Twitter « 6 Degrees Group

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30
May 10

Twitter is Everywhere

On a recent trip through picturesque Sonoma County, we happened across a road construction sign on the side of the highway informing motorists about future closures and road conditions affecting their travels along scenic Hwy 116.

For those of you who think Twitter is of little value or a passing fad, we respectfully disagree.

Click on the image below to watch the short movie clip.

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Twitter — No Comments
16
Jan 10

What is a Twitcierge?

A Twitcierge is an online concierge created for lifestyle communities via a Twitter feed.

We are continually getting positive feedback from prospective and current homeowners, as well as, local small business owners and the real estate community on our Twitcierge style of Twitter use for lifestyle marketing.

By following hand selected local services and retailers, we are able to narrate the story behind a building and a community. This allows the readers to learn more than what may be found on a website or in a brochure. Neighborhood maps with points of interest are no longer static dots with addresses, as specific nearby amenities: entertainment venues, parks, retail and restaurants are featured to showcase lifestyle. Local businesses offer ongoing incentives, which are passed along to our followers via Retweets and also categorized as “local” on a list for easy viewing. We actively listen to our followers and request their input on the list. Homeowner recommendations and feedback is an important factor in providing real value. A sense of community is truly built within a community.

Real Estate Agents may follow our local list to gather helpful relocation tips for their clients or gain immediate insight into a particular neighborhood. Looking for the best lunch spots, dinner specials, current events, happy hour specials, a local florist, day spa or dog walker? It’s all on our local list. Having access to neighborhood content in one spot may also come in handy to create the perfect move-in basket.

Creating a Twitcierge takes time and effort, but it is a great way to add value to your Twitter campaign! How do you add value to your community followers? Share your ideas with us…we’d love to hear them.

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Twitter — No Comments
28
Dec 09

10 Features of Twitter Often Overlooked

Twitter was created in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and in November, 2009 had 22,481,568 unique visits (according to compete.com). Twitters credibility has increased dramatically as it recently struck deals with Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) as well as Google to provide real time search feeds benefiting all brands that create accounts.

10 unique Twitter features that we find compelling, yet often overlooked are listed below:

1. Favorites - Twitter allows users the ability to star favorite tweets. They can be your own tweets or others that you have enjoyed and re-tweeted. 6 Degrees Group uses this feature to “bookmark” our favorite highlights of a community so that readers can easily get a sense of the community’s features and market position without skimming through the news feed.

2. Lists – 9/30/09 Twitter announced that they would be adding a new feature – the list. This feature allows you to organize your followers or who you follow by grouping them into categories. Not only does this help industry partners easily locate other professionals, but it gives special recognition to those placed on the list.

6 Degrees Group uses lists in 2 ways: 1. We group local business and area attractions specific to each of our client communities (restaurants, wine bars, music and art venues, events, etc…) 2. We list local real estate professionals that take an interest in our communities by following along. This enables potential buyers to easily locate agents that are condo/loft/multifamily/leasing or area specialists. We look at this list feature as a way to show our appreciation and have termed it our long-term “Follow Friday”.

3. Website link icon - The icon link is often an overlooked marketing feature. Every community that has a Twitter feed should not only have a link to its website, blog or Facebook page on its Twitter page, but in turn these pages should contain a link back to Twitter. 6 Degrees Group always recommends that your community webpage and all eblasts contain a readily available icon for interested parties to click to read the latest real-time announcements from your community. This also helps your linkability and SEO campaign.

4. Location - Would you create a webpage without listing your location? It is important to list your location on your Twitter account as well. Real Estate is location sensitive. Someone with an interest in a San Francisco high-rise, leasing community or hotel may not be interested in one in Seattle.

5. Relevancy - Relevancy matters. Everyone wants to be the popular kid in school and have the most friends, however isn’t it best to have a handful of really great friends, rather than a roomful that don’t really “get you”? Simply put “who” matters more than “how many”. If someone who is relevant to your location or profession follows you, you have the opportunity to follow back. This can be a strong networking tool and just as in “real-life” you never know when you will be meeting this person face-to-face, if they are a source for referrals, if you have mutual friends or will be in need of their assistance in the future. A follow can strengthen not only your knowledge, but your network as well.

