To Tweet? Or not to Tweet? The Pitfalls and Joys of the Social Media Experience

I have just been reading the article “Your brand is your baby” by Tracy Falke in the Property Drum magazine and it has intrigued my curiosity further into the realm of social media and marketing. I have just returned to my home town of Sheffield after spending three years working and learning various different PR and marketing skills to use within the property business environment in the glorious city of Edinburgh, where agents are literally streets ahead in terms of grasping social media.

My journey started with me attending a Chamber of Commerce evening course over three years ago, when I was trying to make friends and connections in the new city, I even attended a night school on tax for the self-employed (such fun!). Interestingly though, the course on social media was led by a gentleman called Alex Ogilvie who introduced me to the concept of how Twitter could be the most essential free marketing tool that you would need in business today. He spoke for hours with passion and intensity about the joys of hashtags and ff’s and about what to do if a topic or buzzword was “trending”.

So, why then does every single major organisation in the world, every major (and minor) celebrity, blogger, hopeful, no-hopeful, troll, dragon…, have a Twitter account? A facebook page? A blog? A Google+ account? Because, whether we like it, or not, it works.

For brand awareness, whether you still believe in buying newspapers or not, the internet is the only way forwards to building your brand and to make your connections with the entire world.

Tracy says “It is a real challenge to get it right, to learn to run without falling over every two minutes, to learn to communicate with the huge global audience that awaits you on the internet” and it doesn’t come without its pitfalls. For as much as you would like to publish your good news, there might be an unhappy customer, or competitor, who wants to put you down, so you have to stay on top of your media day in and day out to ensure that you are constantly putting your message out to the world about what you are doing and why you are good. The days have gone when you can write a press release every month to send out to the local paper, bloggers need to thinking 24 hours a day to get noticed.

So if you are wondering about why or how social media can help you or your business you are on the right track. If you have set up a Twitter account you are on the starting block. If you have designed a logo for your Twitter account you are seriously cooking on gas!

Remember, that you might not be into it but you neighbour may be, and whatever it is that you are trying to sell or promote he might want, so you have to tell him about it. The beauty of self-promotion in this vein is that you can control the message that you are telling the world.

So, here’s me. Nicola Spencer. I am telling the Twittersphere, the Bloggersphere, the Facebook-alaxy, that #SpencersAgents in #Sheffield are positive #property sales #agents with rosy outlooks on the future within our field. We are driven and hardworking and sit late at night blogging our ideas and thoughts to get you to believe in our company, so that we can do the best job that we can to sell your house and to promote our company, so that you get the best marketing coverage that we can possibly provide for you.

What is your estate agent doing for you right now?

Remember, “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotton!” (Anthony Robbins) 

Click the Property Drum icon to go to the Property Drum website or follow then @propertydrum on Twitter.

For more about Tracy Falke go to @tracy_falke to ask any social media questions.

For more about @SpencersAgents in Sheffield you can find us on Twitter or head to www.SpencersEstateAgents.co.uk for more info about us. 

#NicolaSpencer

#PropertyDrum

#Sheffield