The Wilder Source

The bird is the word at the Building Owners and Managers Association of Atlanta.

BOMA-Atlanta recently launched its Twitter account and starts live tweeting from its annual Sports Outing on September 30. The commercial real estate association already has a Facebook and LinkedIn presence, and who knows what is to come in the future.

All around the Atlanta CRE industry, social media is being adapted as a useful means of networking and creating brand awareness. Nevertheless, there is still a stigma behind these platforms. They are often seen as unprofessional, and CRE professionals just don’t want their colleagues knowing everything about their private lives. Twitter solves these concerns, and is actually becoming a very popular tool for creating brand awareness and staying on top of CRE news.

In a recent blog post, Coy Davidson, SVP with Colliers International, explored the industry’s gravitation to Twitter. Why has this platform become so popular. Davidson outlines the opportunities that Twitter creates for CRE professionals. Davidson uses his Twitter for branding and driving traffic to his blog.

In my post, I would like to outline THREE other benefits of Twitter that I think are important for Atlanta CRE professionals.

Twitter Searches – The twitter search feature is by far my favorite aspect of Twitter. A simple search term, helps me find the latest news going on in the Atlanta commercial real estate industry, and the industry nationwide. Using hashtags, or ‘#’ symbols, you create key words that people can search for later. Visit www.twitter.com and search for #cre. You are instantly bombarded with a wealth of news. Enter #creatlanta, this will narrow your search.

#CRE is searching for Commercial Real Estate news.

If you want to checkout what is going on with BOMA-Atlanta, try @BOMAATL. More and more professionals, in and out of the industry, are relying on this search capability to keep a pulse on the industry. Take my Twitter conversation with writer Nellie Day. Nellie covers the commercial real estate industry and admits that she relies heavily on Twitter for CRE news leads. These leads are live, and are much easier to find than doing a Google News or Blog search.

Twitter Privacy and Professionalism - Now while there are many users who use Twitter strictly, or unstrictly for that matter, for social purposes, Twitter allows you to keep your bio short and your posts safe. You can even restrict who gets to see your posts based on whether they follow you are not. This feature used to be more exclusive to Twitter, but I think now with Google+ on the scene, you will see more professionals utilizing its circles feature to increase privacy. But as I always say, never Tweet anything you wouldn’t want your mother to hear.

One of the other concerns I hear about social media, is the amount of time it takes away from employees. VERY UNPROFESSIONAL! For most users, Twitter offers the ability to ‘walk away’ for a while. When you come back, you are usually a few Twitter searches from being caught back up. In this aspect, Twitter is less social media and more social broadcasting; and like the TV, it can be turned off.

Networking and Branding – Twitter makes it possible for you to increase your personal and professional network beyond anything you could do pre-social media. Branding for yourself and your company can now extend far beyond your geographical location. Being on Twitter allows you to be a resource for someone hundreds of miles away. In turn, now people hundreds of miles away can be a resource for you.

“How?”

Well, here is a good example. Let’s say that an asset manager or director of research is looking at what it would take to expand into another market. They may want to know more about zoning laws, utility costs and taxes in that area. Connecting with other CRE professionals on Twitter at that location makes it possible for you to get those answers. I should take the opportunity in this example to plug BOMA International’s Experience Exchange Report, which of course is a more comprehensive resource for other markets.

So here is another example, you want to bring your team up to snuff on the latest technology being used by CRE professionals or you want to see the latest trends in CRE business. There are literally hundreds of CRE professionals who are tweeting about these frontiers. See Duke Long, a broker I connected with on Twitter.

There are many more benefits to CRE professionals using Twitter. So go, promote your brand and increase your network and knowledge of the CRE industry.