Twitter, Tweet-up, Tweeting – WTH?

Maybe you’ve heard some of these terms and have wondered what the heck?  You may think they sound more ridiculous than the first time you heard the word google.  But don’t let the funny names fool you, the website Twitter is HUGE and is getting HUGE-R.  Barack Obama uses twitter to communicate with 165,000 people instantly.  The Scottsdale Police Department uses twitter to broadcast road closings and other public notices.  All of Arizona’s news stations share links to stories and monitor twitter to find late breaking news, pictures and eyewitnesses.  The focus of this post is to help the beginners understand what twitter is, why it’s growing and the best ways to participate – according to the experts.

The What…

Twitter is a free communication service that allows you to send short updates (tweets) to your personal webpage.  Don’t worry about setting up this page, it’s done automatically when you create an account.  All tweets (updates) are restricted to 140 characters in length.  Because of this, it is really easy to find the time to send an update.  The magical part of it?  Other twitter users can choose to follow your updates and vice versa.  It allows you, me, and everyone else to send out updates/notices/tweets to your followers (aka sphere of influence) and to the world in a matter of seconds.  (You can choose to have your updates private so only the users you are following can see them, but I recommend sharing with the world.)

Since half of the battle of becoming familiar with something new is understanding the vocabulary, let me define the term ‘twitter stream’.  Remember the personal webpage that is set up automatically?  It has 2 columns.  The main column displays all your tweets.  As you send new updates, the older ones get pushed down the page.  As you continue to send updates the older list flows down the page – kind of like a stream flows, hence the term twitter stream.

When you sign up for twitter you get your own public page and you also get your own private page.  Your public page only displays YOUR twitter stream/list of updates.  Your private page shows you all the tweets of the people you are following – including your own.  The more people you follow = a higher frequency of updates posted to your private page = the faster the stream flows.  Twitter becomes really interesting when you follow people that are really interesting.  I feel the people that are dissatisfied with twitter are the ones that don’t follow interesting people.  Of course, like in real life, there are people that are inappropriate, vulgar, or boring.  The beauty of twitter is you choose to follow or un-follow anyone you would like.

Do you understand what I mean by followers and following?  It’s just referring to the other users whose tweets show up in your private stream (who you are following) and which individuals have your tweets showing up in their private stream (who are following you).  If you are following someone can they also send you a private message (direct message).

The Why…

According to this author the major reasons why it’s growing so fast include the cost, the ease of use, the number of ways to participate, and the people using it.  I feel the first two are the initial reasons for its success.  Because it’s easy and free – people started using it.  Now that there are so many interesting people using it, others are attracted to it.  It’s extremely simple to begin.  As soon as you sign up for an account – meaning you enter your name and your email address – you are ready to go.

As far as the number of ways to participate… not only can you send updates from your computer and your cell phone, but there are also programs that can send updates automagically on your behalf.  This gets into more advanced usage and I just want to scratch the surface for the beginners.  Just know that you can have pictures, blog posts, videos, and many other things automagically updated to twitter with some of the applications available.  However, if you don’t participate in conversations just uploading a bunch of links will do you no good.  Step 1 is to interact with other users.  You will also find your followers grow as you talk to other people.

Let’s talk about Phoenix news anchor Beverly Kidd.  You may know she is on Channel 3 news from 9-10 in the evening.  I was watching the news report a few weeks back and she mentioned that she was on twitter.  I opened up the laptop and sent her a message while she was on air.  During a commercial break she responded.  This was my first experience with interactive live TV.  I mentioned Barack Obama earlier, but you should know there are a lot of Senators and government agencies using twitter.  Check out this website for an actively growing list.  Last but not least, is an incomplete list of Phoenix and Arizona real estate leaders using twitter to communicate.  Some of them are not the most active users, but know that twitter is not just for the kids…

Jim Sexton – Owner/Broker John Hall & Associates – B.O.D. ARMLS

Duane Fouts – Past Owner of Dan Schwartz Realty – 2008 and 2009 President of ARMLS

Diane Scherer – CEO Phoenix Association of REALTORS®

Kerry Melcher – 2009 President elect Phoenix Association of REALTORS®

Tom Farley – CEO Arizona Association of REALTORS®

Michael Wurzer – Owner FBS Data (flexmls)

Now what?

I’d like to think this is the most debatable part of this article.  I’m going to share with you a few of the ways I’ve grown my network on twitter and a source to read how others in the real estate industry use it, but there is no one way to do this.  Once you understand how it works, you will develop your own ways of using it.  “I guarantee it”.

Starting anything new can be intimidating.  You’re not sure if you are doing it right and you don’t want to appear like you don’t know what you are doing.  Since you may still be developing your instant messaging skills – you might have little or nothing to say.  That’s all okay and perfectly normal.  The fact is everyone who starts using a service like this (one that allows for status updates) goes through a short learning curve on getting comfortable.  I like the way Dru Bloomfield puts it in the Twitter Q&A published by AAR in December (see pages 7 and , “I view Twitter etiquette as similar to that at a cocktail party where you don’t know many people.  Especially in the beginning, listen, watch, introduce yourself.  And then begin to share and converse.  It’s a great community of people.”

While you are observing others communicate you will find you only see one side of the conversation.  To see the other side you have to click on the other person’s profile name/handle.  In order for both sides to show up in your twitter stream you have to follow the other person in the conversation.  Once you add them to your stream you can now see both sides.  This is how I started growing my network and it’s how I continue to do it today.

One tool you can use to find other people who have similar interests as you is search.twitter.com.  This site searches all of twitter for the word or phrase you type in.  Kind of like google for twitter updates.  So if you are interested in guitar picks for example, type it in and see who is talking about it.  You can then follow those people or join that conversation.  And so goes the networking…

It is amazing how similar online and offline networking are.  When you go to a cocktail party where you only know a few people do you stand up on a chair and say, “I’M A PHOENIX REAL ESTATE AGENT!  CALL ME IF YOU NEED TO BUY OR SELL!”?  I hope not.  Same rules apply online.  Jay Thompson was recently quoted in the same article Dru’s comment above was published.  He says, “Do not be ‘salesy’.  …  Contribute, grow your ‘social media sphere’ and people will learn what you do and how you do it.”

The beauty of using the internet to network is that you have access to a much larger and much more diverse group of people than is available at any one place offline.  Get an account and participate to fully understand the power.  For more specific information on the technical ‘how to use twitter’ – I highly recommend this page.  Even after using twitter for a year, I’m learning new short cuts.

@psexton