When I first joined Twitter I had no idea how it would change my life. Honestly I think I signed up for Twitter and did nothing with it until I came to my second Inman Conference in 2009 – Real Estate Connect (this was before I worked for Inman). I saw a presentation by Nicole and Reggie Nicolay and walked away saying ‘I GET IT!’ Literally, I felt like one of those cartoon characters with a light bulb over my head!

To be honest, this is one of the reasons I whole-heartedly believe that coming to Real Estate Connect will make you more money – because all it takes is that one great idea – that one ‘a-ha’ moment that makes it all worth it!!

If you’re not a fan of Twitter, I understand. It’s not for everyone and that’s okay.

I can only account for my experiences. Twitter has served as a an incredibly powerful tool in three specific areas:

1. Networking. Through Twitter I’ve had the pleasure of building trusted relationships with a wide variety of individuals, most of whom I never would have been met otherwise.  These connections constantly ‘retweet’ our information to their followers and are outspoken about how much they enjoy our news and the information we provide. It’s that word-of-mouth advertising that is priceless!

• Real Estate Idea: As a real estate agent, what if you tweeted out great local content, community info, little known facts about your area, real estate news and market reports for your community? You are probably sending that type of stuff out anyways via postcards or email – right? Why not take that same info and turn it into 20 different tweets?

2. Business. First off, I found my job with Inman News on Twitter! Since I came on board at Inman News, we have doubled our Twitter audience. There is a huge, untapped audience on Twitter. These are people that may not be in your email database, but people on Twitter are people who have clicked a button and said “YES I want to hear from your!” These followers are some of our most loyal fans.

• Real Estate Idea: Do a search on Twitter: Type in:  “______ Realtor” (fill in the blank to whatever city you serve – i.e. New York City Realtor) – see who is looking for a Realtor in that area and add them as a follower! Also, don’t be shy about inviting people to follow you on Twitter. Download your database into a .CSV file and then upload it to Twitter. You can then choose who you’d like to send a Twitter invite to. The more people you follow, the more will follow you!

3. Exposure: Twitter has allowed me to raise Inman News’ profile and brand in a significant way. Our ideas and news are distributed to a much broader audience than traditional marketing and the only cost is time. As a real estate agent, the exposure you could receive by being on Twitter is enormous!

• Real Estate Idea: Make sure you ask people to follow you on Twitter. Add the link to your email signature, any print materials, your listing flyers, postcards, the home page of your website – anywhere where someone may want to contact you!

My catalyst for writing this short post is the achievement of a milestone of sorts – Inman News’ 12,000th follower. The means that over twelve thousand people are seeing what I tweet on a daily basis.  The reach of those followers is in the millions and that is why the network effect of Twitter is so powerful.

Here are a few recent blog posts that talk about Twitter and Social Media – if you missed them, check them out:

• 5 Ways Realtors Can Use Technology to Save Time and Money
• 5 Ways Build Your Personal Brand the Right Way
• How to Measure Your Social Media Strategy and Success

How do you use Twitter for your business? Would love your thoughts, leave me a comment below!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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Super Bowl Sunday is an ‘All American’ pastime. Whether you gather to watch the game or gather to watch the ads – either way, advertisers know that a lot of people are watching. It’s estimated that last year over 93M people tuned in.

However, this year, a lot of big names like Pepsi are scaling way back and spending more of their money and time on social media.

Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its ‘Pepsi Refresh’ initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20M in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education.  “This is such a fundamental change from anything we’ve done in the past,” says Lauren Hobart, chief marketing officer for Pepsi-Cola North America Beverages. “… The plan is to have much more two-way dialogue with our customers.”

How does this apply to Realtors?

1.    You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get a lot of buzz. In the past if you wanted to brand yourself you’d spend a lot of money on glossy magazines, park benches, and even worse – grocery carts. These days all you need is time and a plan. Within minutes you can create a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn account. With that you are armed to build your brand. You know those agents who put together detailed spreadsheets and calendars outlining their farming or SOI strategy? That’s the type of detail I’m talking about. To create a lot of buzz you have to get serious about your social media plan.

2.    Get creative. I love that some of the super bowl ads are getting super creative with social media – like Monster.com’s campaign. Having a 2-way dialog is key – asking for opinions, launching a contest, or creating a fundraiser. How can you RALLY your fans and start the dialog? If you are on Twitter create your own unique hashtag – for the 1st time the Super Bowl will have its own official hashtag #SB44. What could yours be?  How about #SoCalRE or #CARealEstate? Make sure you save that hashtag in your search. Respond to everyone who uses that hashtag twice a day – pretty soon the conversation will be rolling!

3.    Pick a few things and do them really, really well. With so many social media options, a lot of Realtors get overwhelmed.  If you’re going to do Facebook or Twitter – be a rock star at them. Post multiple times daily, post great content, be engaging – and treat it as seriously as if you were paying thousands of dollars for it! If you missed my post last week about Facebook, check it out here to see what you must be doing as a Realtor to be successful.

For those of you still wondering the effectiveness of social media, Alterian SM2 has been tracking the Super Bowl advertisers since early December. It has just released the latest version of its social media analysis and the findings are pretty interesting.

Super Bowl Social Media Results 3 Feb 10

p.s. Looking to see some of those “banned” Super Bowl ads? Look no further!

Written by: Katie Lance, Marketing Manager, Inman News

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