Twitter isn’t always on the top of hotels’ social media strategies. While guests often turn to Facebook to leave reviews and go to Instagram to share real-time photos of their stay, many hoteliers aren’t quite sure how to manage Twitter. However, it shouldn’t be ignored. According to one study, 20% of millennials turn to Twitter for travel inspiration – the same amount that trust Pinterest for travel ideas. 

Ready to use Twitter to boost awareness and increase bookings at your hotel? We’ll explain the top 3 ways to market your hotel on Twitter. 

1. Use Photos to Boost Engagement

When you’re publishing posts on Twitter, you want to make them interesting enough to get someone to stop scrolling and actually read what you’re posting. That’s why Tweets with photos are 34% more likely to be engaged with than those without.

To include images in your tweets, make sure that the website pages that you’re linking to have an image for Twitter to pull into your Tweet. You can also follow instructions from Twitter to add a code to your site to ensure that a photo will be included where possible. Post Tweets including images taken at your hotel and repost photos taken by guests for an authentic feel.

2. Provide Customer Service

One-fifth of Americans think social media is the best way to get customer service. And it’s no surprise – instead of waiting on hold on a phone line, customers can send a quick Tweet and wait for the notification that they’ve received a response. Those customers that use social media to get customer service resolutions are more confident in those brands and spend more money.

The first thing to do in order to provide customer service over Twitter is to set up alerts for direct messages and tags. That way, when someone sends you a message on Twitter, you’ll know in real-time. Twitter is a more chronological social network, and the sooner you can respond the better. 

3. Listen for Conversations

If you’re just using Twitter to share links to your website, you’ll never get the engagement you’re hoping for. Twitter works best as a tool for conversations – whether that means answering questions, offering suggestions, or solving problems.

You can use a social tool to follow hashtags, phrases, and mentions on Twitter for posts that you can respond to. Follow hashtags used by your local tourism bureau for your city in addition to words that people would use when in the research phase of travel planning.

For instance, if you run a hotel in Orlando, follow key phrases like “Orlando hotel” “hotel in Orlando” and “Disney area hotel.” In addition, you can find people who are in the planning stages by searching for terms like “traveling to [your city]” or “things to do in [city]”.

It’ll take some research to find out what people are saying in your area. With these key phrases followed, you’ll be able to find and respond to Tweets like:

Twitter is a top platform to engage with travelers online. As people are looking for more immediate help and suggestions, Twitter is the best platform to have real-time engagement with your customers and prospective guests. With the right listening and publishing tools, you’ll be able to make a true impact on Twitter for your hotel. 

Get a live demo of TMG OneView®, our all-in-one online listening and posting tool. Post to Twitter and other networks plus get real-time notifications of mentions and messages on the most popular social and review platforms online.