6. Video links - Links to videos can be attached as URL links in your Tweets. Services that allow you to shorten your URLs and track them are powerful for measuring click throughs. Video is continuing to grow and develop as higher broadband speeds become more widespread. Younger audiences are leaning toward a preference for multimedia and its popularity is growing. 6 Degrees Group likes using VR video, interview and testimonial links specific to a particular community in our Tweets.

7. Twitpics – Twitpic allows you to share photos on Twitter. An online photo album is created for your brand that allows you to upload and distribute photos in near real-time. 6 Degrees Group uses Twipics in community tweets to announce a new phase, model home or show off an event. Often we also include Twitter links to a community Flickr account embedded with keywords to reinforce the visual campaign.

8. Re-tweets Marker – Recently, Twitter introduced a new Re-tweets link that contains a 3 tabbed history with categories listed as (1) Re-tweets by others, (2) Re-tweets by you and (3) Your tweets, re-tweeted. This new feature easily allows tracking of brand mentions and forwards – allowing you more quantifiable measures of success. It also allows you to get to know the interests of those you follow and those that follow you more intimately by offering greater market insight -increasing your ability for quality content, customer service and co-promotion/endorsement opportunities. Additionally, it is a tool to find relevant people/brands to follow and followers – increasing your capability to create quality connections with Industry Leaders/Broker/Agents. The only negative we find is that many on Twitter use outside applications like Hootsuite, Tweetdeck, etc… and are not apt to use this hard copy re-tweet feature, thereby decreasing the reliability of its trackable component.

9. RSS Subscription - Twitter truly is a microblog. Twitter brand pages are often updated more frequently than a blog. There is less room for journalistic editorial and creativity - it must be written in 140 characters or less. The subject matter is almost always relevant to the product because tweets must remain concise (aside from links). This is great for both organic SEO and busy professionals that are not able or do not prefer to spend a lot of time reading your community blog. An RSS feed is featured on Twitter pages where readers can subscribe to all updates. Subscribers receive updated information from the feed that is automatically downloaded to their computer and can be viewed in at their leisure.

10. Hashtags - Hashtags allow us to label our tweets. Multiple tweets with the same label can be searched and grouped. 6 Degrees Group adds hashtags to particular twitter posts or themes (promotions), as we would keywords. This enables us to create a listing of each time that post is re-tweeted or referenced.

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Facebook / SMO Getting Started / Social Media Campaigns / Twitter — No Comments
1
Dec 09

Finding your Voice

In the world of advertising emphasis is placed on the voice that best represents your brand and appeals to your target audience. An advertiser will stress tone and rhetoric that can be carried throughout your campaign in order for your audience to identify with your message and your end product. Colors, font style and photographs are also hand selected to reflect the image the advertiser wants to portray.

Social campaigns add a clear voice to brands. They narrate the story behind a building and a community, allowing the audience to learn more than what may be found on a website or in a brochure. The bullet points come to life as they are expanded upon through video, photographs and article links. Neighborhood maps with points of interest are no longer static dots, as specific local amenities: entertainment venues, parks, retail and restaurants are featured to showcase lifestyle. A sense of community is truly built within a community. Opportunities for co-promotion and third party endorsements increase as relationships are built. Social campaigns have the ability to expand, adapt and deliver key messages to different market groups. It is where your prospects, clients, broker-agent partners and influencers will all convene to gather information about your product.

This brings us to the one crucial difference between how traditional and social marketing define a “voice”. In traditional methods, importance is placed heavily on the style of writing or “tone“, while social campaigns should be more concerned with value-added content or “message“. If you forget everything else, remember these 2 phrases when launching a social campaign: Be Authentic and Content is King.

Do not try to use social marketing as a traditional advertising platform with colorful sales language to pitch your angle. Instead, listen to your audience and deliver value-added content that they would find helpful. Feature specific amenities of your building by expanding your brand narrative to include content about a sculpture designed for your lobby entrance, low VOC paints, living roofs, concierge services and modern architecture. Feature special incentives, events and timely new release updates for your prospect and broker-agent audiences. Showcase your location within a community by spotlighting specific local businesses, events and service providers such as Movies in the Park, Jazz festivals, free tasting night at your local wine bar, neighborhood dog walkers and local moving companies.

