I have always loved Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. It is many things, not least of which is a truly amazing exposition on language. I bring this up because I recently read Brian Brady’s piece entitled Is Social Media Marketing Worth the Effort and quickly imagined myself on a walk with The Walrus and the Carpenter. Greg Swan commented on Brian’s piece by publishing a video of himself, talking to us about his lack of interest in Social Media Marketing. I can only describe this as so eerily representative of what one might find on the other side of Mr. Carroll’s looking glass that it’s borderline derivative! For reasons that will be clear in a moment, I felt compelled to jump into the conversation.
‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’
That’s logic… You just have to love the confidence of that line. What’s even more interesting is how well this quote appears to sum up a few of our SMM darlings. I’m thinking of Twitter here and as a matter of full disclosure: I’ve never used it. As a matter of fact, I don’t believe I’ve used any Social Media in a way that can be measured for Return on Investment or conversion of prospects into customers. As a matter of fact, the very idea of measuring return on investment or counting conversions goes a long way in explaining why so few people succeed in our business: they confuse marketing with advertising. I’m itching to write a piece exploring that malady and will get to it as soon as I can carve out a little extra time. But meanwhile, we have Twitter. I know people right here in the Hound who are so old-school when it comes to marketing that they’re actually successful in this business (I’m not directly referring to the Bawldguy here, but if you’re still unsure I will look in his direction and whistle) and yet even HE has a Twitter account! Go figure…
In Twitter Policies Come to Workplace, the main focus is on the banal problems Twitter engenders for those who choose to trade hours for money (and those who employ them). But here’s what I found really interesting:
TWITTER BY THE NUMBERS
2.9 million: Unique worldwide visitors to Twitter.com in June 2008.
44.5 million: Unique worldwide visitors to Twitter.com in June 2009.
40.5: Percentage of tweets that fall into the “pointless babble” category
37.5: Percentage of tweets that are conversational comments
21: Percentage of users who have never posted a tweet
5: Percentage of users who account for 75 percent of all tweeting activity
Now that’s eye-opening: 78% of all tweets are pointless babble and comments – which are often “stimulated” by pointless babble and must, by necessity, be babble themselves. And almost all of that originated by just 5% of the users! As a means for generating business, I would not call this a “target-rich environment.” But hey, who am I to comment? I don’t use the thing myself and maybe I just don’t see the logic behind it. Maybe the Twitterati are on to something. Maybe it all makes sense to someone… walking on some distant shore…
“The time has come,” the Walrus said,
To talk of many things:
Of shoes — and ships — and sealing wax —
Of cabbages — and kings —
And why the sea is boiling hot —
And whether pigs have wings.”
Jeff Brown says:
Twittering for business has been a FAIL big time from what I can see. I wouldn’t dispute the cited numbers a bit. 90% of my time there is spent touching bases with those I’ve either met in person, or online, and with whom I’ve developed a relationship with, whatever THAT means these days. And most of that is easily non-business. 🙂
The other 10%? I’m more interested in getting targeted people/brokers/agents to my blog. For that narrow agenda twitter has been relatively effective. On any given day roughly 10-14% of my daily readers come directly from twitter.
Another slice of that slim 10% is me being a Trojan Horse, ala Brian Brady — moving freely among countless real estate brokers/agents who could financially benefit from my presence in their business. Alas, that has been a huge disappointment to this point. I may hafta pay more attention to Chris Johnson who counsels a more direct approach via phone. So far, subtle hasn’t worked. 🙂
To those folks thinking twitter is a viable place to market your wares? Stop drinkin’ the Kool-Aid, cuz it ain’t gonna happen.
September 11, 2009 — 2:35 pm
Mark Madsen says:
I prefer connecting with people on twitter vs phone or email. A simple 140 characters should be enough to get the point across so that I can move through multiple conversations in a day.
Twitter is useful for creating awareness about something, driving traffic to a blog article, and getting in peoples’ social media space at a safe and comfortable distance.
What I love most about Twitter is that there are a ton of mortgage and real estate professionals talking shop and sharing links all day, which I have creatively used to get one of my sites indexed by the search engines.
Basically, Twitter serves more of an SEO purpose than anything else for me.
