Twitter
What is Twitter?
Twitter is an online service that allows users to post 140 character answers to the question, "What are you doing?".Before you do anything, you will need to create a username - holidaylettings.co.uk has holidaylettings as its name, for example. Your Twitter profile page will be www.twitter.com plus your username, for example, www.twitter.com/holidaylettings.
Other Twitter users can opt to 'follow' you and vice versa. Occasionally, people choose to protect their profiles - if you want to follow such users, a request is sent to them for their approval. The short messages you write are known as 'tweets' and are seen by the people who have decided to follow your updates.
When you join Twitter you are asked to write a short 'biography', which other users can see when they look at your Twitter page. Like your updates, this is also restricted to 140 characters. For example, Holiday Lettings has a Twitter page and our biography is: The busiest holiday home website in the UK - for home owners and holidaymakers.
How can Twitter work for me?
When you set up a Twitter account you are able to add a link to a website of your choice - your Holiday Lettings quicklink, for example. Therefore, the more people that see your profile page, the more people know that your holiday home is available to rent. Have a look at how one holidaylettings.co.uk advertiser uses Twitter to their advantage.
As well as your quicklink, use your posts to raise awareness of your holiday lettings venture. Use Twitter to provide interesting information about your local area and inspire people to visit. You can add links to other websites and photos in your posts - the more interactive your posts the better, since this will make it more interesting for those who follow you. For example, if you add a new feature to your property, write a post about it and add a photo for people to see. A useful service for adding photos to your Twitter page is TwitPic. If you are offering a Late Deal or special price, you can also highlight this through Twitter to your followers.
If you want to add links to online articles about the area, local events and anything else you feel relevant, then you'll probably find that your posts exceed 140 characters. If this is the case, don't worry! There are services on the Internet that shorten the length of website addresses for you. One such service is TinyUrl.com - you enter the original, long website address and TinyUrl shortens it to a length of 25 characters, no matter how long it was originally. It will still take you to the original website despite the different address. You can then add the new, short link to your Twitter post, which will help keep it under 140 characters.
Twitter is very popular with travel writers and bloggers, so the site is a great way of getting your message out there. As you establish new contacts (more on this below) you can talk directly to them, either via a direct message (DM) or by replying to their posts.
To send a DM, you need to be following the other Twitter user and vice versa. Simply click into their Twitter page and select the message option under 'Actions' on the right hand side of the screen.
If you want to talk directly to the other user, but they're not yet following you, you can do so by repling to one of their posts by typing @ directly in front of their username. For example, to get Holiday Lettings's attention, type @holidaylettings followed by your message in your update box. If you want to respond to a specific post, hover over that post on the list of updates by people your following (known as a timeline). You'll see a curved arrow appears, click on that and this will place @ and their username in your update box, as before.
No-one I know uses Twitter, so how can it be any use? Surely people have to follow me for it to work.
Even if none of your friends and family use Twitter, you can very quickly build up a network of contacts. Twitter has its own search facility. To find people you think would be useful to follow, type in keywords related to your areas of interest - travel, your specific area, etc. The search will then pull together recent posts containing the word you entered. You can then click on these updates to take you to the poster's Twitter page. If you want to follow them, just click on 'Follow' under their profile image. Sometimes people choose to protect their updates - if you'd like to follow them clicking on 'Follow' will send a request to them, which they can choose to accept or decline.
There are several things you can do to encourage people to follow you in return. Firstly, before you start to follow people yourself, make sure you have posted a number of updates already. When you start to follow someone, they will receive an email notifying them. It's likely they'll then click on your profile to see who exactly has taken an interest. If there's nothing on your page, then they probably won't decide to follow you. If you've posted some interesting, relevant messages, then you stand more of a chance of a return follow.
In order for other users to find your profile via the Twitter search tool, you need to include keywords relevant to your target audience within your post. Even if you can't work the words directly into your post, you can add what are known as hashtags to the end of it. These are simply your keyword, preceded by the # symbol - #travel, #holidays #tuscany, for example. These tags do count as part of your character limit, however. If you're not sure what the best keywords would be, play around by typing some into the search tool and seeing how popular they are.
Blogs
A blog is a form of online diary (originating from web log). Think about having your own blog where you can prominently display your quicklink. You could document your experiences as a holiday home owner, or talk about whatever takes your fancy.
You don't have to be a computer expert to set up a blog - there are plenty of templates available on the Internet, such as Blogger, Blogspot and WordPress. All you need to do is think of a name for your blog and create your content.
In order for your blog to be effective, you need to attract readers. Before you start telling people about your blog, make sure you have already published several entries. As with Twitter, if all people see is an empty page, they're not likely to visit it again, even if you have great content later on. Add new content regularly to avoid the risk of losing readers as time goes on. If you also use Twitter, invite your blog readers to follow you there as well.
Get into the habit of visiting and commenting on other people's blogs. Once you've established some good content, find blogs written by people you want to attract to your blog. Most bloggers invite readers to comment on their posts and you can often embed a link to your own blog in your profile name (if you don't have a blog then add your v instead).
Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.
If you use sites such as Facebook or MySpace, then list your quicklink in your profile. Take photos whenever you visit the property and upload these to your profile so they're available for your contacts to see.
As with Twitter, make sure you regularly use these sites and continue to expand your contacts. You don't have to talk about your holiday home all the time, but maintaining an active presence means more people will visit your page and be reminded of your business.
Social networking sites often have groups for people with a shared interest. Search for groups related to your holiday home (its location, general travel, your target market (skiers, young families or pet owners, for example)), join them and join in the discussion.
