This list is the third in the series and just squeaks into the third quarter on time!
If you have not seen the previous top 10 lists you can checkout them out here: Q1 and Q2.
If anybody has any suggestions for the next Top 10 list send me a direct message or mention @glenn_batten
(edit: duplicate homehound entry removed and remarketingtips added)
26 Comments
Jen Pearce
You’ve got @homehound there twice!
Peter Fletcher
Clearly there’s a lot of man love for @homehound.
Alice Allan
Thanks for including us on your list, Glenn!
Simon CAshman
We (campaignTRACK) must be number 11, right?
Vic
Hi Glen,
Can you tell me the criteria you use for selection of this top 10?
Can’t be on number of followers: as http://www.twitter.com/thetidetweets has more followers than four of the above and nearly as many as the rest except for @auction_action
Robert Simeon
Vic,
Last time I spoke with Glenn on this topic it was *cash for comment* 🙂
Vic
Robert,
We Tasmanian’s believe in that also….how much Glen?
Robert Simeon
Vic, I actually sent him a brand new pair of white shoes for his open for inspections with reflector lights in the heels and bright pink laces 🙂
Vic
Robert,
He must have been tickled pink with that gift. You know him that well?
I was thinking of sending a white sombrero: maybe you could tell me what hat size he wears because, anectdotally only, it seems that they don’t make them that big :).
Robert Simeon
From past experiences I think that Glenn would much prefer the bottle of tequila that accompanies the sombrero – given he has an affinity with sitting under data (date) palms for his mid afternoon siesta whilst surfing on his iPad.
Sal Espro
Scusa me, how can I send a info for/to Glenn or Robert Simeon to view and post on this blog please? (I would insert here its format is pas possible – and believa me, it is mind-boggling about realestatview!).
Thx,
Sal
Tatiana Mijalica
Wow – how exciting!!! Thanks Glenn:)
Glenn Batten
Sorry.. Spent yesterday driving into Mexican terriroy…
Every quarter I have excess twitter accounts in the list over the 10 I need.. I hold them over till the next quarter and add new ones to the list. homehound was held over AND also added to the new list hence the double up.
I am not at home to check who else I had on the list so will have to search the old memory and update the article soon. Sorry about all that 🙂
Vic the criteria is really nothing formal just what I find to be the best sources FOR real estate agents. It is an important distinction as most of the accounts that are suggested to me are real estate accounts tweeting to consumers.
Followers play no part. Greg Vincent and Auction Action have both made the list and have a huge amount of followers but many of their followers are spammers, porn links, dead accounts, internet affliate marketers and people generally looking for followers themselves. There are lists of accounts on the internet of accounts who will follow you if you follow them.
In fact i analysed one account that was presented to me as the best real estate agent using twitter in Australia. I went through everyone of their followers and removed all the rubbish that I could identify and when I did there was less than 10% of their followers that could possibly be genuine local followers. They were indeed doing a great job but they were kidding themselves with how effective it really was.
If you have read any of my posts regarding twitter you will see I believe in the motto of follow few, but follow quality. The concept of following 20,000 is crazy IMHO and generally I delete anybody I know that follows me. You cannot read what that many people tweet in a day.
Don’t get me wrong as Greg and Auction Action still have plenty of genuine followers but this list is not about the number or the quality of their followers… its about the quality of what they tweet FOR real estate agents and that stuff is great..
So if you are an Australian real estate agent and wanted the best 30 people to follow to be educated, entertained and interact with these (the Q1, Q2 and Q3) are IMHO the best to follow….. Suggestions are always welcome.
Oh… and the Tequila is never required to gain entry…. but no gift is ever be knocked back 😉
Glenn Batten
Sal,
Thanks… I got your email.. There is a little bit more of a back story with that as well as they are not the only portal to try that tactic and we outed the last one as well. I will be bringing it to everyone’s attention shortly 🙂
Vic
Thanks Glen, gives me a good idea of your criteria.
