How just having a blog can make a difference

[JBloggs]

How just having a blog can make a difference
http://reinsuranceblogger.blogspot.com/

 

[aieechihuahua]

The more you are out there, the more chance there is of being seen. Why anyone wouldn't blog, FB and Tweet their inn is beyond me, unless your bookings are just where you want them.

 

[seashanty]

blogs i totally get, facebook i'm catching on to, but tweeting on twitter i haven't grasped. i tweeted briefly, had horrific awful porn links with pictures tweeted back or whatever it's called, not ANYTHING i'd want associate with me in any way ... and i stopped tweeting til i figure it out. maybe those who are slow to proceed are in the same boat as twitter and me.

 

[Morticia]

blogs i totally get, facebook i'm catching on to, but tweeting on twitter i haven't grasped. i tweeted briefly, had horrific awful porn links with pictures tweeted back or whatever it's called, not ANYTHING i'd want associate with me in any way ... and i stopped tweeting til i figure it out. maybe those who are slow to proceed are in the same boat as twitter and me..

You will only see the tweets of those you follow. So, you need to be careful who you are following. Now, if someone you are following gets their account hacked, then you will get garbage. I found that 90% of the new followers I got right away were porn links. They go away fairly quickly.
Look at Twitter as a roomful of people, possibly hundreds of them. They ebb and flow. Groups come together and disappear and some folks show up here and others there and it's constantly changing. The conversation is all over the place. Just when something gets interesting, that group breaks up and another topic surges.

 

[seashanty]

how does twitter help you with marketing? like, i tweet that i am staying with you and the place is great and breakfast is so good, you tweet that you're running a special, and some buzz is created hopefully leading to bookings?

 

[JBloggs]

Twitter has become more of a news source for me. I get photos of astronauts working on the shuttle and other cool stuff (see last tweet here). Just had a tweet telling me there was a minor earthquake in SW VA.
Specials, information, all of it is good stuff on Twitter.
The orig intent to tweet "I am standing in line at the post office" doesn't work for nearly all who follow twitter. Here is a sampling of a few tweets I just had: (ignore the rubbish in them, it was from my posting here - they are short tweets - one liners only)
Jaunted

Too many things on fire lately. RT @BreakingNewsAmerican Airlines plane to make emergency landng in Iceland after reports of fumes in cabin
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']vatourismpr [/FONT]

Hey Golf Lovers! Monticello Golf Trail in Virginia features five #golf courses - http://bit.ly/9ZMyeH
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']roanokenews [/FONT]

Minor earthquake reported in far Southwest Virginia - r... - http://fwix.com/a/12_7254e6b7c1
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']InnkeeperVA [/FONT]

Virginia's Main Street Program Turns 25http://ow.ly/1vYgN
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']airfarewatchdog [/FONT]

New York/Madrid June travel $547 rt w/tax:http://bit.ly/awaYgd #Spain #Travel
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']thepioneerwoman [/FONT]

See if you can guess the secret ingredient of this cake: http://tinyurl.com/y46ntoo
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']DanTraveling [/FONT]

The 5 S's of Wine Tasting - North Carolina Wine Tour http://youtu.be/kbtyOSXAKQs #nc #wine
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']Roanoke_Region [/FONT]

ESPN Bassmaster Elite - Blue Ridge Brawl is at Smith Mountain Lake this weekend. http://bit.ly/b8m71V #rke
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']TripAdvisor [/FONT]

Fantastic rainbow photos from around the world from @cnn: http://bit.ly/aw5e5A
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']InnkeeperVA [/FONT]

Best Selling Author in Moneta April 29th! Jason Wright http://shar.es/msIeA
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']HotelChatter [/FONT]

Glee returns to TV tonight. Guess who has a secret hotel background? http://bit.ly/dmoJVS #glee
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']BlowingRockInns [/FONT]

Only a few more days to book our Spring Special!! Stay 2 nights, get the third night free! http://bit.ly/bepxWx
[FONT= 'Lucida Grande']NASA [/FONT]

[Image of the Day] Spacewalkers at Work: During the second of three spacewalks STS-131 astronauts Rick Mastracchio...http://bit.ly/azzsvF

 

[Morticia]

how does twitter help you with marketing? like, i tweet that i am staying with you and the place is great and breakfast is so good, you tweet that you're running a special, and some buzz is created hopefully leading to bookings?.

I think you have to tweet constantly to get any marketing buzz from it unless your guests are following you. Then you can put out last minute specials, things to do, etc. Otherwise, the tweets go by so fast it's over before you know it.
BUT, you can follow tweeters who might be of use to you as well as the other way around. Someone looking for an 'expert' on a topic for a news article, something on sale you need, stuff like that.

 

[JBloggs]

how does twitter help you with marketing? like, i tweet that i am staying with you and the place is great and breakfast is so good, you tweet that you're running a special, and some buzz is created hopefully leading to bookings?.

I think you have to tweet constantly to get any marketing buzz from it unless your guests are following you. Then you can put out last minute specials, things to do, etc. Otherwise, the tweets go by so fast it's over before you know it.
BUT, you can follow tweeters who might be of use to you as well as the other way around. Someone looking for an 'expert' on a topic for a news article, something on sale you need, stuff like that.
.

