50 Most Influential Real Estate People on Twitter

Yesterday, Stefan Swanepoel published a list of 100 influential and interesting people within real estate. It’s an interesting list and got a few of us (myself included) a bunch more followers.

twitter-logo_000However, set aside for a minute that he missed a whole bunch of influential people (which he is already revising) the reality is that a lot of people on his list just aren’t that interesting (and many border on being twitter spammers).   If you’re a real estate professional new to twitter and you started following some of those people, I can only imagine twitter would start looking like a big wasteland of crappy tweets.

However, I think a list of influential people could be a really good thing, especially for people new to twitter…  I’ve had this idea for measuring “twitter influence” within a community, and Stefan’s project finally pushed me to build a prototype.   The idea is to measure, as objectively as possible, the influential people within a twitter community.

My theory and calculations are described below, but first, here’s the list:

Name

Twitter

Peer Rating

Andy Kaufman AndyKaufman 100%
Dustin Luther tyr 100%
Rudy Bachraty trulia 100%
Jeff Turner respres 100%
Teresa Boardman TBoard 100%
Kelley Koehler housechick 100%
Jay Thompson PhxREguy 100%
Daniel Rothamel RealEstateZebra 100%
Ginger Wilcox gingerw 100%
Robert Hahn robhahn 100%
Brad Nix bnix 98%
Jeff Corbett JeffX 98%
Heather Elias hthrflynn 98%
Nicole Nicolay nik_nik 98%
Mike Simonsen mikesimonsen 98%
Jeff Bernheisel JBern 98%
Joseph Ferrara jfsellsius 95%
Jonathan Washburn JonWashburn 95%
Pat Kitano pkitano 95%
Drew Meyers drewmeyers 95%
Marc Davison 1000wattmarc 95%
Jim Cronin RETomato 95%
Matt Fagioli MattFagioli 95%
Brad Coy BradCoy 95%
Mike Price mlbroadcast 95%
Nick Bostic nbostic 95%
Dan Green mortgagereports 95%
Kim Wood KimWood 95%
Todd Carpenter tcar 95%
Mike Mueller MikeMueller 95%
Sherry Chris BHGRE_Sherry 95%
Derek Overbey doverbey 95%
Ricardo Bueno Ribeezie 95%
Loren Nason lorennason 93%
Ines Hegedus-Garcia Ines 93%
Jim Duncan JimDuncan 93%
Jason Sandquist JasonSandquist 93%
Dale Chumbley DaleChumbley 93%
Missy Caulk missycaulk 93%
Kris Berg KrisBerg 93%
Brad Andersohn BradAndersohn 93%
Maureen Francis MaureenFrancis 93%
Lani Rosales LaniAR 93%
Stacey Harmon staceyharmon 93%
Bill Lublin billlublin 93%
Eric Stegemann EricStegemann 93%
Judy M realestatechick 93%
Joel McDonald joelrunner 93%
Reggie Nicolay Cyberhomes 93%
Morgan Brown morganb 91%
Mariana Wagner mizzle 91%
Paul Chaney pchaney 91%
Jim Marks jimmarks 91%
FrancesFlynn Thorsen FrancesFlynnTho 91%
Benn Rosales BennRosales 91%
Nick Bastian RailLife 91%

For those interested, here’s how I calculated the influential people within the real estate community.

Step 1: Starting with Stefan’s list, I took 10 people in real estate who were following between 100 and 1000 people AND had more than 1000 people following them.  My logic here is that I was looking for active twitter users (i.e. it’s hard to get over 1000 followers without being active) who pay attention to who they follow (i.e. they don’t “autofollow” or “mass” follow people).  I was explicitly *not* looking to start with a list of the most influential people, but rather use some thoughtful people within the community to jump start the process.   As you’ll hopefully see, the people don’t really matter much in terms of the final results, but here they are anyway: jburslem, RETomato, 1000wattmarc, robhahn, spencerrascoff, hthrflynn, JeffX, nbostic, PoppyD, ardelld. (note: Stefan’s list didn’t include enough people that matched my criteria, so I ended up grabbing a few people out of my twitter stream who did).

