Realtors use Twitter. Shocked? You shouldn’t be.  Real Estate Agents are voracious consumers of new communications technology. Proving that out, several agents turned out for Twitter training given by Karen Goodman (Arch City Homes blogger and premier realtor), and me. The class was offered by Keller Williams Realty.

Agents were aware of Twitter and it being a social network.  A few of the real estate agents were already members, as well as being Facebook members. Universally though, they were using only the basic web sites and none was using Twitter on a regular basis.

Training took Twitter from the ‘what is it’ level up to installing Tweetdeck on personal computers.  The questions focused primarily on privacy and distribution. People were worried about being spammed and spamming others.

Here’s a few of the questions and how Karen and I chose to answer them.

• If someone starts following me do I start seeing their posts?
  • No.  It does mean they’ll begin seeing of your Twitter messages
• Do my Twitter messages also post on Facebook and LinkedIn?
  • Not automatically. There are add-ons and tools that allow cross-posting; those are all optional and can be controlled.
• Someone I’m following starts spamming, talking about porn, etc. What can I do?
  • Unfollow them. Visit their Twitter profile page and unfollow them.
  • They don’t stop copying you? Visit their Twitter profile page and block them.
• How do I find people I know?
  • Using Find People on the Twitter home page.
  • Email or call that person. Most reliable choice. Avoid’s picking someone else with the same name.
  • Check that person’s web site for Twitter and other social network information.
• How do avoid being sucked into too much Twitter use?
  • Time control – only open Twitter at regularly scheduled times. Much like you’d handle email inbox review.
  • Browsing control – unless you have plenty of time, only check your replies and direct messages.

These may seem like basics to many of you, but these are questions anyone in business should be asking.  Approaching Twitter and other social networks with a plan, even if it’s a ‘don’t do this’ plan is better than winging it as a business user.

We also discussed what’s appropriate in terms of content.  Realtors online seem to line up on two sides; those that broadcast listings, and those that never talk shop.  Karen explained how becoming a local area expert is more valuable than spewing out listings.  Expertise shared equates to trust building and from there to clients.

Attendees were quite involved, asking good questions, and wanting to understand how Twitter connects, and how it could be used. A great follow up class would be on mixing up social networking to find what works best for each individual.

If you’d like to have a Twitter class at your work, please contact me – todd at toddrjordan.com, @tojosan on Twitter, or by phone (636) 486-4723.

Realtor shout out to attendees from Keller Williams Realty:

@patislay

@jbbutler03

@karenprinster

@Nancygkw

Block – Dirty word in Twitter land

Chances are you don’t block many of your followers and you aren’t alone. Blocking is looked upon as a dirty word. Bringing it up results in confused looks up to outrage. Judgmental, big ego, and more labels may be assigned to you for admitting you block more than the occasional spammer. But let’s take a look at who folks block.

Blocking – Not just for Spammers

Spammers aren’t the only ones you might want to block. Spammers covers those users (or robots) sending out a steady stream of noise. There are a few other types to block:

• Multi-Level-Marketers aka MLM – enough said
• Get Rich Quick – preys on those looking for easy street
• Get Followers Quick – looking to find those that seek the fast path to many followers
• See my video/pictures/site – usually adult oriented. Fake profiles to snag in the easily tempted.

But how do you go about finding and stopping them?

Twitter Block Tools – Spammers Eat Dirt

Manually blocking followers is work. Consider one of these useful tools for blocking.

• Twittfilter – http://www.twittfilter.com/
• TwitBlock http://www.twitblock.org/

So still think those who block have big egos? Or it’s too much work?

Twitter Friends Block Spammers

My friends block spammers and the like as well. Here’s just a few:

• @gloriabell
• @creativereason – Yessiree. I block all that I see follow me.
• @PhilGerb – woot! Blocking in the USA (Channeling the spirit of John Cougar)!
• @levitanl – I block them all!
• @Allisoncds – Holla! Block & report here!
• @MilliGFunk
• @deborah91473
• and more…

What’s keeping you?!

Correcting follower and following counts 2 hours ago

For some time, the follower and following counts we display have been incorrect for some folks. We’re soon to push a change that will address this issue. This means that the count you see in your sidebar should match what you see on your follower and following pages.

However, a consequence of this change is that follower counts will drop for some people. In particular, those with large followings may see significant changes as we correct for spam accounts and data inconsistencies. No legitimate followings should be affected—we’re just cleaning up artifacts in the system.

– so says Twitter.

Welcome to the series Sunday Social Networking Tips. The plan is to bring in folks to share their best ideas about social networking. The next person to write up a tip could be you!

Today’s tip is just focused on Twitter.

Tip:

Eliminate the spammers, MLM, and get rich/followers/beauty quicker crowd

Most of you know I’m a big fan of using a Twitter client. All of the clients out now support some form of searching. A few of them also include the ability to filter a given column or set of Twitter messages.