I think you have to tweet constantly to get any marketing buzz from it unless your guests are following you. Then you can put out last minute specials, things to do, etc. Otherwise, the tweets go by so fast it's over before you know it.
BUT, you can follow tweeters who might be of use to you as well as the other way around. Someone looking for an 'expert' on a topic for a news article, something on sale you need, stuff like that.

If your guests are following you then they are already guests.
I have clicked on a few deals that have been retweeted. Don't underestimate the power of Twitter. I have had one room booked due to tweeting, I mentioned it a few weeks ago, an asst editor of a newspaper in a city nearby us. It felt great to actually pin point it to twitter. That was the cottage plus breakfast delivered.

 

[Morticia]

how does twitter help you with marketing? like, i tweet that i am staying with you and the place is great and breakfast is so good, you tweet that you're running a special, and some buzz is created hopefully leading to bookings?.

I think you have to tweet constantly to get any marketing buzz from it unless your guests are following you. Then you can put out last minute specials, things to do, etc. Otherwise, the tweets go by so fast it's over before you know it.
BUT, you can follow tweeters who might be of use to you as well as the other way around. Someone looking for an 'expert' on a topic for a news article, something on sale you need, stuff like that.
.

I think you have to tweet constantly to get any marketing buzz from it unless your guests are following you. Then you can put out last minute specials, things to do, etc. Otherwise, the tweets go by so fast it's over before you know it.
BUT, you can follow tweeters who might be of use to you as well as the other way around. Someone looking for an 'expert' on a topic for a news article, something on sale you need, stuff like that.

If your guests are following you then they are already guests.
I have clicked on a few deals that have been retweeted. Don't underestimate the power of Twitter. I have had one room booked due to tweeting, I mentioned it a few weeks ago, an asst editor of a newspaper in a city nearby us. It felt great to actually pin point it to twitter. That was the cottage plus breakfast delivered.
.

I'm guessing a lot of bookings will happen thru Twitter. I just don't have the patience to tweet. That's why I have FB talking to Twitter so I only need do it once. Even FB is getting old. Too many people posting about stuff I don't care a whit about.
I doubt anyone who follows me on Twitter will ever decide to book here. Maybe on a retweet I might get something. Again, for me, it's just too much to wade thru. And I think it is something you need to do hourly, not just daily and definitely not weekly.
To make it work you have to follow people and have followers. You can't just expect people to follow you alone (that's not directed at you, just a statement to all), you have to follow people as well. Some of the ones I follow tweet by the minute which pushes everyone else's tweets off the page. That's why, for me, it doesn't work. By the time I look at it, something I might have been interested in is long gone.
It could be a generational thing or a personality thing, I don't know, but it's not my thing! I tried to embrace it but it didn't work out.

 

[muirford]

A speaker at PAII (Tim Brady from Forty Putney in VT) who's a good resource on social media recommends something along these lines: tweeting once per day, facebook once per week, and blog twice per month. That's a pretty manageable schedule (although I still fall behind it) especially if you link twitter to facebook and your blog. Some of the hits you may get on twitter don't just come from real-time streams but also if you use 'hashtags' like #virginia which are searchable in the twitter stream or if people have twitter alerts set up, just like google alerts.

 

[Morticia]

A speaker at PAII (Tim Brady from Forty Putney in VT) who's a good resource on social media recommends something along these lines: tweeting once per day, facebook once per week, and blog twice per month. That's a pretty manageable schedule (although I still fall behind it) especially if you link twitter to facebook and your blog. Some of the hits you may get on twitter don't just come from real-time streams but also if you use 'hashtags' like #virginia which are searchable in the twitter stream or if people have twitter alerts set up, just like google alerts..

Well, that's good. He seems to know what's he talking about generally speaking. I can keep up with that sort of schedule.

 

[muirford]

Yes, many people use that one - tweetdeck is another tool to keep track of and organize people you follow or searches you want to track. Google alerts has a function for twitter alerts, and there's a service called twilert which had been defunct but is now back. Ping.fm allows one post to be populated across lots of social media.
Tools abound to manage social media but sometimes it's hard to connect them all in a way that's useful for you. I find that sending a blog post immediately to facebook and twitter isn't the best way for me; I rephrase items for the shorter character space that FB/Twitter demand. Everyone has to find their own level of comfort and usability.

 

[JBloggs]

I use hootsuite on a regular basis. I schedule tons of tweets this way - even when I am out of town.

 

[MarketingMojo]

Yes, many people use that one - tweetdeck is another tool to keep track of and organize people you follow or searches you want to track. Google alerts has a function for twitter alerts, and there's a service called twilert which had been defunct but is now back. Ping.fm allows one post to be populated across lots of social media.
Tools abound to manage social media but sometimes it's hard to connect them all in a way that's useful for you. I find that sending a blog post immediately to facebook and twitter isn't the best way for me; I rephrase items for the shorter character space that FB/Twitter demand. Everyone has to find their own level of comfort and usability..

 

[MarketingMojo]

I use hootsuite on a regular basis. I schedule tons of tweets this way - even when I am out of town..

 

[MarketingMojo]

 

[Joey Camb]

My Facebook, Twitter and YouTube are linked so that I update the one and it updates them all which saves me time.