Step 2: Using the Twitter API, I created a list of ALL the people these 10 people are following.  At this point, everyone is just a number and I won’t see anyone’s twitter name until the very last step.

twitter #s

Step 3: I put all of these twitter IDs in a big list and used a pivot table to give me a count by ID #.

followeeAt this point, I have a pretty good list of people within the real estate space.  I think it’s pretty safe to say that if someone was “influential” (on Twitter) in real estate, then they’d be on the list of 4000+ people this process created… and most likely near the top since they’re likely being followed by this group if they’re influential.    However, it’s time to expand the scope way beyond these 10 people.

Step 4: Now I took EVERYONE who was being followed by at least 8 of those 10 people (45 total) and looked at ALL the people they followed.  Because some of these people were following thousands (sometimes tens of thousands!), this turned out to be a huge amount of data… although it all fit nicely in an excel spreadsheet, so I kept going.

Step 5: Starting with a base of people who were being followed in step 3 (4000+), I did a count to see how many times those people were being followed in the HUGE lists that were created in Step 4.  (The idea here is that if someone was “influential” they would have at least shown up in the 4000+ IDs that were generated in Step 3 and now I was just counting how many times they showed up within this list of 45 people)

Step 6: I then sorted this list and based on the number of followers that any given ID had, I gave it a “peer” ranking that is simply the total number of followers divided by 44.  A peer ranking of 100% means that out of the people created in Step 4, 44 were following that person. A ranking of 91% meant that 40 were following that person.

Step 7:  I sorted the list, used Twitter’s API to reverse lookup people’s usernames (and real names), and copy-and-pasted the results above.

It’s also worth noting that I *could* take this list further and displayed the “top 100” or “top 200”, in which case we would have caught some great names that just didn’t make the cut (David Gibbons, Joel Burslem, Hilary March, Ben Martin, Susie Blackmon, Kevin Tomlinson, and Stefen Swanepoel come to mind), but I had to stop somewhere, so I decided to stop at 50 (although since 7 people tied for 50th, there’s actually 56 people on the list!).  Nonetheless, if there’s interest, it’d be pretty easy to expand the list…

Final thoughts

What I really like about this approach is that it’s completely determined by our real estate peers.  Like it or not, there’s no better indication of your twitter influence than the “vote” your peers give you when they follow you… and while a “total” follower count is meaningless in terms of influence within a group, if you look at the “influentials” in a relatively objective way (as I’ve done here) and track who they are following, the result is a very non-spammy, highly influential group of people within the real estate twitter community.

133 responses

  1. Thanks for the weenie food. I love this post and I think I have about 4 posts for the weenie because of it. 🙂

    1. It’s about time for me to do something to earn weenie status…

  2. What a level of work Dustin! I’m not surprised by the list of names, great people doing great things.

    1. I’m not really surprised by many of the names… but I think that’s the point. For people on the inside it should be a “no duh” moment when they see a list of 50 influential people. It’s really geared toward giving people new to real estate twitter a great list of people to follow!

  3. Thanks Dustin I could never do stat’s like this. But, makes me smile.

  4. Wow, Stefan’s list has been fun to read about (and great to be included on as well). 😉 Love your numbers method too Dustin. I, like many others, work hard to be respected among my peers, and am always most grateful for recognition of my efforts.

    Thanks BTW for your assistance re the ‘IDX’ provider. Did get a call Friday, thanks to you, with a promise on an answer Friday but alas, heard nothing. Third time is the charm.

    Have a great day.

    1. Susie… You rock! Despite the fact that those IDX guys need you more than you need them, it sounds like you might have to keep bugging them a bit! 😉

  5. And you did all of this analysis when? 🙂 Very impressive, Dustin. Thanks for the mention, but at 93% I feel sort of like I cheated on a test. As for the 100 percenters, you nailed it.

  6. Thanks Dustin! Your math brain is much bigger than mine.

    That “follow all” button on Stefan’s list is sending my twitter notifications soaring…

    1. I’m definitely missing the “follow all” button, huh? Wouldn’t be hard to throw all these people in that same app, but I think I rather the people had to work a bit! 😉

      1. Dustin, your list doesn’t need a “follow all” button since these are all people I already follow! Top class individuals!!! In fact, I’ve personally met, hung out with, enjoyed the company of 45 out of the 50.