We are only new at this game. As you know we are a free to list portal that needed to gain custom and loyalty from both ends of our business, the agents and the searcher. We had to qualify who it was that was wanting to purchase or rent in a waterside/coastal enviroment and had to make our tweets interesting for them. The dreamers, the surfers, the yachties, the oldies, the holidayers the anglers etc. We therefore try to tweet interesting snippets relating to “living, working and playing” by the water and at the same time pulling up an interesting property from our site, commenting on it and giving it a link.
Your private view, on it’s effectiveness would be appreciated if you could call me when you have a moment on 0413040892.Then we could also negotiate a gift:).
Robert Simeon
Vic,
In my opinion the most effective marketing tool for online is a newsletter/blog in Word Press as you send it out to your database, Twitter, Facebook etc. Tag – your key demographic search keywords and get yourself up the top of your Google pages pertaining to your business. Brilliant for your SEO.
Sal Espro
Or Posterous blog Robert – How terrific is it!!! Much, much smarter and flexible than WordPress and you only have to send an email containing your message/blog info and it gets posted automatically without you having to log-in anywhere!! Hoo ha!
Robert Simeon
Sal,
Posterous? Is this your new word for the week 🙂
Vic
Thanks Robert for the tips. Good value.
Posterous- sounds a bit like posthumus 🙂
Glenn Batten
Posterous is a simplified blogging service at its core but it has other uses as well. You can use posterous to post to your wordpress blog and other social media site.
Posterous works by emailing the stories to it.
I would not say it is smarter or more flexible than wordpress. It is simplier and much easier to use. Many people find wordpress too scary with all the option when you login but by setting up a connection to posterous anybody can post a blog article by just writing an email.
There are other ways to email articles to WordPress but Posterous is very popular because the same article can be posted to many places by Posterous all at once.
I know Tatiana from Maverick Strategies sets it up for a lot of her clients to use so if she is reading this she might give us her feedback.
Glenn Batten
I would also second Roberts comments
In order of effectiveness
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
Twitter is better at business 2 business rather than business 2 consumer. Its a great way for agents to get the latest news, tips and training but it it a lot of work to connect with a few consumers.
In contrast blog articles I wrote years ago are still generating traffic today with no more work.
Facebook is also good and is especially for those too afraid to write their own blog articles because you can fill your facebook wall with pictures, small posts and links to other websites.
Tatiana Mijalica
I love Posterous and Amplify – they are equally good. They take the hard work out of posting onto your blog/Facebook/Twitter.
WordPress can be tricky at times, manually uploading all images into the media section plus trying toget the formating and fonts right – it can be time consuming.
Think of Posterous/Amplify like XML for properties.
A real estate website sends properties onto all portals. Posterous/Amplify post all your social media posts onto blog, Twitter and Facebook.
They will format and embed all files correctly – images, text, videos, podcasts.
All the Agents I work with post their own stories themselves daily. This process does not take them longer than 10 minutes a day. Their content is micro targeted to their area and relevant to their readers.
With social media, I find that set up is the most important. If it is done correctly, it is easy to maintain moving forward.
Amplify is possibly even easier than Posterous, you only need to highlight the sections you want to post with your cursor and it will do the rest for you.
I agree with Glenn and Robert:
Blog
Facebook
Twitter
I have been analysing the social media campaigns that my clients have been running. Most campaigns have been running between 3 – 6 months and the data emerging is interesting and consistent, regardless of suburb and location.
I will publish a post of the findings shortly.
In some cases the Agents blog brings more referal traffic to an Agents website than REA, DOM, REV and email newletter traffic combined. Amazing!
Jay Den
Absolutely, Tatiana Mijalica. Glad it was helpful! 🙂
Vic
Tatiana,
You’ve sold me on posterous. And thanks Salespro for bringing it up.
Cheers
Michael Spitts
Great list! There are a few more that I can think of off the top of my head, but your list still covers the best ones.
Jules
thanks for the list, loved to be part of it, we are a new real estate Blog about investing in Queensland, please visit us as well!