Why TweetLister, When You Can Just Twitter
By NikNik · May 21, 2009
What is TweetLister?
TweetLister is a new Twitter tool specifically created for real estate agents. Signing up for the free service allows you to post, schedule and manage real estate listings on Twitter. Track clicks received on your listings, as well as collect and download contacts you get through those listings (available via an Excel Report).
While I see the benefit of scheduling resourceful tweets to share with your network (aka “drip tweets”) throughout the day, I don’t recognize the benefit of ONLY twittering your listings. As a real estate professional on Twitter, your goal should be to become your network’s trusted advisor. This means you should be sharing what makes you a great source of related information. Yes, listing information is important to your local network (for those planning to transact now or in the near future). But what about the vast majority who are not transacting. Surely you want to maintain your connections and provide resourceful and local information so that when those in the majority are ready to transact, they call you!
Why TweetLister needs a NEW attitude…ooh, ooh…ooh, ooh…ooh?
TweetLister mentions that you don’t need to understand Twitter to use their site. In fact, the “about page” goes on to profess that there’s really no need to go back to your Twitter Profile, just use TweetLister. Contrary to TweetLister, this is NOT “good news” to you or me!
If you are just using Tweetlister to ONLY post listings then you don’t really understand why and how Twitter benefits you and your network. You are missing the point!
According to TweetLister, it is ONLY for real estate listings and spammers will be blocked. Hmmm, the very nature by which listings are shared on TweetLister seems pretty spammy to me! For example, the “Add New Listing” form only allows for select information about the property (location, bedrooms, baths, features, etc.). See below:
You cannot change or modify the listing information provided within the tweet. The automated portion is helpful and fast, but there’s no room for customization. My suggestion would be to make the text modifiable. As RE pros, you know how important verbiage is on your listing flyers…and with only 140 characters, you need to make them count! I would also be extremely beneficial to have the ability to share various media….pictures, video, blog, single property site, etc.
MyTechOpinion
The way I see it, you could just as easily create your own “tweetlisting” directly from your Twitter.com profile (or Tweetdeck, Twhirl, Tweetlater, Twuffer, etc.), and do so in a more creative and professional way. At least then you can have complete control over what you can do with those 140 characters. You can simply add links to whatever related media (virtual tour, images, interesting info, etc) you have for that property. Better yet, you could share something special about the neighborhood, helpful maps, and/or other local specifics….and then provide a trackable link (like BudURL) to your listing site or blog. Include your own hashtag and call it a tweet! That’s MyTechOpinion, but feel free to share yours!
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Thank you for your review of TweetLister. While you make valid general points about using social media and the web for real estate listings, we feel you missed the specific point of TweetLister. The site is intended to save time and effort for a wide range of brokers and owners who want to use Twitter. These users might be expert Twits, like yourself, but are more likely to be those who are either new to Twitter or have yet to try it. The listing form on TweetLister takes the guesswork out of posting a Twitter-friendly tweet — which saves time and effort during the busy workday. It is true, as you say, that many brokers may want to post customized tweets, but the overwhelming response to our service shows that a great number of brokers and FSBO’s just want an easy way to get their info into the 140 character limit, with a shortened link, and with the added benefit of a detail page with a link to their own web listing (and with photo now!) and contact form for leads — without having to think about it too much. These already include brokers from Sotheby’s, Keller Williams, Prudential Realty, Century 21 and ReMax, all of whom are using TweetLister.
All that said, we genuinely appreciate your taking a look at TweetLister. We value your opinion, along with the valuable comments we have received from our many users, and we will take all of these into account as we continue to improve and expand the service.
Nik Nik, thank for the review. I like that companies are trying to leverage Twitter in the real estate arena, but statements like:
“TweetLister mentions that you don’t need to understand Twitter to use their site. In fact, the “about page” goes on to profess that there’s really no need to go back to your Twitter Profile, just use TweetLister. Contrary to TweetLister, this is NOT “good news” to you or me!”
Scare me.
I have seen what some agents have done with the automated post function on ActiveRain. They tweet every one of their blog posts and never interact with the community. That’s not how to get the most out of Twitter and IMO is an easy way to get unfollowed.
I hear you Lloyd that there are brokerages out there using TweetLister but my bigger concern is what the reaction is of the people receiving the Tweets. If I was following someone and this is all they were pumping out, I’m not sure how long I would keep following them. Just one man’s opinion.
Derek Overbey
Sr. Director of Marketing and Social Media
Roost.com
http://blog.roost.com
Hey Nik Nik! I totally agree. You can get so much more information into the 140 characters if you just post from your Twitter account. You have to make it interesting, or no one will click your link.
