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Google + Tweets+ Local Info = BUSINESS for me!

Tweet, tweet says I! If you'd like to propose real time information to your clients, potential buyers and sellers or just reach out to folks who haven't embraced all that the social media world offers...your words will now reach people faster than ever.

Think about someone looking for a Foreclosure in (Your Area)...you can post a specific property and there's a potential that they will see a short Twitter post instead of that blog post, that takes you minutes (or hours for some) to type up. Quick info, quick response will equal an increased bottom line.

THIS IS BIG NEWS!

Official Google Blog

10/21/2009 02:09:00 PM

At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world. In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.

Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results. We believe that our search results and user experience will greatly benefit from the inclusion of this up-to-the-minute data, and we look forward to having a product that showcases how tweets can make search better in the coming months. That way, the next time you search for something that can be aided by a real-time observation, say, snow conditions at your favorite ski resort, you'll find tweets from other users who are there and sharing the latest and greatest information.

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Vice President of Search Products and User Experience

Follow me here for updated Raleigh, NC, Wake County, NC and North Carolina foreclosures searches. I offer FREE Foreclosure searches for all my home buyers looking for Raleigh real estate.

Follow my TWEETS @EricaMcClenny

Erica McClenny, Realtor

eRealty Inc.

o) 919-389-8702

Helping home buyers and sellers save $$$ in Raleigh, NC area...

Over $45 million in sales and counting. Buy, Sell or Invest with the best.

Happy House Hunting!

Posted by Erica McClenny on 10/21/2009 04:56 PM

Comments (125)

Google Now Tracks Tweets in the Online Marketing Channel

google cuts twitter deal, does twitter show up in a google search, raleigh realestate, realestate for sale in raleigh, homes in raleigh

Originally posted at: Over $45 Million in Sales and Counting: Google + Tweets+ Local Info = BUSINESS for me!

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125 Comments on Google + Tweets+ Local Info = BUSINESS for me!

OCT

Hi Erica~ I don't quite get the twittering stuff! How are you liking being with erealty?

eRealty is great! I co-own it LOL

Twitter is a really cool tool. Personally I feel it's more on a news feed type set up. Tip for you, post one "Hot Property of the Day" I use FORECLOSURE ALERT as my key words to attract new followers. It doesn't matter how much you follow folks, you want them to come to you and see what you have to say about real estate. I Tweet about once a day, maybe twice. I don't want to spam folks...

This is GREAT news for those of us Twittering and not quite seeing the effects as much as Facebook, etc. This will definitely help us lead generate, thanks for the heads up Erica.

Hi Erica ~ Very interesting.... Definitely makes Twitter more appealing to me though I can't say I've got my head around all of the ramifications of this move. Funny - last night Twitter was the first place I thought to check when Google went down.

Liz

There's a lot of opportunity here for those who use Twitter effectively. Thanks for the tip, Erica!

Hi Erica -- Sounds like a win-win for both g and t, esp. t.

Erica, better linkage here between the two companies can only help with Google searches.

Thanks for the tip.

Twitter is getting the word out quick for potential buyers. I haven't jumped on the wagon

Hi Erica. I use Twitter so this post is much appreciated. ~ Lana

Erica, what a nice piece of information to share with Active Rain Members!

Nice tip Erica. I use Twitter too but I just started with it.

Great post! Nice twitter background http://twitter.com/ericamcclenny

Everybody better get following

That sounds very interesting... I'm wondering how they're going to weed through all the "crap" and index the meaningful tweets.

Erica- Thanks for the info.on Twitter and Google. I'm not a consistent twitterer but I like your suggestion to Vicky to Tweet one hot property of the day.

I like that my posts on Active Rain are also posted in my Twitter feed. I haven't been using Twitter much recently. However, each time I post an AR article (which is sent to Twitter) I always pick up a few new followers. Twitter is a unique platform for business development. I have lots of friends who do social media marketing and they swear by it. Thanks for the info!

I haven't really gotten into Twitter yet. I guess that's one more thing I'll have to learn.

This does sound like a win-win for both google and twitter. Interesting.

Interesting tip...makes me think I should do a short sale alert on twitter...hmmm. Thanks!

Twitter is a technology that has been looking for a place to play. With Google's announcement, it is apparent that someone pretty high up on the SEO food chain thinks Twitter has found it's playground.

Erica, I tweet a little but I need to TWEET A LOT MORE! I still don't quite get it yet either.

Erica I use Twitter so I am glad to hear Google will pick up the feed. Great that it is working so well for you.

