I received a really exciting email in my inbox this week – there are some awesome new developments that just rolled out for HootSuite.

As you probably know by now, I am a huge HootSuite fan. In my opinion, it is the best product, hands down, for managing multiple social media streams, for managing your social strategy, for monitoring multiple conversations, and so much more!

Here are two of the cool new highlights HootSuite announced:

1. HootSuite Publisher

One of the best features of HootSuite has been the ability to post social updates to multiple streams with the click of a button. With one “copy and paste,” you can post a comment to Twitter, then re-work the verbiage a little to post it to Facebook, then re-work it again to post it back out to Twitter a second time the next day, and then post it to LinkedIn. Of course you could just post it once and have it go everywhere but to really be socially smart and savvy – you won’t be posting the exact same post to every social network!

According to the HootSuite blog you can now:

“Slice and dice the destination profiles for each message and drag-and-drop your updates into timeslots to match your editorial plans. While the whole power of daily/weekly/monthly calendar view is available with Pro and Enterprise plans, everyone can take the advanced scheduling functionality for a spin to see how calendar views can manage complex campaigns.

This publisher tool takes the place of the former Pending Tweets column – to get started, click the paper airplane in the Launch Bar and plan (and edit) your posts across networks.”

So instead of seeing all your pending tweets in separate streams, you can view them all at once; see how they overlap, and if you have any gaps anywhere. Great idea!

As a real estate pro you live and die by your calendar right? This new format makes it super easy for a real estate agent to view what posts they have scheduled, write additional posts, move things around as needed, and then move on to selling more houses and closing more deals. This new tool will definitely help you be more efficient with your social media planning and execution.

By the way, HootSuite does have a free plan, but I really recommend you look into their $5.99 a month plan – with extra tools and the analytics available are worth the extra expense. You can’t even go out to lunch for $5.99!

2. Limited Profiles

This new feature allows someone on your team to write social media updates and then save them in draft mode for you or an authorized team member to approve. I love this idea for real estate agents who want to hire an assistant to help with social media updates. This way, the assistant can write the posts and the real estate agent or Broker can review them before they go out to ensure they are in line with their brand, their voice and the message they want to get out. It also offers you an opportunity to give that assistant (or intern) guidance on what you’d like to see posted. I think this is a great new option for real estate agents.

What do you think of these new updates? Are you using HootSuite? I’d love to hear your feedback, post your comments below!

P.S. Shameless plug, but I am SO excited to see Ryan Holmes, CEO of HootSuite onstage for Real Estate Connect SF next month. His company has changed the way companies manage social media and I can’t wait to hear his take on the future of social media. If you can make it down to the Bay Area (my stomping grounds!) – I’d love to see you! Tweet me up or leave a comment below!

Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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In the last few months I have done quite a bit of traveling with Inman News for our Agent Reboot “roadshow.” Every hotel has its perks, but the hotel we stayed at yesterday, The Westin Bayshore really impressed me with their social media savvy. It started a few weeks ago. I was tweeting for the event and I noticed that The Westin Bayshore was tweeting and promoting our event! They posted welcome messages and tweets about how excited they were that we were coming. I was blown away! At all of the hotels and convention centers we have been to for Inman events – this has never happened – not once!

If that wasn’t enough – when I checked into my room, there was a surprise waiting for me!

On my dresser in my room were three shortbread cookies – one with the Facebook logo, one with the Twitter logo and one with a QR code!

I was so excited to see the hotel engaging its guests in social media! I quickly scanned the QR code with my iPhone app and received a custom message to me personally welcoming me to the hotel and wishing me luck as a speaker at Agent Reboot.

I was impressed.

Not only that – but all the speakers were buzzing about it. Nicole Nicolay who has over 14,000 followers on Twitter mentioned from the stage (as emcee) how impressed she was with The Westin Bayshore. Then Stacey Harmon who has over 4,900 followers commented and re-tweeted it. Then Chris Smith, our new Chief Evangelist with 8,700 followers tweeted it out. Numbers aren’t everything – but in just minutes nearly 30,000 people on Twitter heard about what The Westin Bayshore was doing!