        1. Interesting way to look at it… I can remember meeting all but 2 of the people on the list (I won’t name names since it’s quite possible I’ve met all of them!). 🙂

  7. You’all rock! No surprise it was actually a lot of fun to put together.

    I woke up thinking I should try this out for other “communities.” I’m almost positive none of the other communities will be nearly as strong (in terms of having a large group of people that almost everyone in the group follows), but I think it might almost make the results for local areas and/or other topics just as interesting.

  8. Ok – Im geeky and degree in Econ, but reading the process made me a little dizzy. Thanks for doing that for us as many of us can take this and run from here. Kudos. rb

    1. LOL! Every once in a while, the geek in me, definitely comes out.

  9. Dustin- I knew you were smart, but this is very impressive – To create your own indices and correlate them so effectively is awe inspiring. Like Teresa (though without her wit and articulation) I see the stuff of new blog posts in this ground breaking effort – Thanks so much for this breakthrough!

    1. Let me know if you want to geek out a bit… I’d be happy to pass along the spreadsheet I used!

  10. Dustin, you always amaze me with your work! Thanks so much for the mention. Influential? I’m not so sure. Having fun meeting a lot of great people? Yep.

  11. I am sitting here cracking up! don’t know if it has to do with trying to get your thought process or because you took the time to do this – LOL!!! You are the funniest!! ….and you know I *HEART* @tyr even if he is one of the geekiest people I know 🙂

    1. Anything I can do to make you smile… 🙂

  12. Great list, and really great to find 50 new people to follow up on in real estate!

    I must admit, your methodology got a bit much to read but the just of it sounded good! Awesome that it was based on “recommendations by peers”.

    1. You did a better job summarizing it than I did! If I could get 2 sentences, it would probably be something like this:

      I used a small set of people within a community to create a much larger list of all the “likely” influential people in a community. I then tracked who all the people in the “larger” list were following to create an “influence” or “rank” of all the top people within the community.

      However, the result is almost exactly what you said… a list of people as “recommended by peers”.

      1. Then again, my only issue is that I don’t think people actually use Twitter to “listen” to other people. Once you are following over 500 people, it is hard to actually keep up-to-date on what people are talking about; then follow above 1,000 and it is really impossible.

        I have switched how I use twitter to be based on the “search” button, and by directly going to the 5 or so people that I like to check out daily for some news.

        As such, it becomes hard on Twitter to actually be “recommended by peers”. But, again, that is when you are following over 500…

        1. Not sure the number is 500, but I completely agree that once people follow too many it becomes nearly impossible to “listen” to people…

  13. Thanks for considering me a “thoughtful person”, I always thought it just took me a long time to form sentences due to the hangover 🙂 From what I remember from my old college Decision Sciences classes, your method seems valid and is very well explained, thank you for the (typical) great work!

    1. yeah… There’s plenty of room for bias to creep in, but the methodology is good enough for the job! 😉

      The biggest factor is the initial 10 people I choose… But I’m pretty sure (although only testing would confirm) that as long as the 10 people fit the criteria I mentioned (i.e. following 100 to 1000 and being followed by 1000+) & were within the “real estate” community, then the results would be nearly the same.

  14. My apparently feable mind is now smoking; overheated in an attempt to follow that process! Dude, you crack me up.

    Glad the @tyr supercomputer spit out @mattfagioli at the end somewhere 🙂

    1. Anything I can do to keep you mind smoking. 😉

  15. Dustin, This is an extremely impressive calculation. Thanks for sharing the nuts and bolts of the process. Wow!

    1. Your “nuts and bolts” comment reminded me that I forgot to mention one more “sorting” issue.

      After sorting for “peer rating”, the list is sorted by the time when the user signed up for Twitter. In other words, Andy was not only one of 10 people who scored 100%, but he was also the 1st out of that group to sign up for Twitter.

      Probably more interesting than the 1st however, is the “last” person in that list because it shows that Rob Hahn was the last of the people to sign up on Twitter who has managed to get all of the 44 people from step 5 to follow him!

      1. What’s the “spread” between when Andy signed up and when Rob did? And who’s the longest (I suspect Andy) and shortest tenured?

