Twitter’s new function
In the past, Twitter’s search function left much to be desired and while it’s far from ideal, they’ve at least revamped their advanced search to place emphasis on commonalities rather than celebrity. The former search used to only search users’ bios for your targeted words but now, searched words include tweets.
There are a number of ways that real estate professionals can use the new Twitter advanced search. It is ideal to connect with people first over interest to facilitate a more legitimate bond than the “hey, I searched Twitter and saw you are house hunting, lemme be your Realtor” tweets.
Are you a fashionista? Search popular hashtags for a specific geographic area, so “fashion” within 25 miles of “Dallas, TX” if that is your market will now show you what people in the area are saying rather than limiting it to searching users’ bios.
Are you looking to use Twitter less as a lead generator and more as a professional water cooler for exchanging ideas and mingling with fellow real estate professionals? Search for “real estate” in your area or check out hashtags without restricting it geographically (like #NARPSI).
Do you remember a specific person saying something but can’t find it or don’t know how far back to dig? Maybe your client gave you a rave review on Twitter but you are tired of scrolling back in time? You can now search tweets and restrict it to only search “from these people” and include your client AND her husband’s twitter handles. Save those tweets for testimonials later.
If you have endless time, you can always search within 5 miles of your city and manually forage through every result (there may be thousands if you’re in a tech city). You might find some hidden gems, but this is pretty time consuming.
Learning from a conference you weren’t able to attend can be easier with Advanced Search by limiting your search to hashtags and geography.
Getting the pulse on attitudes toward real estate in your market can be done by search strings in a targeted geographical area such as “real estate,” “realtor,” “new home,” “moving” and the like. You can target weak spots in the market and maybe even underserved markets, so use it as an information gathering tool in addition to making new connections.
Improvement at Twitter?
There are endless ways to use the new search tool and although there are easily better tools out there and this is far from as robust as one would expect from Twitter with their millions in investment. We’re happy to see something improving at Twitter and while we wait for real improvement, we’ll be using the advanced search feature to improve our own use of the network.
What new tricks will you use with the new search feature?