So what’s the lesson here? Honestly – it doesn’t take a lot to use social media in a fun and creative way. Because of this simple gesture – The Westin Bayshore had a dozen of the top people in real estate technology talking about their hotel and how great they were.

That’s why I know that social media is one of the best forms of word-of-mouth advertising. Imagine what The Westin Bayshore would have had to paid to get that type of buzz at one event?

So what’s the lesson for real estate professionals? Don’t miss the boat with Facebook and Twitter. It’s not enough to just throw a page up and post something here or there. Be committed to building your sphere online as much as you have in the past face to face.  Be creative with social media! How about handing out Facebook cookies at your next open house to promote your page? How about making it a point to comment on 5 of your friends/fans posts every day? How about tweeting your local chamber or downtown association to build a relationship with them?

The possibilities are endless – and the opportunities are there because so few people are really doing this.

The real estate industry is ripe for this type of out-of-the-box thinking!

Thank you Westin Bayshore for a great experience, fantastic room, welcoming staff and for the awesome social media welcome.

I’m impressed.

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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There has been a lot of friendly competition around the Inman News office lately around Twitter – how many followers each of us has and why. In between the laughter, and joking, it’s made me think – why do some people get more followers faster than others? Why are certain things re-tweeted more than others? What can someone do to “be successful” on Twitter – and what does “success” on Twitter really mean.

Being a social media director, I’ve seen a lot of “social media gurus” who claim they know it all about Twitter, yet when I look at their feeds all I see is someone talking all about themselves – what they have to sell, what product they are pushing or how great they are.

Can you sell on Twitter? Sometimes.

Can you get more web traffic? Absolutely.

Can you build a brand? Without a doubt.

Can it be all about you? No way. No how. Never.

The truth is – success on Twitter is so much more than how many followers you have. That only tells part of the story. For a long time, I was focused on those numbers. How many followers. How many re-tweets. How many likes. How many unlikes. If you look at those numbers long enough you start to go crazy. Then something pretty cool happened. The more I tweeted, the more I focused less on the numbers, the more people I met, the more I enjoyed it, and the more I saw the tremendous value of it.

I know there are some people that are reading this that may be thinking “Katie, I don’t get it. I’m a busy Realtor. I started a Twitter maybe account a year or so ago. I think I have 20 followers, but really what’s the point?”

Sound familiar?

Let me tell you – being an independent contractor in any business, especially real estate, is lonely.

One of the biggest benefits I have seen with Twitter is the camaraderie and support with people who love this industry all over the world. In my eyes, that is a huge benefit. But let’s face it, we don’t just want to sit around and just tweet with other Realtors. There are people right now in your community, in your town talking about things that are relevant to you – local news, local events, hot spots around town, and yes people who are moving to your city or town. Go into Twitter and type “moving to _____” in the search field and you’ll be surprised at how many search results come up. Does that mean you should instantly Tweet them and say “HI! I’m a Realtor!!!!” No of course not – you wouldn’t do that in real life, so don’t do it on Twitter.

Seriously, don’t even think about it!

The point is that Twitter is like the Chamber of Commerce mixer. Remember those? You went, had a drink and came home with 10 business cards. But now, you get to stay at home, be in your PJ’s, and “collect” followers that you can connect with. It’s the same networking we’ve always done – it’s just done a little differently now.

But let me tell you the BEST part about Twitter for me…

As I go to Agent Reboot events all over the country – the cities may be different, some of the speakers may be different, but one thing remains the same; there is always someone that I had never met “in real life” that greets me with a hug.

Why? Because I haven’t just blasted out tweets. Because I don’t shamelessly self-promote myself. Because I’ve taken the time to notice people.

Isn’t that what it’s all about? Don’t people – don’t you and I – just want to be noticed?

That’s the power of Twitter, and it’s one of the reasons I love what I do.

