Real estate Twitter tips

"Speed kills ... except for real estate--.Anonymous".

People are using Twitter to share their experiences. They are also using it for crowdsourcing: posing questions and problems to a group of people.They are hoping for a quick and useful reply. They tweet (post on Twitter) for advice. They tweet for referrals. They tweet for real estate advice. Yes, they tweet that they are looking for homes ... and Realtor. No kidding.

So, how do you find these folks?

Here are some tools to help real estate professionals find them quickly and with little effort.

1. DemandSpot is a Twitter real estate search tool designed to help folks find buyers (and sellers). Simply enter a geographic area, a search radius up to 200 miles, and select a real estate keyword from a list.DemandSpot will return tweets that contain those keywords, together with the link to the person who tweeted it.

Here is a result I found in the New York area, searching under the "condo" keyword: "Looking to buy a condo in NYC area (sic) anyone have any contacts or suggestions?" Once you locate a person requesting help on Twitter you can engage that individual. Since that person reached out on Twitter, you have that permission to offer help.

A tip: Read the profile and Twitter stream of the person who is seeking help to get a sense of who they are. Then decide how to engage them. Add a link to your LinkedIn or Facebook profile so that person can get a sense of you.DemandSpot has certain limitations. You cannot choose your own keywords and you cannot subscribe to updates. DemandSpot also wants you to contact the person through them. (To identify and contact the person directly, you can click "All Recent Updates.").

The following tools overcome these limitations...........

2. Twitter search engines: Twitter Search; GeoChirp; Monitter.

Twitter Search: Simply enter search terms you think will locate people tweeting for real estate help.Some search-term suggestions include: "anyone know a Realtor," "looking for real estate agent," or "house hunting" (very popular).Tweets will be returned in the results with the search terms highlighted.

3. Tweetlister lets you tweet your real estate listings to Twitter. You can schedule the listing tweet time and frequency. Each listing links to its own detail page with a broker/agent profile. The tweets go to your designated Twitter account.

Related Topics Top 10 Tips for Real Estate Agents Using Twitter