Tweeting new listings

Despite having been around for a fair old while, Twitter is currently enjoying a meteoric rise in popularity and has steadily climbed the list of the UK's most visited websites thus far in 2009.

For the iltwitterate amongst you, Twitter is a social micro-blogging site; a what? A social network that lets you post very short statements (there is a 140 character limit) known as "Tweets". Much like the status feature on Facebook, Twitter can be used by the individual to inform their friends or "followers" about what they're doing, what they're thinking, or to pose a question.

Ignoring the affront that Twitter poses to Facebook in providing a broadcast mechanism for people's self-obsession and randomness, it does have more sensible applications and some are using it to keep applicants abreast of new properties and other news that they can't get on their own website or the portals quick enough. A good example of this is gumtreefltLDN

Twitter is almost instantaneous, the moment you click the update button, your followers will be able to see your Tweet. If you are serving a fast-moving rental market with typical tenants in their twenties, you will definitely find your audience receptive to receiving updates via Twitter, probably more so than phone or e-mail.

If you do have a conventional webpage for the property, you can link through to it. Twitter compresses web addresses using TinyURL and other services to help keep you within the character limit.

Another example of someone using Twitter for properties is Globrix, who have a Twitter page called PropertyPorn which they use to showcase some of their nicest pads, but this is more of a novelty than a way of actually promoting listings seriously.

If you think that promoting your properties through Twitter is worth a try, ask one of your more web-savvy negs to set it up for you. It won't take them long, it won't cost you anything and may just give you a useful new channel for marketing your listings and maybe a point of difference from your competitors for a while at least.