How do you know when a CVB is doing a FANTASTIC job on twitter?
When they get a review like this from a travel professional:
Amy Brock is the epitome of a Tourism Geek. If you’re in the tourism industry, put her on your watch list!
Jan5
Tag Archives: Twitter
Nov17
MT on Twitter
If you’re on twitter, you already know that “RT” stands for retweet — forwarding or re-posting someone’s tweet to your followers. Well I’ve been noticing a new trend and it turns out that it’s not new at all. At least in terms of social media time.
People have been using “MT” to indicate a Modified Tweet. It’s basically a retweet that’s been edited. Makes sense, right? I’ve been seeing it more and more recently but I found mentions of this in blogs from as far back as August 2010. That’s ancient history on twitter.
When should you use MT instead of RT? Here are three answers:
More twitter abbreviations you should know: Read the rest of this entry
Nov6
How to lose respect on twitter
There are several ways to lose respect on twitter but the fastest two ways are scheduling tweets without checking mentions and spamming hashtags.
Someone has been spamming a few hashtags I follow. He’s using scheduled tweets and actually sent the exact same tweet at 2pm two days in a row. I tried reaching out to him through a tweet but he never replied. And then came more spam on the hashtags.
When people follow a hashtag, a lot of them will place it in a search column in TweetDeck or HootSuite. TweetDeck users have the option of setting an audible or visual notification anytime there’s a new tweet in that column. That’s what I do for important hashtags. Now imaging getting this notification several times a day from a user that has nothing to contribute to the conversation and is only promoting his business. It’s frustrating.
So be smart on how you use twitter and don’t be a Social Media DB.
Oct17
Tourism Twitterers
If you’re not already following Betsy Decillis on twitter, do it now.
She just released an updated list of the Top 100 Most Influential Tourism Professionals – October Edition. Check it out!
And if you want an easy way to follow all these tourism professionals, follow Betsy’s Top Tourism Pros twitter list.
I love the methodology that she used to rank the tourism professionals:
I took the top ten from the original list and found 96 individual tourism accounts that the majority of them were following. I then found the 100 most followed individuals in tourism by these 96. From there, I looked up their Klout score. I added the percentage of followers and the Klout score and that gave me their rank.
So what are you waiting for? Get to the list and start connecting on twitter!
Sep21
Adorama + Twitter = Great Customer Service
If you’ve been to my house, you’ve probably noticed my wall of photos: a number of 11×17 framed prints of my favorite photos. I change them out regularly and always use Adorama for printing. They provide excellent quality and ship the photos in a flat box. I’ve never had any problems until last month’s shipment. UPS bent the box so badly that all of the photos had deep creases in them. I’ve tweeted to @AdoramaPix before and love their twitter efforts.
When I saw the bent UPS box, I instantly sent twitpics and tagged @AdoramaPix in them. After a few DMs, a new set of prints were on their way. I didn’t have to login to my account on the Adorama site. I didn’t have to contact customer service. I only tweeted. The results: a VERY happy customer as they communicated with me on my preferred platform.
Adorama’s print quality is excellent. I’ve recommended them to friends before and I will continue to recommend them, especially after experiencing their amazing customer service first-hand.
Thank you, Adorama. I will be a loyal customer for life. Read the rest of this entry
Sep20
Making Events Social: Infographic
Events and conferences are utilizing social media for promotion as well as to enhance the attendee experience. Whether conferences, meetings or festivals, marketing your events with twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn is very beneficial. Check out this infographic from cvent: Read the rest of this entry
Sep16
Twitter Platforms
Long gone are the days of going to twitter.com to tweet but with all the twitter platform options available, it’s hard to find the perfect one. Especially if you have multiple twitter accounts or watch several twitter searches.
Here are my two favorites:
TweetDeck: I like TweetDeck because it provides real-time tweets. This is great for things like participating in #tourismchat as you don’t have to refresh the column. You can customize the visual and audio notifications for each column and there doesn’t seem to be a limit on columns. I currently have 25 columns, 80% of which are for hashtags, searches or lists of followers. TweetDeck is free but you have to download the platform, which might not be ideal if you’re using an office computer.