Thanks for all of the free content, my mortgage and real estate Twitter peeps. Please keep drinking the Kool-aid, you’ve been a huge help. 🙂
mm
September 11, 2009 — 3:20 pm
Missy Caulk says:
What is Twitter?
September 11, 2009 — 4:56 pm
James Kimmons says:
Sean,
I’m not in disagreement with any of your post. I’m still studying Twitter. However, for my personal real estate site, I’m having my posts auto-tweeted, and I’m sending specific price change alerts to Twitter.
Last week, Twitter as a referrer (Google Analytics) was third from the top in page views per visit, and on top by almost 2 to 1 for time spent on the site.
I have no idea if I’ll ever peg this to business, but when visitors from my Tweets are spending a lot more time on the site, I’m OK with it.
Jim
September 11, 2009 — 5:50 pm
Teri Lussier says:
Twitter is fun. The End.
>they confuse marketing with advertising. I’m itching to write a piece exploring that malady and will get to it
Please hurry.
September 11, 2009 — 6:03 pm
Greg Dallaire says:
Hmm… twitter dee twitter daa.. I would consider my self very tech savvy. With that being said it took me about 2 months to really figure out what the major use is for it.
Build a strong base of local follower’s. Post tweets to your blog that are relevant to your local audience that has a way of converting traffic into leads.
Interestingly enough i’ve met 3-4 people in person and haven’t even really gotten started on twitter. Overwhelmingly the people i’ve met have been extremely nice and I did happen to land a referral.
I would not spend any more time than you need to on there but when you are on twitter maximize your time and talk to as many people as you can. Overtime you’ll build relationships with people in your local area.
It’s not for everyone because it takes a while to even get the hang of it and i’m a nerd when it comes to computers.
September 11, 2009 — 8:29 pm
David Sherfey says:
>they confuse marketing with advertising
Yes, great topic! For Realtors, root cause = the broker agent model and it’s commission based pay system. but that is another topic.
I have a twitter account and barely use it – it is in study mode now. I am looking at some of those who are successful with it hoping to understand why, and then maybe do something with that understanding – via twitter or the next cool thing that comes along.
So far what I have seen (in part) is that writers, speakers, restaurants, and some unique companies are getting something from it. It seems that they generate a focused and relatively large population of fans who can respond with traffic. Writers and speakers have ongoing blogs with relevant content of a timeless nature, and their books and events are good marketing pieces to extend the interest. Restaurants don’t blog or write books (well, some may..) but have food, which we are all interested in three time a day, every day of the year. These are ongoing interests that ere not limited by time.
I think that most residential real estate transactions WE are interested in are limited by time. The transaction and its surrounding interest are not long enough to generate the same kind of buzz and traffic those mentioned above do. The individual interest isn’t up long enough or even continuously beyond a transaction so that a meaningful relationship with some kind of bond can develop. Once it is done the customer is on to the rest of their life and interest in RE is diminished. Could this be entirely different with investment properties? There you have a continuing interest that could support some kind of ‘social’ strategy.
The statistics you site are interesting, but we should remember the long tail effect and not stop at high level information to analyze the micro-section of traffic that relates directly to us. Gotta ask “why” a few more times.
September 12, 2009 — 6:28 am
Elad Kehat says:
Sean, I believe that the claim that 78% of tweets are pointless babble, while 100% true, misses the point. Wouldn’t you agree that, from an “objective” point of view, 78% (at least) of all you say during a normal day is pointless babble? In my own case it’s probably 99%. It’s all a question of context. Your utterances to co-workers are pointless babble when overheard by your kids etc.
A common misunderstanding of social media imho is the focus on *media* rather than *social*. It just isn’t media in the traditional, newspapery sense.
As for the environment being target-rich, it most definitely is – you just need to find the right targets among – the relevant posts among the irrelevant (to *you*) babble.
Take a look at http://www.demandspot.com (disclosure: I’m the site’s founder). We show you just the tweets of people actually looking to buy real estate, and you can filter by location. I’m sure you’ll find that twitter is a target-rich environment after all, and that it works extremely well for lead-gen (some tips here: http://wp.me/pCPZo-h)
September 12, 2009 — 8:40 am
Sean Purcell says:
Jeff,
To those folks thinking twitter is a viable place to market your wares? Stop drinkin’ the Kool-Aid, cuz it ain’t gonna happen
And this from someone whose Value Proposition has a much better Twitter audience (other agents) than a general “retail” agent.
