Twitter Tip - Building Invaluable Relationships on Twitter to Support Your Business

 We’ve all heard of it by now and many have started using it. Twitter is one of the fastest growing social media websites, increasing 1,928% in 1 year from 1 million visitors in June 2008 to 21 million in June 2009. Wow.

There are many ways to utilize Twitter!  (Note: A Tweet is a status update consisting of no more than 140 characters.) Posting a tweet about yourself can seem intimidating at first, so let’s just forget about posting a “status tweet”.  I’m going to focus on one unique way to put Twitter to work for you.

Yes, I know we all get on Twitter, to network, etc.  However, it can be much easier than you think to “network and create valuable connections.” 

When I use to think of “networking on twitter”, I was thinking of hours dedicated to updating my status and following others, reading their updates and responding, etc. Too much work and not enough time! Why make it more complicated than it has to be? 

Here are two real life examples of effectively using Twitter:

Example #1: On Twitter, we are following (connected to) a representative for Trulia, a website that we use for a majority of our clients. One of our clients wanted to sign-up to be a Trulia Pro and she had heard that Trulia sometimes offers discount codes that you can apply when signing up.    She asked us if we had heard about these discount codes and if we knew how or where to get one.  We instantly thought of our contact at Trulia and hopped on Twitter to contact him.  Erica Parpan, our Operations Manager, sent him a tweet on Twitter asking if he had a discount code our client could use.  He DID and we saved our client money! 

Reaching out to our contact at Trulia took 2 minutes, maybe less, however the end result was priceless!

Example #2: We were waiting and waiting for one of our clients listings to syndicate (automatically feed) to Trulia from Point2 Agent.  After about a week of waiting and troubleshooting, we needed to contact someone for support.  But who?  Trulia or Point2?  We weren't sure who's issue it was, so rather than calling them both and explaining the situation twice, we sent a tweet to @Point2Agent AND @Trulia... 

They both responded momentarily thru Twitter and a representative from both companies worked on getting our issue resolved.  Now that is what I call GREAT customer service!

You never know who you will “meet” on Twitter.  Give it a try and start building those invaluable connections!  Oh and by the way, don't forget to follow me: @realsupport as well as Erica Parpan, our Operations Manager: @realsupportva.

Have a GREAT weekend!

Need help getting started with Twitter and/or other social networking websites?  Ask your Real Estate Virtual Assistant.  Don’t have a Virtual Assistant, need one?  Contact RealSupport today!!!

Carrie Gable
President