#, @, and tweets: What does it all mean?

Today we got to learn some insider tips on how to use Twitter to promote our business.  Kaite Lance did a great job of explaining the ends and outs of the sometimes confusing world of Twitter.  We have included our notes below so you can get some quick pointers to help you navigate all the @s, #s, and tweets.  We enjoyed it Katie!

Why Twitter?

• 271 M monthly active users
• 500 M tweets sent each day
• Twitter is faster moving than Facebook (you don’t look at past tweets for more than the past couple hours)
• Allows you to expand sphere beyond who your know (FB is more for relationship building)

Twitter Profile Must-haves

• Professional Photo
• Fill out bio (share professional/fun things about yourself)
• Add a cover photo, preferably one that goes with your business

Twitter Lingo

• @sign – everyone has one; try to keep it short
  • if you start a tweet with a handle, only those people and their followers can see you
  • if there is a handle in the middle of the tweet, it is open to the public
• DM – only can be sent if you follow each other; private messaging usually used to get private contact details
• #hashtag – clickable link within a tweet; rule of thumb is use 1-3 per tweet; hashtags tend to get retweeted more
• Re-tweet – taking a tweet from someone else and sending it to your followers; copy/paste tweets and type RT to retweet something and then add your own comments; you can hit retweet button if you don’t want to add your own comments
• Favorite button is similar to liking on Facebook, not the same as retweeting

Five Must Dos To Rock Twitter

1. Tweet with images increase engagement
   • 18% more click throughs
   • 89% more favorites
   • 150% more retweets
2. Repeat tweets!
   • Twitter moves too fast for people to see it frequently; publish great content again and again because you will hit a different audience
   • Two identical tweets receive almost the same amount of clicks according to hub spot
3. Tweet links to other articles with some commentary
   • Links clicks account for 92% of all user interaction with tweets
4. Make sure your tweets look great on mobile
   • 78% of twitter users are on mobile
5. Go to ads.twitter.com for free analytics
6. Use lists to curate content
   • Allows you to only look at the tweets of the people on the list (ex: list with your news sources)
   • Make a private client twitter list

Who to follow in real estate?

Inman Next, KCM Crew, HouseLogic, WSJ Mansion, AOL Real Estate, Yahoo Finance, Housing Wire, NYT Real Estate, CNN Money, Yahoo Homes, Realtirs, Inman News, Point B Realty, LeverageRE, BoutiqueRE

Twitter tools/ideas

1. Find local content sources
2. Showcase homes with photo collages with picmonkey.com or shareasimage.com to resize pics for twitter
3. Use twitter to showcase what it feels like to live in your community
   1. Retweet local news
   2. Showcase photos of area
4. Go to search.twitter.com
   1. You can search hashtags and keywords to find people looking to move
   2. You can also search within a specific demographic area
5. Use “Pin It” feature
   1. You take a tweet and pin it to the top of your page
   2. You usually use it to pin it content that continues to be relevant no matter the date
6. Look for opportunities to highlight people who are doing good things in your community
   1. Usually gets you retweeted on that local companies page

Top 5 Twitter mistakes

1. Tweeting listings the same way you post them everywhere else
2. Constant self-promotion – don’t make it all about you
3. Auto messages
4. Not responding to messages
5. Connecting your Facebook to Twitter

Top 3 tools to managing twitter and/or schedueling tweets

• Buffer
• Hootsuite
• Sprout social

See more from Katie Lance here.

Check out more content on our blog here.

Other articles you may enjoy:

• Going from social media to social fitness
• 15 Apps Every Real Estate Agents Need