With so many social media options available, why should you consider Twitter for business as a marketing option?

I’ll give you facts to help you decide.

Welcome to another edition of Hospitality Property School.

I am your instructor, Gerry MacPherson.

Twitter for Business Introduction

Using Twitter for marketing means you’re able to contact your property’s biggest supporters directly, and they’re able to contact you. These supporters can tell their friends, tweet about you, and in general, create interest in your property and services.

This kind of communication can help bolster business for your property, spread the word about your deals, events and things going on in your region, as well as collecting valuable feedback.

The two most important things for your property are guest traffic and your brand. The only way to get traffic is to make sure you’re creating interest that could go viral. The only way to brand is through relationships with your customers while building your reputation.

Twitter is a great way to reach people in a personal way.

There’s been an evolution in social marketing from “word of mouth” to “social marketing“. Using a social marketing strategy to drive traffic to your website is a form of word-of-mouth marketing that has proven successful. It does require a little more effort and sometimes you have to be on Twitter talking to people and building up a following.

If you are considering Twitter as a part of your marketing strategy, here are a few interesting facts.

Twitter Statistics

187 million daily active users

59% of users regularly get news from Twitter

62% increase in video views from 2019 to 2020

Twitter has an advertising audience of 353 million

Twitter’s user base is predicted to grow 2.4% in 2021

Reasons You May Want to Consider Using Twitter as a Marketing Tool

Communication

Twitter is an easy way to keep your followers up to date with current information about your hospitality property. It also lets followers communicate with you.

Generating Leads

Tweeting about special offers or events can encourage your followers to find out more, potentially leading to bookings.

Showing your brand’s personality

Twitter is a chance to liven up your property’s image. Tweeting about your brand, your people and your region’s personality gives followers a sense of your hospitality property as more than just a place to stay.

Researching trends

Searching or following tweets can give you an idea of trends and topics that Twitter users are interested in.

Twitter can tell you the hot topics of the moment and allows you to see what Twitter users are saying about your property, your competitors and your region.

Seeking feedback

Many hospitality properties use Twitter, to invite online feedback, reviews or comments. This information is useful for properties that want to improve, and also for potential guests doing research for their own booking purposes.

Providing customer service

For Twitter-savvy customers, asking questions and getting services via Twitter is very convenient.

Being a small business owner, it becomes immensely important for you to find which social media platform suits best for your business.

Customer Support Channel

You can use Twitter to monitor when people are talking about your brand online and in case if you come across negative reactions or comments from customers, so you can resolve it quickly so the situation doesn’t get out of control.

Moreover, you can also interact with your customers to discover what they expect or think about your product that would help you to develop a better marketing strategy and provide inputs to improve your product or services.

Is Twitter Useful for an Independent Hospitality Property?

With more than 300 million active users, it is a great platform for businesses to reach & get connected with a new audience.

Another reason that encourages small businesses to promote their product or service on Twitter is that it costs very little to promote a product on this platform. Therefore, small businesses should definitely explore Twitter to promote their products.

What Are The Goals of Twitter Marketing?

Before proceeding ahead with marketing your property on Twitter, you must decide what goals are you want to achieve.

The common Twitter goals are:

Generate leads & sales

Increase Brand Awareness

Customer Support channel

Determining the Twitter marketing goal for your property would help you evaluate your performance on this platform.

So, it is immensely important to decide your goals.

.

More about Twitter

1. Twitter marketing is the social currency

What is social currency?

It’s the knowledge that people have that they share with others that makes them seem interesting.

2. It is open

Twitter’s aim as a social network has always been to promote open communication and easy access to connect with fellow community members present on the social network.

This is a goldmine of customer insight!

With this ability to see open conversations you can find your potential customers that might book your property, as well as help others.

Using Twitter for business helps you in finding the pain points that your customers have and then pitching them accordingly.

To help you save time and optimize this process, you could use Twitter-based tools like:

Statusbrew

Hootsuite

SproutSocial

TweetDeck

3. 2-way communication with your Twitter followers

Like any other Social Network, Twitter provides two-way communication. So with everything that you post on Twitter, your audience is bound to have a reaction to it and they will let you know about it in the replies.

4. Conversation on Twitter is in real-time

Just like talking to your friends on your cell phone, Twitter lets you have an open conversation with your prospects and leads.

Instead of exchanging emails with your customers over weeks, Twitter allows you to talk to your customers in real-time and interact with them, there and then.

5. Identifying and targeting customers is easy

Because of the openness of Twitter, customer identification and targeting are extremely easy.

You have everything at the ready, interests of people, their websites, their profile bios. It helps you develop context before approaching or even targeting your customers.

6. To drive traffic to your website

47% of the people that visit a Twitter profile, also visit the website linked to that profile.

7. It is one of the best platforms for customer support

Because everything on Twitter happens in real-time, having your presence there is a great asset in terms of handling customer support.

You can considerably cut down your response time for your customers who are facing any issues.

8. It is heaven for marketers

Twitter has an abundance of data about customers which your marketing team can easily access and capitalize on. It can be a great asset in making targeted ads for different objectives.

9. Expanding your market reach is easy

With every new product that you release, you will have a new set of customers that will use it and you can find those customers on Twitter. What’s the best thing about it is that you can connect with them without having to wait for them to find you.

