If you’re active on Twitter, you likely have people who follow your tweets. Everytime a new follower shows up, what do you do? If you click to look on their Twitter profile, that’s the start. Look over their profile — are they a consumer or a colleague or someone else, are they in your local area, what are their tweets about and who do they tweet with most often? (Is anyone you know mentioned or replied to in their tweet stream?)

Their profile likely also includes a website address. Go visit it. Find out more about this person (or entity). As you read and peruse, think of ways that you can work together. And, if you find the obvious connections that can begin the relationship, send them a private message on Twitter or email them from their website. Start the conversation and make the most of your social networking.

Same methodology goes for your business fan/follower page on Facebook. Click on new fan’s profile. See if you can tell anything about them from what elements of their public profile are accessible. Are they connected to any other fans or one of your friends? Google them if you have the time. See if you can find a connection with this fan as well to start the conversation.

It takes time, but the connections you collect online can turn into business if you put a little effort into it. Don’t be afraid to reach out to new fans, friends or followers. Everyone is a person behind their avatar. You can find out with a little research how you can develop a relationship to lead to more business.

How do you handle new contacts in social media?

Regardless, you can search Twitter to find more information, more conversations applicable to your expertise/area, and more individuals to connect with.

Twitter applications like Tweetdeck and seesmic allow you to search terms within your news stream.  Search on “real estate fargo” (substituting your town/area) and see what you find!

Using advanced search in Twitter, you can find even more information quickly and easily.  Here are key operators to get you started to use the Twitter simple search page.  Happy searching!

• mortgage source:twitterfeed This is for finding tweets that contain the word “mortgage” and found through Twitterfeed.
• near:Boston within:25mi This will bring up tweets that have been sent from within 25 miles of Boston.
• “home for sale” near:“Atlanta” This will bring you tweets about homes for sale. The tweets will have been sent from near Atlanta.
• @RERainmaker These are tweets that reference the invidual at RERainmaker on Twitter.
• house since:2010-05-01 These are tweets that contain “house” and were sent since 2010-05-01 (year-month-day).
• settlement until:2009-12-31 These are tweets that contain “settlement” and were sent up to 2009-12-31.
• to:MichiganMoves These are tweets that have been sent to MichiganMoves.
• from:TinaMcManus These are tweets sent from TinaMcManus.
• #realtors These are tweets with the hashtag “realtors.”
• mortgage -loanThese are tweet that contain the word “mortgage” but not the word “loan.”
• lender OR mortgage These are tweets that contain the word “lender” or the word “mortgage” or both.
• “arlington townhouse” These are tweets that contain the exact phrase “arlington townhouse.”
• real estate ann arbor These are tweets that contain all words in the search box: “real” and “estate” and “ann” and “arbor.” This is the default.

Share what you’ve found on Twitter that has helped your business.

“The BtoB study demonstrates one thing vividly: the most satisfied Twitter users are also the most active. Almost across the board, respondents who said they could attribute sales directly to Twitter activity or who posted tweets multiple times per week showed higher satisfaction with return on investment than those who had not achieved tangible results.”

How often do you tweet?  Has your tweeting frequency affected your business bottomline?

If your email is valuable to the recipients, wouldn’t it also be valuable to their contacts who might also be buying or selling a home? When you create content for your email marketing, think about whether the same email is worth being passed along. Tweak your mass emails a bit to make them more share-worthy.

Once they’re worthy of being shared, do you make it easy to share your content through social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter? If not, investigate how you can quickly and easily add a “share this” tab to your emails so that your marketing can have an extended life. Your valuable info will help other buyers and sellers, and if they’re in your market area, you’ll sow the seed for more business too!

How do you make it easy for recipients of your electronic marketing to share it on social media sites?

Your email

What’s even more interesting is that Twitter will be measuring these “resonance” of these ads based on how users react to the messages.  Posts that do not achieve a particular resonance score will be removed.

Soon, these ads will be available to place directly in the regular tweet stream on Twitter and the group of advertisers will likely open up.

A new way to use Twitter to promote your business might soon be available.  Are you ready to jump in?

1. Become the expert in your local area using Facebook fan pages as community resources.
2. Generate buyer and seller leads with targeted Facebook pay-per-click ads.
3. Network with targeted professionals by occupation using LinkedIn or Plaxo.
4. Farm social networks using tools like DemandSpot.com to search Twitter for keywords such as “moving,” “relocating,” or “new job.”
5. Work your sphere with comments, phone or e-mail when you spot status updates, tweets or blog posts and pictures of contacts in your target area or audience.

How are you using social media to build your business?

A group to watch right now is the tween/teen (ages 8 to 18) market.  This group already has a huge influence on what their family purchases and have a significant amount of disposable income.

Flash forward a short 10 years to 2020.

These same tweens will be in the desirable and much-marketed to age group of 18 to 28.  This is a segment to be watched.  According to Kaiser Family Foundation’s research in 2009 entitled Generation M2 Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-year-olds:

This age group uses electronics, on average, for 53 hours per week.  And, because they are often multi-tasking (video games while texting, surfing the Internet while watching TV, etc.) they are actually managing to access about 10 hours and 45 minutes of media into the 7 hours and 38 minutes per day that they are using electronics.

