I recently wrote an article on which tools you should be using first to gain traction with your internet marketing efforts.  One of those tools was Twitter.  As an agent you may be asking, how can twitter help my business?  This is FAR from an end-all-be-all list of how a real estate agent should use twitter but these are a couple different directions I’ve gone with my twitter page.

connect with local businesses – What better way to build up your repertoire in town than to follow local businesses on Twitter?  Obviously this would be more prevalent in a high tech area like Silicon Valley or Bellevue but search out a few businesses you know of, you may be surprised.  Several local businesses have even found me and followed me on Twitter.  Places that are moving into town and I didn’t know existed before.  It’s always good to have fresh tidbits of new information to talk about with your client base.

be first to know about community events – If you follow the right local bloggers and citizens, you can grasp a very easy to digest view of what is going on in the community and neighborhoods that you work and live in.  You can even try to find these people by searching for names of neighborhoods and places in those areas that people may be talking about.  In my area for instance, I follow Kirkland Views on twitter because they track every bit of local news that occurs in the area and condense it down to 140 characters including a link to the original story.  I can digest much more news this way than ever before and much of it is relevant and in real time. 

boost SEO rankings for listing addresses – Every time I take a new listing, I use postlets to syndicate my listings.  While I’m at it, I take time to tweet from postlets.  This makes a post that looks something like: “Just listed: 123 Main Street, Anytown USA  http://www.postlets.com/res/2283244”.  This does one very imnportant task other than looking good to your client.  It ties your listing property address to your listing.  When someone googles the address of your listing, your twitter page will often show up in the first page or two of search results.  This has the side effect of cross-promoting your other listings and your twitter page.

twitter is NOT just for followers, google indexes it – When you first start tweeting, you may get discouraged because your follower count doesn’t just skyrocket overnight.  You may even want to give up thinking, “No one follows me so why bother?  I must not be very interesting.”.  Don’t give up!  Anything you post gets indexed by google.  I got in trouble recently because I mentioned something about the new coffee shop opening up in Downtown Kirkland soon.  An owner of another coffee shop I frequent asked me, “SOOOOOOOO, you like XYZ coffee do you?!?”.  I asked him, “why, do you use Twitter?”.  He said, “Nope, I just found you by searching for their name.”  He googled to find out about his competition and my name came up in the first page of the search results!  You can’t tell me that is not a powerful tool if used correctly.

keep an eye on news from industry pros –  Zillow, Trulia & Redfin ALL tweet.  Zillow has many employees who tweet.  Spencer Rascoff, the COO of Zillow is one of the more vocal of the bunch.  He often posts his opinion on the latest industry data, latest Zillow widgets and much more.  Diane Tuman of Zillow follows all of the high profile celebrity home sales for fun and she posts about them on Twitter.  I know of no better person to follow if you are interested in celebrity real estate.  Check out some of the folks I follow if you need more ideas.

keep an eye on what other pros are doing – I borrow some of the best ideas I’ve had from my peers and co-workers.  Do you have some local agents that you admire?  Do you wonder how they go about their day and what they are doing differently than you?  Here is your chance to find out.  Surely they are already on Twitter.  If not, perhaps they will soon be admiring the your impact via social media.

effect of gravity – Followers beget more followers.  Keep yourself interesting.  The more followers you gain, the more will find you through your tweets with other people and by seeing your name on following lists of people who are following you.

Feel free to follow me on twitter.  Watch how I use it and add your own twist.  There are so many more ways to use this tool than I could possibly name here.  Do you have an innovative way that you use Twitter?  Please leave a comment below and share it; Twitter is quickly becoming a force to reckon with in every other aspect of life, check out Time Magazine’s article: How Twitter will change the way we live