Aaron Hoos

For years, real estate professionals have struggled with finding ways to connect with potential and previous clients to remain at the top of their minds for when those people want to buy or sell again. Calendars, fridge magnets, and the occasional mass mailing were the only way…

… Until social media came along.

Social media in general — and Twitter specifically — offer real-time connection to your potential and previous clients. You’ll know exactly what they’re thinking when they’re thinking it and that will help you to engage them before they make a real estate decision. Along the way, Twitter also gives you the ability to position yourself as an expert in a particular marketplace (i.e. to a specific niche or for a specific neighborhood).

Signing up for Twitter is free and very simple. And finding people (especially locals!) is also very easy.

Okay, so you have a Twitter account and you’re already to tweet. What should real estate professionals tweet about?

Here are 12 ideas that you can build off of to tweet an unlimited number of tweets!

1. Tweet buying tips: Tweet to give people tips on buying a home in the area you cover. Is there something specific to watch for? Are there great opportunities? Is an older neighborhood regaining traction as a trendy locale?




2. Tweet listing tips: Tweet to give people tips on how to sell a home in your area. Are there challenges to overcome? Is a certain type of buyer moving into the area? What are the key features for many of the homes in the area? When is the right time to list?




3. Tweet about reasons and statistics to encourage buying and listing: Let people know when it’s a seller’s market or buyer’s market. Keep your readers up-to-date on how interest rates, the economy, and the local marketplace are combining to make it the perfect time to buy or sell.




4. Tweet neighborhood stats: Buyers wants to move to an area because it has the right combination of things they’re looking for. Let them know that YOU know how many parks there are; what the student-teacher ratio is at the local grade school; how many Starbucks are nearby; how many buses serve the area; and what the home-sale trends have been like recently.




5. Tweet about ideas to enjoy the home you’re living in: On average, people move once every seven years. So, for seven years, they’re not necessarily thinking about you and your services. Unless you help them to enjoy what you helped them buy. Give them ideas to increase the value of their home, increase the safety of their home, and make their home feel like their castle and refuge. That will make you an integral part of their home investment for the seven years between the time that they need your services.




6. Tweet links to homes you’ve listed: This is an obvious one! Don’t overwhelm your followers with tweets about the homes you list, but definitely send out a few tweets a day that say: “Growing family? Check out this home: [link]” or “Newly retired? Check out this home: [link]“.




7. Tweet your achievements: Be proud of your achievements! Tweet about the awards you won (when you win them; you probably shouldn’t tweet regularly about them after that), and especially tweet about when you list a home and when a home sells. A real estate pro who regularly tweets “I just sold another home! #awesome” shows potential clients that they can get it done.




8. Tweet what you are doing right now: Real estate professionals are busy people. (You don’t need me to tell you that). So keep people up-to-date with what you’re doing by telling them. “I’m showing a home in the East Culbert neighborhood” or “I’m just about to meet with a potential seller.” Keep it generic and positive and accurate.




9. Tweet about local neighborhood news: If you are positioning yourself as an expert in a particular neighborhood, become involved in that neighborhood by tweeting their news. Talk about the upcoming street-wide yardsale or the gradeschool magazine drive to raise money for new playground equipment or the quilting bee at a local church to send money to a South American orphanage. Soon, people will recognize you as a place to help them disseminate their local information and they’ll not only pay attention to you for local news (which will include “I’m listing a house in your area!“) but they’ll also think of you when they’re looking for a local expert to help them list or buy.




10. Tweet to cheer local teams: This tip is related to the above tip but it’s not as “newsy”. Get involved in local teams by cheering them on and reporting their successes. Ball leagues, soccer leagues, bowling leagues, even the dart league at the local watering hole. They won’t mind the extra attention and it will benefit you and them in the long run.




11. Tweet about local businesses: Like you, local businesses are trying to get by with local clientele. Sometimes it’s easy; sometimes it’s hard. Generously promote local businesses. If one of them is having a special, tweet about it. If one of them is holding a barbecue, tweet about it. If you’re bringing your shirts to the local laundromat, tweet about how much you like their service. Generous promotion is reciprocating, even if those businesses aren’t on Twitter as much as you.