Erica - thank you for a great tips. We tweet every day, and it's getting addicting. :)

A few people have said they 'don't quite get Twitter'. Here is a great explanation that I heard that hopefully will help you understand the potential impact of Twitter.

Google is an index of the history of the web. Twitter is what's happening RIGHT NOW on the web. It's the pulse of the web in real time.

So if Google has become what it has become indexing the history of the web, how important do you think Twiiter will be 5 years from now if they meet their goal: to become the pulse of the web. I think VERY important.

Great piece of news Erica. When I started seeing this earlier today I was hoping that someone on ActiveRain had written about it already. This is very big news in my opinion. The search engines understand the power of Twitter and realize they HAD to make this move in order to have some relevance for what's happening RIGHT NOW. Bing is on board with this as well.

It will be interesting to see how google integrates twitter results. I'm sure that their brain trust will figure it out, they have some pretty smart people there I hear :-). I wouldn't be surprised if Google or Microsoft snatches Twitter up before their valuation gets ridiculously out of control (if it's not already).

It would be great if everyone that has a twitter and is tweeting would leave their handle. @darinpersinger

This should be interesting. I didn't realize that tweets weren't subject to searches on Google before this though this will give them a lot to index daily.

OCT

Thanks Erica, I definitely see the potential here too.

This was a very big announcement and greatly increases the value of Twitter and individual "tweets". It will be interesting to see if it ends up being helpful or if it will just add more confusion to trying to find information on the web.

Erica, I believe bing also started indexing twitter. I prefer google. Thanks for the post. Guess I better get on twitter too.

Thanks for the post Erica,

I've been meaning to get on Twitter.

I guess I have even more incentive to get moving.

Thanks

BIG news...thanks for brining it to our attention!

Erica,

If it is working for you that's great.

Personally I see no value in it for business. I hope google give me an option button to remove it from my searches.

Great Infor Erica - i am so glad you shared it. Never would have thought tweets could be googled....

I had heard about this yesterday, but did not see how relevant it is to my business. Thank you for spelling it out. Tweet-on!

@OCRealtress

I guess my question would be exactly how best to use Twitter. Normally it is about relationships and NOT about selling ourselves but this news means that tweets will need to contain our key words in order to help us with Google. I wonder if this will taint the social side of Twitter and simply lead to more spam?

This is HUGE! I hope that it will work for me because I have really put a lot of effort into it!

Awesome news I have been waiting for Google to start including Tweets in their Search Engine, it just makes sense. I will tweet even more now.

Thanks for the info!!!

I think Diane Aurit brings up a very good point.... I almost dread to think of what key word spam tweets will look like ...... :-)

Great news...thanks for this tip!

Did any of your followers converted into clients?

Interesting, but not a good idea in my book. Twitter is like Facebook - you choose who to follow, and you choose who can follow you (yes, there is the risk of your tweets being re-tweeted to others, but the risk is usually small - most people seem to be more worried about tweeting their own opinions). When tweets are pulled into Google searches, they are then released for public viewing, including those who are not using Twitter. I'm sure this is not what many Twitter users expect. If Twitter wants to give users a heads-up about future tweets; i.e., "From now on, your tweets will be available to view by anyone in the world," and give people a chance to opt-out, then okay. If not, then I think it's an abuse of 'assumed privacy.' Could be I'm just a naive Twitter user, too.

Thanks for the tip! I don't quite get Twitter yet, but maybe I'll take a second look!

Very good article and information. Thank you for posting!

Tom Larsen

Yahooooo.... ooops shall I say Google? LOL thank you for the information. Make it a great day!!!

Erica - you said "I Tweet about once a day, maybe twice. I don't want to spam folks..."

While I tweet ocassionally it is people who tweet continually all day that turned me off twitter hopefully that will change now.

Very exciting news. Thanks for the info Erica!

Donna brings up a good point..how are they going to filter the junk?
There goes your first page on Google ranking, the first page will be all tweets.

It maybe good but we'll have to wait and see, I'm not sure I want the whole world looking at my tweets, that's why I don't do it and considering deleting my facebook page too.

I love Twitter, what is there not to love? Very cool tool for real estate. Helps build your brand. Just hit 3800 followers, hope to get to 10K, soon. I only follow after being followed, this way you get a better audience. Don't go out and follow Top 100, it's a waste....only target people that subscribe to you. Again, only follow those after they follow you. Much truer list.

http://twitter.com/ScottSellsFL

Scott Miller, Realty Associates, Boca Raton, FL

I tweet and it drives big numbers to my web site and blog. Whenever I tweet about a post I have written, the traffic to my web site triples, sometimes more. Yesterday I had almost 200 unique visitors to my blog because I tweeted 4 times about it. I think that's pretty amazing!