So how do you jump into the conversation? How do you get people to start noticing you and engaging with you? There are definitely a few “secrets” that no one ever told me when I first started on Twitter that can really help jump start your Twitter fame!

1. Don’t use all 140 characters. I was in Seattle earlier this year when my friend Dale Chumbley reminded me, “Katie, I’d re-tweet you more if you didn’t write such long tweets!!” DOH! I had forgotten that so simple but golden rule. Don’t use every single space. I know 140 characters isn’t very much to begin with. So if you fill up that whole space and then someone tries to re-tweet you – there will be too many letters. If it’s a good tweet, some people will take the time to edit it – but most won’t. See if you can keep your tweets to 50 characters max!

2. Re-tweet a lot. We have a joke in the Inman News office – it’s all about the re-tweet! That’s right! You want people to stand up, notice you, follow you, and engage you? Then re-tweet a lot! Re-tweet 15-20 things a day. Re-tweet interesting articles, follow hashtags (like #agentrb or #icsf) and re-tweet things people are talking about. The more you re-tweet, the more people are likely to re-tweet you and take notice of you! Here’s a bonus secret – don’t re-tweet 15 things in a row (unless you want to annoy the heck out of your followers). Re-tweet 15 things but use my favorite app HootSuite and schedule out those re-tweets – once a hour so they “drip” out over the course of the day. Now instead of impacting a few people who happen to be on Twitter at the exact time you are on, you are impacting people at different times of the day.

3. #FF. I love Friday Follow. Every Friday pick 10 people to mention for #FF. Recognize people you enjoy following. Twitter is a very giving medium. You need to give, give, give if you want to receive anything back. Some of the people I have engaged with and talk to the most started with a #FF.

4. Post content you like to read. We all subscribe to email newsletters right? Well before you delete them all every morning, look at one or two in your inbox and make it a point to tweet out a couple things from those emails – interesting articles or tidbits of knowledge.

5. Don’t get so caught up on what to say. Don’t over think things. Post something if it’s interesting to you, but don’t spend too much time worry about everything you post. Be smart, if you wouldn’t say something on stage or in a crowd, don’t say it on Twitter.

So those are just a few of my Twitter keys to success. What are some of yours? In the spirit of Twitter, please share and leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Guest blog post by Daniel Weisman

Social networks like Facebook and Twitter can be great tools to cost-effectively increase your vacation rental bookings. These services are free to use but difficult to use effectively, so many people give up before they give social networks enough time to yield results.

Yet investing time and effort in developing a “social presence” can be extremely rewarding because you can use these channels to advertise for free to a highly targeted audience. Facebook boasts 500,000,000+ users, and your guests – past, present and future – are among them. Here are some tips for reaching the right audience and converting “fans” and “followers” into bookings.

1. Your guests already like you… you just have to remind them

Word-of-mouth has long been the best marketing tool for vacation rentals. If I loved my cottage rental on Martha’s Vineyard last summer, then I would be happy to recommend that cottage to my friends who are going there next summer.

Social media makes it easy to interact with a network of supporters who will promote your rental on their networks. If you haven’t already done so, start by creating a Facebook page and a Twitter account for your rental.  Next, invite your past guests to “like” your Facebook page and “follow” you on Twitter. Make it easy for your friends and customers to “like” you by including links to your social profiles in emails and on your website.

Once you build up your fan base, you will have the chance to engage with your customers regularly. Every time they see your content, they will remember the great time they had in your rental.

A great example of a property owner with an awesome word of mouth network is La Casetta del Borgo (@CasettaDelBorgo). This Tuscan villa has nearly 2,000 Twitter followers and receives new bookings constantly.

2. Be more than a landlord… be an expert and a person

Once you’ve started to build your network, you should make yourself a valuable friend. Don’t spam your followers with advertisements – focus on providing value instead. For example, you’re probably a local expert on great things to do, restaurants, and hidden gems in your destination so why not share those on your Facebook & Twitter pages?

Creating valuable content that your audience not only reads, but passes on to their friends increases your credibility. Ruth Shipley, of Social Media Examiner explains,

“if [your audience] gets to know you, like you and trust you, they might just become your customer for life.”

