Maureen Francis: Effective Realty Through Twitter

By Bud on January 22, 2009 TrackBacks (0) Comments (3)

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Maureen Francis credits a good portion of her success in real estate to her use of social media and resultant web visibility.

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Filed under: Birmingham, MI | Maureen Francis | Network Businesses | SKBK Sotheby's

Maureen Francis started in realty in Oakland County with her husband Dmitry Koublitsky shortly after 9/11 in 2001. To say they started at an inauspicious time in the Michigan economy is an understatement. However, they have grown their business and recently had their best year in 2008.

Maureen credits a good portion of their success to their use of social media and resultant web visibility. In this segment, she goes into detail about one of the social media tools she uses, twitter:

  • Twitter is a microblogging system that allows you to post messages up to 140 characters in length. People on twitter follow others on the service so they can each see each other's updates.
  • Some twitter users follow thousands of other users and are also followed by thousands.
  • However, many twitter users are much more selective in who they follow.
  • Maureen views twitter as another way to connect with people, much like going to events and networking. She follows people with whom she thinks there is a chance of productive conversation.
  • Maureen uses the service tweetscan to get alerts on people who are tweeting about Detroit, homes, Oakland County, and other topics of central concern to her business. She then follows a select number of these people.
  • In the year she has been on twitter, Maureen has discovered a number of potential leads for her business through twitter.

In future segments, we will discuss other tools Maureen uses in her online networking strategy.

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3 Comments

Jarrod May on March 22, 2009 11:07 AM
Maureen Francis has taken a new approach to discovering clients who are interesting in purchasing property in the Michigan area. Through use of social networking sites like Twitter she has been able to make connections with people who are looking for properties in her market. By following-up on people who have decided to look around in her market she has been able to make strong connections or help those who are looking for a property that she does not deal with, such as commercial warehouses. I thought this was a great use for social networking sites. Many people look down on them, but several such as Twitter.com and LinkedIn.com have made their way into the professional stream and work to help others seek out new employment, innovations in business, and possibly find clients and investors in their business.
Matthew North on March 31, 2009 10:25 AM
Maureen’s approach to real estate is one that is cutting edge and utilizes the advances in technology to maximize her real estate sales. I can’t say that I have the slightest idea, but I would imagine that realty is one of the most competitive industries out there because there seems to be a large number of realtors. So, to separate yourself from others you really need to stand out and also utilize all the resources available to find new clients. Maureen does this by using the hot new social media service, Twitter. I think it is a great idea the way that Maureen uses Twitter to scan for people who are “tweeting” about Detroit or other area homes. This allows her to find potential customers without having to cold call, or other similar marketing strategies. By identifying those who are showing an interest in buying or selling a home in her area or the area(s) in which she services, this allows to her to contact those who are clearly potential customers. It also demonstrates to those potential clients that Maureen is up on the current technology available and has a great understanding of social networking. Some potential customers may be very busy people and social networking is the easiest way for them to communicate. If that is the case, then someone like Maureen who is hip on social networking would be more appealing to them than a conventional realtor.
Anthony Harbin on March 31, 2009 11:35 AM
What i know about Twitter is that it is similar to Face book but with blogs, but it is more professional than face book which started out being used by mostly college students. This Realtor says that a lot of the success of her real estate business is due to the social media and web visibility. I think that the real estate business involves a lot of socializing anyway so twitter can expose you to larger markets. The only problem I have is that with people following you on twitter you could make physical contact with someone who is not business oriented so it may not be a good idea to mix business with social life online.

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