I'm glad Google will be picking up tweets. That means my efforts on twitter will pay off even more.

The side benefit of this, as I see it, is that it lends some additional credibility to Twitter. This will add more users to Twitter - local, real, breathing, working people who have or will have housing needs.

I have had outstanding success using Twitter as a place to meet local people and add them to my SOI. I use it for way more than posting listings.

Primarily I look for local Twits, start following them and then join in THEIR conversations. I talk very little about Real Estate except to let them know it's what I do. I make casual coments about what I've been doing, like I was Looking forward to a cup of tea after after 4 hours of sloshing through mud showing houses but my client needed to find something right away

Sort of like when you walk into a cocktail party I wouldn't start walking up to strangers and handing out my cards and asking them for referrals. I would just introduce myself and try and join the conversation.

I have had 3 lunches in the last few weeks with local people that did not know I existed until we met on Twitter. I am currently promoting a "Tweet-up" (real life meet up for Twitter people) for next week one evening to go out and watch the Yankees win the World Series :)

So when this new Google search feature hits the public perception and people start finding Tweets in their Google searches it seems likely that many of them will begin to realize that Twitter is worth looking at. When they look at it if they sign up, I'll be able to find them in local Twitter search and add to my SOI some more.

I know everyone's got their own style but I truly am always a little confused by business people who don't want to meet real life local prospects simply because they are hanging out on line. All of the people on Twitter actually live in houses or apartments and they will all, at some point, want to move to a new place and they all have relatives and friends. It is, imo, about being a part of the community - which is what being a Realtor is all about.

That's great news that GOOGLE will use Twitter as part of their search. Now I have a stronger reason to use Twitter. Thanks for the post!!

That is great news, I guess it's time to step it up on the tweets. I don't use it as much as I should but I think that will change.

I'm not looking forward to scanning through tweets to find what I'm looking for. Nor am I interested in losing my number one rank on google due to excessive overloads of CURRENT info. I believe blogging works just as well to get to the first page of google to inform everyone what's happening now.

Thanks for the news, now if I could just figure out how to integrate Twitter into my elife.

Interesting post today thanks for the infor.

Patricia

For most agents twitter is an obscure concept. I think all this technology is great if you have dozens of potential buyers looking for the same type of property following you. Then yes, it is faster to tweet than to call each prospect or email. Although group email is pretty powerful.

See my blog on Twitter's subject.

I am curious to see how they weed out the spam tweets. You have limited characters to substantiate your tweet as legitimate. I just don't see how you can fit in keywords to properly identify your topic while keeping it short. I am all for it and will provide updates as a service to my clients, but I am suspect of how it will work in SEO.

Tim Ryan, Naples FL Real Estate http://www.naplesguru.com #1 Naples FL Buyers Agent and #1 Naples FL Foreclosures info@naplesguru.com

I think that Twitter is the new 800 pound gorilla, and just like Google loving blogs, they will love twitter. if we use Twitter as news, and creat local and hyperlocal content, we are stronger in our marketing and draw attention to our primary web site or blog.

I have had this for months via a Greasemonkey script in Firefox. I think that this may help Twitter more than it helps Google. For those that still don't have Twitter this may drive them to signup.

Thanks for the great news! I will definitely play with this idea today!

Thanks for the update, this is fabulous news ~ Brad

Thank you! I'm a newer twitter user, so this is awesome to know!

Cool, can't wait to see it in action!

Thanks Erica. I have been tweeting events and needs for my volunteer organization that I am involved with and it has attracted a lot of followers and been helpful to the organization. But for real estate...not so much. It's a fun challenge to find new ways to use all this technology stuff.

Erica,

thanks for the tip! Wishing you continued success. alexandra

Wow, hot topic! I'm amazed by a few comments about the lack of value Twitter can offer. The great part about Twitter is the option to follow people or companies that provide a value to your life.

The folks who are commenting about walking their dog or what they ate for lunch aren't my cup of tea. That is the "social" aspect of Twitter. I want the networking perks.

However, from a business stand point, you can promote a marketing special, listing or event to drive people to your blog or website. If you provide local information for your area...people will follow you. I only include a "personal" tweet every few days to show that I'm a real person too.