        (Yeah, I could look it up, but sounds like you already have the data…)

  16. […] 50 most influential real estate people on Twitter – Everyone would have their own list, here is Dustin […]

  17. Even more proof (like we needed any) that Dustin ROCKS!
    Thanks for taking the time to explain the process…

    -JBern

  18. You’re such a nerd Dustin. And I say that with the utmost respect…

    I think your “algorithm” is sound. At least it makes sense to me. I was a little disappointed with some of Stefan’s list (primarily because as you mentioned, several were swiftly approaching Spammerdom and some had almost zero engagement).

    Would LOVE to see an analysis like this for a location (say “Phoenix”) though it might be more difficult as a location based review would by its very nature be quite broad based — are people really “Phoenix Twitters”? Then you’ve got the problem with a large metro area in regards to the suburbs. Twitter thinks (correctly) that I live in Gilbert, AZ. Clearly I would fall into the “Phoenix camp”, but I’m not sure the way you’re pulling data with the API that could ever be captured.

    Very interesting stuff Dustin, and a big tip o’ the propeller beanie to you!

    1. I’m definitely thinking location myself. Gonna play with “Ventura County” next so I can continue the fun AND call it work…

      1. You could always do the “real Valley” and use Maricopa County. 😉

        But the Twitter API doesn’t pull any county related data does it? So you’ll have to massage it with some sort of look-up table listing cities in the county?

      2. It would be interesting to see the sphere of influence that people have.

        For example, people in Vancouver can have a huge influence over Toronto people. Or someone in Texas having influence over people in Florida.

        It is amazing how with Twitter’s search you are able to find news and stories from around the world in seconds. I rely on it for my blog when doing real-estate research beyond Toronto.

        PS: Why does everyone have such cool aviatars.. Mine is such a weird one, and cant figure out where to change it!

        1. Go to Gravatar.com and get an avatar (or sign in with Facebook, that will pull in your FB profile pic.

          1. Awesome! Thanks. Changed.

  19. Dustin,

    Pretty cool…

    PS: Can you send me the 9 people who arent following me? LOL…

    1. Jim, when you get that list let me know. Apparently most of those 9 aren’t following me either. 🙂 Sheesh… LOL

    2. Amusingly, you found a use for this database I had never envisioned… to find out the “influential” people you need to reach out to!

      By the way, the competition is so cut-throat that you’re actually missing many fewer than 9 people… The 91% peer rating corresponded to 40 out of 44 possible followers…

      1. It would be curious to see how consistent the list of “missing influencers” is for those missing the 3 or 4? Are we missing the same or is it all over the board?

  20. Now that is a geeked out list and is exactly how a list should be created.

    All numbers and it takes the emotion completely out of it.

    Great job on the programming Dustin

    1. thank you much!

  21. ken brand Avatar
    ken brand

    That’s impressive brain power and impressive results. Thanks.

  22. Good work and interesting analysis here Dustin. Being on a list of influential or interesting real estate tweetpeeps is cool yet relative at the same time. What I love most is having the opportunity to be helpful. I take pride in that actually.

    1. Being helpful is what makes you so influential! 😉

  23. WOW, you did so much work on this. I just love it. This will give me more reasons to keep on twitting. I really just like to twit because it’s fun.

    I’m going to look into following these people…. Wait… I thing I’m already following them.
    Thanks for the post. I really like it

  24. Loved your approach in compiling the list. Impressive!

  25. This is an awesome post Dustin.

    While I was honored to be included in Swanepoel’s list, it was immediately obvious that the were quite a few glaring omissions and digging deeper included quite a few people that I wouldn’t follow.

    I really appreciate you going into depth on the methodology used to compile this list. Judging by the results, I’d say that your definitely onto something. While there will always be a few people left out, I agree with every person that made this list & I’m honored to be listed alongside them.

    Once again, thanks for tackling this project Dustin. Score one for the data geeks!

    1. You rock! glad you appreciate it!

  26. Kari was the one who told me about this list. We knew there was only 1 person in the RE.net who has the ability to make such a list using such a methodology. Nice work. 🙂

  27. Thanks for the include!

  28. Wow Dustin…impressive calculations there. Look forward to finding 1/2 hour to read through the nuances of your methodology. Hoping I can keep up 🙂 Love that you took a statistical approach to things. Your mind thinks in wonderful ways.

  29. Wow Dustin! I woke up and read this post on my blackberry after someone forwarded it to me, I didn’t realize that so much thought went into this….
    Thanks for taking the time to put this together what a progressive way to view the whole process!

