By Brett Weaver of SpotlightVT – Follow him @spotlightvt
I wanted to point out a brand new tool called TweetLister that was built specifically for marketing real estate on Twitter. I’ll also give you a quick one-two punch for using it to build a Twitter feed that any home seeker would be glad to subscribe to.
How it Works
You sign up for the free service using your existing Twitter credentials. TweetLister provides a form to collect all the usual property listing data such as address, square footage, number of rooms, etc. Most of the fields have drop-down menus with the most common choices which minimizes typing.
As you enter data into the form, a Tweet is automatically built in real time and it’s very self explanatory. Once the listing is saved, you can:
- Create a posting schedule for the Tweet (daily, weekly or monthly with time of day control)
- Track Clicks on your listings
- Collect Leads
- Change the listing’s status (active, sold, etc.)
- Control the period of time that the schedule runs.
Build an awesome Real Estate Twitter Feed
Here’s how you can create a very useful Twitter stream that home seekers will be glad to follow:
- Load up TweetLister with all your listings and set them to post at a frequency you are comfortable with.
- Post a “personal” Tweet at least once a day or every other day with great tips about buying homes in your area or other items of news that would be of interest to someone looking for property.
Once you have a few posts on your feed, promote the fact that your potential clients can subscribe to it in their RSS reader.
When using TweetLister, I would caution against posting your listings too frequently. Remember that Twitter and other social networking tools are meant to be social. If you set your schedule to post ten listings daily you will annoy your followers quickly. Posting weekly is probably ok, but spread out the listings over the week and even have them post at different times of the day.
Bonus: At the top-left of TweetLister you’ll see a link named “search listings”. This is a very handy tool for searching Twitter for real estate Tweets based on a number of criteria that you can specify. I think this would be a handy stand-alone app for home and property buyers.
Start using TweetLister today. Especially if you are an agent who is using Twitter already. If you’re not using Twitter yet or you just started, this tool is perfect to help you get your feet wet.
@EzyBlogger
Thanks for sharing this Brett.
@TwitTipsCenter
Great tool ! Thanks for sharing!
@dahliamadison
Thanks for sharing – very useful info!
@LaniAR
Can’t say I’m a fan. Although in theory it’s a useful tool, it flies in the face of Twitter culture (of being human and making genuine connections) and adds to the noise of automated spam.
@farinspace
The beautiful thing with twitter, even though it has similarities to email, is that you can always unsubscribe (by unfollowing spammers) … this in itself should keep spammers in check
@rewebcoach
While you offer sound advice to not Tweet your listings to often, I happen to think there are more creative, less hard sell ways to Tweet about your listings. If your seller doesn’t have a Twitter account, create one for them (with their permission). Then begin to have an open conversation with them sending them benign Tweets about their listing. Tweet things like “the photographer is on the way to your home to take photos for the MLS”, or “your listing is now live on the MLS (with link)”. Even if the seller never responds to your Tweet you are still “getting the word out”. Managing information in this environment is critical so “prep” your seller before any Twitter conversation begins. You can even take the same approach on Facebook too.
While automating certain task on the web is productive, sometimes taking a few seconds to be creative makes a stronger impact.
@rogerewing
Well done article. Having been in the real estate industry for over 30 years, I am delighted to see something that is “new”. Thing is this confirms my thoughts that Twitter, unlike FB, is really a destination for people to communicate in a group setting about topics they are interested in learning about. How to integrate Twitter into business, without crossing the “species barrier” of Social Media by not selling product and sticking to community is an interesting problem. Twitter is probably the best solution.
Great post on a great tool Brett. Finally something really useful for a Realtor to do on Twitter. To Lani’s point, the culture of Twitter and utility of Twitter is changing rapidly. I think you’ll see Twitter quickly becoming more valuable as a real-time search engine than a social networking tool. Already, the value of a person’s followers is highly in question as anyone can generate 1000s of followers within days. And as a results of that, estimates say that less than 1% of all tweets you make have relevance to your actual followers…BUT might have relevance to the rest of the world. So therefore, by listing your property (and properly for indexing w/ Twitter and search engines – which is what TweetLister does a real great job at, among other things), you’re allowing those listings to potentially be seen by millions, not just your own followers, who probably aren’t all actively seeking to buy or rent a place anyway.
This might be the biggest stumbling block for Realtors to get past, that Twitter has greater potential value as a search engine than a networking tool. I think those of us that embrace Twitter in this way will see real value from tools like Tweetlister.
@spotlightvt
Thanks to all for the kind words and input! You are most welcome.
@Bobby Carroll – That’s an excellent idea. Never thought of setting up the account for them.
@Michael Gangemi – Yes, Twitter as a search engine actually gives more recent search results than Google for some searches. This is probably the most powerful thing that TweetLister can harness.
@kadamof
I don’t like when realtors put their listings on Twitter. It’s like standing in a room and screaming “buy from me”. People are from all around the world on Twitter. It’s a one in a million chance that your tweet will be seen by just the right person even looking to buy in your area. Its not a smart thing to do. Just more spam for me to weed through.
