I Wish More Real Estate Bloggers Would Use Twitter

By Daniel Rothamel on October 12, 2007

I admit it. I am into the whole social media thing.

1. Facebook? Check.
2. LinkedIn? Check.
3. Twitter? Check.

I am a self-professed information junkie, so I find these sites fascinting. I have also found that they are a great way for me to stay in contact not only with my clients, but with other RE.net bloggers out there. I have met plenty of new bloggers and made some great contacts by using Facebook and LinkedIn. Twitter seems to be lacking a significant real estate voice, however. Sure, some of my favorite real estate bloggers have Twitter profiles (Greg, Joel, & Jim among them). The problem is, they don’t update them much, if ever. I think this is a real shame.

I started using Twitter a few weeks ago. I admit that I came in with a built-in bias against Twitter. To be honest, I find the stated purpose of Twitter (i.e. “What are you doing?”) pretty lame. I don’t think there are a lot of people out there who really care what I am doing at any given moment. I decided that I would try to follow 5 rules when writing my tweets. I didn’t want things to get boring.

In true Web 2.0-spirit, people have taken Twitter and turned into more than just countless status updates of millions of random people. It is truly a great place to find out what has captured people’s attention. All you have to do is seek out people who you find interesting and follow their tweets. It is a great way to stay on the bleeding edge of news and information.

Twitter has also established itself as a premier micro-blogging platform. It has been great for me because I can post links on Twitter that I find interesting, but that I don’t really have the time or inclination to use an entire blog post to discuss. There are plenty of other notable bloggers out there who are doing the very same thing. Sometimes following the tweets of others has inspired blog posts of my own. At the very least, Twitter has become a platform from which to launch discoveries into all sorts of things that I might have otherwise missed.

Real estate bloggers could benefit tremendously from using Twitter. The micro-blogging aspect of Twitter could be very valuable to people like real estate bloggers, who I am sure have all kinds of great ideas, but not always the time to write about them. Let’s say that I read a great story about mortgage fraud, but I just don’t have the time to devote a full post to it. I can post the link on Twitter, and perhaps someone else who is following me will follow the link and write a post of their own. Even if that doesn’t happen, because bloggers tend to be more plugged-in to what is happening in the industry, Twitter would help everyone stay on top of the industry by offering instantaneous communication and dissemination of information. In a way, Twitter is a living uber-wiki.

The real estate bloggers that I know are all very smart and creative people. Twitter offers a convenient and efficient way to get their message out to not only the rest of the blogosphere, but also to the public as well. I am also confident that real estate bloggers could also come up with alternative uses for Twitter that would benefit us all, bloggers, clients and customers alike.

So, real estate bloggers, if you are reading this, head on over to Twitter and get going– the RE.net needs you!