HootSuite: One of the best features of HootSuite is the ability to set up separate tabs with multiple columns in each tab. So I can have a tab for each twitter account and then a separate tab for searches or hashtags. Or I can mix search or hashtag columns in my main tab. However there is a limit of 10 columns (streams) per tab. Another great feature is to set up team users, if you have multiple people managing the same twitter account, so that you can see who replies to which tweet. With additional team members, plans can get a little pricey. Free plans are available. Pro plans ($5.99/month) are needed for teams ($15/member per month). HootSuite is web-based so there’s nothing to download.
These are a two platforms I’m exploring but I don’t currently use for tweeting: Read the rest of this entry
Sep14
Twitter Tracking: Stats
Tracking social media efforts is an important component of any social strategy. Whether you’re tracking basic or more advanced stats, here are five tools that can help:
1. TweetStats: The charts take a few minutes to compile but you can grab screen shots for your monthly and up-to-date twitter stats. It also tells you your tweet density (what time of day you tweet the most) as well as daily or hourly averages and your tweet or hashtag clouds. TweetStats is free to use.
2. Twitalyzer: This tool measures impact, engagement and influence on Twitter. It also combines your Klout and PeerIndex scores. You can still see a few stats for free but individual accounts cost $4.99/month and business accounts are $29.99/month.
3. Raven Tools: One of my favorite tools, Raven Tools will chart your tweets, replies, retweets as well as reply reach and retweet reach. It’s not cheap (the Pro plan is $99/month) but it’s by far easier than calculating everything by hand.
4. Crowdbooster: The dashboard not only measures stats but also helps you optimize your social media marketing. It gives you recommendations based on your followers like the best time of day to tweet and it also lists your influential followers and top retweeters. A Personal account is free and the Business account is $20/month.
5. Sprout Social: If you’re looking for different kinds of stats, this is the tool for you. Basic stats (mentions, retweets, replies) as well as engagement, influence and follower demographics can be downloaded via csv or pdf. You can also tweet directly from the dashboard. Their Go Pro plan is $9/month and Go Business is $49/month.
What are your favorite tools to track twitter?
Aug30
Join the #tourismchat Conversation
#tourismchat is a biweekly twitter chat focusing on Social Media in the Tourism Industry. It’s held on Thursdays at 2pm CST. If you’re not familiar with it, this is your personal invitation to participate, or at least lurk, in the chat!
How?
If you use TweetDeck or HootSuite, set up a search column for #tourismchat. My preference is TweetDeck as it brings in new tweets automatically in real-time.
If you don’t use TweetDeck or can’t keep up with the constant tweets, try TweetChat. This site automatically adds the #tourismchat hashtag at the end of every tweet, which is a great benefit. Tip: sign in with your twitter account and move the refresh speed down to 5 seconds.
Why?
- #tourismchat is FREE.
- CVBs and others in the tourism industry share their social media knowledge and experience. For free.
- It’s like attending specific social media sessions at tourism conferences but better.
- And if you needed another reason: Read the rest of this entry
Aug5
#notatDMAI11: the non-conference
It seemed like everyone in the tourism industry was in NOLA for #DMAI11 last month. Well everyone except for a few lonely people on twitter who felt like they were missing out. What started as a playful conversation became an incredible occasion to connect with other tourism professionals on twitter.
Troy (@travel2dot0) mentioned the #notatDMAI11 hashtag in a tweet and a few of us started to run with it. While the real #DMAI11 conference attendees listened to Dom Sagolla speak, one of the co-creaters of Twitter, we had some random tweets like my “Twitter has 140 characters. #notatDMAI11″ tweet. But the non-conference hashtag was quickly evolving into something more than that and within less than an hour, we had a #notatDMAI11 twitter list and a non-conference non-logo logo, courtesy of Beth Conway.
Next came the idea of hosting a #notatDMAI11 twitter chat. It was the perfect opportunity to show the community aspect of hashtags and the learning potential of twitter, with or without a conference. The chat was scheduled for that Friday, the last day of #DMAI11, and focused on using social media at conferences. For more info on the chat, check out the #notatDMAI11 twitter transcript [pdf]. By the end of the chat, only three days after the hashtag was created, there were over 270 #notatDMAI11 tweets by more than 50 twitter accounts. Read the rest of this entry