I've had over a dozen contacts directly to my phone or email based on Twitter posts. I'm still learning how to effectively provide value to my followers and how to attract more. It's powerful and the average Twitter or Facebook user makes more money and tends to be more credit worthy. (According to polls and stats)

I'm sure the Google SEO gods will figure out how to filter through all the garbage. After all, how much garbage is posted on the Internet everyday? Twitter will be a shorter sort since it's less words! LOL

No surprise really; the web is in constant change just like our markets. Thanks for the post.

Awesome info Erica! Thanks for bringing it to our attention! This is amazing stuff! = )

I'm very interested in how this will boost SEO and page position on Google.

Thanks for the update! We are in the day and age of social networking.

Terrific news for all of those who use Twitter, and those of us who do not but may consider it in the future.

Erica,

I am going to experiment with this. I'm going to tweet up a new listing.

This is great! Twitter will become more and more valuable to us as Realtors as time goes on. The sooner one starts incorporating it into their marketing the better.

Tweet tweet what has the world come to?

Awesome news! This was the subject of conversation over this morning's coffee. I'm stoked!

Sounds like an interesting approach. I have been trying to get my mind around Tweeter and this may be the way to use it.

I have a Twitter account but haven't done much with it. Looks like I need to get more active. Thanks for the update.

Wow, that is interesting news, to say the least. Every bit of exposure for ourselves and our clients helps in the long run. Thanks for sharing this.

Time to get my twitter account moving. Are there enough hours in the day? Does it get easier once you figure it out?

Remember: No Twittering when driving! Although it's ok to check your tweets from your tweeps at a red light.

Cheers,

This is in fact great news thanks for keeping us in the loop.

Still a little shy on the Tweeting and Facebook. Have enough on my plate trying to learn all the nuances of blogging.

BC Steve

Erica, I would be interested to know just how may people get business from Twitter. I know you mentioned you get a few calls, but how about everyone else. I will have to tell you that I am not into the social networking sites, but the professional ones such as AR I love. Great Post!!!

Thanks,

Amy in TN

This agreement between Google and Twitter will provide excellent networking/business building potential for those who put it to use and use it properly. Time to get thinking about important information that you can tweet about your area, your business. I agree that tweets about what someone had for lunch, etc are my cup of tea. -- But you also need to keep in mind that people work with people, so you need to be the real you. Don't forget to think about what keywords are important to your topic. Put all the pieces together and this can make a big contribution to your online marketing success.

I'm spending about an hour each morning on Twitter. Getting the hang of it. Definitely check out FutureTweets.com -- huge help!

@RealtorLori

This great news!

Thanks for the update. I am using twitter, but not a lot for business yet. This certainly makes me loo at it a little differnetly.

Thanks for the info. I also need to be more active on Twitter.

Carol Riley, Albuquerque, Huntington Real Estate, CarolsellsNewMexico.com

At first I was skeptical about Twitter. My argument was "Who wants to know what you are having for dinner tonight unless you're invited"?. I created an account about 12 months ago because of all the hype and then put it on my to do list. I have been very busy lately working on my site lagunaagent.com but decided to move forward and give it a go. I have been actively using twitter for about a month following a few people of interest and I have found it to be a good place for tips, savings ideas etc. Occasionally I tweet out to any one listening if I have a buyer looking in a particular area or any new listings our office has. I will very seldom tweet anything that has no value unless I feel like joking around with people I know. There is a app for face book and other social accounts you may have that will update each tweet so you can multiply each tweet to most of your social audience. "I Tweet about once a day, maybe twice. I don't want to spam folks..." Good point Erica I'm the same. People that tweet to much about their personal life or pruducts don't stay on my follow list for very long. I think its great and has a lot of potential. Nice post Erica. Twitter is now on my doing list. LagunaRealtor

This is critical for Twitter, I think you will see many more active users.

Now that Twitter is being carried by Google we might see something to deal with the users on Twitter who just use feeds. I think a lot of them don't even log into their accounts, but are happy to spam their followers.

Tweets on Google: they'll be opening the floodgates to a morass of drivel -- as if Googles search results weren't already flooded with useless info.

But don't dismiss this new Twitter/Google "winning combination" -- because if your tweets are succinct and use good search terms/keywords, you may just pick up some clients.

I use my some of my five Twitter accounts to update the web pages I write. It's quicker and easier than writing the html, LOL.

See you out there on Twitter!

Peggy Madsen, CEO

Rockies Real Estate Network http://www.rerockies.com

Big news about Google and Twitter - now we have to take it seriously if we want to be on the cutting edge of technology. Thanks for the post!