12. Tweet to engage local people: This one is huge. Don’t just tweet things out as if they were announcements. Don’t just follow the above 11 tips and ignore this one. If you only have time to do ONE of these 12 tips, do this one! Engage your followers. Talk with them. Joke with them. Empathize with them. Communicate with them. Listen to them. Share what they are talking about.

Sit down with these 12 tips and come up with dozens — or even hundreds — of potential tweets. Once you have a big list, you’ll be armed with tweets for every occasion… and you’ll have a reason to send people to your Twitter page. Some of these tweets you can tweet as they happen. Others can be scheduled and put into a rotation (using a social media tool like Hootsuite).

Want some additional ideas about what you can tweet about? Check my blog post 101 retweetable tweets!

The web is so social. It’s a great place to connect both personally and professionally.

But not everything needs to be shared with everyone. I prefer to shape my interactions so they are relevant to the context of my relationships. Do you?

For example I have a number of friends who don’t really know (or care) what I do professionally and I’m not interested in pitching my services to them. I have a number of professional contacts who don’t really know (or care) what I do in my personal life and I’m not interested in describing for them what I ate for lunch or what I do in my spare time. It doesn’t matter to me if they find out, but I’m not the kind of person who just lets it all hang out online for everyone to see.

If you’d like to separate your personal and professional life, this idea might be useful for you. Create a chart that maps the geography of your social presence, and identifies the borders between what you’re willing to share with everyone and what you’d prefer to share with a select few.

YOUR SOCIAL PRESENCE MAP

Here’s how to create a social presence map. We start with a simple chart (pictured below) that measures two axes: On one axis, the spectrum of your personal and professional life, and on the other axis, the spectrum of shallow and deep interaction.

This is the “geography” that represents who you are and how you connect with people.

The personal and professional spectrum is pretty obvious – it’s who you are at work and at play.

The shallow and deep spectrum is the depth of your interaction within a specific network. If you’re firing off two or three word statuses (“I’m hungry”, “I’m reading a book”) and not really connecting and engaging people then your use of that network is shallow. But if you’re providing rich content, valuable insight, and enjoying ongoing conversations then your use of that network is deep.

You will be plotting the locations of each network within this geography, as if they were countries on a rectangular continent.

STEP 1: ADD SOCIAL MEDIA TO YOUR MAP

First, you need to figure out how you use your various social networks. List every social network you use, regardless of what you use it for and whether or not you are a power user or a sporadic user. Then add them to the map according to the most accurate location on the two axes.

I’ll use my own life as an example. I have a small handful of social networks I use: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and this blog, AaronHoos.com. So, I will add those to the map, spreading them out according to the two spectrums in the map.

You can see that I’ve placed my social networks at the approximate locations of where they are in the geography of my social interaction.

This exercise can be helpful for you to think about what content you want to post in each network and how you want to interact with the people in each network.

I also find this a helpful way to help me think about how I want to use my social media channels for my sales funnel. For example I note that my usage of Twitter is pretty shallow and somewhere between personal and professional. But if my sales funnel included Twitter as a vital component, I might want to think about deepening my relationships on Twitter and maybe moving my use of that social network slightly more toward the professional side of the chart.

So this social presence map acts as a sort-of analysis of your current position as well as a way to strategize your business’ evolution.

The first step is figuring out where these social networks are in our geography of interaction. We can go a step further…

STEP 2: ADD BORDERS TO YOUR MAP

Next, it’s time to think about how much of your life you want to share with everyone. Some people (myself included) prefer to keep their public life and private life separate. It’s not that I’m unwilling to be myself around my clients, but I also want to cultivate and maintain a professional presence when I’m working and I can relax a bit when I’m not working. If I go out with friends for sushi, I don’t mind sharing that information with my other friends on Facebook, but my clients don’t need to know (and likely don’t care).

So we next add boundaries on the map to show how accessible each network is. Solid lines mean that it’s a private network that requires permission to enter. Dotted lines mean that anyone can enter, view, and participate in that social network.

And you’ll also note the size of the boundaries and the overlap, which help to define the scope of how you use a particular network.

I’ve added boundaries to my social presence map, below:

So, here’s how to read my map: I use Facebook and Foursquare exclusively for my personal network. (In fact, I only use Foursquare because it pushes info to Facebook). They are kept private.

