One of the toughest things about marketing is accurately anticipating what your potential clients need and what they are looking for. You design radio ads, billboards, bus stop posters, and yard signs hoping they will catch an interested person's eye and your phones will start ringing. This shotgun approach to real estate lead generation can be expensive and difficult to track.

More targeted approaches are recommended to real estate agents to pinpoint the interest of leads looking for specific services. One of those methods is by using Twitter effectively. Twitter is one of the most popular social media outlets available on the internet. Not only do users interact on their home computers, but they can quickly access their Twitter account on their smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

Users can follow and interact with their favorite celebrities, athletes, and movie stars, chat with friends, and keep up with popular trends being talked about nationwide. Others use it to quickly, and frankly, interact with their "followers" in a format that only allows them to use less than or equal to 140 total characters to get their message across. It is easy to post pictures, videos, and links to your favorite articles and blogs in seconds.

What does any of this have to do with real estate?

Twitter takes the guessing out of figuring out what your customers want and need. Reading tweets between users and their followers is a lot like listening to friends chatting in a coffee shop, except no one is going to get upset if they catch you eavesdropping. Knowing what people want to talk about takes the guesswork out of lead generation on Twitter as long as you are using it correctly.

Like any other social media strategy, there are "dos" and "don'ts" to using Twitter effectively. Let's take a look at the "dos" first:

Tweet the information that your followers want to read about

If you are using it as a personal account, tweet about things that will appeal to your followers.

If you are using it as a business account, use it to connect with local professionals.

If you are using it as a way to help prospects find out about new listings, then that's all that you should do with that type of Twitter account.

Go to the search engine and type in keywords and topics that will help you find individuals that are talking about real estate

For example, you may type in "buying a house" into the search engine, press enter, and see who's talking about buying a house. Lots of people use Twitter to simply state what is on their mind, and they may be curious as to who is actually listening.

Interact with individuals on a personal level

If you read a tweet that says "Thinking about buying a house, but it's been SO confusing," what opportunities might there be to interact with this individual? You could reply by saying, "Yeah, buying a house is a big decision. If you need help, I'm happy to answer questions. What's on your mind?"

Connecting on a personal level is what makes interactions in Twitter more valuable. Instead of seeing you as a real estate agent looking to make money, you are the helpful, friendly person that they chat with on Twitter who just so happens to be a real estate agent.

What are the "don'ts" to using Twitter?

Following others-well, hundreds of others-to superficially increase your list of followers

Some users go into Twitter and search for a term like "real estate." They see who's talking about real estate and then click the "Follow" button on every user. Naturally, many of those individuals will see that they have a new follower and subsequently click on their "Follow" button as a way of thanking them for connecting. Some companies do this all day long and end up with hundreds of followers as a result.
These users are usually pretty easy to spot. Most of them are following way more users than there are users following them.

You can also spot them by clicking on their user profile and reading their most recent tweets. If they're only sending out advertising, they're probably not the type of follower you are looking for.

Treating your Twitter account like it is a mass emailing server

Companies will increase their number of followers using the above-mentioned method and then tweet out advertisements relentlessly thereafter. There is no faster way to lose followers on Twitter than by using it as your company's personal email spammer.

Come across as a salesperson in your interactions

If you find an individual chatting about real estate, the last thing you want to do is reply to their tweet with something that sounds like you are a walking infomercial.

The key to generating leads on Twitter is all about making personal connections. Put yourself in your prospect's shoes: what do they want to talk about? Who do they want to chat with? Do you make them feel comfortable enough to interact with you further or follow you in return? The best part about Twitter is that it is totally free and easy to use. The time commitment is totally up to you, so the more you put into it, the more leads you can generate. You will know exactly what your potential customers are talking about and then have the opportunity to engage them and convert them as your next Exclusive Real Estate Leads.

Zipbrands.com helps real estate agents use Twitter to capture buyer and seller leads. Every lead gets a Home Toolkit account to organize the home buying and selling experience, and stay connected to their agent.

Real estate agents who want to capture more leads are linking to their website or our included landing page to let buyers and sellers sign up for their own Home Toolkit. Check out how zipbrands.com can help you market to Twitter and everywhere else.