Five beginner Twitter tips to build your real estate sphere

As real estate agents, we have been taught that the number one daily priority has to be prospecting. We know that networking and staying in touch with our sphere is paramount to this plan and we use the old school methods pretty well for this task.

But, how many of you are using Twitter?

I know, Twitter is chaotic and many people have a difficult time finding ways to make their time there actually beneficial to their business. I am here to change all of that with five easily implemented tips to build your real estate sphere on Twitter. Used regularly, these tips will not only grow your sphere but save you time, too! In the past we discussed how to find people that you already know on Twitter, today we discuss how to find people you don’t know, YET.

#1- Host a list on Twitter of local people searchable by #hashtag People will follow this list and everytime they look at it they will see your name and be reminded of you. This tactic is a great way to keep yourself top of mind with the people you want to follow and connect with.

#2- Use Twellowhood or Twitter Local or Twitter’s advanced search to find local people to follow and engage with When I first started on Twitter I followed every real estate agent I could find. Now I love you guys and many of you have turned into good friends, but not such good sales prospects. I realized early that in order to optimize my time on Twitter I needed to find and engage with people in my area. You can use these tools to search by niche or any other keyword that would be useful to you.

#3- Take Twitter Face to Face People don’t buy and sell real estate with avatars, they need to meet you before they will totally commit. After chatting with people in your area on Twitter for awhile, ask them to meet for coffee or even better….

#4- Host a Tweetup Tweetups are great ways to meet other Twitter fans in your area and a fabulous way of getting face to face with a large crowd of potential friends and clients.

#5- Use a Twitter application like Tweetdeck, Hootsuite or Seesmic to follow hashtags, lists and create specific columns. You can’t really control your time or follow the right people in an organized way without a Twitter dashboard. The three listed above come highly recommended (and tested) by me, but there are others out there. These tools will allow you prioritize certain groups of people and search for content that you might otherwise miss in the regular stream.

The key to being successful at using Twitter to build a sphere is to remember that it is another form of prospecting. Like all prospecting, you must be consistent and allow enough time for the seeds to grow into friendships. I have met some of the most important people in my life using these tips and have had life changing experiences because of my Twitter sphere. I wish you the same luck!