I can see both sides of the coin. Using a template to throw up listings on Twitter is pretty spam-like, but if no one likes it… you won’t have any followers.
I guess we’ll see how it plays out.
Also- I’m not really clear on why you could NOT use tweetlister and add additional, more personalized information as well.
I would quickly unfollow anyone that pumps out listings and doesn’t actually contribute unique content that relates to their industry. I use my blog to post a wide variety of available office space in Toronto and Twitter to highlight the unique opportunities that I feel are newsworthy.
Great concept and it’ll go places while the newbie agent dinosaurs try and learn how to leverage Twitter as a tool. I’d prefer companies like Twitlister spend their time creating a real network of like minded people like MyTechOpinion.com that you can subscribe to instead of being one of those spam like companies that can / may ruin Twitter for everyone.
Tweeting listings and nothing else would earn an unfollow from me. Unfortunately, I know too many REALTORs who would use this thing. Thanks for the post.
Lloyd- I understand where you coming from, honestly. I see the value in automation….but just not at the cost of my own creativity and brand. I think you are on to something here. I’d just like to see more more customization features in your form. I’d take note of the comments left here and perhaps revise your verbiage and how you reach out to your members. Offer free Twitter training classes to show agents and brokers the right ways to use Twitter and expand your list of features to provide more sharing than spamming. That’s social media!
Thank you…..Derek! I couldn’t have made the point clearer myself! Exactly…WHO will follow you? And how will your learn about your network and measure your impact….or lack there of.
Michelle- TweetLister provides a form that automates the process of creating a tweet with your listing information.
example:
2 br/2.0 ba $3100.00 Apt. for Rent Brooklyn, NY http://hotpads.com/listing/291940 – details: http://tlre.us/t_2909.aspx
If this is the type of info you’re sharing over and over again, think about how spammy that looks. Put some life and personality into what you share. For example, you may have gotten a new listing with a super cool pool in the backyard. Why not take a few pictures of that awesome feature of the home and twitter “How cool would it be to swim in this all summer!?” and attach a twitpic. The reality is that unless you actually take time to focus on building a local network on Twitter, your listing tweets won’t be relevant to most people. But the more interesting & relate-able you make your tweets the more tweeps are likely to engage with you.
Chris- WOW! Thanks for having my back! If you have love for Twitter, then you have the duty of sharing in an authentic manner. That’s how we roll!
Peter- If only they’d realize that just being themselves and sharing the content that matters to their local network would create bonds and relationships that lead to business…and did I mention, great relationships!
Hi NikNik,
DomsNetwork has just launched a new Twitter real estate
listing tool that is feature rich; and, best yet, its completely FREE. It dwarfs ANY competitor, including Tweetlister.
Love for you to critique it. Find it at: http://domsestates.com.
Dominic
Don’t lose too much sleep over it. I just tried it, and when I went to make the tweetlisting live the NEXT button was dead.
I think if people step back and understand the utility of a tool like this. Forget about followers and individual twitter accounts. Let’s say, for example, you create a unique Twitter Account w/ NO followers that you use specifically for a tool like TweetLister. This would allow you to post all your listings to Twitter and not care about offending your followers.
Now you’re probably saying what would the value of posting your listings to an empty Twitter account be? That’s where everyone is missing the point, big time. Once a tweet gets into Twitter, it’s archived and it’s available from search.twitter.com and TweetLister’s own search engine…and what that does is allows ANYONE on the Internet who’s searching for rental or sales properties to potentially find your listing.
Why do you list properties on multiple sites all over the Internet? The goal here should be the same. If you’re worried about your followers, create a 2nd account with no followers. The key is not to have your postings appear daily to your 1000s of followers who probably don’t read much of their daily timeline, but rather get that listing into Twitter. Get indexed. Get that listing available by search. That, and that alone, should be the key to getting your listings on Twitter or any other service…so that potentially, you’ll find a buyer or renter! (I’ve seen many Tweeple with 1000s of followers and can’t possibly imagine anyone taking much notice of a few listings here or there amongst other possibly useless information).
If brokers start to look at the utility of a tool like this with that mindset, I think you’ll find TweetLister is a great tool to accomplish just that. If has nothing to do with who’s using Twitter…it has everything to do with who’s finding that listing – whether it appears on Realtor.com or TweetLister.com. Oh and fyi, every time you post on TweetLister.com, looks like you’re getting a free backlink to whatever site you link your listing to for details. That alone could be worth taking the minute or so to post a listing on TweetLister in my mind.
