Yes, I consider myself a little techie, I like all the new things that come out and love trying them out, but when I first heard of Twitter my response went something like this "Huh? Why would I want to write about the minutia of my day and more importantly, why would anyone care?". I went ahead and set up an account (@JanieC), but really didn't get the hang of it and lost interest quickly. Months later I decided to try it out again and found a great tool which I think was the start of my "getting it", TweetDeck.
TweetDeck made all the difference in the world. In the regular twitter.com environment, the tweets of the people you follow just keep coming and you loose track quickly and miss possibly important "posts". TweetDeck allows you to have up to 10 panes open so you can have a "slowed down" version of your friends tweets, you can search for special topics of interest, etc.
To get in the game, I first added my AR buddies like Dan Cummings, @RunningRealtor, Ann Cummings, @AnnCummings, Sandra Cummings, @SandraCummings, Ines Hegedus-Garcia @Ines, George Tallabas @IdahoRealEstate Teri Elies @Terieee and then I set up searches for things such as "Miami, FL", "Coral Gables Real Estate", "Short Sales" and began to follow people who were tweeting interesting things on these topics. As I followed them, many followed back.
I also added other search topics of personal interest to me such as "history", "PhD", "peacocks", etc. and started growing my Twitterverse for both personal and professional interests.
You can link your Twitter account with your other accounts such as Plaxo, FriendFeed, ActiveRain, Facebook (this one I don't suggest), and more.
Within a few weeks I met some AMAZING people who have made an impact in my REAL Life!!
Personal #1 - I sent out a tweet for a new hairdresser and ended up in the chair of the winner of Bravo's hit TV Show, "Shear Genius", read my post about Dee here
Professional #1 - I made twitterfriends with someone I had no idea was a reporter for our local ABC network and I ended up at the top of the 6 PM news when Obama announced his Stimulus Package, read my post and see me in the news here
Personal #2 - I am applying for grad school (part time, don't worry, I love Real Estate too much to leave it - and it's finally paying again) and was contacted by another twitterfriend who told me they were the Director of Financial Aid at the school I am applying to. I don't plan on applying for financial aid, but he is friends with the Dean and put in a good word for me when I submitted my app.
Professional #2 - A restaurateur I friended contacted me to help search for a 5,000 restaurant space on Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
I think it is important to see that NONE of these very special events came as a result of me searching either the people or the events out... they came out of FRIENDSHIPS and CONVERSATIONS I made first, just normal 'ol conversation.
The key to Twitter is to follow and be followed by people who genuinely share your interests. There are tons of posts and websites as to how to start tweeting, etc. which are very helpful, you can find them with google or just by joining twitter and watching to see what people are reading and who they are following.
If you aren't on Twitter, maybe you might reconsider and if you do, you can follow me here ...
Important Note: Twitter is Indexed Often by Google (good Google Juice!!)
My newest AR Followers from this post: Plz follow them!
Tina Allen @tinaallen
Hal Benz @halbenz
Dawn Maloney @dawnmaloney
Christy Gordon @christy_gordon
Ron Bridges @ronbridges
Bruce and Sandy Soli @solirealestate
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