Let people in on local secrets like the best place to buy lobsters in Maine or the location of an amazing hidden beach, and your customers will think of you before looking anywhere else to find a rental.

Check out Cottage Guru Heather Bayer (@cottageguru) for her expert advice on property management, travel and marketing. Her 4,000 followers keep up with her and share her advice, and she rarely advertises her properties directly.

3. Sharing is caring… show that you care

Social media experts will tell you that these marketing channels are all about engagement. So how do you engage your network? Ask them to participate. The easiest way to get someone to share a message or Tweet is to ask explicitly: “share this” or “leave your thoughts in the comments.”

Participation is where you get real value from your social networks. Direct value comes from the network itself: when one of your Facebook friends comments on your wall or shares your content, that action will appear in their friends’ news feeds. Similarly, when someone replies to one of your Tweets, that response is visible to all of their followers. In other words, your shared posts reach your audience plus all of the sharers’ audiences – that’s pretty good reach for free advertising.

Indirectly, shared content can impact your search engine rankings. A recent blog post by the experts at seomoz.org showed significant correlation between Facebook shares and high Google search rankings. Getting fans to share your content could help you move up in the Search engine results!

4. Network… it’s also a verb

It’s often easy to get carried away by the “social” aspect of social networks and forget about networking. In addition to reaching out to past guests and friends, you should also be using Facebook and Twitter to connect with your peers. You can learn a lot from keeping up with folks in related businesses, and you can even engage these compatriots in productive discussion.

How do you find your peers? Start with simple searches. If you rent an apartment in Chicago, then you’re definitely going to have to make restaurant recommendations. Search Facebook and Twitter for “Chicago Restaurants,” then start making friends. Now, if you recommend one of the restaurants that follows you to a guest, that restaurant will know… they’ll also know what vacation rental to recommend when a patron from out of town asks about a great place to stay.

If you want to get more advanced in your networking, then I recommend checking out Twibes. This site helps form twitter groups based on common interests. It’s a quick way to search Twitter for like-minded friends.

Facebook and Twitter are not going to replace conventional online vacation rental marketing. You should also list your rental property on leading vacation rental sites like FlipKey.com to attract new guests. However, with an increasing number of travelers taking advice from friends online, and with search engines using social information to generate results, Facebook and Twitter are great channels to develop relationships and find new guests through word-of-mouth. Most importantly, it’s completely free to start using social media, so you will get nothing but positive returns once you get online and spend some time getting social.

About the author: Daniel Weisman is a Social Media Specialist at FlipKey.com, which features more than 100,000 vacation rental properties around the world.  You can read more of his writing on The FlipKey Blog and connect with him on Twitter @flipkey.

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There are a ton of Twitter 3rd party applications that will track your tweets, your followers, your retweets, and more. As a social media director, I use a number of different tools to monitor our social presence and to track our analytics. One thing I have found is that some social media tracking products are too complicated for the average user diving into social media. Especially if you are a real estate professional who is trying to get a handle on your ROI and learn about what does and doesn’t work in social media

If it’s too complicated you won’t use it. I am a big fan of KISS – “Keep it Simple Stupid!”

One of my favorite products I use is Twitter Counter.

Ther best part of Twitter Counter is the quick and simple email I receive once a week:

The chart very simply show how many followers you have and how many you are predicted to have based on past performance. Once you log onto Twitter Counter there are other free charts to view and then if you’d like you can upgrade to a paid account. For me, this snapshot delivered right to my inbox gives me a quick view of where we are at on Twitter, and where we are predicted to be next week (in terms of followers). For me, this service is like a quick “check-in” to make sure I am on track to hit my goals.

Have you used this service? Do you use another Twitter analytics platform that you love? Please share and leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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I had the pleasure of speaking to Marnie Blanco, Vice President, eBusiness at RE/MAX. I first heard Marnie speak at Real Estate Connect NYC a few months back and was really impressed by what she had to say about social media and what RE/MAX was doing on a corporate level – but also to support their agents in the fast-changing social media world.

