Using Twitter productively for business is not easy. As with all social media, keeping your status updated can be distracting and time consuming. Equally, there's a danger that you 'over-share' and stumble across that faint line between friendly business relationship and pure friendship - not always appropriate.
So, how do you make sure that you're getting something out of it professionally? Simple - understand what you want to achieve.
BTBusiness are getting it right. The occasional informative tweet mixed with a responsive (I know, I was surprised too!) customer service team who spot negative tweets and resolve problems!
But that's probably only appropriate for big business - with small firms, most people would prefer that you were simply more responsive over email or on the phone.
There's a number of estate agents that only tweet their property listings, or when their feeds are updated. It's all too broadcast orientated and that doesn't fit with the ethics of social media at all.
So, how can independent estate agents use Twitter to better effect? Watching out for people with questions about your local area, or who mention moving, buying or renting gives you an opportunity to:
- Build your brand in the local community
- Identify potential customers
So how do you find these people?
Unfortunately, if you're using the web interface, the quick search down the right hand side is next to useless. Fortunately, there is a much better Twitter search screen at: http://search.twitter.com/ and an explanation for using it at: http://search.twitter.com/operators.
For instance, try these searches:
- London ("moving house" OR "move house" OR buy OR rent)
Anyone trying to move house in London - Crawley ?
Anyone with a question about Crawley - Estate Agent ? -real
Anyone with a question about an estate agent (the "-real" helps remove international tweets) - Estate Agent :) -real
Anyone with positive comments about estate agents
Twitter searches are a bit like being given access to conversation at a private dinner party. There are plenty of people out there looking for advice!
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