    1. So glad you enjoyed it… Yeah, a bit of work went into it, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, so it was well worth it.

      Next step would be to find someone with some webcoding skills who could automate the whole process so that someone (you or me) could insert any 10 people and it would output the top 50 influential people within their community. I think that would rock!

  30. I love it! it rocks that your algorithm put u at the top of the list! Not that you don’t deserve it 😉

    1. Go figure! 🙂 I honestly didn’t think I was gonna end up there. Was actually surprised that I was up there with a 100% follower rate with some of the others.

  31. Dustin,
    you know I love a good geek out with a spreadsheet. I actually really like your idea to use this with other communities. I think the list is a great starting point for research purposes. I also appreciate that you are making people work to find the followers that might be meaningful to them. 🙂

    1. Nothing like a good geek out session! Let me me know if you want a copy of the spreadsheet. 🙂

  32. I just caught the two lists via AgentGenius. Your list is pretty crazy considering how you actually went about it. Great way to come up with a way to actually see who is influential.

  33. Am I the only one not impressed by this list? Dustin, I don’t want to dis you. You put a lot of thought into your method, but why didn’t you measure @ replies or retweets? (On second thought, it would be difficult to measure retweets).

    I’m in real estate and I don’t recongize not one name, which is fine because real estate is a local thing. Excuse me, I recognize one name: Rudy from Trulia, which makes sense since he is the social media marketing guru for Trulia.

    Could you redo the list by state? Just curious?

    1. njrealtor1: I love the feedback… and agree it’s not a great list for local twitter users. By design, it’s pretty national in scope, so if you aren’t following the national real estate conversations (and I don’t want to imply you should), then there’s no reason to know many of these poeple.

      In terms of doing the list by state, that would definitely be possible… It wouldn’t be all that hard to recreate a new “influentials” list by topic or geography.

  34. How about some love for RealEstateMarketingBlog.org?

    Reasons why we need to be included:

    1) Has more followers than 90% of the users on this list
    2) Provides great tips for realtors and brokers regarding online marketing
    3) No annoying ads or sponsorships, just great content
    4) Loves to genuinely help realtors and brokers out with marketing themselves more effectively.

    Thanks for the consideration!

    Very useful list even without us on it.

  35. I will be the first to admit that I did not put the kind of thought into the monthly Roost 50 People to Follow on Twitter list that you did Dustin. But I do personally review all the people I recommend. I know lists open anyone to attacks but at least you have a method to your madness. A 95% means I have room for improvement. lol

    1. Always room for improvement! 😉 I talked with Garron Selliken for about an 1 1/2 this evening and we came up with an interesting improvement on this algorithm. Always more fun ahead!

  36. I dunno Dustin. Sorting the list by tenure on Twitter is kinda crude. I would have taken mean tweets per day divided by the mean retweets to find an Interestingness Ranking and then gone from there.

    I mean, c’mon. Amateur.

    1. Darn sorting algorithms can be surprisingly practical! 😉

  37. Pivot Tables + Twitter + Real Estate = the square root of me smiling

  38. That is some impressive analytical work. What I really like is there is some methodology to it. That and the numbers seem to track with reality – imho. Great work, Dustin.

  39. Dustin,

    I appreciate the recommendations and your empirical processing.

    Well done and extra helpful!

  40. Dustin, I’d say I’m blown away by this level of detail… But I can’t since you don’t cut corners on anything you do. This is a most impressive task you took on and I love that you are looking into other arena’s as well (also not surprising). 🙂 As I mentioned in a comment above, I’m honored to know each of the people on the list. Love that I’ve personally, face to face met with 45 of the 50. Can’t wait to meet the remaining 5 which I know will happen. You are top-shelf in my book! Can’t wait until our next time hangin’ at Vesuvio Cafe!

    1. I JUST completed (although haven’t published) the top 50 for Ventura County as a test to see how the algorithms might work on a “local” level. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, there’s nowhere near the same level of interconnections within this geography as there was within the “real estate” community. Whereas 10 people in the “real estate” space has a peer rating of 100%, in Ventura County, @Connie_Tebyani led the pack by having only 57% of the local influentials following her.