Best Practice Over Policy

When asked about policy around social media, Marnie says that they focus more on “best practice” over policy. She says,

“We can always do more. We offer a lot of education to our agents and brokers about Facebook business pages, Twitter, the ROI of social media, rules and regulations and best practices. RE/MAX is an extremely entrepreneurial brokerage, so we encourage everyone to get involved in social media and then we give them the tools to make the best possible decisions.

I asked Marnie about what she says when agents ask her “where to start.” Many agents get overwhelmed with the number of options and seemingly never-ending stream of new technology. Marnie advises: “Start as you intend to go.” RE/MAX encourages their agents and brokers to get educated first about the different mediums and then decide the role they’d like to play.

Social Media Education

Social Media superstar, Gary Vaynerchuk was a recent keynote speaker just a few weeks ago at RE/MAX’s convention. Marnie said that Gary talked about how he felt like right now there is a four-year window in social media – right now everyone is on it – but everyone can really capitalize on it in the next four years.

The social media education that RE/MAX provides includes training agents on the separating some of the personal and business that happens on social media and the importance of relationship building – not just promoting their listings. They recommend LinkedIn as a great starting point, because an agent is not expected to be on LinkedIn 24/7 – there is a low barrier to entry and an easy starting point.

I asked Marnie about Twitter and she said they don’t do as much Twitter training as they do with Facebook. She says that Twitter is a great listening tool. “On Twitter it is important to hear what is being said, interject when you can, and then tie it back to you when it is appropriate.” But, she said, it is not for everyone.

In addition to conventions, RE/MAX also offers a number of webinars as their ongoing social media education with agents and brokers. At their conventions, they strive to have speakers that are really on the cutting edge of social media like Gary Vaynerchuk and Nicole Nicolay (Nicole is also one of our emcees at the Agent Reboot evenst that are happening nationwide)

Providing Opportunities

They have social media tracks at their conventions and at their last convention – they had a “Twitter Lover’s Lounge” where people could meet “in real life” and do some great face to face networking. Also at many conventions, they provide camera crews onsite who are available to film a short professional message for agents on a one-on-one basis. These videos could then be published on the agent’s web site or blog. Marnie says that RE/MAX feels it’s very important to assist their agents in creating content for their social sites. In addition, agents are encouraged and trained to start a YouTube Channel of their own and then link their channel to our RE/MAX dedicated channel in which can share content across.  It creates a bigger reach for the agents at a local and national level.

Training on Demand

RE/MAX also offers “RE/MAX University” which Marnie calls “Training on Demand.” At their headquarters in Colorado, they have a full television production area where they are able to create “Quick Hit” 3-5 minute training videos that can then be passed onto the brokerage level. She also said they like to take their training on the road, and will travel to various offices, and get very hands-on with agents and their computers.

Agents and Brokers Doing it Right

Here are 5 RE/MAX Facebook pages that are doing a really nice job of providing local content, building a community and engaging their audience:

• RE/MAX Real Estate Concepts
• RE/MAX Southern Shores
• RE/MAX Gateway of the Washington DC Metro Area
• Cory Kramer- Re/Max Agent
• McCoy-Freeman Group RE/MAX ELITE

How is This Going to Create More Business?

Marnie says at the end of the day, you have to ask yourself “How is this going to create more business?” With social media it is not always that tangible. What I like about RE/MAX’s approach is they are putting a creative focus on the basics of the tried and true approaches, are embracing change and new technologies and arming their agents with the tools and education to succeed.

You can find RE/MAX on Facebook here and on Twitter here.

What type of social media training is your brokerage doing? Are you an agent or broker with RE/MAX?  I’d love to get your thoughts and opinions – leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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Twitter is a fantastic resource for listening to conversations, learning, networking and meeting new people, sharing information, broadcasting your message, and so much more. But, as many of us know, Twitter can be a time-suck. I’ve come across three outstanding web tools that can really save you time, and help make Twitter more productive for you.