…Chris Johnson who counsels a more direct approach via phone
Thank God “old school” never goes out of fashion. 😉
September 12, 2009 — 3:21 pm
Sean Purcell says:
Mark Madsen / David Sherfey
What I love most about Twitter is that there are a ton of mortgage and real estate professionals talking shop and sharing links all day
(Translation: NOT WORKING)
which I have creatively used to get one of my sites indexed by the search engines… Thanks for all of the free content, my mortgage and real estate Twitter peeps. Please keep drinking the Kool-aid, you’ve been a huge help.
This is in keeping with David Sherfey’s comments, with which I agree. It’s not that Twitter serves no purpose – nothing could be further from the truth. It’s just that the purpose is limited to functioning as part of a marketing campaign designed around “impulse” purchases (NOT homes) and of course: as “sheep’s clothing” for the wolves amongst us. Very astute Mr. Sherfey… Very diabolical Mr. Madsen. 🙂
September 12, 2009 — 3:39 pm
Jeff Brown says:
> Thank God “old school” never goes out of fashion.
Amen
September 12, 2009 — 3:40 pm
Sean Purcell says:
Missy – No, no, wrong post. You mean “Who is John Galt?” :0
James – your results are impressive. Please share more on what you “tweet”…
Teri – Twitter is fun. You know me well enough to know I’ll never knock you for exercising an indulgence in self-pleasure… 😉 I promise the other post will be next week.
September 12, 2009 — 3:48 pm
Sean Purcell says:
Greg,
I understand the idea, but Twitter seems so limited (and wasteful based on the numbers). Efficacy would dictate that your Twitter friends going to your blog once-or-twice sign up for a feed due to the relevance and importance of info you’re offering. Of course, with friends like that, who needs Twitter?
September 12, 2009 — 3:54 pm
Sean Purcell says:
Elad,
Wouldn’t you agree that, from an “objective” point of view, 78% (at least) of all you say during a normal day is pointless babble?
No, not by a long shot. I think about what I say before I say it. If my kids were to overhear me and not understand what I said it means they are ignorant, not that I am babbling. This is an interesting point though. I choose to associate with people who pay attention. That’s why I partner with Brian Brady and write for BHB. I don’t wish to waste time listening to people who babble and I most certainly won’t waste someone else’s time by babbling. Which of course begs the question on why I don’t Twitter in the first place.
I took a look at your site. From my limited perspective, you’ve Super-Sized the Twitter babble in order to find statistically significant banter (let’s not call it babble) regarding real estate. You will then sell this to agents who are doing the equivalent of turning around in the diner booth when they hear the next table over discussing real estate. (Don’t get me wrong, I am ALL FOR the diner turn.) But again, we are talking about a very cold intro. At least in the diner they prospect and agent share a geographic relationship from which to work. (E.g. in the booth the agent “cannot help overhearing and responds because he/she is ‘an expert’ in this field.”) What is the agent’s elevator speech after purchasing a Tweet lead? “Excuse me, but I intercepted your Tweet and I want you to know I’m available when you are (and I know where you live…)
September 12, 2009 — 4:16 pm
Louis Cammarosano says:
Thanks Sean
The people that make money on twitter are the ones wh promote their services as “social media gurus” Social media marketing experts” or “twitter experts”
These people make their money by giving seminars and speaking about “the power of social media and twitter”
Twitter can be fun and might lead to business-but then so might a walk in the park
September 12, 2009 — 5:17 pm
Brian Brady says:
“Excuse me, but I intercepted your Tweet and I want you to know I’m available when you are”
That’s pretty much the Tw-itch and it’s rarely effective
September 12, 2009 — 9:28 pm
Paul Dunn says:
Just saying the words tweet, twitted, twitterer in the professional environment kind of explains the basis of the platform.
Oh crap, I think I just TWEETERED!
September 14, 2009 — 9:16 pm