Interesting debate going on here. I only list 3-5 properties a year, which are all multi-million dollar, green properties. I can’t see the utility of using a tool like TweetLister or Twitter to sell a $5M property. At the same time, I can’t say I necessarily see any harm in posting a daily or weekly tweet of the listing to my Twitter account.
What’s ironic is that several of you have said you would unfollow someone who pumps out listings only and doesn’t have any relevant content. In looking at the author’s post (no disrespect niknik – you’re the only one who left a Twitter account here), how many of your 4600+ followers do you honestly feel would say that your past 20 tweets are relevant to them? For that matter, how many of those 4600+ followers are truly followers?
I think that’s the big problem with Twitter. Everyone thinks people see what you write. Only your closest network of followers are probably really tracking what you say, and I agree, you don’t want to piss them off…so probably best not to pump those listings in their face, but let’s be honest….if you’re only on Twitter to pump listings, you’re probably in the wrong place anyway.
Again, I personally don’t see how many
Michael,
You do bring up a good point regarding indexing and I agree with you that it is important but it is just not the way I personally would use Twitter. Doesn’t mean I’m right and you’re wrong. It just means I feel the interaction is the key to social media not just the information.
John,
Our twitter handles are on the side of the comments. If my point was lost in translations, I apologize. What I was trying to say is that if someone new to Twitter was only pumping these canned listings (daily, weekly, monthly) and that was all that was in their stream, I’d be reluctant to follow them or keep following them. If they had interaction within these particular tweets, I would not see an issue.
Derek
@doverbey
NikNik,
What do you think of only a blog vs. a website and a blog for a real estate agent? Especially if the blog had virtually all the ‘normal’ things a traditional site has plus more?
With any application that is developed it’s always critical to consider the end user. Tweets like the example you showed nik nik are simply going to bore your audience.
Be creative with your tweets. Use compelling headlines like the newspapers do to create attention.
I think this service is for the lazy agent. As an agent you have been given the job to market the home the best way you can. Use your creativity within your tweets.
If you don’t believe me do some split testing & try the boring tweets. Then try some creative ones & see which ones you get the most click thru rate on. I know which one will win every time.
If you want to measure your conversions use tr.im, bit.ly or budurl.
PS: Keep in mind your strategy for uploading your listings onto Twitter is to ‘Sell the Click’ not the property.
‘Sell the Click’ first and once they gone over to your website, blog or individual property website, etc that’s when you’ve got them looking exclusively at your listing & your real estate company. Before then just ‘Sell the Click’
To learn more, click here…just kidding. I hope this helps. Cheers Greg
Nik Nik … I just posted the comment above on your blog & I don’t know who the person is standing in front of a fence in the photo beside my post, but it isn’t me. I don’t know how that could happen. Doesn’t bother me, I just thought you might want to know. Might be a settings thing???? Or maybe a stalker. Whooo… hehehe
I’m going to throw a couple things out that you all will probably disagree with.
1- “Just pumping out listings” may not be a bad thing if that’s what your follower is looking for. We have been very successful in “just pumping out listings” via twice weekly email blasts. The only caveat is that the listings are always very good deals and we only send 2 homes per message.
2- Don’t discount the effectiveness of tweeting listings in a very factual manner. IMO- internet home shoppers are turned off quickly by realtorspeak and smarmy hyperbabble. Just the facts works.
I wanted to thank everyone here for taking the time to check out Tweetlister. Several of the comments here and on Twitter have been quite constructive, and we are taking these into serious consideration as part of our plan to continuously improve what we offer. We recognize that our service is not for everyone. We have many experienced Twitter users who find TweetLister a convenient way to save time and effort. They like the way the listings are straightforward and searchable, and they generally also tweet on their own, mixing in their own informational or personal items. Many of our users are “newbies” to Twitter. They find TweetLister a friendly, non-threatening way to get into it. And others – such as the more proficient users and marketers here – don’t find a need for it. To them I would humbly request that you give us another look in the coming weeks and months as we get some of our planned upgrades and improvements in place.
Another fine example of social media missing the social component
hopefully if it is used the 90/10 is in full affect from the individual using it
While I do believe there should be a place for those who want to only post listings automatically (bleh), I don’t follow those who do so. Tweetlister to me is an excellent example of NOT getting Twitter. What’s social about automatically blasting things out to the world. Like plastic floating in the ocean…
I just created a service like the one mentioned above and hope to add as much features as I can to address what Tweetlister does not. We offer only a small service now but are working on a pro account with more functionality. We are trying to figure the best way to provide service, and still keep it true to social media. Would l like all the input I can get.