While reading various ActiveRain blogs this week, I noticed a couple of comments from a couple of people who hadn't yet tried Twitter. I've found Twitter can be a handy social media tool that can be quite useful for many businesses including real estate agents and their websites.
I have three different Twitter accounts for my various niche markets. I've added the Twitter widget to each appropriate blog. Generally speaking, I check my Twitter account daily. For me, it's the easiest social media site to update on the run, using my iPhone's mobile apps, which makes it doubly handy. First I make all my replies. Then I tweet my latest post if I made one as well as items of interest from news articles and other resources and/or retweet 3-10 posts that I find would be useful and of interest to my blog's readers.
That, in turn, updates each of my blog sites even if I haven't posted a new article. And all those Twitter posts are specific and germane to each site. My readers know that they can check the site daily for new information that will be useful for them regardless of how often I write new posts for it. Very handy for a busy REALTOR® and very useful for clients - past, present, and future.
If you want to give it a try and have a blog/site that allows you to paste in html:
- Open your Twitter account or start one by going to Twitter.com - and sign up for one.
- Once you are in Twitter, click on settings gear wheel, click on settings, click on widgets, Click on Create New
- If you just want it to show your own tweets, enter your Twitter Name into the @ box at the top (see photo above) - under configuration. I also select "Exclude Replies" and "Auto-Expand Photos." That way, my readers don't get confused about conversations they are only seeing part of. That's particularly useful during a tweet chat like #ElderCareChat which I participate in regularly. I use the default height - 600px. You'll see a sample on the right of what your blog readers will see.
- When you're all done, click CREATE WIDGET. The HTML code on the right will appear. Select and copy it. Then paste it into where the html goes (on my self-hosted Wordpress blog, I usually go to Widgets, select Text box, and put the text box in the right column). Then, hopefully your tweets will show up nicely in the column - Just like this:
It's an easy way to update your blog and give consistent information to your readers. And if you are on Twitter, do come say howdy to me - @KayeSwain
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