12 October 2009

Travel companies needlessly tweeting time and money away

Like it or loathe it, Twitter is here to stay.

An increasing number of travel companies and industry associations have joined the bandwagon and are sending their first tweets to a waiting world.

But is their investment in the time and effort involved in using this communication tool being wasted?

Andy Jarosz, owner of 501 Places, which provides web content and social media advice to the travel industry, believes many organisations are missing a huge opportunity.

"The power of Twitter is its ability to facilitate instant conversations, often between multiple users, around any issue" says Jarosz. "Travel lends itself well to this medium, and it is encouraging to see so many tour operators now developing a Twitter presence and talking to their potential customers".

It is tempting to use this platform as a way of proclaiming your latest offers and awards, but adopting that strategy is a turn-off for other users and too many companies are guilty of this.

"People do not join Twitter to be sold to. It has often been compared to a cocktail or networking party where many short conversations are being conducted, and you are able to flit between them and engage at a deeper level if you find something of interest. Those who just push their own message and never listen to others are effectively standing on the outside of the party shouting into the wind. They become an irritation and no-one pays any attention".

There are some positive examples of effective Twitter use. "Lastminute.com are a good example of a company using Twitter to talk with customers. Trafalgar Tours have recently joined and are immediately sharing travel related news with their potential target audience.

"The tourism organisations such as Visit Britain and Visit England seem to get it. They are not out there capturing business there and then. But they are presenting their brand as approachable, knowledgeable and one that is passionate about travel".

And that, he says, is what most already spend a big part of their revenue on promoting via their marketing budget.

"There are multiple conversations taking place on any one day about a particular destination of activity. If you have the chance to join that conversation and engage with someone who is looking for advice about where to go and what to do, isn’t that targeted marketing at its best?"

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wasting time on twitter

Just a couple of weeks ago I heard ... from Condor saying that they are not interested in converstaions but sales. This line of thinking is wrong: you may not generate sales, but you are reaching influential people you would not normally get a chance to speak to (at least not on daily basis). For example, we use twitter (@WhichBudget) and have over 1000 followers. This does not make an immediate difference to our visitor numbers, but the fact that we are followed by and engage with airline CEOs and influential bloggers and journalists is valuable to us in the long term.

By Martino Matijevic, Tuesday, October 13, 2009