      Nonetheless, the overall pattern definitely held up with the top 50 being dominated by influential local people. My initial glance says that the biggest differences are (1) there were a lot more businesses included in the top 50 and (2) two non-locals did make the list: @cnnbrk and @wefollow). If it wasn’t so late, I’d work a blog post up, but I think I’m gonna wait until tomorrow! 😉

  41. I just have to say how proud I am to be included with all of the “Cool Kids” on this list – thank you Dustin for taking the time to put it all together. Your thought process is very impressive.

  42. […] users in the real estate space that are considered to be influential (Swanepoel?s Top 100 and Luther?s Top 50). Any time a list is published, people poo poo it (especially if they?re not on it), and […]

  43. It is tomorrow and I am still laughing

  44. Wow…impressive! Personally, I highly regard everyone on your list! Quick question … How many would drop from the top 50 list if you removed all real estate vendors? In other words, how many of the list are actually in real estate sales/brokerage and not selling to the industry? The most influential real estate agents/brokerages on Twitter is a top 50 list of names I would be interested in seeing:)Thanks!

    1. Krisstina, looks like about half the list would fall into your “vendor” category although I would not remove a single one of them from the list. What they add to our industry, conversation and thought process is invaluable (and I know you weren’t suggesting they be removed).

      1. Dale- Agreed! Although, if we are looking to the most influential in real estate, I think vendors have a different agenda with use of the tools than the local real estate agent/broker. Who can agents and brokers look to as industry leaders (not vendors) as an example of effective use of SM & Tech? Who can they model and learn from that are successfully using the 2.0/3.0 tools to build and improve their own RE businesses? What tools from what vendors are these leading agents/brokers using? There is no doubt that the leading vendors are offering invaluable knowledge for the rest of us and I am learning everyday from this group:)..but at the end of the day, they are selling me something. I by no means was suggesting they be removed from the list! — I was just saying that I would like to see another group without the Vendors to be able to see Who’s Who of the new technology and social media age of RE–You of course being at the top of the list:)!

        1. You are too kind (and funny!). 🙂 Looking forward to some more conversation around this topic. Great questions Krisstina!

    2. Following up on Dale’s comment… If you’re looking for realtors successfully using twitter to generate biz, this really isn’t an appropriate list. Most of those realtors keep a laser like focus on the “local” scene and don’t care much for the national conversation. Nonetheless, there’s lots to be learned from this group of folks! 😉

      1. Dustin–My point exactly. I, for one (perhaps to my detriment?), do not spend a lot of time in the national real estate conversations going on minute by minute on Twitter–although I do (and love to) participate from time to time. I love following and chatting w/my favorite real estate peeps, but most of my (laser) focus on Twitter and Facebook is in local conversation since this is where I transact and have my brand/identity as a high-tech real estate brokerage. Although it is fun to participate in a national conversation, the increase to my bottom line as a result of SM and other tools is, so far, ALL because of participation in the local conversations;) I am curious who else in the RE sales/brokerage industry is successfully using the tech & tools to set themselves apart in their local communities. Personally, I am very interested in them–I like knowing what tech & tools they are using, who they are following, and what the heck they are doing that I am not:) Thoughts?

        1. My gut says that you’re probably looking in the wrong place if you’re looking for successful “practicing” agents. Almost all of the realtors on the list have developed and nurtured a reputation that helps pay the bills to the point where you might as well call everyone on the list a “vendor.” They’re all “selling” stuff, even if it’s only their influence so that they can get writing gigs at national publications, speaking fees, advertising on their sites, book deals, etc.

          If you’re looking for people who are practicing on a local level, the top 50 Realtors with a national reputation wouldn’t be the place to start since the people you’re looking for often haven’t done any work to nurture a “national” reputation.

          However, if you’re looking for people who have earned a national reputation by their peers for being interesting, informative, helpful (and generally not providing a hard-sell or they wouldn’t be followed by many), then it can be a great place to find people talking about how to use online marketing to reach a local audience.

          1. This is an interesting conversation that’s sprung out of this thread. As a “practicing” agent I think that I’d come up in a similar fashion in my local scene as much if not more so than the national scene. I use these tools to connect with people on a local level as well as a national level. I’m going to scratch my head a bit and ponder this further. Good stuff!

      2. I think there are a lot of folks on this list who also would be considered “influential” on their local scene. Certainly not all, but many are practicing agents/brokers who are using Twitter and other social media tools to grow their real estate practice.