While language use is still important, emphasis on “tone” should be reserved for web pages, brochures, press releases and advertorials. Social sites are places where “content” matters most.

Remember, the delivery of this content must be made in 140 characters or less using Twitter (including links) and 320 characters (with spaces) using Facebook, before expansion is necessary. This leaves little room for writers to showcase their skills. It does, however, open up an opportunity to add video that defines LEED or Green Point Rated, the Men’s Journal featured story about your neighborhood, an article in NY Times about your local gastronomical treasures or a homebuyer testimonial.

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Social Media Campaigns / Twitter — No Comments
13
Nov 09

15 Reasons Why Broker/Agents Should Follow New Home Communities

At 6 Degrees Group, we recommend and create Twitter pages for our lifestyle communities, real estate development and builder partners in order to continue their community narrative, create brand awareness within geographic regions and build relationships with local partners. 5 key groups are embraced: Prospects, Homeowners, Local Business, Press and the Broker-Agent community. Because we are licensed Brokers ourselves, we understand that a strong relationship with the local Broker-Agent community is important to the successful absorption of any development.

By becoming a follower of real estate communities where you do business, you are able to keep up to date on the latest featured properties, incentives, events, new models or phases releases at the development. You are also reminding your clients, friends and followers that you have knowledge of these communities and are “in the know” by keeping in front of them. While they may not currently be in the market, your friends may know someone looking to purchase a new home in the geographic area that you specialize in or someone looking to sell at the building.

15 Reasons Why Broker/Agents Should Follow Real Estate Communities on Twitter

Trust – If you are associated with a product, buyers will trust that you know more about it than an agent who is not. Name and face association with a brand also builds trust.
Exposure – Be where buyers and future sellers are. Your face and name attached to a 24-7 online news feed increases your chance for new business.
Knowledge – You will have access to more knowledge than the website and brochure.
Communication – Be the first to know. Get the latest immediately - in real time.
Name Recognition – Your name, photo and a link to your web page is attached to the community you follow.
Expertise – Become an expert on particular buildings with access to updated, detailed information all in one easy to find location. Share your expertise with buyers.
Relationship Building – Engage, be genuine and build relationships by answering questions and sharing community recommendations. Show your support for a community, neighborhood and product. Be a part of the dialogue.
Rapport –Develop rapport with other followers as a recognized member of a community within a specific geography.
Commitment – Taking the time to follow a communities updates shows your commitment level to your work. You go above and beyond the expected.
Tech Savvy – Are you up-to-par on trends? Do you relate to your target audience?
Marketing – see #5 and #2 (Exposure + Name Recognition)
Events – Be invited in-person to network. Put faces to names.
Press – Receive access to relevant articles and press in one easy to find location.
Community Feedback – Get real live information on your niche market, it’s like a giant focus group with invaluable information. Listen up.
Referrals – If you aren’t networking via social sites online yet, you should be. Over 85% of buyers cite the internet as their first place to begin their search. Be seen. Be heard. Be knowledgeable. Add value to your service.

Recently, Twitter introduced “lists” as a way to organize and create categories of who you follow. 6 Degrees Group is using these lists to show appreciation to local broker/agents that follow our real estate communities by creating a custom category per development – tagged “real estate”. Essentially, this allows viewers easy access to identify REALTORs® and lenders that are “in the know” about our community and helps them grow their followers.

Some agents use Twitter purely to promote their listings and others use an 80/20 rule, tweeting personal updates with the occasional tweet about the local real estate market or a listing. Many follow REALTORs® in other geographic regions to create referral relationships, or follow REALTORs® at their specific brokerage to hear quick updates on listings. Some corporate brokerage brands have created twitter accounts to provide customer service and build local community relationships, while sharing helpful real estate tips and promoting a list of their agents.

Twitter is a platform where you can create new relationships, strengthen existing ones and market your service professionally. It allows you to engage in a dialogue with peers, endorse brands and promote services and businesses that you are passionate about. It also is a way for your audience to learn more about you. Do you specialize in a certain neighborhood, district or city? A type of real estate? Are you passionate about the “green” movement? Do you support local business? Are you a fan of contemporary architecture or local arts?

