#393 – Mail-Right Show: Why Real Estate Agents Should Be Excited About Threads

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Why Real Estate Agents Should Be Excited About Meta Threads

Discover why real estate agents should jump with joy over Meta Threads in this podcast. Learn how this revolutionary platform streamlines the entire home-buying process, saving you time and maximizing your profits. From seamless communication to advanced data analytics, Meta Threads has everything you need to elevate your real estate game. Don’t miss out on this game-changing opportunity.

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Episode Full Show Notes

[00:00:10.600] – Robert Newman

All right, ladies and gentlemen, it’s Episode 393 of the Mail Right podcast. Today, we will discuss Threads, Meta’s new competitor to Twitter. At least, that’s my understanding of it. Before we get into our discussion about this new social media tool, John, the founder of three podcasts, WP-Tonic, the Mel Wright Show, and a new one for his learning systems business or learning… Anyway, you know what, Jon, go ahead and introduce yourself.

[00:00:49.760] – Jonathan Denwood

Thanks, Rob. I do free podcasts on crazy folks. I do the Mel Wright Show, the WP-Tonic, and the membership machine show. And I’m pumped up. We’re going to be talking about Fred’s. That’s had huge success. I think it will make a real difference in the real estate business. And we’re also going to be talking about Instagram, about some of the key things you got to know about Instagram. Because of Threads, I think it also increases the effectiveness of Instagram. Back over to you, Rob.

[00:01:28.690] – Robert Newman

All right. So full transparency, even though I am familiar with all these tools. I’ve never really used Twitter as a major micro-blogging platform. I have a Twitter profile of a few thousand people that follow me on it. They’ve magically appeared in my opinion. I tweet stuff, and I throw a hashtag or two on it. And I have just been doing it a long enough period of time that people found me there, following me. And I feel like they find me elsewhere and then follow me on Twitter. But since I’m not having substantial, unique conversations, I don’t feel like I have very much value attached to it. Having said all that, Jon, I guess my question to you, and I say this with a deep amount of sincerity, is, how do you think people will be leveraging threads? I saw the numbers just like you. 100 million people signed up. I get it. A lot of people are joining it. Where do you see it going?

[00:02:32.760] – Jonathan Denwood

I honestly feel I use Twitter a lot more, but for my other businesses. I have not focused on it regarding mail-right because I agree with you. But I feel unless you’re selling to the Millenniums or maybe a little bit of Gen X, I’m on the last year. My birthday puts me in between Gen X and the baby boomers. But unless you’re really into Gen X or the millennials in urban areas, as a real estate agent, I wouldn’t recommend spending too much time on Twitter. And the reason for that, Rob, is the culture of Twitter. Now, I use it for my other business because I do a podcast in the WordPress space, and we both utilize WordPress for our businesses that are focused on the real estate industry for your great business and Mail-Right. It’s a leading tool in our arsenal. But in my little business, which is really focused on membership and learning management systems, and at the WordPress professional crowd, Twitter is utilized a lot. My WP-Tonic has about 1,000, but my personal account has under 7,000 followers.

[00:04:08.540] – Jonathan Denwood

Not enormous, but not unsubstantial. And I do a fair bit on and off during the week on Twitter for those businesses, Rob. Now, the problem with real estate is the strength of Twitter is also its problem when it comes to real estate. It is in the culture wars. It’s in that, in some ways, social media has accelerated this country, and not only in this country but in other countries. And regarding real estate, restate, and being a real estate professional, that’s the last thing you want to get involved with. Unless you make the conscious decision that you will appeal to a certain time. I know a couple of agents in Northern Nevada that have made that choice. They are highly political individuals. And I know a couple of agents in Las Vegas that have made that decision, and they are highly politicized. They put on their Facebook, and on their Twitter highly political content of a certain viewpoint. And they’ve made that decision r Robert. And I think they’ve done it because they believe it. And also it helps them with their marketing and the people they’re trying to appeal to.

[00:05:42.570] – Jonathan Denwood

But in general, it’s the last thing that I would encourage a real estate agent to go on Twitter because of the baggage that the platform and that baggage under Elon Musk, he even if you love him or hate him. And in public, Re no and Northern Nevada, which is where I roughly live close to, has become a Tesla town. It is dominating Tesla has one of its mega factories on the north side of Re no and it must employ directly between 5,000 and 10,000 people and indirectly 30,000 to 50,000. It’s become one of the major. So the last thing you want to do is criticize Elon Musk or Tesla in Reino. It’s not a great idea, but he is extremely controversial and he’s brought that to Twitter. Twitter was already controversial and he’s just increased it. He just put it on steroids. If you love him or hate him, you got to admit that. And also he’s made certain decisions. Like the day before Fred’s was announced, and he must have been aware of that it was coming, I think it was one of the reasons why he tried to get out of buying Twitter, because I’m sure he knew he had been tipped off that Meta was building Fred’s.