By posting good content consistently, you can increase the reach of your content which gets more eyes on your content whom you can convert to loyal customers and evangelists for your business.

Setting up Twitter for Business

There are six parts to a Twitter profile –

a Twitter handle

a username

profile picture

bio

header image

pinned tweet

All these elements should work cohesively to create an accurate representation of your business.

Your Twitter handle is your @name and is your identifier on Twitter. It can have up to 15 characters and should help people find your business easily.

Your profile photo should visually represent your business and brand.

Your profile photo is displayed on your profile and in every tweet you post.

For your bio, you have 160 characters to describe your business. Include information such as your location, business hours and a link to your website.

The header image behind your profile picture can be used to highlight promotions, events or news about your property.

Lastly, your pinned tweet is the first tweet people see when they visit your profile. You can change your pinned tweet whenever you want.

Is this making sense so far? Let me know by leaving a comment below

How Do You Put Twitter to Work for Your Property?

Social media holds value for businesses of any size. It spans multiple demographics and spreads your company’s message. As a business owner, you should carefully consider how Twitter will fit into your overall marketing plan.

1. Use hashtags

Hashtags give users the chance to tag an identifying word or phrase that groups hundreds (or thousands) of tweets together. They are searchable and offer the perfect companion for live events.

Hashtags are a great way to increase the visibility of your content beyond your own followers.

.

2. Handle problems through direct messages.

Direct messages have evolved over the years, especially for brands. The way you interact with clients is important for troubleshooting issues and handling problems.

It’s smart to handle customers through DMs for a couple of reasons. First, you don’t want other users to see the problem and think less of your property. Also, there is no character limit on DMs, which gives you the freedom to properly help customers without being limited to a certain number of characters.

.

3. Use photos, GIFs and polls

Twitter allows users to add up to four photos to posts. You can also create graphics to add to your tweets. Not a Photoshop whiz? There are numerous tools online that help you create the image you need.

Using photos and GIFs with your tweets is a great way to connect with followers. Twitter has a built-in GIF keyboard. Search a keyword and choose a clip that best suits your tweet.

.

4. Live tweet

Live-tweeting is another way to get a topic trending on Twitter. Essentially, live-tweeting is when a user tweets his or her reactions to a live event as it is happening, whether that is breaking news or entertainment-related.

When brands throw events and want their attendees to live-tweet while they’re there, the brand often creates its own individual hashtag to use and share with the invite list so that others can follow.

.

5. Participate in Twitter chats

Another way to engage followers or get a topic trending is by hosting a Twitter chat. Twitter chats are straightforward, but they require a relatively large and active follower base to be successful.

A Twitter chat happens when several Twitter users discuss a specific topic simultaneously using a shared hashtag.

.

6. Interact with influencers and customers.

It’s important to interact with the right people on Twitter. It’s always smart to engage with your customers to keep them happy and potential customers to help them learn about your business. Perhaps there are others, such as journalists or influencers, you want to focus on, too. An easy way to do that is with Twitter lists.

7. Advertise on Twitter

Using Twitter is free, but if you’d like to pay to promote your account on the platform, there are plenty of advertising options at your disposal.

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Accounts

Promoted Trends

Twitter Amplify

Promoted Video

Mobile app promotion

Twitter tips and tricks

Don’t buy followers

You can purchase followers from certain services to beef up your follower count. While it may be tempting to make it look like you have more followers than you actually do, it’s not worth it.

Go mobile

The Twitter mobile apps are incredibly well integrated with the web platform, so the transition from tweeting on your computer to tweeting from your smartphone or tablet is almost seamless.

Add a Twitter widget to your website

Show everyone who visits your website that you’re active on social media by embedding a Twitter widget on your page.

Embed tweets on your blog

If your brand’s website has an active blog, embedding tweets can showcase any fun tweets you shared or tweets from your loyal followers.

Here Are Some Things to Think About When Tweeting

Don’t be afraid to say “I’m sorry.” Show you are people behind your brand.

Write a tweet as if writing a headline for a print ad

Follow anyone who follows you

Have fun with your followers.

Follow the 80/20 rule on Twitter. 80% of your tweets should be things that will help or add value to your followers. 20% can be about you, your property or links to your blog.

Use Retweets

Use offers and contests to propel excitement about your brand and your property.

Figure out what your audience wants to hear about and tweet it.

Learn to use lists and searches

Don’t take yourself too seriously on Twitter. Enjoy the positive comments and welcome the negative ones.

Ask questions

Don’t just push, communicate

Consider joining Twitter chats using hashtags and then starting and hosting your own Twitter chats on a regular basis.

A few Twitter for business basics you should consider

Know the difference between posting and spamming

Be clear on what you are promoting

Communicate with others to convey professionalism

Learn how to participate with the community

Learn how to make the most of your account and profile

Avoid over promoting

Follow and use relevant tweets

In Conclusion

There are many social media options available, but if time allows, you should consider Twitter for business as a marketing option?

Using Twitter for marketing means you will be able to contact your property’s biggest supporters directly, and they will be able to contact you.

Do you currently use Twitter to interact with your customers?

Let me know in the comments.

You will have access to this episode for the next six weeks and then it will get locked in the vault for Hospitality Property School Group members only.

To see all the other valuable material you’d have access to as a member of the Hospitality Property School Group, check out the short video in the episode post-show notes.