Marketing 101: a starter guide for using Twitter and blogging in real estate marketing

With all the options we have to share our information online, it can be a bit confusing on where to start first. In marketing your business, products, services or real estate listings, emails and newsletters are great and shouldn’t be left out. If you are a real estate professional, the many web feeds available to real estate search engines are a plus, but what about the new social networking sites? Did you know that about 200 million people accessed Facebook today? Millions are tweeting on Twitter everyday and YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, following Google. No matter what business you are in, It is time to incorporate social networking as part of your marketing distribution! It isn’t hard, but it will take some time. So set aside a few hours this week to get set up.

To help you get started, here is my simple “How To” on posting your services or listings online to the top mainstream social networking sites. But take note, you have to have your tools in order FIRST so you can rock and roll with the postings!

How to Post real estate listings to the Top Social Networking (SN) Sites -Feeding your Twitter, YouTube and Facebook Content

A: Tools Needed:

1 – For real estate agents, a great listing – or if you don’t have a listing yet, an article about your niche area.  For other businesses a well written informational article on your favorite subject, or a well written sales letter promoting a special or product offering

2 – MLS listing information and MLS number or product/service information code

3 – At least 15 photos of your listing, interior, exterior and detail, or several photos with close up detail of your product or service

4 – Well written copy for the description, no more than 135 characters

5 – A powerful headline, something with searchable keywords in it

6 – Accounts set up for:

Twitter.com, Facebook.com, Youtube.com, LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com,Animoto.com, Friendfeed.com, igoogle.com,
myspace.com, blogger.com, wordpress.com, Trulia.com, Addthis.com

7 – A good mail list of your contacts, SOI, clients and their email addresses

B: Feed your listing to the world of SN sites

1 – Upload your listing as usual to MLS using the well written copy for the description and the beautiful 15 photos

2 – Create an out of the box video of your listing using the 15 photos on Animoto.com

3 – Download the video and save it to you harddrive

4 – “Share” the video on Animoto with your social networking sites

5 – Upload the video to your YouTube.com page and be sure to use your well written copy describing the listing, use your headline in the title section of YouTube, “share” and/or invite your database to view the YouTube video

6 – Go to your blog account and post a blog entry of your listing, write about the listing and include details, give community, school and shopping info and a nice description of the property area, add your photos as a gallery

7 – Copy and paste your blog entry into your Trulia.com blog and upload your video, “share” with your other sites and / or email page to friends

8 – Add blog entry as an “article” on linked in, and set up your Linkedin account to “feed” your blog postings directly to your Linkedin home page

9 – Feed Facebook your blog entry using one of the property photos as the thumbnail, be sure to use your catchy headline for your “status” or “what are you doing”

10 – Tweet out on Twitter your catchy headline with a URL to your blog, YouTube or Facebook, add your database to the “find friends” and invite them to join you on Twitter

Remember, that Twitter allows no more than 140 characters, so if you have a long URL to your blog or video, get a shorter one at: www.tinyurl.com.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You can set up your SN sites to feed each other. For example: I can set up my SN sites to feed each other. So one blog posting can be “shared” to Twitter then Twitter will feed Facebook and Plaxo, etc. Also, I can share from my blogger to most all popular SN sites. Here is how I make a posting, in this order:

1. Post complete informational or entertaining article or video to blog
2. Share blog post to Twitter which feeds my Facebook and Plaxo, and all other sites via the “addthis” button on my blog. Some blogs like Trulia will have to be added individually.

I know I can make it sound easy, but it doesn’t have to be hard, it just requires you to have your tools in order and be organized with your information. Oh yea, and it requires a little bit of your focused time. But for the potential exposure, I think it is well worth it!

“The more you communicate with your market, the more you will thrive!”