“I tweet I saw a putty tat,” from the fun little yellow bird, to the powerful virtual blue bird. Twitter in the Real Estate industry.

Like many of us, when I first heard someone say they would send a tweet I thought of the old Tweety Bird cartoons and was a bit confused to say the least. Now when I hear tweet I want to know what their account name is and who is following them. So what is twitter anyway, why is it so popular and can it help my real estate business?

Twitter in its most basic form is simply a way to merge instant messaging with the web and make it available to anyone who wants to “follow” it. Twitter currently has more than three million members. With such a wide following it was something I just had to check out. I have to admit that at first I did not really care for it, nor did I understand why it had become so popular. I knew that there had to be something that I was missing. In general as a population we hate or are afraid of the things we do not understand.

So what did I do? I bought a book, did some reasearch and committed myself to learning all about the twitter phenomenon. And Wow am I glad that I did.

Most marketing revolves around creativity and providing the general public with large amounts of useful data. Twitter focuses on the exact opposite of this; keep it simple, memorable and easy. Just respond to the question “What’s Happening”?

Yep that’s it. In 140 characters or less try to start a conversation about what you are doing or what is on your mind.

Ok, So how do I get started? The first thing is to create an account. Pick a username that easily identifies you, ex: YourName. Sound way too simple? Thats the idea. If you create a really off the wall creative username it will be difficult for people to do a search for you unless they know that exact name. That could seriously limit the number of followers that you are able to attract. The next thing to do is to take a few minutes to create your profile. After that search through your contact lists and search for these people on twitter. When you find them make sure to do a follow. Let them know you are there and interested in what they are doing. Remember the idea of social marketing is to create relationships with people who matter.

What do I do for my first tweet? Easy right? Just let your followers know what you are up to. Well, not really. What exactly should I let them know? What will help to generate a following?

The best place to start would be to post what you are working on, if you have an open house that you are excited about or ask educated industry related questions. You can of course post if you have a new property and a link to a online ad of the property, but do not flood your twitter account with nothing but real estate listings. I cannot stress enough how tweeting is about creating conversations and relationships with people who matter and not just pushing mass property listings to random people. Another thing you may want to tweet about is a blog or other industry related activities that you may be involved in. You can also provide links to websites in your tweets or your profile description. The most important thing is to start a conversation with your followers.

Try to drive traffic to your tweets and get people to respond to your tweets. You should also do some searching on twitter for people and topics that interest you, are related to the real estate industry, or in the area of your expertise. Look for questions that you can answer. The most important thing is to get involved and have fun.