Real Estate, Twitter, and Ashton Kutcher – WIIFM?

Does Twitter = Money? Yes. But be careful…

Who’s the #1 Tweeter? If you answered Ashton Kutcher, you’re right – I bet half of you did. What does that tell you about Twitter? It’s good for brand – Ashton Kutcher will sell more movie tickets and make more money because of Twitter.

“But, he’s the #1 guy because he was already famous,” right? The fact is, it doesn’t matter – he was careful – he combined his existing marketing with Twitter to create something that was greater than the sum of its parts.

So, why do people listen to Ashton Kutcher? It’s because his brand targets a very specific demographic: people between the ages of 15 and 30 who are interested in what coffee he’s drinking, the celebrities he’s having lunch with, the movies he’s filming and the latest pop pshchology and politics he’s pushing – afterall, that’s who he sells movie tickets to, right?

So how does this apply to you?

Here are the main principles Ashton Kutcher, and every other successful marketer out there knows:

• know your market
• know how to target your market
• be an expert
• be consistent
• be committed
• understand very clearly: WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOUR CUSTOMER?

The fact is that 60% of people (including Realtors™) who get on Twitter abandon it after the first month. Check out this graph comparing Twitter’s retention rates to those of Facebook and MySpace:

Loyalty by website

So why did they abandon it? They were not careful. They:

• Tweeted out information not relevant to their market – none of your customers care what time you walked your dog this morning
• were underwhelmed by how few followers they got
• presented no unique information
• got tired of Tweeting after they’d Tweeted every 5 minutes for the first week
• didn’t find it novel anymore
• provided nothing of value to their customers

Today, the people today that plan and execute a Twitter campaign correctly will see long term benefit. They will:

• offer their customers valuable information (real estate market trends, links to interesting properties on their website, neighborhood news, etc.)
• pace themselves (send out a manageable number of Tweets/week)
• plan to do it for at least 6-12 months
• combine it with their existing marketing (real estate website, business cards, listing signs, etc.)

For these people, Twitter (will) = Money.