[00:07:27.080] – Jonathan Denwood

And I think that was one of the factors. I don’t know, I’m just surmising that.

[00:07:32.590] – Robert Newman

But.

[00:07:33.750] – Jonathan Denwood

The day before Fred’s was announced, unless you got a rarefied blue account with Twitter, he reduced the amount of Twits that you can read to 600. There is no limit if you got a blue tick account, which on the two Twitter accounts that I have, I decided to buy that because I wanted to upload video because we’re both big into video and I wanted to upload video to Twitter. So he did that. And also he reduced dramatically the power and outreach of the API. That made him very unpopular. And this has been a load of things that he’s done since him and his executive team took over Twitter that have really upset some of the biggest influencers that utilize Twitter. And we’ve had threads come on the market. It’s been around for… It has been the biggest.

[00:08:44.460] – Robert Newman

App.

[00:08:45.700] – Jonathan Denwood

In take up ever seen. It’s up to almost 100 million people now. Obviously, that’s because it’s linked to Instagram and Instagram had a big audience. And And if you got Instagram, it’s really very easy to set up a Twitter account. You’ve got to have Twitter, Fred’s account, and you’ve got to have an Instagram account to set up a Fred’s account and what it comes with. I have my own doubts about Facebook myself. I totally agree with you. I am not a great a marketer. Of the founder, and I’m not a big amaya of some of the executive team at Meta. But this is going to be a winner, in my opinion. And they’re making pretty sure the toxic element that’s always been there with Twitter, the engagement discussion, it is a bit of a sewer. It always has been. It is not for the lighthearted. They’re making sure to the best of their ability that the toxicity that always has been a part of the Twitter culture doesn’t come across with threads. Now, you would agree, I would imagine, that the key thing about being a real estate agent online or in person is to have conversations, is to have discussions with, to have engagement with people that might be thinking of selling or buying or doing some property transaction.

[00:10:44.780] – Jonathan Denwood

That is the whole point, isn’t it? Well, Fred’s, that element was missing a bit from Instagram, that bit to have a conversation. That is going to be highly encouraged by the combination of Instagram and Fred’s, in my opinion. What’s your comments, Rob? That was a bit of a binge, wasn’t it, Rob?

[00:11:20.940] – Robert Newman

I have a few people that I follow on Twitter. The couple of people that I follow on Twitter, I really enjoy. They all, every single one to a person, are what one might call mega influencers or famous people. They use Twitter as their way of making sure that their voice is undiluted by press or other people. You hear directly from them. I enjoy only that aspect of Twitter. For the most part, it’s become a place that I look at and I look at what people are sharing and how they’re sharing it. And I eliminated how many accounts I followed down to 10. And that’s all the value I found on Twitter is those 10 people, those 10 things. And anytime I go outside those places, it seems like it’s spewing mental garbage is the way I view it. It’s just distracting and not performative for me personally. Having said that, I’m also a little bit embarrassed to say that on my content side, all I really share on Twitter is just links to my existing content. Every now and again, I share a unique opinion on Twitter, but it’s never anything revelatory. The micro blogging platform trying to stay a lot with a little, it’s just not my format.

[00:12:57.430] – Robert Newman

I like to stay a lot with a lot.

[00:12:59.260] – Jonathan Denwood

And I think that’s okay. There’s only so much bandwidth. And yes, you can automate some of it. You can have somebody in your team do some of it for you. You can have an outside agency do it for you. And that always saw it as filler, unless you hire somebody that’s extremely experienced, that really spends the time to get to know your voice and can mimic you very effectively on the line. The most engaging, the most relevant has to be done by you. And that’s time consuming. There has to be a payback. And if you don’t think you’re going to get that pay back. You’re probably not. You should concentrate on some other platforms, shouldn’t you?

[00:13:52.960] – Robert Newman

Yeah. I will say that in terms of… There’s a few things that I like about Twitter. I’m going to cover them very quickly with everybody. It is still a place that if you’re producing original content and you have the time and the energy to have somebody who is an hashtag expert with the keyword research and the tools to analyze Twitter properly, it’s yet another platform where organically you can actually gain a lot of new followers. It’s not easy, which I think what John is alluding to. It requires focus, expertise, determination, all of those things. But could you do it? I know people who have, who’ve created huge audiences out of nothing on Twitter.

