I know what you're thinking, another blog post about twitter. We'll yes technically that is correct. However, if I may make a bold suggestion, this one is a little different. (promise I'll keep it short). See, active rain amigo, I have been using twitter personally since March, 2007. I heard about it in a podcast. Being the thrill seeker I am, I signed up for it immediately not questioning its purpose. So after giving them my personal information (or so they think) I was blessed with the twitter account that goes by the name of @Sergioni. I tried it out, gave it a 'meh' and forgot about it for a few months. I started hearing more people talking about it late 2007 so I gave it another chance. And now a little more than a year later I'll share with you things that I have experienced with twitter.
note: I started using twitter in '07 personally, only until recently have I used it with our company as a real estate 'tool' so this may not be exactly the "how to get rich by writing 140 character messages to strangers online" post you may be looking for. I'm not here to make you money, just to tell you my experiences.
I think, above all, twitter is an excellent way to get to interact with people you would not normally speak with. I've met people from all walks of life. I've met people with the same interests as well as people whose lives are the complete opposite of mine (they have money). One thing i noticed is that there is always someone out there who is smarter than you. And most of the time they are willing to help. Usually if I cannot find an answer to a question I turn to my followers. Some people call this 'crowd-sourcing', I call it 'asking a bunch of really smart people for help' crowd-sourcing may be a better term. And most of the time I get a really smart answer with a link to more information. Try it. Twitter helped me get sold-out radiohead tickets, informed me about every detail of Real Estate Connect '09 even though I was not there, it also helped write smaller more meaningful copy (this is not an example).
There aren't really much negative things about twitter. Okay, maybe a couple. One thing I noticed quite a bit is that many people try to 'get' twitter. They follow all these suggestions others give to gain more followers, ask you to follow them and promote themselves every other tweet. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with promoting yourself, marketing is essential. But after a while it becomes noise.
Again I am no expert on twitter (nor is anyone who claims to be). We started using twitter for our company (@wreha) a relatively short while ago. Mostly as a communication tool. I reply to some people once in a while but it's mostly to announce changes in our listings or events we may have or may be attending. Has it brought us super leads? no. Though I'm sure some people have found out about our open houses through twitter. Then why waste your time? you may ask. We don't. The time I spend on twitter as a company is very brief and to the point. We don't stress about it, we don't retweet any random post about the market condition. Perhaps it's wrong, perhaps we should be flooding the feed with random links. But really, the time spent on sending links to people who only follow you...so you follow them..so they can prove that they 'get it' could be used doing better things. Just an opinion.
So, twitter one year later. Personally it's been brilliant. Professionally, I still do not know.
You can follow me on twitter at @sergioni or Weichert Realtors Ernie Houde Associates at @wreha I would follow the company. @wreha will follow you back. @sergioni, no promises.
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