Tweriod – “Tweriod will analyse your followers’ streams, work out when they are online the most and let you know the best time to post your tweets!”  This is probably my latest favorite Twitter tool. A lot of people have misconceptions about when is the best time to post tweets, and this takes the guesswork out of it. It can take over a day to get your initial report, but it is definitely worth it

Only the Links - “A simple Twitter client focused on only showing you Tweets with links. When appropriate, we’ll even show you a preview of that link. This app makes it easy to filter and consume the good stuff people are sharing on Twitter.” If you are like me, Twitter has become your main source of links and information (replacing your RSS reader). With OTL you can look at links from your Twitter lists and avoiding all the conversation posts. It cuts out the chatter – love it!

Formulists -  “Organize groups of people on Twitter into smart, auto-updating Twitter lists! Filter and network with people based on location/bio keywords, Twitter activity, number of followers and more.” I love Twitter lists, but if you haven’t been using lists or keeping up with them, then this is a nice solution. You can categorize your Twitter friends quickly and easily, so you can better follow the right groups of people for you at the right times in your schedule.

Have you found other Twitter time-saving web sites or apps that you love? Leave me a comment below! Also, if you use any of these three sites, I’d love your feedback too – leave me a comment!

Written by: Katie Lance, Social Media Director, Inman News, @katielance

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I went into Google today and searched “Social Media Tools.”

21,100,000 results!!

As a busy real estate professional, how do you differentiate what social tools are good to use and what are not? For me, first impressions say a lot. If I go to a site, and it’s confusing, or I just “don’t get it” for whatever reason, I usually move on. Let that be a lesson: simplicity is key.

For this “Tip Tuesday” post, I’ve selected three social tools, that I’ve come across recently, that are ideal for real estate agents or brokers to utilize.

1. Argyle Social - Argyle Social is a dashboard for social publishing, customer engagement, and social analytics. According to their blog, “Argyle is like Gmail for social media”.

Their belief is that there is a better way to help social media marketers do their job. For example, they have an “engage tab” that is built like an email inbox, focused on simplicity and usability, and optimized so that nothing falls through the cracks.

They also have a “rules” function which allows you to prioritize your social inbox. Instead of a pile of undifferentiated mentions, comments, and tweets in your inbox, Rules will automatically delineate, prioritize, and organize posts according to the filters that you set up.  I am eager to try this and see how it compares to Hootsuite and Tweetdeck. If you have used this, please leave me your feedback below!

I could see this tool particularly useful for brokers or real estate agents distributing social content over multiple streams like Twitter and Facebook – but one of the biggest benefit I could see is the filtering ability and the tools to foster engagement.

2. Nurph - One of the best parts of Twitter is the chatter that happens one-on-one. Nurph calls itself the “missing group feature in Twitter.” Nurph is real-time chat based on your social profile. Only the people who follow you can chat in your channel. Tweet the Nurph link and then bring the community together on your terms.

How cool would this be if you struck up a conversation with a potential real estate client on Twitter? You could turn a 140 character conversation into a more in-depth online conversation to get to know that client better and their real estate needs.

(Can’t view the video – click here)

3. Kurrently - This is one of the best ways to monitor when people are talking about you, a topic, or a brand on social media. Simply type in a phrase like “your name” or “Seattle real estate,” choose the Twitter or Facebook button, and then you will receive a list of people who have mentioned you or the phrase you typed in.

There are so many other hot social media tools emerging every day. Have a favorite? Leave me a comment below! Also, if you have used any of these three tools I’d love your opinion about them.

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News, @katielance

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For quite some time time now, I have loved Twitter. I love how fast-paced it moves, I love the friends I have made on Twitter, I love the real-time updates, I love being able to get a birds-eye view onto events and world news, and I love that it’s a great platform to drive traffic to our website.

