Five Mistakes Agents are Making on Twitter

Twitter is not the most popular social media platform, but it can be a great place for real estate professionals to showcase their personalities and get exposure for things like their blogs and listings. However, in an attempt to automate their Twitter presences, many agents are beginning to look a bit silly. Here at Back At You Media, we’re all for automation, it’s our bread and butter, but it pains us to see it done wrong! Here are some real examples we’ve encountered that you’ll want to avoid. (Identities have been withheld to protect the guilty.) 

Trying to Screen Followers 

You know how everyone on social media is trying to increase the number of people following them? Well, surprisingly enough, some real estate professionals feel it necessary to make sure all of their followers are real! The ones we’ve encountered are using a service called TrueTwit to make sure that bots aren’t following them. Once you follow them, TrueTwit sends a private message on the agent’s behalf like the ones you see above. 

So, let me get this straight…I was nice enough to deem you worth a follow and you thank me by assigning me a chore? Even worse, check out this crowded, spammy page I’m taken to if I decide I REALLY want to follow you and confirm that I’m real. 

If you want LESS followers, I encourage you to employ this strategy. 

Updating Everyone on Follows/Unfollows

Twitter doesn’t notify you when someone unfollows you, but a third party service called “fllwrs” will. However, another thing they’ll do is Tweet updates about how many new follows and unfollows you have had recently! It goes without saying that it’s not a great look to publicize how many people have decided you aren’t interesting enough to continue following. Keep in mind, these sorts of stats aren’t interesting to anyone but you. Not an advised strategy! 

Inappropriate Automated Posts 

I had to heavily censor this one, not only to protect the agent’s identity, but because it was pretty NSFW. If you’re going to automate your social media content, PLEASE make sure you’re putting your brand in the hands of a service you can trust. If this sort of content is part of your brand, rock it—for most agents, however, that’s not going to be the case. Below is a less egregious example, but again, is serious crime in your area something you want to publicize? Likely not, unless you’re trying to convince people to get out of Dodge (not a bad strategy for seller agents, I suppose.) 

Be Careful What You LIKE

This is a somewhat new development for Twitter. As you probably know, when you Retweet something, you’re basically sharing it with your followers, right? Well now, some tweets that you “Like” (formerly called a “Favorite”) will show up in your followers’ feeds. The example above was Liked by Ken and showed up in my feed. Perhaps he’s fine with me seeing that he liked this story about a Canadian TV host’s “shortcomings,” perhaps not. But I saw that he Liked the post without Twitter ever consulting him. 

If you don’t want to have to worry about filtering your Likes and Retweets, I’d suggest creating a private Twitter for personal use and only letting select people follow you. 

Giving Literally Zero Effort

We all remember that old adage, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well” (coined by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, for all you HQ Trivia players out there.) Well this tweet was not done well. It wasn’t even done poorly. It just wasn’t really done at all. 

If you connect your Facebook account to your Twitter account, you can automatically push all Facebook posts to Twitter, but that doesn’t mean it’ll look good on both platforms! I have zero motivation to click on that Facebook link. I’m on Twitter because I like Twitter so don’t try to kill birds with one stone and think that you’re covered. If you’re going to have a Twitter account for your business, take some pride in it! It’s reflecting you and your brand. Might we suggest hiring someone who can automate your presence and do it well? Just saying… 

Hope this helps you avoid a few Twitter pitfalls along your social media journey! If you are interested in automating your social media content with a company that will definitely not post about felons and/or NSFW articles, check out a demo from Back At You Media. Happy tweeting!