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Is it professional to have zero emails and tweet about your cat?

You betcha it is! The last couple of gems to come from Real Estate Connect relate to some of the key problems that any real estate superhero has to face…

Your inbox has a zillion emails and keeps getting more, how the heck do you stay on top of it?
You’ve signed up to twitter and your dog is sick, should you tweet about it?
You want to manage projects with clients and colleagues, can it be done easily without losing your sanity?

Connect helped property professionals to answer these questions and luckily for us folk who weren’t there, there have been some nice blog posts detailing what was said.

So, if your inbox is making you want to run for the hills then check out Jay Thompson’s post on AgentGenius - ‘Approaching Inbox Zero’. There you can learn how to delete, delegate, respond, defer and do, which should help your inbox shed all that unsightly excess weight it’s been carrying.

If you’ve been listening to all the hullabaloo about Twitter and want to start pimping your property company online, you may be wondering what the best way to go about it is. Well, as Todd Carpenter points out in his post ‘People Really Do Want You To Tweet About Your Cat’ over at RealEstateTomato, the agent who just tweets links to listings and data reports is unlikely to gain any new best friends any time soon. So does that mean it’s cool to tweet about things that aren’t property related, to be (dare I say it) unprofessional? Absolutely! Social networking for business is not about being the formal square in the corner.

And then lastly, if you’re looking for an easy project management tool, Dustin Luther suggests taking a look at BaseCamp. We use BaseCamp here at Zoomf Towers so we concur that it’s a great product (and with it’s 30 day free trial you can decide that for yourself before parting with any cash).

I can’t finish this post without mentioning one of the other highlights of Connect, the Inman Innovator Awards. Major kudos to all the winners, which include the super cool Lani & Benn from AgentGenius and Derek & Co from Roost.

I guess that’s it from Connect, until next time!

Posted by Poppy Dinsey ~ London, UK on 07/28/2008 05:33 AM

Comments (13)

Post is included in group: The Art Of Marketing You
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13 Comments on Is it professional to have zero emails and tweet about your cat?

JUL

2008

Good morning Poppy D, I've been checking out all of your links -- fabulous post with great advice! :-D

Thanks Carolyn! They're great posts huh? I'm really anal about keeping on top of emails, they have the tenedency to go out of control! That's the one thing about vacation, you come back to mountains of mail and RSS feeds. Oh well, I'm so desperate to get myself in the sun I don't know why I'm complaining, I can't wait to do my Tel Aviv photo tour :-)

I can't wait for you to do the tour as well. I have never been and it seems I should go at least once to the W-Wall. Hanging with you (virtually and in real life) should be very interesting. M. :-)

Poppy, my darling...How are you? The twitr debate has been raging for quite some time. One thing I have always believed is that people will never buy anything from someone they do not like. So yes...Tweet about your cat, your kids, your inability to figure out the 'e' cord on your guitar...Once people buy you as a real person, they will buy something FROM you. There is a huge difference between RAPPORT and REPORT!

I'm glad it's okay to tweet about my cat, because I'm pretty sure I just did last week... But I think you're right, it's important for people to get both business and personal sides of our personalities. It helps cross some of the chasm created by cyberspace.

Speaking of Tweeting...add me. twitter.com/recr

:-)

Mike - You MUST go, it's amazing :)

Clint - I'm well..although too hot :-( It has sudden;y become ridiculously hot and humid in London, the air has been completely still for about a week now, we need a storm! And I totally agree about Twitter, people buy into the person, which is why I like you :-)

Carey - You're so right, there's so many people in cyberspace that it's possible just to seem like a computer generated thing, we need to make it personal and human.

Excellent talking points! Have at it people! I'm getting a kick out of Tweetsville! :-)

JUL

2008

Hey Great points there Poppy..another thing about Twitter is.....err excuse me I have to go twitter about my Dog drinking from the toilet...BRB

Poppy, if you can clue me in why Twitter is of any use to us, as another thing to keep track of, let me know. Why do I want to tell someone I am in the grocery store line buying Lucky Charms right now? Oh right, you wouldn't have Lucky Charms, but you get the point. How much more time can people waste? Isn't it a case of get a life?

JUL

2008

Justin - LOL!

Gary - ActiveRain is a complete waste of time if you don't use it properly, anything is. I completely disagree that I waste my time on Twitter, it's not a chore to take track of if you understand how to use it. There are plenty of apps like Twhirl that can run silently in the background on your desktop and they can alert you only when someone has directly said something to you, you don't have to sit there watching all the conversations if you don't want to...although a lot of people do to learn from each other. You could use something like Summize to track Dallas Ft Worth and find people to follow in your local area, most of the agents on AR who are using Twitter are very plugged in to their local community conversations. I don't use Twitter like that, I've got no connectiosn to make like that because I don't sell houses, I work in real estate technology. But I've made fantastic relationships and business contacts which are now being used as strategic partnerships. I also drive a lot of blog traffic from Twitter and can use it for mini press releases which then go viral. I agree with you that people do waste their time on all these social networking sites, but used correctly they are an incredible part of the marketing toolbox. If I wasn't using them, I'd be taking home a lot less money every month.

You got a lot of personality. I like your spirit - Ms. Take A Risk Girl.

Im with you on that point you just made to Gary, Poppy. I love the Twhirl....lol Im also not an agent...I work for a referral company...So, its a HUGE advatage for me to get my information out to the masses with ease.

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