Social media applications such as Facebook, You Tube and Linked In are becoming quite popular, but what is really making an impact, since Oprah Winfrey discovered it, is Twitter. Tweeting, as many refer to it, is sending a 140-character real-time virtual message from just about anywhere. You can send it from your cell phone or computer; wherever you are as long as you have the right applications. It’s quite easy.
According to Nielsen Claritas, which provides in-depth segmentation analysis of consumer behavior, online data shows that about half of the U.S. population visited a social networking website in the last year and that number grows every quarter. This is a strong signal to any business trying to reach consumers, to begin and maintain a presence on a social networking site, and Twitter is one of the best and easiest on which to get started.
There are plenty of companies in the hospitality industry using Twitter today. Just go to search.twitter.com to search for any one that pops into your mind, and more than likely, they have a page on Twitter. Interested to learn who is blogging about green lodging? Just type in those words, “green lodging” in the search box and you’ll find all sorts of conversations about this topic. Kimpton, a well-known sustainable, boutique hotel chain seems to have a pretty good following for only tweeting 533 times; it already has more than 3,700 followers at the time of writing this article. That’s more than six times the amount of people for every tweet. I find this quite impressive for a smaller chain.
Many Ways to Use Twitter
When I first started using Twitter not that long ago (my username is @colechan), I wondered exactly how I’d use it. In fact, I found there are many ways I can use it, especially to generate sales and as a business resource tool:
1. Informal research. Once you have a loyal base of readers, why not ask them questions about what is most important to them when traveling to a green hotel? Also, what do they think makes a hotel really green? By their responses, you should be able to tell which consumers you are attracting: your leaders such as LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers or your followers such as more mainstream consumers, like Conventionals.
2. Feedback & testimonials. What better way to get testimonials from your travelers than to have them comment about their stay at your green property? Here is something easy you can do, once you have established your profile on Twitter (Twitter practically walks you through it): conduct a quick search on search.twitter.com for a phrase you want people to use when tweeting about your property. We call this a “hashtag.” Here is an example of how I started using hashtags when I speak. I ask people to use the hashtags: #authg #LOHAS in their tweets about my speech. What does this do? It allows people (and you) to follow a conversation and comments about your property. One thing I did find is that you need to keep reminding people of this hashtag. The times I used this, people used my username @colechan instead. That also works because it still gives me positive press and useful testimonials too.
3. Promotions. Quite a few companies are using Twitter to promote their specials and offer free giveways. WholeFoods is one to note as they do it quite well and drive people into the store. Other ideas are to offer a contest on Twitter for the greenest way to travel or something similar. People will reply to the contest with their ideas, you vote on it, and award the winner a stay at your green lodging property or something similar. I’ve also seen individuals secure free merchandise from vendors and offer daily gifts with purchase to get people in the door.
Every day throughout October, a group of nine Marriott resorts in the Caribbean and Mexico are posting a Twitter message (or “tweet”) announcing a different giveaway at one of the resorts. They call this the “Trick or Tweet” promotion—very cute. The giveaways range from a free night’s stay to $100 in meal credits to room upgrades to spa treatments to rounds of golf. Follow Marriott on Twitter and you can collect all 27 giveaways, in the form of vouchers that you download and then redeem at the specified resort any time through December 20, 2010.
How easy would this be to do a similar promotion for a different holiday, yet focus on your green features and services?
Monitor Your Competitors
4. Keep tabs on your competition and learn what topics are most important to travelers—it’s important to know what other hotels are doing to lure travelers, which can also tell you what not to do. If you go to http://hashtags.org, you can enter any hashtag and see the most recent message about this topic. The other site, www.tweetmeme.com, is a great site to find out about specific topics that most interest your travelers, things you might have missed. It tells you what people are talking about now, which can show you how best to strategize your efforts.
5. Build awareness and sell—it’s always good to make travelers aware of your green efforts and what better way to do this than through the media. Almost all of the major media has a Twitter account (and you can follow them). Start posting your press releases and links to your blog posts or other interesting reads on Twitter. Then determine which media you want to follow, find them, and click on their “follow” button. More than likely when they see what you are posting, if they find it interesting, they’ll start following you and often times RT (Re-tweet) what you just posted, giving you even more press.
6. Recruit talent. Research has shown that people would rather work for socially responsible companies. What better way to make potential new hires aware of your sustainability foundation? Potential job applicants can follow what you are tweeting, then apply for any job openings you have available. You can easily screen these applicants as well, especially if they have their own Twitter page.
So are any hotels tweeting about their green attributes? Plenty. Not that long ago Hilton Disney posted a question asking people if they wanted to be green when they traveled to visit the hotel. They even mentioned they were the first hotel in Florida to be certified as a Green Lodging hotel. Kimpton, Inn by the Sea, and many others talk about various green aspects of their properties. Without talking about it, travelers would never remember which property is green and which is not.
If you haven’t gotten hooked on Twitter yet, it’s surely time. Spend five to 10 minutes posting every other day or a couple of times a week and notice how quickly you get a following. Trust me. People will find you and after a while, you’ll notice that these same people will start frequenting your establishment because they believe you’re authentic and the real deal. Tell them to tweet about your topic if they like it just as I am asking you to tweet about my article if you like it.
Colette Chandler is president of The Marketing Insider, is an expert in consumer environmental and health trends, and helps companies understand the consumers driving the trends. She consults, trains and speaks nationally on how to create authentic green brands. Sign up for her newsletter at www.marketing-insider.com. She can be
