Keep in touch with your visitors through Twitter.com

Twitter is free of charge to use and once you're set up you can keep in touch with potential new and repeat visitors by investing just a few minutes each week/month - as suits you.

To help you take advantage of Twitter, we've put together a starter guide and Andrew Morgan, our Online Communications Exec, is available to take your questions to help you get started.

What is Twitter?

www.twitter.com is a ‘social networking' website that enables you to send and read messages known as 'Tweets' - text-based posts of up to 140 characters - from anyone else who is signed up to the site.

Using it as a communication platform to stay connected with their customers, an increasing number of businesses are switching on to Twitter's potential.

Twitter allows you to:

• quickly share information with people interested in your business,
• gather real-time market intelligence and feedback,
• build relationships with customers and partners.

The site is completely free and quick and easy to use. More than 100 million people are signed up worldwide.

How do I get started?

Simply go to www.twitter.com, create a profile, and start sending and receiving tweets!

When you create a profile you can subscribe to receive tweets from others, and others will be able to subscribe to receive tweets from you.

People signed up to Twitter can find your profile by either searching for your Twitter name directly or by finding the messages you have posted. You can also signpost them to follow you from your website and other marketing materials.

What should I tweet about?

What you tweet about is entirely up to you! The messages are public with everyone on the site deciding who they want to follow and what sort of messages they want to receive.

As a tourism business you could tweet about:

• Up-coming promotions and special interest breaks
• last minute deals and vacancies
• local events and festivals to encourage repeat visitors back
• seasonal reasons to visit (spring flowers, autumn walks, Christmas shopping)
• refurbishments, upgraded/added facilities
• the launch of a new website
• weather forecasts for the coming weekend
• openings of new nearby attractions

In addition, your customers can use Twitter to tell you (or anyone else) that they've had a great experience with your business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers they've selected to be notified of.

To find out more about how businesses are using Twitter, click here. 

To follow South West Tourism on Twitter, click here.

To email Andrew with a question: amorgan@swtourism.org.uk

Date added: Tuesday 29th June 2010
Latest updated: Thursday 8th March 2012