Organize Chaos with The Real Estate Tweet Plan

Have you considered better organizing your time on Twitter? Wait…before you call me a rigid “you know what” or send hate email telling me I’m ruining the spontaneity of Twitter, think first about how much of your work time and efficiency is affected by tuning into to Twitter all day. Maybe it’s not. Perhaps you are the type that can free flow all day, tuning in…tuning out. Or you could be a self-proclaimed Twitaholic, who can easily manage your twitter volume from your desktop on Tweetdeck and Twitterific Pro on the go…never missing a single tweet from your 1000+ followers! Good for you!

But now more than ever real estate twits are working twice as hard. Do you really have time to tweet all day while you’re showing 18 houses, writing multiple contracts, and consulting with your clients? If you do, great…don’t bother reading the rest of this article. The Real Estate Tweet Plan is only for twits looking to organize and better balance social media marketing strategies.

Recently, I wrote a Tweet Plan for Darren Rowse’s new blog, Twitp.com. This was a general Tweet Plan framework really, so I thought I’d share an example Real Estate Tweet Plan. And it goes a little something like this…

Real Estate Tweet Plan created for @RENonna:

(1) Choose Twitter Check-in Times – @RENonna checks in with Twitter every morning with her coffee from 6:30-7:00am and every evening after dinner with her glass of red wine from 7-8pm. During those times, she (1) learns about her followers and chooses to follow back or not, (2) selects new followers she’s interested in and can learn from, (3) updates her tweetlists, (4) looks for helpful resources/media, and (5) schedules her Daily 5.

(2) Start w/ your Daily 5 – @RENonna’s Daily 5 (which are her interest & expertise topics) include: (1) short sale advice & tips, (2) local events in her market area (Pleasanton), (3) seasonal homeowner tips, (4) great buys (deals uncovered while previewing), and (5) weekender attractions. Other real estate specific topics could include: blog post updates, neighborhood stats & info, local tax and legal updates, credit tips and advice, etc.

(3) Make a Tweetlist(s) – @RENonna creates a list of pre-planned tweets that she will either sporadically tweet or schedule throughout the day. Here’s her Tweetlist for a given day:

Tweet 1: Short sale tip: Remember to consult with your CPA – could make the difference between a tax consequence, or not.

Tweet 2: Pleasanton Holiday Food Drive, donations of non-perishables can be made here:  http://budurl.com/tat5.

Tweet 3: Winter Weather Tips for Maintaining Curb Appeal: http://budurl.com/bjvl

Tweet 4: Local steal found on tour! Pleasanton charmer- 1234 Rose Ave, 4 bd 3 ba, 2450 sqft, .25 acre lot, walk to downtown, bank-owned $325,000!

Tweet 5: Ice skating in downtown Walnut Creek begins this weekend 11/13, check here for details: http://budurl.com/erdd

(4) Schedule Tweets - Keep your tweetlist at your desk or on you if you’re mobile. If you don’t want to manually tweet, use Tweetlater or Twuffer to schedule your tweets. Schedule them for time periods you will be focusing on work tasks only (or if you are on a business trip, vacation, etc).  For example, @RENonna set up her Daily 5 to be tweeted from Tweetlater at: 9:00am, 10:30am, 1:15pm, 2:30pm, and 4:15pm.  @RENonna also created Bud URLs for all the resource links she shares so she can track her follower activity. If she notices that she’s not getting much traffic from the morning tweets, then she may choose to schedule more tweets in the afternoon.

(5) Create an auto-welcome message – @RENonna would like to personally review and choose her followers. But she won’t be able to do that working in the field showing homes most days. So she plans to investigate her new followers during her Twitter Check-in times. In the meantime, she would still like to send a basic ONE-TIME “thanks for following” or “welcome” message to her new interested party. So @RENonna composed a welcome message, “Thanks for following me.  Nice to meet you, virtually!” and set it up as an auto-welcome message from Tweetlater to all new followers. NOTE: @RENonna is only sending a quick welcome, NOT auto-following back. She waits until she can personally review new follower profiles, Websites, updates, etc. to make her choice on whether to follow back or not. OFF THE HOOK: Spice up your auto-message with a little transparency topper, a “Welcome Video“.

(6) Supplement w/ spontaneous Tweets – In between your scheduled pre-planned Tweets, you may find yourself with an occasional opportunity to conversationally tweet. Do it! Or if you have an experience or current event that you want to share, by all means, share away. You can also use your Twitter Check-in times to converse and share your most recent thoughts, ideas, ramblings, or happenings. The point is, when you can and want to share, get back in the Twitter conversation. Twitter will be there…most times.

ONE LAST TIP: Be sure to aggregate your Tweets on your real estate blog and other social profiles. Here’s my own example. You can get more mileage from your Tweets by sharing them beyond the Twittosphere – with your blog readers and other networks (Facebook, FriendFeed, etc.).

TWEET PLAN DISCLAIMER: This plan may work great for those with little time in their day to tweet. But for some, taking time to organize tweets may actually be more time consuming that just tweeting off the cuff. This is NOT a plan for spontaneous tweeters and those of us that have adopted Twitter as a member of the family. This plan is for twits that want to tweet but are finding it hard to do so during their busy work day.  Please Note: This is only one Real Estate Tweet Plan example, what does yours look like?