[00:14:35.100] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, it’s been a two… I’m going to be totally frank with the audience, and you know a bit of this, probably don’t know everything. Folks, I e’ve benefited from Twitter in the relationship, but I’ve also, my other business has been damaged by Twitter. My other business, we were going to run a virtual conference. We had some of the biggest marketing names, and I to cancel it at the last minute because there was a Twitter campaign run by some members of the WordPress community that do not like me, that have personal empathy against me, Robert. And they left it to the last week. And they made certain allegations against me that were grossly unfair. And these people don’t have a lot of money, so there was no point in going for them legally. I did investigate it because they cost me a lot of money and I had to cancel the virtual summit. And it caused me a lot of upset, which I had to just rip my teeth. And I’ve got to be honest, a couple of these people, if I ever meet them, I don’t know how I’m going to control myself because there’s going to be words said.

[00:15:59.650] – Jonathan Denwood

So there’s a big WordPress event next month, and I’ve decided not to go to it because I know there’s a good chance that I’m going to bump into a couple of these people. And if I bump into them, then it’s going to be a problem.

[00:16:17.270] – Robert Newman

Sure.

[00:16:18.050] – Jonathan Denwood

So I don’t want to get myself into that position. So it is a bit of a sewer, folks, Twitter. The reason why I’m sharing this, folks, is that I’m sure that Meta are going to try and keep it, that toxicity of Twitter, well away from the platform.

[00:16:40.430] – Robert Newman

I don’t disagree. So there is a lot of good and bad with every single social media platform. There’s just some that are better than others. I personally subscribe very deeply to the creation. Social media for me has become… There are a few things, event management, which makes social media just makes a million times easier than anything I’ve ever seen. And so to me, it’s revolutionary still. And then like, and Twitter would do that too, flash mobbing, stuff like that. Mass communication and organization is made possible, to an incredible degree, by social media. Also, Facebook groups is something that I use not only for myself. We have people that we’ve interviewed on this show that use it. I use it. Other people that I know use it. Groups where you’re containing a conversation, focusing it, and then adding contribution. Why Lopo uses it. Everybody uses groups and Facebook, and you can privatize it. If there was a reason that I was to say Facebook should stay in business, it’s because of their event and groups. But everything else, I wish we could scale it down by about times in size, including Mark Zuckerberg’s influence and things like that.

[00:18:05.860] – Jonathan Denwood

But unfortunately… Well, let’s be frank. Before we go to our break, Rob, we’re going to be talking about Instagram a bit in the second half, folks. But let’s be frank about it, this is just my opinion. He isn’t a great guy. He’s got a notorious reputation. Everybody that’s done business with him face to face, really haven’t got a decent word to say about him. And that’s well known. I’m not saying anything that isn’t part of the public record. And it’s my opinion and anybody can check it, can’t they?

[00:18:44.710] – Robert Newman

Yeah. So let’s go to break. We’ll be right back. Ladies and gentlemen, stay tuned. We’re going to move the conversation over to comparing a little bit on Instagram and threads. Now, mind you, I haven’t looked at threads, so I don’t feel like I’m a subject matter expert. I’m not even a subject matter curiosity person. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to move. Anyway, we’ll be right back. Stay tuned. Can’t wait to talk to you. Do you want quality leads from homeowners and buyers right in your own neighborhood? Then you need Mail write. It is a powerful but easy to use online marketing system that uses Facebook to generate real estate leads at a fraction of the cost you’d pay from our competition. We stand behind our work with a no question asked 30 day money back guarantee. So don’t delay, get started today. Go to mail. R ight. Com. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It’s episode number 393. Today we are talking about threads and now we’re going to move into a comparison between threads and Instagram. Instagram is a platform that I love to hate. I actually do like Instagram a lot, even though it is a Facebook product.

[00:19:53.590] – Robert Newman

I like Instagram because it’s incredibly viable and valuable in the real estate space. It’s a place where I think that influencers really make a big impact on the world is through Instagram. It’s a simpler platform. It’s not as cluttered. It is a cleaner platform than Facebook ter. There’s more tagging allowed with images. You can do up to 30 tags. Twitter, you can usually only fit three. So in terms of the scale and reach of your organic marketing efforts, literally, Instagram is 10 times more relevant than Twitter. So connected to a simpler content format where you’re just doing images or video and that’s all you see. So I have a different opinion about Instagram. It’s still owned by Mark Zuckerberg, which breaks my heart. But I actually have a lot of positive things to say about it. And I do know a tremendous amount of real estate agents that have either collected big audiences off the platform. Some of them have even turned that into ROI. There are many, many, many real estate people that swear by Instagram. It’s just it’s relevant.

