Twitter history documenting tool
While some social media gurus will tell you to jump into social media, get a feel for it and adapt, we encourage seeking out and implementing tools that track your use because we’re not here to play, we’re here to do business. Instead of talking about how to use Twitter to farm your local market (hint: follow locals, not 20,000 agents), we want to talk about using a new Twitter tool for business because you can’t measure ROI if you don’t know what in the world your “I” is. Links you share on Twitter should be backed by analytics as importantly as your Twitter usage should be documented and backed up separate from Twitter.com.
Enter Twistory, whose tagline is “twitter + history and that’s really it.” Without even logging into Twitter, add your Twitter activity (not including direct messages) to most web calendars like Google Calendar and iCal. I will note, however, that it took quite some time for it to begin loading to my calendar and it only updates one or two times per day as I can tell, so be patient.
Why you should document
There are endless reasons you should document Twitter history, but here are a few:
- Depending on the laws in your state, you are required to keep record of all of your communications with clients from the very moment you make contact. In today’s world, if that contact occurs on Twitter, you should have record of said event. Some states require you to keep communications regarding a real estate transaction for five years, some up to ten. This is the most critical use of Twistory for your business.
- Some brokerages or agents have their administrators managing some or all of their online presence. If my admin is tweeting as the brokerage, you’re darn tootin’ I want to easily see what all is going on at the front desk. I prefer to see at a glance in a documentable way what anyone on staff is doing with company resources, you?
- Making your twitter history searchable is como se dice, awesome. Well, it’s useful. Perhaps you don’t recall something you said publicly or you need to compile a list of all of the times you mentioned a subdivision in comparison with your hyperlocal subdivision blog’s traffic. There are endless reasons you may want to refer to your history, but it is a function that is critical for business (to be able to reference your communications).
- Because you don’t have to sign in to a Twitter account, you can subscribe to multiple feeds and color code them on your web calendar. So, if you want to track and document your history as a broker, alongside your agents, you can do so. If you want to log your competitors so you can study their use of Twitter. Think about it- without having to sit on Twitter all day and watch, you can have a searchable log of any Twitter user. Talk about trend watching!
Twistory is great for remaining in compliance, tracking use and adding a search function to your (and others’) Twitter history. There are many more ways this tool can be used in a real estate business, let us know in comments how you could use Twistory!
Photo tour:
Lani is the COO and News Director at The American Genius, has co-authored a book, co-founded BASHH, Austin Digital Jobs, Remote Digital Jobs, and is a seasoned business writer and editorialist with a penchant for the irreverent.

Karen Goodman
December 10, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I’m a little afraid to see how much time I’m spending on twitter! Of course, 3 of my current listings and 1 of my buyer prospects came from twitter. So I guess it’s time well spent.
Lani Rosales
December 11, 2009 at 12:48 am
Oh silly, it’s not about time, it’s about quality. I think you provide great quality!
Kevin Tomlinson
December 11, 2009 at 12:37 am
I keep trying to add this and I get a notifcation saying I don’t have permission to add this???
eeh?
Lani Rosales
December 11, 2009 at 12:41 am
weird, i had no problems. it’s a little wonky, so you might try it a few times and see… let me know if it works for ya, i hope it does! ๐
Scottsdale Real Estate
December 11, 2009 at 1:16 am
Twitter is emerging as a leading social website in promoting business.
walidmrealtor
December 11, 2009 at 8:12 am
Great tool Lani! I’ve just come up with some ideas on how I can use this… ๐
Thank you for sharing!
Paula Henry
December 11, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Lani – Great tool and great advice about the uses. Many communications are not documented and after time, memory may not serve us well – at least my memory may not.
Lani Rosales
December 11, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Paula, in the era of mass communication, it’s easy to forget some of the thousands of information points every moment of every day.
Dave Woodson
December 11, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Super tool, I would love to track my messages over the past few weeks and it has given us an idea for a new way to use it. We will share once we launch it
Lani Rosales
December 11, 2009 at 10:07 pm
I’m soo curious and I’m dying to know your thoughts- be sure to come back and tell us what you come up with!!!! ๐
Jeremy Hart
December 23, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Dave, interested to hear how you guys are implementing this. Is it ready for public consumption yet?