        I’ve garnered some writing, speaking and advertising gigs, but that doesn’t come anywhere close to feeding the children.

        There are agents on this list I immediately identify with their local area. And I suspect many non-real estate people actually in their locations do the same thing…

  45. WOW! Honored to be on the list Dustin, you’re the one that got me into this stuff remember? lol~ Thanks buddy. 🙂

    1. Of course I remember! I always enjoy giving blogging/social media presentations! 😉

  46. Thanks for the inclusion Dustin. You all do know I’m not a Realtor, right? 🙂

    1. Don’t spread the word, but I’m not a realtor either…

    1. If you create a twitter presence that the influential people in real estate find interesting enough to follow, then you won’t be “forgotten” next time… 🙂

  47. Wow!!

    It’s just incredible how one 140 character tweet created at the airport while waiting for a delayed flight has sparked such an awesome array of comments, tweets and now this tremendous research. Debatable assumptions but nevertheless great research and great results. Well done Dustin!!

    This clearly shows us all the enormous untapped power and potential of social media and the game-changer it can be for our industry. My hope is that many of the non-Twitter real estate professionals will see this as a jolt to get involved and participate in the online conversation.

    Stefan

    PS: (As a side, my list was never promoted as The Top 100 but was my personal list of interesting/influential/impressive RE people on Twitter.)

    1. Thanks again for the inspiration… I documented this approach for developing a twitter influence about 3 months ago and tried to get a friend to develop the tool for me (he’s much better at web coding than I am). However, after seeing your list, it definitely gave me the kick in the pants to create my own list using excel, even if the solution isn’t as elegant as a web-based approach.

  48. Great analytical thinking. And good way to start out on Twitter, reviewing these lists. But I will have to point out one glaring omission… I believe both lists omit those who privatize their tweets. For example one of the most influential, and I believe, the most loved person on Twitter has to be @SarahWV . I mean REALLY!!!!

    Some of us have to privatize for various reasons (stalkers, weirdos, etc), and some of us prefer the control of REALLY knowing who is following us. I look at every single twitter profile and page. I kick out every porn queen, mlm, and spammer I can.

    I know I go back & forth on this “protecting my twitter” thing every once in while, but after some of the spam I recently received, I don’t know that I’m gonna go back. Won’t say never … But just want to remind those making lists, that there are some valuable players out there online and IRL, who you may want to point out who aren’t entirely obvious to newbies, but you certainly KNOW they contribute to the community.

    1. I totally hear your concern… This list definitely captures people who have private accounts. @LaniAR made the list for example. All that really mattered was that the people were being followed by the group of 44 people.

      However, you did bring up an interesting point that had not occurred to me to explain. In my list of 45 people (step 4), two of them had private accounts. I was following one of them (@LaniAR), so I could put in my Twitter password and retrieve her follower list. However, there was one person who I couldn’t do that with and I never have bothered to look up who that person was. That meant that I didn’t include their influence in the totals, although they still had every opportunity to be listed as the list was really determined by the group.

      Also, this is the reason I divided by 44 instead of 45 when calculating the “peer rating”.

      1. Excellent work Dustin, I was concerned about the locked or private accounts inclusion as well; however, your explanation makes sense. I would be interested in viewing the expansion to 200, if for no other reason than – it doubles the other list, quadruples this one, and gives everyone more sm networking opportunities.

        1. Definitely something to consider! It wouldn’t be hard to run a much bigger list and the results could be quite interesting…

  49. Oh ok then. Good to know. I just couldn’t for the life of me figure why a few people I had in mind (& thought they were prob in your list) weren’t included, and that was the deduction I made. Guess I leapt to conclusions since I consider them “influential.” But again, these lists certainly do help, esp Newbies to discover the power of Twitter. Thanks Dustin!

