Since social networking for the real estate industry has become heavily woven into the internet marketing fabric, many new and unique opportunities have cropped up. This week, my focus is on the fun micro-blogging tool, Twitter, and some great ways to use it for real estate. And I am probably the last one in my industry who hasn’t yet blogged about it. So here I go.

In case you are scratching your head and wondering what in the world Twitter is, let me tell you. From Wikipedia,

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.

140 Characters is what you get to quickly tell people what you are doing, what is going on with your business and what is going on in your life.

So why should the real estate professional care? Twitter is fast becoming a popular social networking tool, and a growing number of users in the real estate industry are starting to use Twitter to their advantage. Real estate is all about relationship building, and what better way to build a great repoire with your clients, colleagues, and online prospects, on a regular basis by telling them what you are doing, announce important neighborhood news, share articles you find interesting, and build your reputation as an expert.

And Twitter is completely free and super easy to set up.

In future posts I will be covering ways to use it for real estate, draw leads and market to your internet prospects. For now, here are a few tips for beginners that want to successfully get started with Twitter.

1. Create & Update Your Profile – Make sure to put in a url to your website and let the world know what you do your profile. I personally do not follow those that do not fill out profile information. i like to know who I’m following and what they do.
2. Meet people – Start with following or inviting people that you know. Then branch out and ad people in your community and colleagues in the business.
3. Promote Your Twitter Profile – People will only now you to find and follow you if they know you’re there. When you join Twitter, you get a unique url that you can promote anywhere to direct people to you. Or, generate a badge (or widget) in Twitter to use on you other social network and blogging spaces like Facebook, Myspace, Blogger or TypePad, etc.
4. Contribute Interesting Info – Do not be one-dimensional and only use twitter as shameless self promotion, or to only market your listings. People will want to follow you if you have something interesting to say, not a constant commercial.
5. Humanize Yourself – Don’t look like just a real estate robot. Grab people with things like what you are currently doing, even if it is reading a book or eating lunch. People like to see a glimpse into real people’s lives. But still keep it professional. You don’t need to air ALL your personal dirty laundry.
6. Be Choosy About Following – You do not have to follow everybody that follows you. You could end up spending a lot of time sifting through your tweets so follow those that you think are interesting. There are twitter spammers about so beware.
7. Don’t Over-Tweet – One way to get blocked or ignored by fellow tweeters is by tweeting way too much. It’s annoying and can look “spammy” to some. Minute by minute accounts of what you are doing are not necessary.
8. The Lingo -

• Follow – Way to receive messages from people
• Followers – People who get messages from you
• Tweets – Twitter messages

Coming up later, specific tips on Twitter for real estate and ways to market and use it to your advantage.

Megan Barber is a Real Estate Virtual Assistant, owner of Barber Virtual Assisting Solutions, and publisher of The REAL Advantage E-Zine. Megan has spent 9+ years doing the “behind-the-scenes” work in the real estate industry assisting agents with their real estate marketing and transaction needs.

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