I happen to manage a few social media accounts for
our properties and of course, for myself. What is so ironic about this is that
I knew nothing of this a few years ago. So, what did I do? I started my own
personal Twitter account and started following some highly respected and very
knowledgeable industry professionals. I found myself participating in a 4:00 pm
Friday afternoon apartment Chat with these multifamily marketing professionals
and I started taking notes and paying attention to how they post content, etc.
Their support was and still is invaluable to me.
Then I started reading their posts and following
their links to articles on improving SEO, getting creative in content marketing,
and learning how to use some of the great tools available to everyone to manage
account posts. Now, I am not an expert. I am not a guru on this stuff and
likely never will be. I find Twitter to be insanely informative and supportive
of spreading the good news in our multifamily world (which it kind of turns out
is a small world, after all.)
What really rocked my world was discovering another
section of real estate professionals: Realtors, investors, marketers, media
experts, bloggers and developers who formed a morning Chat group. There are
others who also join in and it has become a fun time. Occasionally, the group
has informal conversations at other times of the day as well, and people tweet
as they can. Sometimes, the discussions may turn serious depending on someone
mentioning personal circumstances. All in all, it is a relaxed, no pressure
thing designed to bolster people who may have lost a deal or just need a word
of encouragement.
Recently, I began to notice that some people being
“introduced” to our group were really vaguely familiar so I investigated a bit.
These “newbies” were really extensions of current Tweeters who were singling me
out in a “conversation” and attaching all their other personae to their tweets. Huh? Then I began getting “followed” by all
these people who wanted me to buy followers from them. Double HUH?
“Why would anyone buy followers? Vanity? To make themselves look bigger and
more engaged than the competition? To look like they have greater marketing
reach than they actually do?” Chris Jones asked in an online article back
in 2013.
I don’t know about you, but this is
not how I intended to use Twitter. I do not want to connect to people who are
not sincere and who are in fact not even real people. For the accounts I manage,
they are not linked as followers to my personal account. I can't think of a reason to do this. I also have to question the sanity of someone who hosts
“conversations” between their personal account and all their fake accounts –
isn’t that the very definition of associative identity disorder? If blocking
and unfollowing these insane people is the only answer, then at least there is
that.I wonder, is this the intention of Twitter?
