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The irony of Twitter’s Biz Stone sending an email newsletter over the weekend was not lost on me.

Could it be that perhaps the single most efficient tool for disseminating information, the micro-blogging phenomenon, Twitter, really sent out a newsletter by email???

Well, it did, and I, as uncharacteristically, read it.

Ultimately, I think it depends on who’s it from, when Biz Stone sends me and email which begins, “Dear limeyboy..” my interest is piqued.

However, I think that an email newsletter is today, at best, a bi-product of time better spent elsewhere.

Meaning , create a blog post, write to the point, original content, feature it on the homepage of your website, tweet to it, and link to it from your facebook business page, ooh and while you are at it send an email out to your contact list.

A lawyer we know each month sends us a ‘company’ update via email with a pdf attached. We never read it…

Increasingly I think your news is more likely to be read on your facebook business page, where it’s already opened and paraphrased. You don’t have to rely on people opening an email. (It is true that email still works for the “old-timers”)

I would also say that if you are going to send a newsletter make it relevant, which essentially means write it yourself and also don’t send it as a pdf, which is a good format for legal contract but a dreadful format for some warm and fuzzies.

We see lots of very generic content on real estate websites, such as:

• cupboard organizing ideas
• window treatments
• green decorating

Let’s face it, this is NOT why you are being hired, and not what people are looking for. Stay on point and always be relevant to real estate information in your town.

A recent article at Inman news recounted a scenario at the NAR annual conference, where there was an undercurrent of “frustration among the attendees”. The root of this frustration according to the author was summed up by this moment. An agent stands up to ask a panel of 5 ‘social media experts’ the following question:

I have a Facebook account and I am on Twitter and Linked in. Can you tell me how I am supposed to get business from them?

The crowd applauds… Every one of the 5 social media gurus answer, “We don’t have an answer for that question”.

While we certainly agree that social media is really being felt out in real estate to see if it has a role in real estate marketing, we also think that this is yet another example of the misguided belief that technology alone is the silver bullet that people are waiting for.

Here’s the news about real estate technology. There is no, individual silver bullet, and don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise. There is always a tendency to overplay the role of technology, but this is a dangerous trap. Real estate is a people business, so don’t hide behind that computer instead of actually meeting people.

There are many things that we all do to grow our respective businesses by spreading the word to an ever wider circle. What is neighborhood mailing after all? However, if you stop mailing after the first month due to ‘lack of responses’ you may forever think that mailing is useless.

What twitter does is enable you to reach those who you haven’t already met with who are looking for the kind of information that you are tweeting about. In that respect its fabulously incisive. Think a scalpel rather than a sledge hammer. Also, once they are ‘following’ you, they’ll get everything you broadcast in the future. How often do home owners file through their junk mail to get to your flier? Exactly…

The other thing about social networking is that it costs nothing, vs $0.50/post card. Sure it costs time, but so does sticking stamps on cards.

A good rule of thumb is if you are not picking up ‘followers’ with every tweet you send out, you might want to look closely at your ‘tweet craft’.

Social networking has given a platform for everyone to potentially be followed. But lets get this in perspective. This is real estate information, not rock and roll. We have seen many agents sending out messages ‘to all their fans’.

Keep the real estate information to the fore, they’ll find you from then on.