Why Twitter?
November 11, 2008 by Scott
Filed under Featured, Technology
Twitter is becoming the go-to tool to answer the one question on everyone’s mind: What are you doing right now? The two-year-old micro-blogging platform is quickly becoming known as an app that many people have heard of, but only a handful have mastered.
For those who don’t know, Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets). Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Users can receive updates Twitter’s website, SMS, RSS, email, or through an application such as Twitterrific or Facebook.
The question that real estate professional should be asking is: How can this be useful in selling a property? Twitter can be used to take a pulse of the home-buying community. Agents can search twitter to find real estate buyers in the area and get a sense of exactly what they’re looking for – thoughts, opinions, open house, time preferences, whatever.
Once you’ve found out what your prospects are saying, start a conversation. Set up a profile. Get a nice looking picture and fill out the required fields so that people can get a sense of who you are. Next, start following people. Following people allows for other people’s “tweets” (twitter language for messages) to automatically update to your home page. This lets you see exactly what someone is looking for.
You can search other people’s tweets by using tools such as TweetScan. Search for “Open House” or “Trulia” to see who is looking for property information or homes for sale. If someone is looking for a home, they might be posting their thoughts on their home-buying process. Use this to help them find the property they need…
If you have an iPhone, get one of the free twitter applications built specifically for iPhone users. This will help agents who are constantly on the move showing properties. You can even sync your twitter account to interact with your Facebook status, enabling you to reach an even larger audience with information on property locations and local real estate news.
This method of interaction with clients also puts a friendly face on a stressful buying process — It allows clients to get a better sense of who is helping them to make what will most likely be one of the more expensive purchases of their life.
Use your own profile to act as a real-time advertising platform; let your followers know what properties you’re showing and give some juicy details. Have fun with it! Twitter is a great way to get into the head of clients and find out what they’re really looking for.
Click here to check out a great example of how Twitter can be used with to interact with customers in real-time — from seomoz.org