Not long after you become a regular user you’re going to have people follow you on Twitter, and that’s a great thing! That means people are becoming interested in what you have to say. Now the question–do you follow them back?
Keep It Local
Well, that can depend on many factors. For instance, I almost always follow someone who is local, provided they are a real person. And since you’re trying to build a local real estate business, it would probably be a good idea for you to follow back as many local folks as you can. After all, if you follow our suggestions and use Twitter wisely, these are the people who are ultimately going to become your online sphere, so treat them well!
Make it Interesting
I will also choose to follow other non-locals if their profiles sound interesting, or if they have a link to their profile on the Twitter profile (keep this in mind for yourself – as soon as you have a blog, link to it on your Twitter profile!). I will also look back over their tweets and see if they are posting about interesting things and if they are actually talking to other people. If they are only retweeting others or only using Twitter as their personal blog feed, I probably won’t follow them. However, if they appear to be real, interesting people, I will definitely give them a chance. I have met several folks who have either lived in my area at one time or who are planning on moving here someday this way.
Look for Balance
I’m a lot more likely to follow these people if I see that their follower to friend ratios are balanced. For example, if they are following 1,000 people, but only have 25 friends, I might think they are at worst a spambot or at best someone who just doesn’t get Twitter. Either way I probably won’t follow them back. Or, if they have 2,000+ friends and followers, I might wonder how on earth they will ever be able to hear anything I have to say and will choose not to follow them. Again, remember this when you are building your Twitter sphere. In my opinion, quality defintely always trumps quanity when it comes to friends and followers. You don’t want someone choosing not to follow you because you’ve followed 500 people you barely know and no one has followed you back.
Stay on Target
If you have anything about real estate in your Twitter bio (and you do…right?) and if you tweet about real estate at all (and pleaes tell me you’re doing that too), you’re going to get a lot of other real estate agents following you on Twitter. Twitter has a very strong and vocal group of agents from all over the country who are quite tech savvy and also very tweet happy. While it’s fun to tweet back and forth with these agents and possible that you can make some connections that can lead to referrals, always keep in mind that you are ultimately on Twitter to build relationships with potential future clients. I’m not saying not to build relationships with these other agents. Just don’t get so caught up in talking to other agents that you forget about everyone else. Sounds silly, but I’ve definitely seen it happen.
Keep it Real
You also have to learn to steer clear of spammers, and there are a lot of them on Twitter these days. More often than not, if someone’s user name is “Candy9873″ or “Julie212o” the user is a spambot and not a real person. And you obviously don’t want to follow a spambot. Another tip off that a user is a spammer is the ratio of their followers to friends. Many spammers will be following thousands of people, but only have 1 or 2 friends. They will also have relatively few tweets and many of the tweets will simply be repeats on the same general theme.
Shop the Twitter Marketplace
You will also find that many local and national businesses will start to follow you on Twitter. They are using Twitter to market themselves and who can blame them? You’re using Twitter to market yourself too, right? I decide whether to follow businesses back on a case by case basis, usually based on whether the business offers goods or services I’m interested in. However, there are a few businesses that I follow simply because I like how they use Twitter to market themselves and want to see what they will do next.
When All Else Fails, Unfollow
Sometimes you will follow someone and later decide to unfollow them, either due to the sheer number of or the inappropriate nature of their tweets. Unfollowing people is fine, but remember that some people keep track of who is following them and will take offense at being unfollowed.
Keep these tips in mind this week as you get new friend requests and be mindful of the people you choose to follow back. Go through all your current followers and try to determine if any are spambots. If they are, block them from your account.
