It’s all the rage now. Online social interaction and building relationships are considered the hot new way to generate leads for our real estate businesses. The problem is that it takes time to participate in online discussions, and which should be our priority? The good news is that there are ways to leverage your time and still have a shot at some business from these sites.

When it comes to Twitter, all of my blog posts automatically become Tweets on my accounts. If it wasn’t automatic, it wouldn’t get done. And, I don’t spend even a half hour a day viewing my Twitter accounts. I consider it a medium for me to get out my blog posts for more exposure, but the hundreds of daily Tweets from people I follow are just too much to follow. I follow others in order to get news items about which I might want to post, either here on About.com, or in my personal real estate blog. But, I create a search for specific key phrases, and only monitor those when I need an article idea. There are a couple of plugins that will get your posts to your Twitter account automatically, at least with WordPress.

As for Facebook, it’s a really social place, but I’m not sure how much business a basically hermit type like me will get. It does have a great deal of value if you have the potential of contacting an extensive network of people with whom you’ve lost touch. If you’re still in the area where you went to school or college, you could very well develop some really profitable relationships by seeking out old classmates on Facebook. There’s also past fellow employees in jobs you’ve previously held. A dramatic expansion of a sphere of influence could result from seeking out these old acquaintances.

I do check out my LinkedIn account at least every other day, though new messages are delivered to me anyway via email. I also have an RSS feed of questions others ask there. These are mostly related to other business activities, not to real estate. However, there are some great real estate networks there, including one sponsored by NAR. LinkedIn is a much more business-oriented place than Facebook.

Finally, both my Facebook account and my LinkedIn account get automated entries from my blogs via RSS as well. I write a post once, and it is syndicated to Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn automatically. This is, in my opinion, well worth any effort to get it set up, as it’s very efficient thereafter. However, I spend little or no time on these sites unless someone asks a question of me.

I think I could do more, but I’m simply not that social, and I spend a huge amount of time writing and researching material, leaving little for these sites. I probably spend less than a total of two hours a week on all three. It’s up to you, but some may just find these sites to be excellent business builders over time. And time is the key word. You’ll have to invest some to reap the benefits.