Overhauling Travel Marketing: To Tweet or Not to Tweet

So, you're tweeting. Dropping comments of up to 140 characters into the Twittesphere at warp speed (or so it seems) wondering, What the heck am I doing? Besides promoting your business with numbers (followers & following), what are the benefits? Well, the experts in social marketing told me tweeting was important, so I did it - like a sheep. On good days, especially early on, I was able to read about 1/2 of 1% of the tweets from those I followed if I stuck to my self allotted time frame of 15 to 30 minutes a day. And, like every good Twitter addict, I was watching my numbers. It seemed to be the point. Then I thought, OMG! Am I now participating in some sort of flash mob mentality; caught up in the fever pitch? Had I joined the Twitter cult? WOW! Am I that mindless? Where was the value in that! So, I asked myself is this good marketing or is it just a numbers craze? The answer is, yes.

In many aspects Internet marketing is a numbers game, that is to say, there are benefits to numbers both in ranking and number of followers, and Twitter can get you numbers in a hurry. But it has to go beyond the numbers game to be really beneficial. Often we use social media without first understanding it. Frankly, it's all just happening too fast. Who has time for it all? But, that's precisely why the simplicity of Twitter caught on.* 140 characters done reasonably well, for no more than 15 - 30 minutes a day is doable and can get you some decent recognition. However, it is NOT mindlessly following or tweeting that will get valuable results. Obviously what I did at first was wrong, so I had to rethink the possibilities and the purpose. I did my Twitter homework. It revealed that simple, concise, worthwhile information has marketing value on Twitter. Then, and only then, the good numbers will follow; tweet relevant, good information and consciously follow, respond to and retweet relevant, good information.

So what do YOU tweet? At first tweeting is a very foreign activity. Very much like trying to communicate in a foreign country with text book knowledge of the language; it takes practice to be fluent. I like the simple way Tech N' Marketing explained tweeting:
What to write—
“What are you thinking?”
Are you reading an interesting article? Share it!
Cool video? Link to it!
A funny picture? Tweet it!
Share share share!
Cause there to be dialog.
That is what it is all about.

If I could add just a couple additional things to their simple "how to" explanation (considering we're talking about social media marketing) they would be:
Tweet daily
ONLY tweet and retweet about things relevant to your business. 
Create a separate account for your personal interests. There you can talk politics, sports, fashion, religion or whatever, but not on your business Twitter page unless it's the business you are in.
 Proudly brag about your business or profession 
your facility, goals, accomplishments, products, offers, etc.

One last thought: you will inevitably miss a huge percentage of tweets and the opposite is true. Not to worry. No one is saying, good information can't be shared more than once and good tweets get retweeted. Within a short time you'll develop habits, then relevant patterns will emerge and it will begin to actually make some sense. Twitter is simply a networking tool. It is like dropping a rock in a pond - it will have a ripple effect. How far the ripple carries you is dependent on you. Tweet well and they will listen, follow and retweet.



*In all honesty it has gotten more complicated, but the simple premise is still there.

Overhauling Travel Marketing - Part 1

Time to get real about YOUR marketing!
Let's face it I've been blogging for a while now. Blogs are available on almost every subject and if one doesn't hold your interest you simply move on to the next. I'm one of a multitude of travel related bloggers out there and if you combined all our efforts we've worked extensively on the subject of travel. Blogs are immensely popular, yet even if we've specifically mentioned your hotel, restaurant or attraction you've probably only benefited minimally from our efforts no matter how massive the amount of information we've put out. That being said getting mentioned in a blog post is still important, but we need to address the whole travel marketing picture. If anything, most blogs serve the user (guest) and really great destinations don't get equal billing nearly enough. I'm here to change that to mutually benefit both you and potential guests.

To avoid being overly wordy we're putting hotels/lodging, restaurants and attractions (theme parks, museums, etc.) together under one term-destinations. After all, you are a destination and from a marketing perspective if you're not thinking of your place as such you should be!


Beginning at the beginning -

There are three basic challenges inherent in any destination marketing campaign:

1. They (potential guests) have to find you

2. You have to convince them to try you

3. You have to convince them to come back

The easiest marketing campaign challenge to address is #3. To get guests to come back you must provide them with an acceptable value for their money and their time; you must perform to a reasonable expectation. Do that and they will return. Don't do it and they won't. Perform above expectations and they'll SHARE. Perform below or mislead them and they will likely SHARE negatively, sometimes very negatively. Misleading guest is a huge mistake! Surprisingly this practice is still fairly common and it hurts everyone in the travel industry. Consequently there is now a website that exposes places that mislead guests. 

Performing above and beyond guests expectations, fulfilling their desires can get you a viral response and that's pure GOLD! Let's face it, positive word of mouth from your guests is the absolute best marketing and you can't buy it you have to earn it. If you are already doing this, that's fantastic! You are the destination guests are searching for. The good news is you don't have to be outrageously expensive or exotic to be that destination. Yesterday I happily tweeted, and it wasn't the first time, about an attraction just outside of Yosemite we visited a few years ago because it's such a great memory! I haven't been back to that area (six hour plane trip) but I happily tell others about Yosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad - GREAT family fun! So if you didn't know about it already or stumble upon it by chance on the internet, like here, how likely are you to find them? How do potential guests find you? For this, #1on the marketing campaign list, there is help. 

Of course, traditional methods of marketing (television, radio, print and direct mail) are still available but, only minimally effective. I could spend considerable time on this subject, but for now let me just say this, These methods are akin to playing roulette; plunking your money down, picking a slot then spinning a wheel and rolling a ball hoping luck lands it in your slot. They're too unpredictable at too high a cost. Ask yourself this, When you do get lucky and get your ad in front of your potential guest  are they really paying attention? 

Fast forward to the Internet - the worldwide web. Your potential guests are using it. They are out there. Great! Right? Considering how vast the Internet is we might as well be saying, aliens do exist - they are out there - somewhere. What you want to know is, How do I communicate with them?  How do our potential guests find us? The internet is suddenly your best friend and your worst enemy. I've heard it all - lack of time, fear, frustration. It's frankly overwhelming! Help is here and I'll take you through the steps over the course of this series of posts.

So here's the first thing you should do, not the number one thing just the first thing we're going to tackle, possibly the easiest thing. Create a Twitter account and begin tweeting. It amazes me how many of my favorite places don't have twitter accounts when you can literally do this in 15 minutes! Do it! Then tweet daily for 15 minutes and you WILL increase your visibility guaranteed! Don't tell me you don't have 15 minutes, find it! If you do this I will follow you. Just copy the following in a tweet:
Hey @travelvisions I'm on #twitter now-follow me.
If you're already tweeting - awesome! Send me the same tweet from above and I'll follow you if I'm not already doing so. If you are ahead of the curve and already tweeting please don't think this series of posts isn't for you. I promise you we will improve your marketing methods in the coming weeks if you stick with me. Coming up next post I'll delve further into the simple social marketing things you MUST do! Until then, I look forward to your tweet!