[00:21:15.880] – Jonathan Denwood

Let’s be frank, with Facebook, unless you utilize the group functionality, and a lot of people do, it’s one of the saving graces of Facebook platform, still has a very large audience. But the thing is, for a real estate agent, unless you’re going to pay money, a Facebook page… Basically, Mark and his, they did the dirty on a lot of brands, a lot of major brands. They entice them. A lot of big brands, a lot of professional high end marketers spent a fortune building Facebook pages. And then the carpet was just pulled, the average page to hardly get to any organic traffic. You literally have to get your wallet out to get any engagement or get your post, get a reasonable audience. It’s pay to play. Instagram, utilizing tagging. When it comes to threads, it’s their first version of this. You can’t do direct messaging, you can’t tag hashtag, and you can’t do direct messaging yet. I’m pretty sure that they’re going to introduce that pretty quick. But it’s just been the growth of it. But for all your opinions about Mark and the other major executive team, they do know social media, don’t they? He’s got an abender on the virtual world.

[00:23:06.980] – Jonathan Denwood

I don’t actually think that’s going to play out. But when it comes to Instagram, I think you got the main thing through Reels. They’re really, and they have done it to effective way. They’ve turned Reels to be a real competitor to TikTok and to YouTube Shorts, haven’t they? Very effectively, haven’t they?

[00:23:35.190] – Robert Newman

Yes. So you covered a lot of ground there and it’s almost so much I can’t even respond to all of it.

[00:23:43.820] – Jonathan Denwood

It was just a blur.

[00:23:46.190] – Robert Newman

You didn’t really stay targeted or focused there.

[00:23:49.430] – Jonathan Denwood

No, well, that’s me, isn’t it? I can’t be targeted.

[00:23:54.430] – Robert Newman

I’ll try to get a response to as many of those points as I can. So I’m going to say that in terms of who I think is going to win the virtual game, which is a little side comment that you brought, I think Apple is going to pave the way towards making it an everyday product. I think there’s as yet unnamed people that are going to make a vast difference in the virtual world, such as content producers and things like that. I know people who are entrepreneurial, who are working in that space, they’ve been waiting for a better device than the Oculus. It’s upon us, I think. Apple joining the fray was a very big deal. So there’s my opinion about that. In terms of… What else did you say, Jon?

[00:24:44.360] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, I was saying that Reels has become a real competitor to TikTok and Shorts. And for everything you might feel about Mark and his team, they really know about social media, don’t they?

[00:24:59.510] – Robert Newman

I think that the only innovative thing that Mark Zuckerberg has attempted to do is taking a leadership role in virtual reality. And I think he shit the bed. I think he shit the bed with almost everything. I think that he’s very good at seeing trends and either listening to people telling them that they are trends and then throwing Facebook’s massive resources at those things and building something that works that is similar to something that already exists that we already know is popular. So do I think that he is a savvy guy that understands where the marketplace is going? I think that’s his only skill. It’s the only demonstrateable talent that I’ve seen Mark Zuckerberg have is that he has followed along with what the marketplace is doing, and he’s quick to identify what is likely to be a big trend. But did he create the trend? Did he come out of nowhere? No, he stole Facebook. It was an idea. He was like, Oh, this is a good idea. But it wasn’t new. It was like, he.

[00:26:03.100] – Jonathan Denwood

Got sued by those two twins, didn’t he? I forgot their names. And they succeeded, didn’t they? They got a ton of money out of him.

[00:26:12.580] – Robert Newman

It’s the Winkle Voss twins. And they got billion. They made billions. Now, they are more innovators than Zuckerberg is. They were one of the very first people into crypto when it wasn’t popular to be in crypto, and they put their name behind it long before it was popular. I’m talking like 5 to 10 years before it was popular. So the Winkle Voss twins are more innovative than Zuckerberg is, my opinion. So I don’t lay a lot of store. Zuckerberg might be one of those entrepreneurs that has a very long run before he does something that destroys his life completely. But I do think that’s coming unless he really deeply changes himself as a person.

[00:27:00.080] – Jonathan Denwood

Well, just to comment quickly on that, it’s just the success might become a problem because they haven’t released threads in Europe. They haven’t done that yet. This organic growth is mostly the North American market, which is bonkers. We’re talking close to a billion users, probably by the end of next week. But because if you sign up for it, the app, they haven’t got a desktop product yet. You can’t use your browser. You got to have the app on the phone. I’m sure that will come. But if you sign up for it, you got to agree to share literally all your private information. Literally, you got to give everything to them. And that’s why they haven’t released it in Europe. I don’t know if they’re going to or they’re going to be allowed to. Because if this does become a major win for Meta, they’re a part from… Because Twitter has always been a small player, hasn’t it? In these social platforms compared to YouTube or Meta, it’s a small player in reality compared to Facebook or Instagram or YouTube. But their dominance, if it does be a success, which I think it probably will be, is going to be massive.

