Twitip

Twitter may have began as a simple communication platform for friends and family, but it quickly evolved into an amazingly powerful marketing tool. Arguably, becoming one of the most effective resources for marketing and business professionals alike.

One of the really great aspects of Twitter for any professional is the ability to target large amounts of people based on their interests and location. It is this niche/geo targeting that enables “web savvy” real estate agents to reach much larger amounts of prospective clients than ever before.

** Traditional marketing serves as no challenge to a successful Twitter campaign.

The Power of Twitter Friends

To find success on Twitter you need friends, lots of them. The more people that befriend you the better as it extends your reach each and every time you post a new tweet.

Building a substantial amount of friends often requires a physical attempt on your part, unless of course you also happen to be famous. Its important to remember that the more targeted your twitter friends are to real estate and/or your area, the more potential leads you will find. Here are a few tips for finding targeted prospects:

• Location Search: One of the best things you can do is find friends in and around your local area, after all they are likely the ones that will be buying houses there. For example, a search for Portland Oregon turns up a lot of people that live and work in the Portland area.
• Industry Search: Search for terms like “real estate,, “real estate agent”, “buying real estate”, you could come up with these for days. Many of these searches will return other real estate agents. Don’t fool yourself into thinking that befriending another real estate agent is a bad thing. Agents refer clients to other agents all of the time, don’t pass on that opportunity.
• Searching for Related Terms: Search for terms such as “need to move”, “house shopping”, “shopping for a new home”, etc. Admittedly, this type of search tends to be less targeted but can still provide additional exposure and possible clients considering a move to your area.

Please note: While the Twitter search bar may not look like much at first glance, it harnesses a tremendous amount of power under the hood. The search tips above are designed to drill down into targeted areas of interest and reach more clients.

Twitter Tools for Real Estate Agents

There are a number of great tools out there that can increase the power of Twitter and decrease the amount of time and effort required to use Twitter successfully. Some that would be valuable to real estate agents are:

• Twitter Local: Twitter Local is a pretty neat Adobe Air application that allows you to filter tweets by location. This makes finding potential clients in your area extremely easy.
• Monitter: Monitter allows you to monitor specific terms and keywords as they are mentioned. This is very powerful to a Twitter marketer and can open up a lot of possible new relationships for real estate agents.
• Twellow: List your real estate business in Twellow a Yellow Pages type listing directory for Twitter accounts. This is also a great place to find other real estate agents in your area and across the country.
• TweetLister: TweetLister is a really unique service that makes adding your property listings to Twitter easy! This online service automatically converts your listings to tweets and posts them to Twitter. Pretty neat, huh.

Twitter, Another Tool for Real Estate Agents

Basically, what it boils down to is that Twitter is a unique platform with a lot of potential for maximizing exposure to your real estate business. As with any tool or service, you have to actually use it to make it work. Nothing happens on its own.

The great folks behind Twitter have given you the people and the platform, now its your job to do the sorting and marketing. Have fun with it!