I’d like to offer an approach for using TweetLister that won’t bother anyone, and it’s the best of both worlds for brokers. First, my brief opinion. I think admist the flurry of tweets I get all day in my personal Twitter account, I doubt many would notice a listing here or there on their own timeline. Is it relevant, is it useful information? Maybe to some, and not to others. I think if you’re not @replying to somone, but rather tweeting to all your followers, than a large group of those followers will find your tweets uninteresting, useless or irrelevant…I think a good point Michael was trying to make above.
But getting past that, as Michael also points out (and the author here Brett Weaver) has agreed, is that Twitter does make a great search engine. Brett points out a great approach at building your Twitter feed without offending anyone. But for those of you who just can’t get past the fact that you’re putting a listing in front of your follower, there is a very simple solution.
Step 1- Setup a 2nd twitter account for yourself. Call it whatever you want.
Step 2 – Login into TweetLister (or do directly thru your Twitter account or other 3rd party tool) and start posting all your listings to post however frequently you want.
Step 3 – Don’t follow anyone w/ that account, and don’t use it to send out any other tweets.
Step 4 – Let the power of Twitter as a search engine work for you. Your listings are now on Twitter and are searchable. Don’t believe me? Here’s a search on Twitter for 2br houses for sale: http://search.twitter.com/search?q=for+sale+house+2br
You’ll see the results are all real estate listings that someone might see. What is the harm in that?You haven’t pissed any of your followers off, your listings are also available on TweetLister’s search engine, as well as any other 3rd party search site that accesses Twitter. It’s an absolute win-win situation for the broker!
As brokers, we have to be creative and adapt to technology as it changes. Twitter can be both a social networking medium and an advertising medium at the same time!
@hectorhenry17
Its good for realstates. great. than you for the post.
@kadamof
Thank you very much for the idea. Fantastic suggestion to have 2 accounts. Anyone have hard data that Twitter offers SEO value? Or is it just it’s own search engine value as a reason to post listing on Twitter?
@tweetlister
Just wanted to let you know about a new version update at TweetLister, which features several enhancements:
Enhanced Listing Details
Every TweetLister tweet links to a detail page — and the NEWS is that we’ve just upgraded the detail pages to allow you to include more information about the property and even Profile information about yourself! Here’s how it works: whenever you create a new listing using our simple listing form, you automatically get a basic listing detail page. You can see this detail page by clicking on the link that is part of your listing “tweet”. You can then choose to add more listing details by clicking “Edit” next to your listing, and selecting “Add More Listing Details – NEW!!”. Here you will be able to add up to 4 additional photos (5 total), add a description and up to 10 custom listing features, add a map, mortgage calculator and other tools to your listing, a disclaimer, open house information, and more!
Agent/Owner Profile Information and Dedicated Listings Pages
Now you can add one or more Agent/Owner Profiles to your account, including a photo, contact information and brief bio for each Profile. When you enter a listing, you can now indicate which Profile to appear on the detail page. This is handy for real estate firms with multiple agents, who want to enter listings in one place and associate different listings with different agents. When users click on your Profile link at the bottom of your detail page, they will be able to see all of your Profile information along with all of your active TweetLister listings!
Associate Multiple Twitter Accounts with one TweetLister Account
You can now associate many Twitter accounts with your TweetLister account. When you enter a listing, you can now select which Twitter account to “tweet” to. You can now have specific Twitter accounts for different regions, or different types of properties, and tweet those listings on the appropriate account.
New Search Features
TweetLister’s Search Listings feature has always offered a more detailed and direct way to view quality real estate listing tweets. In response to the overwhelming response and usage of this feature, we have added valuable criteria to the search form – ensuring that you will receive even more specific and useful results. In addition to Listing Category and Type, Type of Property, you can now search by City or Neighborhood, State, Country, Keyword and Minimum and Maximum Price.
great post. very useful for real estate.thanks for sharing the idea.
@YRPJen
This is great information — I’m glad I went back through my old emails to see I had not read this post!
@SlaughterMedia
This tool is spam. This tool is no different than running into a party and screaming out your latest listing.
@realprosystems.com
There are definitely mixed opinions when it comes to incorporating listings into your twitter feed. Like anything in life finding a balance is a good way to go. If you tweet, don’t make the only thing you tweet about be your new listings with the address and a link. I like the idea about being creative and talking about a photographer coming over, or the house being listing on the MLS, or when the open house will be. I also think by tweeting about your blog posts, and other things going on in your real estate business and your life will provide a healthy balance.
@tweetlister
I wanted to point out a new service from TweetLister. It’s called Propertybot, and it allows you to: Get Targeted Real Estate Listings Sent to You on Twitter – Just by Sending a Direct Message. You can find it at http://www.twitter.com/propertybot.
The help page with all the commands is at http://tweetlister.com/propertybot.aspx.
Hope you find this useful!
Interesting proposition, only that you basically pay for information that is already out there for free.
Simple search queries would suffice
I use this small unknown website that basically does what I need it to do. No signups, no payments, pretty handy tool if you ask me.
Twitter Listings