[00:28:43.910] – Jonathan Denwood

They’re going to have a massive share of the social media market. And I think that’s going to cause problems.

[00:28:53.640] – Robert Newman

Okay. Yeah, I do agree with that. And I’m going to add just a couple of thoughts because I need to close out the podcast relatively on time. It’s my birthday today and I’ve got plans.

[00:29:09.310] – Jonathan Denwood

Happy birthday, Robb.

[00:29:10.720] – Robert Newman

Thank.

[00:29:11.310] – Jonathan Denwood

You. What’s it like to be 65?

[00:29:14.300] – Robert Newman

Oh, my God. I can’t walk. I have to pee all the time. It’s terrible.

[00:29:21.170] – Jonathan Denwood

Tell me. More I can tell he’s had a busy day and he’s had to pull up with 30 minutes of my intense spiel. It just came out of a mouth like a…

[00:29:42.800] – Robert Newman

I say this to everybody listening to the show; there’s no doubt that there is some merit in being an early adopter in threads. If you’re a real estate agent and you’re thinking about… If you haven’t already been an early adopter in something, I would say give it a wait to use John’s little turn of phrase because you want other people figuring out the strategies, and you don’t want to spend the 50 hours unless you’re a content producer like Jonathan and me, or that you’re a subject matter expert like Travis Tom, people like that. For us, it makes sense because then we can teach everybody. We get new audience members, new people that follow us. But if you’re just an agent selling real estate, I would be giving threads a long way. Instagram is something you should have had years ago, and it is a place where you can repurpose content you’re creating on other channels, like video and things like that. So to me, it’s just a value-added in every way, shape, and form.

[00:30:41.730] – Jonathan Denwood

I agree with you. If I was real estate, the two social media areas that you should focus on is YouTube and Instagram and threads, as far as I’m concerned. I think a mixture of mixing Instagram and Fred’s, you’ve got to be in it, and you’ve got to be in video. But the great thing is, as we have hammered away for about three years now, is the great news. You can turn your YouTube videos into shorts. You can turn them into reels that you can repurpose them. You can put them on your website. You can put them on your business Google business page. There’s just a load. But, social media for real estate agents, if you’re going to get a return, is either YouTube or Instagram threads, as far as I’m concerned.

[00:31:37.250] – Robert Newman

All right, ladies and gentlemen, we’ll wrap it up. We’re cutting this short show a little short. No bonus content because today is my birthday. This was the only work activity I scheduled for the day, Jon, so take that as what you will. Everything else got canceled or moved, but not this.

[00:31:58.900] – Jonathan Denwood

So.

[00:32:01.690] – Robert Newman

If you want people to reach out to you, do you even have a Twitter profile? Did you cancel your Twitter profile?

[00:32:08.440] – Jonathan Denwood

No, I got a Twitter profile on Mel Wright, but I think the basic thing to do is go to the Mel Wright website, mail-right.com, have a butcher’s around the website and then book a chat with me or Adam and we’ll see if we have a good match. What’s the best way for people to contact you, Robert?

[00:32:32.660] – Robert Newman

Well, I’m not going to do it the best way today. We’ve done it on other shows. Robert@inboundrem. Com, if you want to email, but guess what, everybody, since we’re talking about Twitter and threads and things like that, I do have a Twitter profile. It’s @inboundrem.com. inboundrem.com or @twitter. I would love it if you guys would add me. I do use Twitter every now and again. My big social media push for the audience has been a revival of a private Facebook group I’ve had since I started Inbound rem. And I’ve got about 150 people in it, and I’m getting super active in the group. I’m posting almost every day. I’m enjoying the process. I find I have stuff to say to people that already know me. It’s never been the case before. Anyway, that’s it for me. Jon, is there anything that you would like to add?

[00:33:25.820] – Jonathan Denwood

I think they’ve had enough of me in this episode.

[00:33:29.610] – Robert Newman

I’m not agreeing or disagreeing. I’m just saying, hey, everybody, thank you so much for tuning us in today. I’m in birthday mode. John is in something mode, and we appreciate, though, regardless, we appreciate everybody who tunes in. I know it’s one thing that John and I consistently agree on is we appreciate our listeners and viewers. All right, everybody, have a good one.