My One Hundred Things: How to “Get” Twitter

First, this info is in other places. But I’m writing it here, because I network with a lot of professionals…Realtors, mortgage lenders, investors, business owners, who would benefit immensely from blogging, but they don’t fully embrace it. One of the simplest ways to extend your presence online is with a Twitter account, but I still hear so many people saying they don’t “get” it. Here’s the deal…

Believe it or not, there are people who actually care about hearing what’s up with you. Blogging is about connecting with people on a personal level. The failure to understand this is evident when Realtors use their blogs solely for posting listings. Yes, post your listing inventory…that’s great. But if that’s all you’re doing, you’re completely missing the point! Your friends, colleagues, potential customers and past clients want to hear from you, but they don’t want spam, they don’t want form letters, they don’t want a stupid postcard in the mail with your picture on it. They want to connect.

This is what blogging is about. It’s what makes it so powerful. You can publish your ideas on a daily basis, moderate comments and interact literally with thousands of people a day…on a personal level. No way you’re ever going to pull that off with ANY old school media. Blogging is the thing. It’s social media, which means it’s not about advertising. Its’ about talking. It’s why some of the greatest blogs out there (like My One Hundred Things of course) are conversational in tone.

Twitter is “micro”blogging. The question is: what are you doing? You can answer this question as many times as you want throughout the day. Some people post to their Twitter account many of dozens of times a day, and guess what. People READ your tweets. I get a ton of traffic to my blog from Twitter, and I only have about 500 followers there at the moment.

Can you imagine the power of connecting with your clients 20 times a day and having them actually listen and NOT tell you to stop calling? That’s what Twitter is about. Again…believe it or not, people want to know what’s going on with you. Status updates and conversation throughout the day requires a consistent, ongoing effort. You really should install a Twitter client on your cell phone and just think of it as another way people can keep in touch with you. Proper use of a microblog like Twitter forces you to extend real transparency to your followers. There is real power in having a large number of people following you. Surely there is no mystery why…right?

The only thing I’d like to reiterate is that it’s social media, not old school marketing. If you’re going to use Twitter as just another means of branding yourself, you’re missing the point, and you will actually do more harm to yourself than good. It’s about conversation.

You will likely find out, as I have, that many people who want to connect with you are not even in your market. It’s a new world. I’ve talk with property investors in New Zealand, bloggers in Vietnam, there are people all over who are actually interested in my little blog. It’s fun. And it leads to real production. I just sent listings to an investor in NZ who is specifically looking for rentals in my market. He’s a cash buyer. I just referred a client out from a lead I got on Twitter yesterday. If it closes it will generate a commission for me. Not a bad day at the office. All for just “hanging out” and “wasting time” on Twitter. I could do this all day…oh wait, I already do