• 32% of their time is spent watching TV
• 25% of their time is spent on a computer
• 20% on a mobile device
• 6% on a radio
• 6% with print media (like magazines, newspapers, etc.)
• 5% on a console video game
• 4% in movie theaters
• 3% with CDs

Other interesting takeaways include:

• This age groups spends about two hours a day with media on a mobile device such as a cell phone.
• They spend about an hour per day online viewing television or music content that many older demographics use a television or radio to view.
• Cell phones are used less frequently for conversations than accessing media.
• In their bedroom, over 70% of this age group has a television while about 33% have a computer with access to the Internet.
• Heaviest media users are those ages 11 to 14, African-American and Hispanic youths.

The message to take away from this is that in 10 years, the media mix is going to be heavily targeted toward these online media.  If you want to reach the next big wave of first-time home buyers, you’re going to have to be tech savvy.

Will you be prepared to target the 18-28 age group in the next decade?

Interactions are occurring online, in front of other consumers.  Consumer complaints are out there, resolved and discussed in front of others.  Compliments are also out in the open, genuinely expressing delight in good experiences.  Information in detail is laid out in these exchanges, giving much more data to consumers than ever before.  Competitors are visible — watching their competitors and being watched.  Transparency is the name of the game.

No matter what is out in social media, the exchanges are also out there for the long term, part of the electronic history — both the flattering and unflattering.  You can scroll through Facebook postings on an individual’s profile or fan page and read and re-read them, cut and paste them, comment on them, share them.  You can read the Twitter stream from a company or individual, search it, share it, retweet it.  Unless the element is deleted, it’s going to show up in google/search engine searches as well, part of the picture of a company’s or person’s complete profile.

This large body of personal communication/interaction is valuable.  It doesn’t replace the personal touch, but adds another dimension to the personal touch.

What does this mean for you?

• Consumers are looking for someone who has depth, who can share information and communicate with them, long before the sale is made.
• They want to know more about you than ever before…because they can about other real estate professionals.
• If you aren’t out there interacting, they aren’t going to consider you because they don’t know/can’t find out anything about you before they meet you.
• Don’t just use social media as a billboard for your listings.  Talk to buyers and sellers.  Comment on their questions and concerns.
• Consider using social media as a way of keeping clients and prospects updated (within the scope of privacy, of course!) on their home selling and buying process.  “Got your voice mail.  Will be able to call you around 5pm Eastern.”  “Received your email.  Can we meet tomorrow evening to answer questions?”

Share how social media is working for you.  And, if you’re hesitant to jump into social media, share what concerns are holding you back.

Use Local Direct Marketing to Leverage Facebook Presence

For those agents that have committed substantial time…sometimes several hours a day to generate connections…many report their “organic” social networks are often spread far and wide…sometimes too wide.  These distant connections create referral opportunities with friends and fans…and other Realtors.  Yet, how do you cultivate a local following of local sellers and local buyers?

The emerging answer is to marry your social marketing with your local offline marketing.  Use your hyper-targeted newsletter, direct mail, signage and neighborhood-focused print marketing to drive local fans and friends to your Facebook page – and vice versa.  You’ll enjoy the added bonus of generating direct business from prospects that are not active on social media…and grab prospects abandoned by your competition.

How To Maximize Results

One simple approach is to insert calls-to-action on your Gooder Group Rainmaker newsletter in the front-page masthead area or the optional MyCustom section on page four.  Insert phrases such as “Become a fan on Facebook at www.Facebook.com/YourName” (25 fans are required to obtain a personalized “vanity” Facebook address that includes your name); or “Join the conversation on my Blog: www.YourBlog.com;” or “Follow me on Twitter: www.Twitter.com/YourName.”

Another successful technique is to create a custom “ad” for your newsletter MyCustom section.  Feature the logotypes or screen shots of the social sites where you are active (Facebook, ActiveRain, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) and use copy such as “For latest market updates, links to all listings 24/7 and local real estate trends, see how my presence on the Internet generates more buyers for my sellers and insures my buyers see new listings first.”  Then display the images and online addresses of all your sites.

By leveraging your offline and online marketing, you can maximize your local results – and grow your local business in the coming market.  With location-centric offline marketing you build a social network of true local prospects within your market area…as well as generate more referral connections worldwide.

How do you leverage your social marketing presence?

Big Aha!
ALL the 1800+ pages of content and forms on your Rainmaker E-Central – including the articles in your two monthly e-newsletters — have a unique URL link branded just for you. That means, you can share ALL the content or forms or articles via Twitter or Facebook. For no extra cost.

Here’s how Rainmaker E-Central subscribers can put this easy, no-cost technique to work for your 2010 marketing right now.

If you are using Twitter, you may already be using an outside source to manage your tweets such as TweetDeck. TweetDeck shortens your Rainmaker E-Central URLs automatically when you copy-and-paste the link into a new tweet. TweetDeck automatically counts the letters in your tweet so you stay under 140-character Tweet limit. Other agents who use Twitter are probably familiar with other URL shorteners such as bit.ly and tinyurl.com.

Another Takeaway
If you don’t use TweetDeck, here’s a list of the top 10 URL shortener services. All are free. All you do is copy-and-paste into the URL shortener the link to a page from your e-newsletter — say, about the extended and expanded tax credit (January edition). Now you can embed the content in your Tweets or add a link on your Facebook page — easily and briefly.

For no additional cost you can get your content message out to the biggest audience you can…beyond your personal e-mail database. It’s an easy way to reach more prospects and multiply your Rainmaker E-Central effectiveness through social media sharing.