5 Tips for ANYONE using TWITTER

So you may have seen last week, twitter went public on the +NASDAQ stock exchange. The symbol is a simple TWTR to remember. It debuted at around $48 a share and is trading around $44 at the time of this article. This company has not yet earned a positive cent, but Wall Street values it at over 20 BILLION dollars. I think +Twitter will be around for a while. That being said, you will need some tips on using it....

If you are an avid fan of Twitter here are a few steps that will assist you in maximizing your online efforts.

#1) Use the 80-20 rule- As a general rule, real estate agents should only tweet about your direct business 20% of the time.  The other 80% should be used to talk about news, information, and tips about the ancillary functions of your business and community.  By providing your followers with informative tweets, you’ll keep them coming back to your site.  News, information, and tips will bring your customers and clients to your web site.  And tweets about sales will help you land a deal.  Following the 80-20 rule can also help increase your web site’s traffic.  Search engines give preference to web sites and social media web pages that have valuable information. For either 80 or 20 percent, have relative content that sounds like YOU wrote it, not some robot....

#2) Have a clear picture! Twitter users should make sure that they choose high quality and clear pictures for their profile.  There’s no question that communicating and pitching sales over the internet can make you lose a personal touch.  Having a clear, conservative, picture with high quality reminds your customers and clients that they are dealing with a professional.  The background of your Twitter page should be colorful and attractive.  Because customers will see your background the moment that they reach your page, you want to catch their attention. I use the background of one of my properties and I rotate this, to allow people to have a fresh view of my business.

#3) Don’t be negative - Even though you might be tempted to air out all of your dirty laundry on Twitter, you always keep your tweets positive.  Don’t complain about vendors/buyers, how long a project is taking, or anything, period!  Staying positive and professional helps you look calm and collected (even when you aren’t).  If you are having a bad day or a problem at work, you might want to wait 24 hours before you sign into your account.

#4) Make sure you are consistent - Being consistent in business is important because it can eliminate confusion.  You need to make sure that your online brand is consistent with your offline brand.  For example, if you are someone who specializes in one area, make sure that your message is simple and easy enough to cast a wide net for many people, plain vanilla is fine, so long as you maintain plain vanilla.

#5) Make a plan- Having a marketing plan is important for business.  You want to decide what types of items you are going to deal with and who your target audience is.  A target audience is a specific type of demographic, or a group of people who you want to promote your services to.  Businesses who decide who their target audience is often do better than those who act like a “one-stop shop”.  By marketing your services to a target audience, you’ll appear as an expert.  If you fail to follow this tip, you’ll look like a jack of all trades- and a master of none.

#LizBobeck