Selling real estate on Twitter is a bit of a misnomer. While I am a firm believer that Twitter is one of the best sources of new clients for a real estate agent and the single best marketing venue a Realtor can use, actually trying to sell your real estate listings and services on twitter is tantamount junk-punching each and every one of your followers... repeatedly!
I've used this illustration before, when is the last time you walked up to someone you don't know at a social gathering and introduced yourself by proudly proclaiming “I have a 1 bedroom, 8 bathroom house for sale, wanna buy it?" So let's assume that you would not do that, then why would you do it on Twitter? Twitter is a place to connect with people you otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to and build relationships with those people.
So aside from not posting real estate listings, I have a few other suggestions of what not to post (or at least post very sparingly). After listings, I see real estate agents post lots of links to their home search and "what's my home worth" pages on their websites. I don't think these are quite as bad as listings, but they aren't much better. There is a much better chance that someone in your audience will find that useful than they will the last property you listed so I will concede that a (very) occasional post of that nature is permissible. But you absolutely MUST be posting actual, useful and interesting content a lot more regularly and much more often.
Now let's get to the good stuff... what to post if you are selling real estate on Twitter. I spend a lot of time and energy saying you must post interesting, relevant and engage-able content. Now I'm actually going to contradict myself. It has been my experience that I have gotten more engagement and a lot more followers, and yes... even more clients... by posting ridiculous, whimsical, and even absolutely absurd posts. Let me explain. I fancy myself a bit of a funny guy, I have a pretty ironic and sarcastic sense of humor and I often have a somewhat irreverent way of putting things. I have found that this works wonders for me on Twitter. I would say that roughly 50% to 60% of my tweets are, seemingly, a complete waste of time and about absolutely nothing... a few examples:
- A drunken Roomba
- A hot tub filled with guacamole
- A queso facial
- Whether Audi's drive better with Spandau Ballet or Ratt playing on the stereo
- And my personal favorite, guessing how many strains of bacteria are present in an auto dealerships microwave oven
I'm sure you are questioning the reason for posting silly, non-business related things like that. That is ok, I will explain my reasoning. It is simple, that is my personality. It gives my followers a sense of who I am. I back all of that silly stuff up with content that I feel might be useful to other people, I also share other people's tweets and help spread their message and their content. Those two things, sharing your own useful content and sharing other people's content, are the backbone of building trust and relationships in social media.
So to wrap all of this up, if you are going to be selling real estate on Twitter, you should be spending your time and energy sharing useful content and information (I much prefer generating your own and we will discuss that later in this series), sharing your followers (and people you find interesting) content and messages, and most importantly letting your own personality show. By being yourself and putting your own, unfiltered personality out there, you will attract followers that identify with you and who you are. Seems like those people make the best clients by a long shot. Notice that nowhere in that list is the idea of selling real estate on Twitter.
Read Selling Real Estate On Twitter Part 1 ~ Setting Up Your Profile
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