I’ve been using these filters and searches to find specific tweets within those posted by my friends messages, a way to find just the posts on origami for example. But what I hadn’t thought of doing is using search to stop following folks.

Kevin Cottrell, @kevincottrell, shared a primo idea during our Bring a Tweep to Lunch outing the other day. He suggested adding a filter of negative words. The search would be on things such as p0rn, MLM, and so on.

You ask why right? The idea is that those are folks he’s not interested in really following. It gives a quick way to just click and unfollow. Immediately the amount of those tweets will drop.

For me that would make a significant dent. I don’t autofollow folks, but I do follow back a fair amount of decent prospects. There is always some that slip through that really send the most annoying tweets.

Why does it matter? It matters because it floods the stream and crowds out the messages I’d prefer to see.

So the tip is try negative word filters against the tweets you follow and see what you find to screen out.

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The high number of folks I’m following lately has resulting in more conversation for sure, but it’s sadly resulted in a stream of Twitter direct messages. Sometimes a DM is received back immediately upon the follow, sometimes hours later.

Below are some of the latest batch from last night’s following:

Hey. Swamped at the moment, but gonna catch up shortly. Anything you suggest I look at in the meantime?

We make companies digitally famous – can we do it for you? http://tinyurl.com/bpobve

Hi, thank you for following me! I wish you a great and inspiring day!

Thank you for your interest. Have a Great Day. What is PyraBang? http://urlsgalore.com/Pyrabang

A 19 second no-hype “Hello” from me to you: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2nONeUKUos

Hi! Thanks for following me! Look forward to ur tweets!!

A good mix there of recent direct messages. Inviting action to the passive hello, these tweets demonstrate variety and the annoyance factor.

Honestly it seems redundant in the DM above offering the video. Heck, I’ve already signed up to follow his teets.

What’s in your DM box?

     Do we need fancy websites, new applications, and cool new gizmos to have social networks? One might think so in this day and age.  High school and college kids have one up on older folks here, the younger folks are painfully aware of their social networks.

     The tools we have today may seem like the end all of social networking, but networking has been a skill since there were more than two humans.  You and I are involved not just in networks enabled by Twitter or Facebook, but more likely, those tools support networks older than either one.

     In fact, the very tools many of us have integrated thoroughly into our lives, have become even less enablers to our networks, but perhaps barriers and resistors to the growth of those networks.  In the past, one simply became part of our networks by working at the same place, living in the same neighborhood, attending the same school, or shopping at the same local market.  Today, many of us don’t consider those very same folks to be part of our social network, even folks we spend 40 hours a week next to.

     Before I continue, I’m guilty of this same thing.  Not intentionally, but by default.  If people at work don’t make themselves more accessible than loaning me a pen, they’re pretty much out.  If my neighbor doesn’t borrow sugar or loan me their lawnmower, we’d hardly know their names.

     Now let’s assume the same neighbor signed up on Twitter, and somehow found out my Twitter ID, would that situation change?  Well it depends.  Is he a technofile? A photographer? Does he ooh and ah over the latest social media tool?  Ultimately, does he enable my life and success in some way.  If not? He’s likely just going to be someone that knows me and never engages with me, or vice versa. Wait, that’s much like our current arrangement.

    Magnify this situation to include the thousands of random people out there that might actually have some similar interests to you or I, but we’ve never met, never chatted, and never heard of them.  To make this more complicated, they are shy, or protective, or socially inept, so they don’t use even a name. Lots won’t have even a blog or some form of reference about themselves.  These are the people that want in our networks.

    These people, neighbors, strangers, spammers, odd followers and more want into our networks.  They follow us on Twitter, Utterz, Facebook and our blogs.  Some will track down our emails, and even rarer I hope, our phone numbers.  The contacts start showing up all over the place, first with comments, then emails, linking us or stealing our content, or even reaching us on the phone.  Some may just knock on our door here and there and follow quietly beside us.  But they all want in.

    My question though, even if we didn’t invite them or encourage them, and we don’t add them back, are they really outside our social network?  I’d contend that they are in our network, want them or no.  Oh, you and I may not engaged them, but they’re still there.  We can ignore them even, but we still notice them.  Our network notices them as well.  Heck, the blogosphere will notice them too.

    What should we do then? I say, other than the spammers and the really odd ones, why not cultivate them to become real contributing members of your inner circle?  They are already part of your life, why not make them a better part of your life.  Speak to them about the type of folks you like to socialize with, the type of people you want to do business with, and the ones you want to create art with.  Don’t give out your home address or anything but help them understand where your heart lives.  Let them know how they can be part of your success in work, play, and creation.  One can never have too much support.

     And the rest, the ones you can’t stomach, block the ones you can, and give little or no press to the rest.  Don’t blow your energy over them.

    Hopefully I’ve given you something to think about, and helped you realize that even folks on the edge of your life are in your networks, sometimes even unintentionally. Why not cultivate them to help move your life along?

     Who are you neglecting on the edges?