    However My Ultimate Conclusion: No one will EVER come up with the “Perfect List.” Only you can do that for yourself! 🙂

  50. Still want to know the 4…. (lol)..

  51. […] Monday between the publishing of those two lists, Dustin Luther @tyr did his own list of 50 Most Influential Real Estate People on Twitter.I will be honest I like Dustin’s list better. Not because I was on it or who was on it. […]

  52. Awesome nerd work Dustin. Thanks!

    1. So glad you liked it… we were gonna catch up this past week. What happened?

  53. […] followers, sales, Tips, Twitter by Elad Kehat The web is a-buzz with lists of the top 100 or top 50 real estate people to follow on Twitter. The one who really gets it though is Brian Brady here. If […]

  54. […] first to come out was produced by Stefan Swanepoel, and the second by Dustin Luther; the former seems to have ruffled some feathers of those in the RE.net who were left off the list […]

  55. […] few days later Dustin published his own list of influential people. This list was half the size and ranked by influence based on an API he […]

  56. Interesting list. I am already following several, but this will give me a few more to follow as well. So far I feel that most of the real estate industry has not harnessed Twitter properly yet. Too many times have I seen listing ad spam instead of something I would actually want to read.
    -Tyler

  57. Wow Dustin! Sounds like a lot of work to me! That’s quite an analysis!!!

  58. […] & interesting real estate people by Stefan Swanepoel and another by Dustin Luther titled 50 Most Influential Real Estate People on Twitter.  In the interest of full disclosure Stefan released a second list of 100 which I was […]

  59. […] and or interest him the most.Then, Founder of Rain City Guide Dustin Luther also published his list of top 50 Most Influential people to compensate those he felt should have been on Stefan’s […]

  60. Great job, Dustin, with this amazing process (w/illustrations :)-luv visuals) and analytical mind! I concur with your Headliners and findings – fantastic people making fabulous contributions, everyday…you and they ALL rock!

  61. loving the list – just my type of analysis

    Would it be something you would consider run one for UK property people?

    no doubt poppyd would be up there but who else has the UK influence???

    1. Would be happy to…

      Can’t announce anything “official” yet, but I’m working with some other guys to build an app for this calculation. If you send me 10 people from the UK real estate/property scene, I’ll throw them into my app and send you the results!

  62. What makes a Realtor influential? As a long time Realtor I fail to see any real value to Twitter in my business.

  63. great method Dustin…keep up the good work..

  64. […] on the 100 Influential & Interesting Real Estate People, and Dustin Luther’s analytical 50 Most Influential Real Estate People on Twitter, to name a […]

  65. […] it did get me thinking about an update to the 50 most influential real estate people on twitter that caused quite the stir last fall…  After publishing the list, I got to talking with […]

  66. First off…how did my name not reach the list? Second, did you notice you have an extra “ter” at the end of your Title tag! Seriously though great list and a great approach to putting it together!

    1. Cody: It’s easy enough to make the list! All you gotta do is get a few of the more influential folks to start following you on twitter! Best of luck and keep reaching out! 😉

  67. You nailed it with these folks versus the other spammers. You’ve compiled an all-star list of great real estate twitter people. To Ralph, Twitter can be very influential by providing current information. Take it for what it is and that is a new avenue to expand your knowledge.

  68. […] In Stefan Swanepoel’s Real Estate Trends Report 2009 (Social Media), Dustin Luther’s 50 most influential people on […]

  69. Influential in what sense?

  70. @charliesheen is climbing on that twitter ladder

  71. This is just what I’ve been looking for.

    1. So glad you found it useful! It’s a bit dated at this point… really could use an update! 😉

  72. Agreed it is a bit dated but the amount of data there is impressive. I would love to see an update. Good list.

    Marty

  73. Hey want about me…I have like 1500 followers…na…just kidding I tweet like once a month

  74. I dion’t think of twitter and influential as words that belong in the same sentence

  75. I see Jay Thompson at the top of that list and I would have to agree. From what I can see he does seem to have quite a bit of people following him and not just on twitter.

  76. […] curious to see a similar process used in a different niche, here’s a similar list of the most influential Twitter people in the real estate space I developed a few years […]

  77. […] No doubt I’ve got all kinds of theories on how to measure online influence, and even went so far as to outline them a bit in this comment, but for now, I just thought I’d just share my excitement that Sarah Needleman of the Wall Street Journal wrote a great article about one of the theories I’ve been working on with the D&B Credibility team and the resulting list of the most influential twitter people in the small business community. (and if you’re interested in lots of details from an earlier iteration of this concept, check out this post: 50 Most Influential Real Estate People on Twitter) […]

  78. Jonathan Weinberg Avatar
    Jonathan Weinberg

    Any chance you could help me do the same for a list exclusive to Canada? the API is way beyond me

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