But, I haven’t always loved Twitter. I joined Twitter in 2007 because I had heard about it from someone I knew who suggested I sign up. I distinctly remember sitting at my cheap “put-it-together-yourself” Target desk with my old Dell computer, in our townhouse that we were living in at the time, typing in “twitter.com.” I remember signing up, and then blankly looking at the screen thinking “OK, now what?” I saw a few people I knew on Twitter – most had only posted once or twice. On the screen in front of me was the big empty box to type something profound in. Only 140 characters to say something good. So what did I type? I don’t remember my exact words but it was something about the fact that I was eating my favorite donut.

Profound.

My, how times have changed.

After that first non-momentous tweet, I tweeted here and there, but honestly felt like I didn’t know what I was doing or what was really the point. And then people I didn’t know me started “following me” – that creeped me out! Why were these strangers “following me” and what the heck does “following me” really mean?

I look back at that time and giggle, because now so much of my life revolves around Twitter. Twitter is one of the first things I check in the morning and then throughout the day. Since my job is to manage all the social media channels for Inman News, I am constantly checking my account, our company accounts, any pertinent hash-tags, and more.

As of this writing I am almost up to 1,500 followers and have certainly come a long way since that first tweet about donuts.

I realize though that there are still a large number of people in the real estate industry who don’t understand Twitter or why they should care to be on it.

I want to step back, and out of real estate for a minute, and give you a bigger picture of why you should care about Twitter.

I recently came across this fascinating page on Twitter’s blog: Twitter Tales: Our Users, Their Stories. Within this page, are links to stories of people who have used Twitter in all different industries across the world:

Each one of these sections contains poignant, funny, and interesting stories about how people have used Twitter. I know personally, as soon as I heard about the earthquake in Japan and the Tsunami warnings – I went on Twitter to get local, bay area information. Not one local newscast was broadcasting at 2 am when I first heard about this – but there were people tweeting and sharing good information!

I want to share with you a few amazing snip-its from this Twitter blog:

1. If you click on “Twitter is Sweet,” you’ll hear Jessie Oleary from Seattle, @cakespy’s story:

“Using Twitter as her primary marketing tool, Jessie has mastered the art of creating clever, entertaining updates and understands how to make Twitter work for her. “I think that people see through it and get tired of it really quickly when all you do is push your product,” she explains. “It’s often more interesting to give them some of the back story via Twitter – in addition to updating them about relevant news and products.”

2. Click on “Twitter is about Art,” to hear about how Victor Samra, the manager of @MuseumModernArt uses Twitter:

“Victor paid close attention to what resonated with followers through examining re-tweets and replies. In addition, he used the account as a listening tool by searching for relevant art terms starting with simple words such as “art” and “museum,” to get a feel for what people on Twitter were talking about. He looked at the replies to see what @MuseumModernArt fans wanted to know.

Victor also started conversations with fans, visitors, and institutions through replies and posting questions on the account. He sought out and followed a wide range of artists, organizations, and other notable people in the art world, thereby becoming a well-connected resource.”

3. Click on “Twitter is about Community,” to read about Ravi Pina, a techie 32-year old who created the Twitter account, @Caltrain

“I’ve been a Caltrain commuter since I moved here in 2006,” says the techy 32-year-old who travels daily to work in Silicon Valley from San Francisco. Like many other riders, Ravi quickly grew tired of unpredictable delays. “Coming home was a particular pain-point, especially in 2007 with a spike in delays sometimes up to two hours or more. Something had to be done.”

When Ravi started tweeting from @Caltrain, his idea for the account was simple: technology-equipped riders could send an email from their phone or computer to a special address Ravi managed. The first 140 characters of the email’s subject line would be broadcast from @Caltrain as a Tweet to all of the account’s Twitter subscribers. With over 4,000 followers and more than 400 approved contributors, the account has clearly taken off. For some, it’s become an invaluable source of information throughout their workday commute.”

Each of these three stories is unique, but they all have 3 common threads about how they use Twitter:

1. Their tweets are clever, timely, and informative
2. They have become a well-known, well-connected resource
3. They engage with their followers in conversation

Anyone reading this who is a real estate agent, marketing director at a brokerage, branch manager, broker/owner or even a CEO or President of a real estate company can learn from these real-life examples.