At 6 Degrees Group, we believe in community building. We use Twitter for our communities like you would a concierge or a relocation list. We tweet information about the local neighborhood/district, specials at your favorite wine bars and restaurants, announce art exhibits and free local events. We also follow local small businesses that provide valuable services to our communities and Re-Tweet (Forward) helpful tips, making it easy for local agents that follow our communities to share with their clients.

A list of our current new home communities can be found here @6_Degrees_Group/new-home-communities

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Twitter — No Comments
5
Oct 09

Using Twitter to Market Your Lifestyle Community

What is Twitter?

Twitter is an online micro-blog with a 140 character limit. It displays real-time short messages that work via mobile texting, instant message, or the web. Worldwide, people follow the sources most relevant to them and access information via Twitter as it happens—from breaking world news to casual updates from friends.

How is this useful to my community?

You communicate to all of your followers and the twitter online community. Your name and (icon), usually a logo or photo, appear in all of your followers pages and help reinforce your branding message. For real estate communities, it is important to remember that geography matters. It is more important to focus your attention on key influencers within your geographic network than to gain mass exposure. Choose quality over quantity. It is our philosophy at 6 degrees that quality over quantity can also be applied to the number of tweets. We prefer to provide followers with content that they would deem valuable (and spread to others), rather than to message them multiple times with content that is purely self-promotion and may be perceived as spam.

Communicate real-time updates:

Featured Specials (highlight a specific property, special price offerings)
Incentives (create urgency via specials)
Event Promotion (Grand Openings, new releases, cocktail parties)
Ongoing Communications (keep consumers coming back)
Press Releases (awards, features & articles)
Links (provide value added content via other social media accounts – Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, Website)
Reinforce Brand Message (items that set your community apart)

Who are my (followers) key influencers?

Prospective buyers
Purchasers (homeowners/repeat clients)
Broker/Agents (travel agents)
Press (mainstream – tv, radio, writers + bloggers and microbloggers)
Neighborhood Community Business Network

When is it best to begin a Twitter campaign?

If you are marketing a new construction development, we strongly recommend beginning a Twitter campaign 60-90 days prior to your Grand Opening event. It can help keep your prospects focused on your product, excited about upcoming opportunities, increase the relevant traffic counts at your opening event, thereby converting more prospects into sales in less time. Bottom line, it helps communication and marketing momentum.

Gone are the days of relying solely on traditional marketing methods. Embracing new media is already widespread among most corporate brands. Consumers are demanding to be a part of the dialogue, endorsing their favorites and providing valuable feedback formerly given through the use of focus groups. The strength of your Social Media presence will define how effectively you can promote your lifestyle community to your target market. Quality content and an understanding of your audience is the key to being heard.

Twitter is just the tool – you are still the marketer who has to get it right.

A summary of how 6 Degrees Group uses Twitter in Lifestyle Community Campaigns:

PR (Earned Media/Third Party Endorsement)
Viral Marketing (Re-tweets)
Twitcierge: Strengthen Neighbor Relations + Adding Value
Link Campaign: Value Added Content (micro-blog ongoing narrative in 140 characters + articles/blog links)
Event Promotion (Brand integration/Co-tweet campaign)
Quick Communication (updates, incentives, press, etc…)
Relationship Management (community/neighborhood, Broker, consumer, resident, etc…)
1 Link in Body to web page, Facebook or Blog
Ongoing Links in 140 Characters to webpage, Facebook, Blog, YouTube, Flickr, Yelp

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

Facebook / Social Media Campaigns / Twitter — No Comments
1
Oct 09

15 Bad Habits that will Kill Your Social Campaign

Social Media Misguided

6 Degrees Group recently met with a client to begin planning a new media campaign for a community; the client summed up what we have said, in so many words, many times over – “I’d rather not have a presence than have the wrong one”. Let’s sum up “what not to do” when participating in social media, shall we?

