If you are a REALTOR® Association staff member and say to yourself, “I don’t have the time to use Twitter“, you may not have realized that you can automatically update your REALTOR® Association Twitter account from the online tool, HootSuite.
Watch this video to learn how it works!
Here are the steps:
1. Create an account at http://hootsuite.com
It is FREE to get started and only takes a minute to set up HootSuite. Note that you must have an active account on Twitter.
2. Add your Twitter Profiles.
Larger REALTOR® Associations (10,000+ members) may have multiple Twitter accounts that send out updates based on their specific department. Multiple Twitter accounts for each department means that each department is responsible for building its own following, or in other words, each department must market each individual account and ask members to follow each Twitter profile. HootSuite will allow you to add multiple Twitter profiles so you can effectively manage each one from the same place.
3. Add your department heads as Editors to your profile.
Instead of creating multiple Twitter accounts for one REALTOR Association, one Twitter profile should be plenty. Add additional users so that they become editors of the Twitter account. HootSuite will ask for their email and can email them the password to access your HootSuite account for the REALTOR Association Twitter profile.
4. Add your RSS feeds from multiple social media sites.
An RSS feed the automated delivery system that brings content from a publisher to a reader. Each social media profile has its own RSS feed. If someone uploads a YouTube video then it automatically goes to the YouTube RSS feed. The YouTube RSS feed updates subscribers of new content to their favorite YouTube channel videos. HootSuite gives you the ability to add RSS Feeds to your Twitter account. Choose the settings button at the bottom of the screen and then the RSS/Atom tab.
Add each social media profile RSS feed that you have based on the right content that you choose. How do you find the RSS feed for your social media profile? Look for the orange RSS logo and click on it to view the link for your RSS feed for your social media profile.
Click on each link to see examples of social media RSS feeds:
This will now automate Twitter so that anytime we upload a YouTube video, Bookmark a favorite website in Delicious, Upload a PowerPoint presentation to SlideShare, or create a blog post, it will automatically update your Twitter account without having to do anything except upload the right content to the right online tool. This way your REALTOR® Association can spend less time accessing Twitter and focus more time on creating content on blogs, video, pictures, and PowerPoint presentations.
5. Add your Ping.fm account. If you want to update all the social media sites your REALTOR® Association participates, Twitter included, you can add your Ping.fm account to update HootSuite automatically.
You will need your Ping.fm application key to make this happen. Do not give your Ping.fm application key to anyone. Copy the Ping.fm application key and paste into HootSuite. Note that only regular tweets and replies created in HootSuite, or using the Hootlet, will be sent to your Ping.fm account. Direct Messages and RSS/ATOM feeds will not be sent to Ping.fm.
6. Schedule your Tweets.
You may only have to spend 5 minutes a day on Twitter by entering a days’ worth of Tweets (Twitter messages) and time release them throughout the day. Just create the Tweet as usual and click Send Later.
If you are using FireFox as your internet browser you can make the process even faster by downloading the Firefox Add-on for HootSuite
If you want a detailed explanation of how to use HootSuite check out this article by Mashable.
Now your REALTOR Association can easily have a presence on Twitter, allow multiple staff members to participate in sharing messages that match their strategic objectives, and communicate with members whose preferred method of communication is Twitter. If you want a more detailed explanation of how to use HootSuite check out this article by Mashable.
If you need a basic overview of Twitter please review my recorded webinar on the basics.
Here is a PowerPoint presentation for you to review as well.
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