Do’s and Don’ts for Good Tweeting
I am by no means a Twitter expert (is anyone?) but rather an enthusiast. And though my Twitter life span has been brief, I can’t help but take notice of the thrills and chills of tweet etiquette, or should I say tweetiquette? Here’s my round up of do’s and don’ts for good tweeting. Not by way of my own followers of course! No, not you…
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BE Your Local Tourism Authority
Have one last room to fill at your b&b? Want to cash in on a local festival that will draw visitors, day trippers, or vacationers to your area? Don’t just rely on the local tourism authority’s marketing efforts, BE the local tourism authority. Get your inn, restaurant, art gallery, or attraction on Twitter.
Use Twitter to post useful links, tidbits, and specials, and offer yourself up as a local authority – answering questions and providing tips and recommendations via your tweets can drive traffic to your website and build familiarity with regular and potential followers. With regular posts and useful information, you can connect with followers while they plan their visit, with the goal of inviting them through your front door. TravelPortland (Portland, Oregon) is a good example of putting the Twitter to use for tourism.
Contact Deep Dish Creative today to ask about an attractive, branded background for your Twitter page!
On a grand scale, visit (and get your destination listed) www.twisitorcenter.com, a great hub for tourism-building Twitter feeds (@twisitorcenter). Start Tweeting today!
Take a look at how other destination Twitter pages are shaping up >>
A great visual walk through the Twitter process and how you can make it work for your business:
You’re so popular
Reader beware: this post is likely to dig into the craws of some people. And you know who you are…
I’m a nice person, really, but sometimes I have to draw lines in the ridiculous.
This social media thing has opened up a whole new avenue for folks who want to spread the good word. Unless its Satan spammers, most of the time its used to start a conversation or share links to great content, articles, news, videos, humor, recipes, events, you name it. Most users are fair and share all the news that’s fit to tweet and give props to the original storyteller.
A scattered few, though, see applications like Twitter as a way to increase their own online net worth by sharing others’ content and not giving credit where credit is due. I’m all for retweeting something awesome, even if I don’t know where it originated. And sure, I’ll use bit.ly to shuttle through a juicy link if I don’t find a handy tweetmeme or sharethis button at my disposal on the page.
What I DON’T do, however, is run these article links through my own set of monitors to build SEO happiness for myself off the backs of other authors. This activity is becoming more and more noticeable to me, even in my own small community of seemingly ‘socially’ responsible tweeps. It smacks of poaching, if there is a such a relative term for social media piracy.
I’m not talking plagiarism here, just poaching good content to share without a shout out to the owner/writer. Seems harmless enough on occassion, but when every single tweet has this familiar formula: #hashtag / Name of Article / URL, and I can watch it redirect to a friendfeed, stumbleupon in addition to bit.ly or ow.ly and the like, before finally delivering me to the article.
And then to double down when you are virtually tweeting for another business with the exact same tweets and URLs – I mean, come on.
While I’m spewing, might as well cramp a few others’ styles:
ASKING FOR IT
No, I will not give you a read, digg, stumble, or RT. Why? Because you asked for one in your tweet. Because a clever headline and simple link to your article would have either inspired me to do so or not. Ahem, if you need to fill a quota to sell more ads in that banner soup you have going on on your site, then step up the quality of your content.
If your article (or your friend’s) is worthy of some popularity kudos, I’ll indulge you, sure. But asking me to ‘please like me’ is pathetic. In fact, asking me to verify your ‘Do you think I’m cool? Huh, do ya?’ request guarantees I will not even click on your link.
There are always exceptions: This does not include genuine shouts for help or condolences for something important to humanity, personal or otherwise.
HALF-ASS LINKS
Same goes for links that end up on Friendfeed, StumbleUpon or Digg pages. Why ask me to click again to read your (probably) sad sack article? Send me all the way thru to the motherland. At least then I won’t have an inkling that I just dug you.
You’re so popular.
A Handful of Very Cool Tourism-related Twitter Backgrounds
This effort began as a Top Ten of Tourism Twitter Sites, but after spending virtually HOURS to locate ten truly remarkable destination Twitter pages, I settled on handful plus a few mentions. There just doesn’t seem to be a good selection with ROCK STAR status…yet. If you think I missed a few, please direct me to them.
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Australia’s new tourism campaign
Australia’s Come Walkabout Commercial Directed by Baz Luhrmann for Tourism Australia.
