Maaaaaan If I had a dollar for as many times as I have heard real estate peeps say “Twitter is dumb” I’d be rich, well I would have had a few more Grande Skinny Vanilla Latte’s from Starbucks any way. How quick we are to discount or discourage something we don’t understand. Let me tell you a story….
{dream sequence}
It was a cold December 7th – a Wednesday I believe. I was cruising my Twitter feed, catching up with what the Twitterverse has been up to. In the spirit of the holidays I will be honest and tell you this: I don’t read all of your Tweets, no – I have my Twitter peeps separated into lists, lists make Twitter manageable.
Many peeps new to Twitter think you are supposed to read all those juicy nuggets of information compressed into 140 characters, [or less] you are not. If you use lists you can separate the “noise” [those talking about what they had for dinner], out from the “value” those you want to learn something from or communicate with. It was my “pay attention” Twitter list I was monitoring…. I think I have A.D.D. it’s a lot easier for me to name a list the action I am supposed to take then to wonder later what pinnacle 3 means. #justsayin
So as I was cruising my list I came across a Tweet announcing the release of Camtasia Mac 2. Now let me tell you, I have about 180 videos on YouTube, only about 100 are public but I have used Camtasia mac in many of my videos for the screen capture aspect. If Camtasia was a chick – I would marry her, she makes me that happy. She is self explanatory, easy to use, isn’t too grumpy, doesn’t hold grudges and – is there when I need her, yes. . .I loves me some Camtasia.
So, when I see that my lady has an upgrade I – as a good digital citizen would – Tweet about it:
and I move on with my day, making video’s. I had recently accepted a position with Grand Canyon Title Agency in Arizona as their Director of Sales Technology, one of my duties is to teach REALTORS in the Phoenix Metro area HOW TO leverage technology to grow their real estate business – technology tools like WordPress, YouTube, SDLR Camera’s, Editing Software, Keynote and Screen Capture software like Camtasia. I was creating some HOW TO video’s when I got “it”.
“It” was a “bing”, an alert from Echofon notifying me I was mentioned in a tweet. Who could it be? I was honestly expecting some SPAM, someone that wants to show me how they got a FREE iPad 2, lost 20 lbs in 24 hours or something like that. I look, it’s not Spam.
It’s a tweet from someone in the marketing department at TechSmith, the company that makes Camtasia. Her name is Andrea [hi Andrea!] and she wants me to send her an email. Interesting. What did I do now right? So I did, I sent her an email and yesterday, after working out a time, we were finally able to connect. One of Andrea’s responsibilities is to monitor and communicate with TechSmith’s customers via Twitter. She wanted to know how I used Camtasia, what I liked about it, what I didn’t and to thank me for mentioning them in my tweet.
Now there are a few things happening while Andrea and I are speaking. One, I am impressed. This is someone working for a HUGE company, [at least I perceive it to be] reaching out to little old me, and asking ME questions, about what I think. Crazy huh. Two, they own me. By Andrea contacting little old me, she gave TechSmith a face, a name and a personality and they were [as we say in NY] “all good”.
We talked for about 45 minutes, and at the end of our conversation there was a prize. Turns out Santa came a little early to Arizona, and this year he was a she – Andrea sent me this shortly after speaking with her:
Takeaway: Twitter is not dumb. Many peeps use Twitter to broadcast, to talk about how great they are, what they had for dinner etc. If this is what you are doing, head over to Facebook, there are plenty of “friends” waiting to one-up you. I use Twitter to listen. Twitter is not really about broadcasting as much as it is about listening to consumers, your customers and your future customers. It turns out, people often ask the Twitterverse for exactly what they want – I did, if you know how to listen to Twitter you can change your marketing from spamming those that most likely have no need for your real estate services right now to those are actually looking for you.
Some of the classes I will be teaching in the Phoenix Metro are how to use tools like Camtasia and Twitter in your real estate business to convey value, you don’t need to tell consumers how AWESOME you are – let the technology convey your value. I didn’t have to tell you I am the best real estate trainer in Phoenix or that Grand Canyon Title Agency rocks…., you were able to gather that from this post {joke – or was it?}
If you are a real estate peep in Phoenix that would like to come and get your learn on, please fill out the form below. Let’s Rock.
Thanks again Andrea and TechSmith