Thanks for the post! Does anyone know how to get the business card looking set up on the side of your Twitter page. Do you download the application from somewhere?

Great tip, thanks.

This is great news and will help me be more diligent about my tweets! Find us at @roomsinbloom on Twitter!

Thanks Erica for sharing this. This will make me start using Twitter more and make sure I put in keywords in my tweets. Great post.

I like your quip about it being much easier to sort as the posts are so short. But there are a TON of posts, so that will be interesting for google. I am definitely going to pay more attention to Twitter now than I used to. I still haven't quite figured out how to get set up to monitor twitter and do the rest of my work.

I guess I will have to figure out how to use my Twitter account. It seems that it has just become a valuable commodity.

Donna Webber

I am amazed at how quickly (almost daily) the game changes are happening.

HI Erica, Thanks for the post and great news. I read something about this on fb too so the news is spreading.

Awesome news, Erica...I am very excited about what this means to the future of SEO and networking! :)

Leilani

I sold a property to someone who found me on myspace. They saw my profile and saw that I was in Real Estate. They started asking me questions until I finally met them in my office. I sold them a house about 2 weeks later. Now, I am on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo!, and Google.

Very good article and information Erica. I will have to start tweeting a little more often.

Great news! It makes most sense! Thank you for the valuable update. Now we will tweet with more enthusiasm about new homes in Seattle, short sales in Bellevue and REO in Redmond...And more!

thanks for the tip. I'm still getting my keyword vernacular feet wet. I sometimes sound like an idiot when I try to plaster keyword content into a post...but thanks for the twitter tip

Very interesting! My Twitter use has definitely been dwindling over the last few months, so I may need to step it up again. I'll be interested to read more in a few months about how this is impacting the search at Google. I hope one of the web gurus here on AR will let us know. Things are always changing, so thanks for keeping us on the cutting edge!

Thanks Erica. That is good news for Twitterer's. Things change fast.

OCT

This tip worked. I am using this way only from now onwards. Thanks for sharing your information with us.

need quick property sale

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. My concern is that it will make search results on Google even more convoluted than ever. It seems there is aready a bit of a problem with findin relevant results, particularly those that arent' paid for!

Good news. Thanks for sharing. Now the Homes & Land twitter app will get some google juice as well :)

I wiil give this a try.

The Big Kahuna checked in on his thoughts but I still have to agree that there is so much 'blather & nonsense' out there, how to filter it? So be it I guess, move with the industry.

Thanks for the post. You rock!. Hey did you see that new sushi place down by carolina ale house? we need to check it out

There are "holes" in privacy protection that sometimes happen to private tweets, allowing them to be indexed on Google and elsewhere. Always good to remember the old saying, "Don't put anything in writing that you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the New York Times"

This is funny,

I cant get lazy realtors to answer their phones! What will tweeting do?

Professionals stay in contact!

OCT

Wow Erica. Great Blog advice and thanks for letting us know that Tweets will be included in Google now.

I don't understand Tweets on Google. Maybe I'm reading this too fast, but with the things people tweet I wouldn't want it showing up on google. It would just clog things up. I love staying on top of the social media stuff so I'll keep my eye out.

OCT

This is great stuff and I agree with you twitter is best used like a news feed.

Thanks for sharing! I use twitter and I am having much success!

OCT

Quite interesting. I am curious to see how it affects rankings in Google. Time will tell. Technology can be a very useful tool... if used right!

OCT

Erica, Thanks a million for sharing... we now have a better understanding of how to better use Twitter and intend to adjust ouruse in accordance with your suggestons.

Best regards,

The Pinehurst Home Team | www.PinehurstHomeTeam.com

NOV

Hi Erica,

I never thought of it that way. Thanks for shinning a new light on it.

NOV

Good Stuff, Erica. You've motivated me to join Twitter. I've been on Facebook for a while with some success, but this should be a different experience, I'm sure.

NOV

This is interesting news. Not sure how it will play out, but interested to watch it develop.

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Erica McClenny

Raleigh, NC

More about me…

eRealty Inc.

Address: PO Box 98621, Raleigh, NC, 27624

Office Phone: (919) 844-4686

Cell Phone: (919) 389-8702

Email Me

Thinking about moving into the Raleigh, Durham, NC area... Educate yourself before you jump into a move...it can save you $$$ This savvy Realtor chick is here to tell it like it is! I cover Raleigh, Durham, Wake County, Cary, Morrisville and the greater Triangle, NC areas.

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