web2.0 marketing myths,.. ‘Twitter’ is #6 on the list and I’ve pasted it below!

Myth #6; I can get more sales and ‘showing’ just by posting Tweets on Twitter.

Ok, so let’s not confuse myth #5 with myth #6. Once you have a Twitter account you’re not going to automatically create more showing or listing requests just by posting things like; “Just listed great 4-bedroom 3-bathroom home in Sunny Hills Estate,..check it out http;//tinyurl.com/345sfx”.

However, if you have created good follower interest and posted previous tidbits of interest as well as the occasional worthwhile link then you will be able to attract them to such a post or a redirected blog post that contains the link for the property listing. Maybe it could be a blog post with an image of the listed property that links to a specific website listing. You can always create a post indicating the various features of a recently listed property that appeal to you, and then just link to that post via Twitter.

The bottom line is that you need to be using Twitter creatively in order to win the respect of your “followers” attention rather than just creating a following of 2,000+ followers and then link-posting in the hope that someone will click the link. Personally I think its just self deceiving stupidity to purely seek to build lists of thousands of ‘followers’ & ‘followed’ people and then expecting to get any kind of focused result from it. If you have a bunch of disingenuous ‘followers’ (that are also following hundreds or thousands of others) then it’s most likely that they won’t ever see your Twitter posts at all. Better to work on generating genuinely interested followers that will be focused on seeing your relevant posts as they occur.

Cheers, Russell

For more details on my report  see this link  “Working Realty Smarter Web2.0″