15 BAD HABITS THAT WILL KILL YOUR SOCIAL CAMPAIGN AND GIVE THE WRONG IMPRESSION

Vanilla. No custom avatar, no custom background or a page that is inconsistent with your brand.
Non-committal. Posting 4 or 5 times with all the basics that can already be found in your brochure or on your website, then walking away as if the job is done. Your property sits unattended and looks dead. You meant to use social media as an advertisement, but alas that is a big faux-pas & your target will notice…it should be an ongoing dialogue.
Inconsistency. Off to a good start and then it comes to a screeching halt. You’ve seen this. Check dates on postings and tweets of active pages, you will see what we mean. Our favorite no-no – PR or Media firms that upload 4 posts in a row and then nothing for a week or two, sometimes three. You can tell this a job to them, not a partnership.
I-Phone Uploads. This isn’t your personal site, this is a professional presence in a social environment. You don’t show up in sweats to the office, do you? An occasional simple I-phone upload is not going to look unprofessional, but consistent 1-line uploads – yep.
Quantity not Quality. It isn’t about #’s. It is about the right influencers within your target audience. Don’t cheat the system and end up with a huge random circle. Do find leaders in your industry, press contacts that may want to blog about your news, interests and geography that match your target audience. We realize this research takes time. Don’t take short cuts, this is important for the quality of your campaign.
Frequency. Too frequent = spam; Not frequent enough = disinterest.
(Know your target audience & what is important to them)
Lack of Links. We’ve seen this far too often. Your Twitter page and Facebook page should also link to each other and back to your website. Additionally, links should be included in Tweets and Postings. Include links to YouTube, Flickr and Yelp accounts, when applicable. One of the top benefits of SM is its value as a linkable campaign.
Adult Sites. They pop up, sure. Scan your followers and make sure to block them visually for your brand. We scan our accounts 2x per week to ensure a professional look. You should do the same. Beware of the auto-follow tools…your brand could end up looking like it subscribes to multiple adult channels.
Language and Tone. We’ve seen it all…from tweets that would most certainly violate Fair Housing Laws to swear words, inappropriate slang, consistent poor grammar and spelling to monologues purely about the community without value added content. Beware of companies that outsource internationally or delegate the job to a disinterested intern that is also tweeting about how boring work is.
Wrong Tabs for Your Content. You can customize Facebook tabs and yet so many pages don’t go the extra step to edit the tabs according to relevancy of campaign content. Often we see pages created with video tabs and yet no videos to view and a review or discussion tab with no posts and only 3 fans. While I am here, I want to mention the selection of wrong titles for your channels. It is important to use a descriptive and location when selecting titles. So many brands we see give no indication as to location or type of product. It becomes difficult to sort through the selection in cyberspace and this lack of description also makes it more difficult to locate your brand in searches.
Speed Dating. That is what we refer to when we see the mistake of jumping in and asking your audience questions or engaging them in a discussion before they have gotten a chance to know you. Too often we see a great question posed too early in campaigns and it sits unanswered. Awkward! Remember, it is give and take. Be patient.
Lazy Uploads. You’ve seen them. It may seem like a good idea at first. It does make your life easier to simply upload your blog or Tweets to your Facebook account, but it also makes it look like you are just trying to make your life easier. Is the same content repeated on all of your channels at the same time? Beware: This is how campaigns appear flat, lack dimension and engaging content.
Zero Following. You allow others to follow you, yet you follow no-one. What impression does that give? It says, I am here for a monologue, on my soapbox and I’m important. Pick 1 or 3. That is what the SM audience will think of you. Zero Favorites Pages on Facebook demonstrates lack of outreach and disinterest in networking with other local businesses in your network.
Lack of SM Culture and Etiquette. It’s an entirely new world out there. There are certain rules of participation (spoken and unspoken) that will make or break your reputation as a participant or simply another spammer/advertiser. Want to be credible? Become a part of the culture and learn the rules of engagement or hire someone that is immersed in the culture already.
Auto-DM. Its much better to send a #FF or a direct personal thank you for following. I used to think this was a nice feature (when I was a rookie), now I agree with the SM mob that find it irritating and spam-like. There is an entire campaign to un-follow any auto DMers out there. Did I mention that there are particular etiquette?

6 Degrees Group New Media for New Home Real Estate Developments, Leasing Communities, Resort Properties & Hospitality

6 Degrees GroupNew Media for Real Estate Communities & Hospitality

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Twitter is Everywhere

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