Twitter is the current buzz word for internet users and digital marketers. Its use is growing at a fantastic rate: Nelson, for example, claim unique visitors to Twitter.com increased 1,928% year-over-year from 1 million in June 2008 to 21 million in June 2009 and although suggestions that Twitter has become more important than Google for traffic generation are still a little far fetched, it is clear that Twitter is becoming an increasingly valuable source of traffic - and more.With the only real cost of use of Twitter being the time it takes to [write] tweets, the potential ROI is almost limitless: every dollar of revenue generated via Twitter has an almost $0 marketing / referral overhead attached to it. Early adopters in the space have seen that Twitter has the upside of word of mouth and an immediacy and reach potentially far greater than earlier web 2.0 tools like forums and blogs.
Everyone is looking for – pondering – ways to best make use of Twitter. How can we monetize Twitter? What strategy can tourism business employ to maximize the ROI? While the internet industry as a whole – indeed Twitter themselves – are still trying to come to decide how best to monetize this “killer app”, there are some great examples out there showing the way to possible strategies.
Firstly, there are the larger tourism operators using Twitter: companies like airlines such as Jet Blue and - the original web travel marketing innovator - Southwest Airlines as well as Marriott International Hotels and Resorts (remember their CEO Blogger, Bill Marriott). As the Mashable Social Media guide points out, these companies are not only using Twitter to promote sales and specials they want to tell you about, they are engaging their followers by keeping them informed, asking for followers opinions (acting on them too) and engaging in genuine conversation.
A lot of DMO’s and CVB’s are also using Twitter and I liked the entertaining though rudely titled article “Social Media Smackdown“ comparing the “Twitter work” of CVB's in Columbus, Ohio and Columbia, S.C. The strategies in the DMO / CVB space for the most part appear to be built around increasing awareness, creating engagement with consumers and in some cases driving actual bookings for individual operators in their membership or coverage area.
There is also a lot of room for smaller tourism operators, who make up the majority of tourism businesses inside a destination to effectively use Twitter. For those savvy enough to get up to speed with the rules of engagement, define an approach and give it a go, this is an exciting area because the small size of operations can mean that even a small number of bookings or minor increase in brand awareness in their target market can make a perceptible impact. I really liked the examples in the recent New York Times article “Mom-and-Pop Operators Turn to Social Media” The article’s observation that Twitter’s intimacy is well suited to small business is insightful and points to some real opportunities Twitter provides small business. The trend toward large hospitality chains Tweeting from both head and branch offices (as noted this article in US Restaurant News) is an attempt to create such intimacy and help ensure immediacy independent of head office only approach, however social web’s very nature means that there will always be an inherent advantage to the owner operator who is on the ground ‘at the cash register’ of his / her own business.
So while we can be sure that Twitter’s use as a marketing tool will change as it’s use matures and the company either finds effective ways to monetize their offerings,or gets swallowed up by someone else, tweeting is another step on that journey toward better customer engagement for everyone in the travel business.
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