Anybody who has not recently heard about Twitter must have had their head in the sand. It has literally exploded over the past 6-12 months and Peter first introduced it here on the blog back in March and couple of others have followed up with some great comments since.
One thing that seems pretty clear is that for what seems a very simple service, very few people in our industry really understand it and how to make the most of. That included myself.
So this week I decided to change that and learn a bit about Twitter and how we could utilise it. Thats when I came across this fantastic ebook called “Twitter for Real Estate Twits” which has just been released and is specifically about Real Estate Agents using Twitter. The author invites everyone to share, so here is the ebook to read and download if you want.
This is a fantastic resource and introduces and explains in some good details exactly what Twitter is and the strategies behind utilising it for a real estate business. You will know by the end of it all whether you want to invest your time in the Twitter phenomenon and what sort of rewards you will get from it.
Some interesting stats from the book.
- An estimated 5‐10 thousand new accounts are opened per day
- Traffic has grown over 600% in the past 12 months (Compete.com)
- Twitter has about 4‐5 million users, about 30% are relatively new or unengaged users (at the end of 2008)
- 20% of Twitter users have joined in the past 60 days
One thing is for certain, being called a “twit” is not the same as use to be….
15 Comments
Robert Simeon
I love Twitter – simply brilliant!
Charlie
It’s like having your own free radio broadcasting out to the world. Amazing – looks crazily silly and simple, and then when you start tweeting away, you learn how it works; and how to use it.
Most agents say “what’s the point?”, “I haven’t got time” and “who’s interesting in what I tweet anyway?” … but my advice is to suspend your disbelief, jump in, and you’ll see how easy it is, how effective and powerful it can be.
Maybe start following others who are using it and you’ll see how it works (just go to http://www.twitter.com and start your own account – grab your name before someone else does).
Also you can hook up your tweets to your site, to have other follow you (clients) and see what you’re up to.
Just listing a great new property? Tweet it. Just sold something under the hammer, take a pic and upload it using Twitpic… just jump in and have a conversation, that’s what it’s about really. Markets are just a series of conversations, after all.
Useful Youtube starting video: http://tr.im/h8bx (explains it for absolute beginners)
Greg Vincent
Glenn that is a fantastic ebook. @nik-nik did an exceptional job with it.
Commscore announced that Twitter
Sal Espro
Sounds good Greg. But I’m to be convinced that any quality is gained from the ‘prospects’ agents (anyone) picks-up as ‘Twitter followers’ from what is still such a miniscule % of the marketplace.
Like Facebook and MySpace with even less quality and that’s saying a lot!@
Greg Vincent
I’m sorry you feel that way Sal. What area do you market in? I’ll see if I can find a potential client or 2 for you on Twitter.
Sal, I have a real estate agent who is currently working overseas who is coming over to Australia to start work soon. We are using social media, ie Twitter, Facebook, blogging & a few more things to help them establish a network of potential clients. With what we are setting up I can guarantee that they will have a large number of potential clients to work with before they even set foot in the country. You can’t tell me that’s not powerful.
So Sal, if I can do it for an agent from overseas surely I can find a client or 2 for you.
Sal Espro
That certainly sounds amazing, Greg.
As a case in point, using your tech, how would you go about selling an (excellent) acre’ish block of land in Berwick Victoria?
http://www.domain.com.au/Public/PropertyDetails.aspx?adid=2004959658
Rgds,
Sal:)
Greg Vincent
Sal, do you always have to twist things around? Are you going into politics any time soon?
I wish you’d have just answered the question so I can find you a couple of leads on Twitter that would’ve been easy. Now you want me to sell your listings for you too.
I’m not sure if I want to give all of my IP away here on this blog, but let’s see where this leads shall we…
Is that your listing Sal? If so, what are you currently doing to market it apart from featuring it on Domain.com.au?
Also, who would be the target market for the property?
Do you have any social media profiles established (especially a facebook profile )? If so, do you have many friends on facebook? Do you have a Twitter profile & do you have any followers? If not, these things help but it doesn’t matter, I know some ways around it.
The Insider
Twitter is fantastic if you have a product or service which targets a particular industry (say real estate or mortgage brokers). As it allows you to easily find people within the industry and then start following them.
More likely than not, the people you follow will check out your profile, view your website and start following you. Even if they don’t follow you, they have still checked out your profile and had a look at what you are about.
This will continue like a virus as other people in the industry will view the followers of people they are interested in and will see your business following these people.
In my opinion, because Twitter is so simple and fast (only involving a few words and “Clicks”) makes it a much more powerful marketing tool than Facebook or LinkedIn.
Robert Simeon
Twitter works exceptionally well for those businesses that put in the hard yards such as publishing weekly newsletters and blogs. If you are not doing this then Twitter will not add any significant improvements to your business – it is really that simple.
For those who want to embark with Twitter it is a brilliant way to broadcast your respective businesses, grow database, increase traffic, increase SEO and SEM and all so easy.
I am not sure what the cut off is however I was posting our weekly newsletter last week and after five uploads it would not allow me to post that URL again – so great with spam filters too. Makes one have to write more newsletters and new content. Twitter makes you work on your business – which is a brilliant incentive.
Sal Espro
Sorry Greg.
I was just wondering whether Twitter could be used in direct marketing rather than ‘just’ agency brand awareness.
It is my listing and it is on Domain, REA, has brochures, a board, window display, media article.
Be interested in your ideas.
Rgds,
Sal 🙂
Glenn Batten
Sal,
We are yet to start using it to promote listings as such, but when we do we will pick and choose which ones will work well. I have a technical issue why I cant start that side yet… but am hoping Zoo Property can sort that out soon. I anticipate that it will do well though. Very Well.
To give you an idea of the power of Twitter think about this. No doubt you have seen the article “My First 24 Hours on Twitter for Real Estate”. The article went out on my twitter account and just those people that read and clicked on the link from my Twitter post is 108 so far. Now I have not completed my third full day on the service and I have only 29 followers so far which is only 20% of what BusinessTwo account has and well under 1% of what Greg Vincent has so you can imagine the potential with these higher numbers. If Greg was to ReTweet the post then 108 might have been 500 or 600 quite easily.
Of course Peter also gets the standard web traffic, RSS traffic and email subscribers as well.
So how did I get 108 people clicking on a link when I only have 29 followers? Thats because one of the people following me liked the article enough to forward it on to her network of people. This is called Re-Tweeting. In fact a second person did the same thing, but they chose to forward the full link rather than my shortened version so I don’t get to see the stats on that.
That is extremely powerful and I dont know another online marketing solution that could provide that sort of exposure that easily and that quickly.
I put a post out (actually its automatic now, but you get the picture) about some recent awards we just received and inside an hour Twitter provided more than double what I would have received on a blog post pre-Twitter.
Sal Espro
Now that sounds interesting, Glenn.
Still gotta wonder about quality though and also makes you realize how small our marketing catchments really are normally, doesn’t it! i.e. We really do work with very small response groups.
Rgds,
Sal
Rachael Lord
We are a real estate company using twitter for a couple of weeks now. It has been a fantastic addition to our website and is an exciting new development. (Though a little time consuming to begin with, hopefully this will settle down once we get used to it.)
The e-book was brilliant and shared to all staff members of Beach & Bay. Love your website. Very helpful!
Peter Ricci
Rachel, thank you very much for your kind words. Keep coming back as your feedback and experiences are valuable.