Engagement In 140 Characters Or Less - Marketing your Vacation Rentals on Twitter

Engagement in 140 Characters or Less Marketing your Vacation Rentals on Twitter By: John Ellis and Rob Earp of ResortQuest & Carrie Hill of Blizzard Internet Marketing @JohnEllis @CarrieHill @BlizzInternet @ResortQuest Copyright 2009 – all rights reserved

ResortQuest

Welcome New Partners

Engagement in 140 Characters or Less Copyright 2009 – all rights reserved Marketing your Vacation Rentals on Twitter By: John Ellis and Rob Earp of ResortQuest & Carrie Hill of Blizzard Internet Marketing @JohnEllis @CarrieHill @BlizzInternet @ResortQuest

What Is Twitter?

Twitter is a free social messaging utility that delivers real-time connectivity with an audience of your choosing

The most valuable of all talents is that of never using two words when one will do -Thomas Jefferson

The Anatomy of a Tweet

The Promotional Tweet

The Anatomy of a Tweet

The Engagement Tweet

Benefits to Twitter

PPC-Ad-type engagement for social networking

Allows you to build a network of people who can help market or spread the word about your business.

Target based on “behavior” or “location”

Past tweets that can be searched show behavior

Location can be seen using tools (more on this later)

Marketing Via Twitter

Building a Following

Be engaging & helpful

Be Professional but open & personable

Follow those you’re looking to market to FIRST – they will follow back if you add value

Make it worth it to follow you

Ideas for Engagement

Tips for Marketing on Twitter:

Twitter-Only specials

Twitter “first” specials (advance access to deals)

Contests

Build a following then offer discounts for people who:

Submit photos

Write blog posts (great for linkbuilding)

Compose 140 character Haiku about your location

Who’s Doing it Right?

Who’s Doing it Right

Twitiquette

Just like any other social network there are “rules”

Automatic Direct Messages (DMs) are annoying

Don’t DM someone and expect a response if you’re not following them – they cant DM you

Don’t Protect your updates – too hard for those looking for you to follow you

Twitter Toolbox – API Clients

Twitter API Clients

TweetDeck

Put your contacts in groups by location, deal, demographic or ?

Set a search and then leave it – will keep pulling in tweets that are related to your search

Twitter Toolbox: Other API Clients

Twhirl

TwitterBerry (for Blackberry Phones)

TwitterFon (for Iphones)

TwitterFox (Firefox Browser Extension)

Tools to Make it Easier

Finding Followers

TwitterLocal.net – filter to find followers in a certain area

TwitterHolic.com – See the top 100 tweeters and determine their relevance to your product/service

other people to follow

Twittervision.com – See people tweeting around the globe in real time

WhoShouldIFollow.com – reviews who you are already following and makes suggestions for

Tools to Make it Easier

Scheduling & Tracking Tweets

EasyTweet.com

Twittertise.com

Tracking link clicks

http://Cli.gs is my preferred now – sign up for a free account and you can see who clicked on the links you tweet & their geographic location (this is also great for email marketing)

Pitfalls & Priorities

Don’t Waste Time

Schedule what you can using the free tools (twitterfeed, easytweets, twittertise)

Maintain a healthy following list – don’t overdo it – when you follow 1000 a lot happens when you’re away from the feed, which means more time catching up. Using a client like tweetdeck helps weed out what you dont need.

Integration with Existing Marketing

Facebook Feed

Facebook has an application that will pull your Twitter feed into Facebook as status updates. A great way to participate one time but look like you’re everywhere