I used LinkedIn for professional relationships and it is open so that anyone can see it. Admittedly (and this is something I’d like to improve), it’s a very shallow network for me right now.

AaronHoos.com is part of my professional social presence, and it’s my deepest network (in terms of audience and subject matter). It’s open for everyone to see.

In the middle is Twitter, which is pretty shallow (although less so than LinkedIn because I do interact with my Twitter network). You’ll also notice that it straddles my personal and professional presences and what I share in Twitter overlaps slightly with what I share in my blog, on LinkedIn, and even a little on Facebook.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN

Now it’s your turn to create your social presence map. Follow the steps in this blog post to determine what the geography is of your social interactions.

But don’t stop there! Use your social presence map as a strategic tool to help you understand what you want to share with each network and where you want to improve. And if you’re ever unsure about where to post something, look to your social presence map as a guide.

Be sure to revisit your social presence map from time to time to see if it’s changed and if there are strategic purposes to evolving how you use some of your networks.

And while we’re on the subject of social networks, I would love connect with you on Twitter and LinkedIn (invites accepted).

My hammock gave out in the spring of 2010. Squirrels had ravaged it while preparing nests for the previous winter. I’ve been meaning to replace that hammock but last summer was busy and wet (not conducive to “hammocking”). So yesterday I went outside and realized that the weather was perfect but I remained hammockless.

I posted on Facebook: “It’s beer-and-hammock weather. Sadly, I’m out of beer and my hammock was eaten by squirrels.”

Seconds later, a friend messaged me and told me that she had just bought a hammock for her husband. She briefly described it and sent me a link to the seller’s website. Within minutes of posting my sad status, the sale was closed. I’ll be picking up a hammock from this importer this weekend!

SALES FUNNEL EVANGELIST IN ACTION

My friend was first a hammock Customer. She had purchased the hammock, was happy with the quality and price and service. Then, she became an Evangelist by sharing her success story with me. I will (shortly) become a Customer by purchasing a hammock.

This hammock importer’s hammocks have now become more profitable because she didn’t have to spend time and effort and money marketing and selling to me. I’m already in her sales funnel and I’m basically sold; it’s just a transactional issue at this point. My friend’s advice was enough to compel me toward a buying action.

Turning your Customers into Evangelists is critical for your business. Rather than expend the costly effort of marketing and selling to every single Customer, you can turn your Customers into an army of marketers and sellers who are working on your behalf.

Here’s how to do that:

THE EVANGELIST EQUATION

The right combination of elements need to be present in order for a Customer to become an Evangelist… and not just an Evangelist but an effective one that actually closes the deal for you. Those elements come together in the following equation:

Effective Evangelism = Trust + Satisfaction + Shareability

Where Satisfaction = Problem Solved + Perceived Value + Satisfaction with Service
And Shareability = Ease of Sharing + Context

Here’s what those equation components mean:

• Trust: Trust needs to be established between the Evangelist and the prospective Customer. In order for the prospective Customer to act on the advice of the Evangelist, there needs to be a foundation of agreement between the two. In my situation, I know my friend is a very careful shopper who thoroughly researches everything before she buys.
• Satisfaction: Satisfaction is actually made up of three components: (1) the problem was solved; (2) a sense of value was perceived between the price of the product and the degree to which it solved the problem; (3) a sense of satisfaction with the service received during the process.
• Shareability: Shareability is made up of two components: (1) how easy it is to talk about your product or service in relation to the problem; (2) the context in which an Evangelist has an opportunity to share.

When all of those components are present, an Evangelist can effectively talk about your product or service with their friends and their friends will act on the Evangelist’s advice.

If any components are missing, your Evangelists might still share but the likelihood of success diminishes with each missing component. For example, a recommendation on Twitter about a great soup restaurant is still Evangelism but might not result in any new Customers if there is no trust between the tweeter and their followers or if there was no context for the recommendation.

TAKE CONTROL OF EVANGELISTS IN YOUR SALES FUNNEL

The truth is, you can’t control every part of the equation. You have little influence over the trust established between an Evangelist and their network. And, you have little influence over the context in which your Evangelist shares.