Before you dive into Twitter, I think it’s really importatant to ask yourself these questions:

• What do I have to tweet about that is interesting? What do I like to read online? Would my audience be interested in that?
• What can I tweet about that reflects my personality but also show my expertise?
• How can I be the well-known and well-respected resource without being pushy?
• How can I be clever and unique?
• Where can I get interesting content? My own writing? Other online resources?

If you are in a management position at a brokerage, you may even want to have a big brainstorm meeting where you get everyone in one room who is a key voice in the company. Ask these questions and brainstorm on a whiteboard the answers. It is really interesting to hear what the marketing department says versus the transaction department, versus the executive staff, shareholders, etc.

Once you have a brainstorm of what and why you want to tweet – the next big question will be who. Who will manage the voice of the brand, who will develop a day to day plan, who will monitor the account and reply to people in a timely manner? Even if you are not a broker/owner but just a hard-working real estate agent working day in and day out to do the best possible job for your clients, I know that you can still benefit from doing this exercise.

I’d love to hear your Twitter success stories. Have had successful transactions that you can attribute to Twitter? Have you made priceless connections because of Twitter? Have you expanded your network and reach because of Twitter? Have you become a better writer because of Twitter? What is your success story? Share your story below and we may re-publish it here on FOREM!

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News, @katielance

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Let’s face it, a lot of people have a Facebook business page, and even more real estate agents and brokers are getting one too. I think this is fantastic, but are you one of those people who set up a page, posted a few times, and asked yourself, “ok, now what?”

Here are 3 simple things you can do TODAY to get more fans and get your page rocking!

1. Promote your page! You need to make it a part of your plan to promote your page. You can’t just build a page and then – VOILA success! You need to be a promoting machine. How?

• Add a Facebook “like” badge to the homepage of your website site and blog
• Add a link to your page into your email signature – one of my favorite services for doing this is WiseStamp
• Ask your Facebook friends to support you. Only do this periodically so not to annoy them! (once a quarter is more than enough!)
• Promote it on Twitter 3-5 times a week.
• Promote it on LinkedIn 1-2 times a week.
• Send out a special email invite to your clients, vendors, colleagues and sphere once a quarter. Also, in every email have a Facebook link so they can go right to your page.
• Talk about it on your listing appointments, open houses and networking events.

2. Post often! You need to post 2-3 times a day – every day. There is no “secret sauce” – you just need to do it. Ask questions to start a conversation, post interesting news stories, post market reports, post funny stories. Whatever is interesting to you may be interesting to your fans. Make it a point to post multiple times a day. The great thing is you can use TweetDeck or HootSuite to plan out your posts so you don’t have to be on Facebook every moment of the day!

3. Post a variety of content! Post links to news articles from Google News, post cool videos from YouTube, ask questions, post videos of your neighborhood or homes you see on tour – change it up and have fun with it. Don’t over think what you need to post! Get creative and start googling content that is interesting to you. Keep a punch list of all the things you could talk about or promote on your page. What do your clients ask you all the time? You should constantly be looking at your local news sites or downtown associations and post some of their “feel good local content’ on  your page.

Here is a great example of a real estate Facebook page – I met Chuck and Christina Ethridge at Agent Reboot Seattle last week and they are doing some great things on their Facebook page: screen-capture video, yummy recipes, asking and answering questions, posting cool new listings, and so much more! The included “Ask the Seasoned Agent” video blogs into their page too which I absolutely love. Nice job guys!

So, now that you know what to do – the only thing left to do is TO DO IT!! No time to start like the present!

Or, are you already doing this? Either way, I’d love your comments and feedback – leave me your thoughts below!

P.S. A huge THANK YOU for “liking” the FOREM Facebook page – as of last night we surpassed the 5,000 mark!! I truly believe we have the best fans in the industry. Thank you for making FOREM what it is today!

Written by: Katie Lance, Senior Marketing Manager, Inman News, @katielance

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