8 basic steps for Jamaican Realtors to Get Started on Twitter and Increase their Visibility
3:50 AM Posted by Stephanie Treasure
Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers. Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default, allow open access. Users can send and receive tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.
As a marketer, my advice is to be visible and active in social media and use it to leverage your visibility, leverage your offline marketing efforts, to connect with your audience or target market wherever they are (and they are indeed on one social media platform or another). So get involved, get interactive and get more business.
Here are some basic steps to get started:
1) Go to Twitter.com and click on sign up Go ahead and sign up and be sure to use your real name, a Twitter username that is either close to your real name, represents your brand/product/service in a simple and clear way. So ‘TheActionMaven’ or ‘John Doe’ is good, but ‘Act1234’ is not descriptive enough. This is important because once you start building your Twitter followers, you want to be recognizable and consistent across all your social media platforms.
2) Once you sign up, the next thing to do is to adjust your settings First, go to notifications and uncheck, ‘send an email when someone starts to follow me’ and ‘send an email when I get a Direct message’. Twitter is a fast-growing social media platform. It’s easier to find random people, celebrities or people doing business in your niche than it is to do the same thing on Facebook. And there are people on this platform that directly monetize Twitter with Affiliate marketing programs and the like. These people make it a part of their day to mass follow Twitter users. There are programs and software that are structured to do help them do just that. So once you are on Twitter, you will find people following you that you don’t know. These emails can be annoying because you can receive 20 and more unsolicited followers per day. That is alot of email to go through.
3) Profile Next is to customize your profile. As you know, Twitter is a micro-blogging platform. So Twitter updates and even your profile has to be kept under 140 characters. Write something descriptive about your business or your brand, maybe a mission statement. Try to make it sound results-oriented or solution-oriented so that as soon as someone in your niche sees it, they will say, ‘That’s just what I need!’ For instance, ‘Successful Jamaica Real Estate Sales Consultant committed to finding the best deals for my clients. I focus on a win/win solution for all.’
4) Website Include your website URL in your profile in the space allotted for Website or URL. This is important for branding and promotional purposes along with your profile. It is also helpful for your website page ranking, the factor that helps your website to get found on the search engines. To optimize your profile and help users to see your website easier, enter your website in the format, http://yourwebsite.com instead of http://www.yourwebsite.com Test the former to make sure it actually goes to your website when clicked.
5) Follow people in your niche There are many Twitter Directories out there. Do a Google search for Twitter Directories and then use one or two of them to find followers using your most popular keywords for your niche. You can also do a twitter search for #hashtags related to your niche and follow the people that are using them. Hashtags are keywords preceded by the '#'to categorize tweets, i.e. #jamaicarealestate Hashtags are most commonly placed at the end of a tweet but it is not a rule.
6) Set up automatic sharing on Twitter If you do article marketing, video marketing and if you have a blog, you can customize your settings to update your twitter status every time you update those networks. You can also set up automatic Tweets through Hootsuite.com or SocialOomph I use the latter to send motivational quotes at specific intervals throughout the day.
7) Start getting interactive ReTweet, comment or share links with the people in your niche. Motivational quotes are very common and tend to get ReTweeted quite a bit. ReTweets and @ mentions are great for exposure to other people’s networks which helps to increase your followers.
8) Promote your Twitter Profile Include a link or note on your website, blog or other social networks inviting people to follow you on Twitter.
Twitter is a powerful micro-blogging social media tool that provides an avenue to build your brand and increase your virtual visibility. It’s fun, interactive, but can be time-consuming. Decide on a schedule for you or your company’s participation and then be consistent with it for optimum benefit.
Social Media and the Jamaica Real Estate Market
12:36 PM Posted by Stephanie Treasure
If social media is not currently a part of your marketing strategy, it needs to be. The Real Estate business is a lot about networking. Now with the advent of social media, the networking community has moved to the Internet too. Jamaicans are not only talking about their online social media networks, but they are quite active in it. To maintain and increase your company’s visibility, it is essential to join the conversation. Here are some basic tips to get started and expand your online network through social media:
1) Focus Choose the networks that you will be active in. If you establish 10 different profiles across as many platforms, your efforts look diluted if you are not active in ALL of them. Plus you will have a harder time keeping up with so many networks. Choose 1 or 2 maybe even three and become a pro user with them.
2) Leverage Post offline pictures from events like Seminars or sponsorship opportunities on the Social Media networks that you have chosen to become involved in. This gives you more of a spread for your sponsorship and advertising dollars. In the case of advertising, get artwork from your newspaper Ads or magazine ads and attach as a picture. This exposes your online network to your offline advertising in case they missed it.
3) Be Consistent If you have decided to start a blog and a Facebook Fan Page or Group for your company, be consistent with postings. Decide if you will update your blog once per week and make sure you update your Facebook Page with the posting as well. Exceptions of course can be made however, based on point #2 above.
4) Add value Submit content to your social media network of choice that will add value to your end user or prospect. Sure, you can use it as a form of advertising, but remember that the social media users don’t just want to be marketed to, but engaged. It’s a fine line, but try at all times before ‘posting something’ to put yourself in your prospect’s shoes and if you think it adds value, then go ahead and post it.
5) Involve your staff, sales consultants, etc. They should be a part of your Facebook page, follow you on twitter, subscribe to or follow your blog or whatever platform you choose. This shows cohesiveness to your prospects and also expands your reach as you get exposed to your staff members’ network as well.
So get started today. It’s best to manage your social media strategy through one point person or project manager in your organization. Forward moving Fortune 500 companies have even created new positions around social media like Social Media Manager and Social Media Strategist positions. However, smaller and medium size companies have found success through outsourcing. This is the most feasible option for Jamaica Real Estate Agencies and Industry related companies in the current economic climate. It is less expensive and can also be better managed this way. Some local companies and individuals are already doing this to some success. For information on how we can help, click here.
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