But, you do have a lot of influence over the other parts of the equation — the components that make up Satisfaction (Problem Solved, Perceived Value, and Satisfaction with Service), as well as one of the components that make up Shareability (Ease of Sharing).

Creating an army of Evangelists to help you market and sell your business is done by looking at each of the following components and improving/increasing each component:

• Solving problems: Your product or service solves a problem or fulfills a need, even if you don’t think it does. Figure out what the problem or need is and make it clearer in your marketing.
• Providing value: Customers who feel that they got ripped off will never return. Customers who feel that they got exactly what they paid for might return or they might not return. But Customers who feel that they got more than they paid for will be far more likely to buy again and turn into Evangelists.
• Satisfying with service: Like the above component, Customers who feel that they received poor service will never return. Customers who feel like they received “normal” service may or may not return. But Customers who were surprised at how good the service was will buy again and turn into Evangelists.
• Making your product or service easy to explain: Use clear, compelling, picture-words in your marketing, and use the same messages over and over. Make your business name and your web domain easy to talk about and share. Spread your presence around the web (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) so that people can share you far more easily.

The equation to turn your Customers into Evangelists is pretty simple. And it is made up of several components, many of which you have a considerable amount of influence over. The time and energy you invest into these components will be an investment into creating Evangelists who will fill your sales funnel for you.

Arthur C. Clarke said, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Right now, that seems to be the case with social media. It’s not the technology itself that is advanced, but it’s the methodology and techniques behind social media that can seem that way.

Social media does have costs and rewards, but it can be difficult to quantify them at first glance. As a result, small and large businesses spend exorbitant amounts of  time, money and effort to “do social media” with little or no effect.

In an article on his {Grow} blog, Mark Schaefer talks about the need for metrics in social media, and how entrepreneurs should be approaching social media marketing just like every other form of marketing.

How to save your butt when the social media bubble bursts.

When you’re done reading this article, start measuring your social media marketing. (Hint: Klout.com is a great place to start).

I love Twitter.

Twitter lets me share what I’m thinking and doing at the moment. It’s an invaluable tool for me to listen to others. I connect with clients, friends, and peers from all over the world. Twitter is casual, newsy, inspiring, in-the-moment; it’s a place to connect and engage, to meet new people and hear new ideas, and to share those ideas with others.

I want to do that better. Lately, I’ve felt like my tweet stream was getting a little stale. A little shaggy and in need of a haircut. Unfortunately, since Twitter caps the number of people you can follow at a percentage of the number of followers you have, I can’t just follow more people and let their engaging tweets eclipse the followers who aren’t doing anything. Since I currently can’t expand my plot of Twitter ‘land’, I decided to do some weeding.

Like anything else, your Twitter account needs to be tuned from time to time. For me, in the past, that has meant sorting the people I’m following into lists and actively unfollowing people whose tweets don’t add value to my life. (After all, I wouldn’t want them actually talking to me face-to-face, so why should I give them my Twitter time?). Recently, I used Tweepi.com to help me tune Twitter so I can listen and connect more effectively. Here’s how I used it to give my Twitter account:

The first thing I did was to remove people I’m following who haven’t tweeted in the past 4 months or more. Cold-hearted? Arbitrary? Perhaps, but for me, Twitter isn’t about the number of followers I have or people I’m following… it’s about the value that we can provide to each other. It turns out that 7% of the people I’m following haven’t tweeted in 4 months or more… so I scrapped them. I only want to follow people who have something to say. (Heck, some of them haven’t tweeted in 3 years or more).

The next thing I did was to use Tweepi’s ‘Reciprocate’ feature to find people to follow who are already following me. Some Twitter users choose to auto-follow those who follow them, but that’s not really how I roll: I want to find people who are active Twitter users. Since they are already listening to me AND they are active Twitter users, I’m hoping to engage with them better than I have been. (Side note: Turns out, I wasn’t even following my wife. I fixed that oversight and we won’t tell her about it, okay?)

It’s so easy to get caught up in the Twitter numbers game and to compare how many followers you have to how many someone else has. Now, there is a place for Twitter metric comparison, especially if Twitter is part of your marketing plan. But to get there, you need to engage your followers first and add value to them. And in order to engage your followers, you need to clean up your account with a haircut from time-to-time.