Are you twittering too much to get business and referrals?

I feel thatI do not tweet enough. I know when I was a mortgage broker. I got a ton of leads from social. So, much so...I quit doing mortgage and went into training and speaking. As, I lost iterested in mortgages. You can tweet too much if it is all gibberish and means nothing to most people or you assume that someone is interested in your tweets. You need to supply information as a way to drip on your followers that you are real estate or mortgage guy. 

Dave

Yes, what's the difference between a realtor bombarding people or Target? or anyone else for that matter?  Do much of one thing or one contact is not good - overload.

Hi Todd. I can ditto Tammy’s comment (#6). Too many Tweets about mundane topics becomes unwanted noise for me.

When I see someone who is on Facebook or Twitter continually, I wonder whether they have time to take care of business.

I'm not fond of Twitter because it's mostly links to somewhere - and when you use Wild Blue for an Internet connection, you have to really want to go somewhere if you bother to click a link and wait to get there. Usually, my curiosity level isn't high enough to get me to do that.

We were just talking about this. Twitter is a microblogging platform for sharing info with others. It's not really meant to be your personal IM for the world to see.

I'm not having business conversations on the feed, to protect info and privacy.

My concern is always that the consumers won't select those who post TMI to make them feel comfortable. This is still a belly to belly biz. I am wired for sound but that's just so you know I'm here and paying attention. The deals I make are still mostly IRL and the 'connected consumers' are the most wary to keep it that way.

They love others' transparency but not their own in the most important material expenditure of their life.

I average about 1 post/day.

Todd -- Some of the chats go on for hours?  Are these people working?  I try to post a tweet once a day -- sometimes more depending on what is going on. I'm not really that into it, but Twitter is a great place to get breaking news.

Okay folks, there are a number of services that allow to que tweets to post at specific intervals. It is your content, it just doesn't come out all at once. I can set up my tweets to be posted at certain times and certain places, people etc. There are a number of services that you can utilize for this, Call me for more info 717 752-6886, and yes I share information for free to my AR friends and family....

Hmmmm. Tweets help with SEO...didn't realize that. Maybe I should tweet. There's only so much time in a day, and like many of us, I could care less what 'you' did for lunch. :-)

Social media has value and I agree with Michele that Tweets help with SEO.  However, you can spend your day being "social" when you really need to be working on the fundamentals of this business.

Todd,

I feel I can make more contacts by making an honest effort to talk to people in person while out and about. My nametag serves well as a social media, my handshake is my tweet for now. I barely have enough time to blog in the evenings let alone twitter in between showings, offers, inspections, addendums ect.. Following up on leads by email and phone seem to keep me in the loop with my future customers. Answering my phone seems to work wonders too, I rarely let the voicemail catch a call unless I am out of cell range. I suppose if business slows up I will find time to tweet. One thing your post has done is make me more aware of what I might be missing. Hope business is booming for you out there in the great valley! Let's go sell some houses! :) - Barb

I agree, everything in moderation is best.  Twitter & Facebook are for building familiarity with people so that when & if they need your services, they may actually contact you.  They are not for trying to sell anything.

I still have not figured out Tritter yet.  My son has set me up with Tweet Deck which makes it more manageable; In a small city like Albuquerque, NM most people are out and about.  if someone is on the computer it is unlikely that he wants to reach me.  If I set enough automated mouse trap, I will capture him one way or another.

Yes, I think you can be on it too much.  I have a Realtor who I used to refer people to but the last few people I referred to him he either never called us or them back or took a long time to communicate.  Yet, I saw his many many tweets & facebook status updates each day, so even though he wasn't communicating with us he was alive and well.  The thing is, I knew basically where he was and what he was dong all day long because of his tweets.  But calling me back and taking care of my referral clients wasn't one of them, so now he no longer gets referrals from me....it's a shame.

I seldom tweet unless I am directing to a new blog post or opporutnity.  I would not tweet my current location, as I find there are safety issues with that.  

You’re absolutely right, Todd, that Twitter can be a wasteful time-suck. But many of our clients have found good success -- as in, leads and clients -- from Twitter. We’ve found that the real estate agents who succeed on Twitter generally follow 6 tips:

1) Twitter is all about the short and tweet. Point people to your website and blog for more information.

2) List your Twitter handle on your website, blog, and in your e-mail signature.

3) Remember, “Why should I care?”

4) Keep it professional.

5) Save searches on topics that you want to talk about.

6) Work to build a network of other agents, buyers, sellers and investors whose relationships will benefit your business.

Christene Honomichl, Marketing Specialist

http://twitter.com/cmmarketing

Todd you just reminded me how I need to start using twitter. I keep forgetting about the search section. Thanks for the remainder. Great post.

Todd - not to active Tweeting.  I do some.  What ever time I have for social media is planned time.  Then it is on to the next daily strategy.

Face to face contact is super important.  Time management is crucial in this business.

I am not into the tweet thing.  Maybe I should be, but it does not seem like the best use of my time.

Most Realtors® I see on Twitter are trying to learn from each other. I see nothing wrong with it. If they are using it to just babble, then yes, that's a problem.

You have to strike a balance though, as to not be irritating to others.

I see your concern, though, when a potential client is turned off by all the tweets of real estate agents.

However, some agents post two or three blogs a day, which I consider to be the same thing. It takes time to research a good blog topic and time to type it out.